Fool's Mate: VN Ysadora
General Summary
Yeager has standard, vanilla armor now.
And no Mr. Smiley.
WAR! Systems crumble under attacks by the Tapani Confederation, and name Merglin their Empress. WHAT?!
And suddenly the Reavers are everywhere.
Themian Vorhejeron and the Mando Death Watch destroyed the bacta shipment for Clan Venn and kidnapped Jaster Fett.
Mandalore quit the Alliance in a fit of pissy.
We're to meet Simon Illyan in a strange location, not ImpSec HQ.
I accompanied Master Kenobi to Procopia because he has a meeting with Prime Minister Aral Vorkosigan. I'm not cleared for it, so I was sent off to "no arrest warrants this time" keep myself busy. Hey, I can have a burger!
Until my Padd goes off. It gives coordinates and a name: Simon Illyan. "Emergency. Must speak with you immediately." The coordinates point to a medium security building in the embassy row. It's set up for offsite meetings with other governments' representatives and citizens. It has a lot of meeting rooms and a selection of hotel-style suites.
Two of the local security force guys are standing by the front door.
Davish Tam is missing an ambassadorial staff person, who checked out for lunch and didn't come back. Undersecretary Quin Forma, older guy, human, been on the staff a long time, no missing money, no weird behavior recently. Grey hair, close-trimmed beard, fondness for Procopian wine.
Out comes Captain Caleb Jace. He helped Aaron Hawk arrest us once. He's not expecting us, and having a Very Bad Day again.
There's forensics staff all over the place, investigators questioning the building staff. He takes us up to a room with some tape for sealing a crime scene.
The first room, no touchy, it's a wreck. It looks like a small war was fought in here. The forensics guys step aside. Between two armed police officer sits a bloodied, disheveled form: Simon Illyan. He looks very ... lost. As if he doesn't know where he is.
One of the forensics guys is examining Illyan's cane, which apparently conceals a lightfoil; they're bagging it as evidence.
In the other room, the forensics guys are inspecting two dead bodies, and putting a third in a stasis stretcher to carry off for emergency treatment. It's two men and a woman -- the woman is dressed in the rank and tabard of a Sister Captain. She's been eviscerated with a lightfoil. She was Soya Korentz. The other deceased gentleman is the undersecretary Davish wants. The third gentleman is Fyn Vorkerellin.
Eighty percent of the bones in Fyn's body have been cleanly broken. AND he's been stabbed with a lightfoil. And shot with a blaster. WTF.
We're all doing our little investigative thing and suddenly a female voice is yelling "THERE WILL BE RETRIBUTION!!!" and Sparks is going "Oh god!" and Thumper yells "FIRE IN THE HOLE!" and Eleni goes running.
Which results in Yeager asking me if the new Sister is datable. Which results in me filling out a flimsy and passing it to the Sister as she walks by.
(Meanwhile, I try some Farseeing to find out what happened. Jenkins is here to look over my shoulder in case I succeed, he has the military mindset to pick up on more. Thumper is here to cover for Jenkins being present. Yeager is refusing to do anything about anything unless he has orders.
Farseeing the past: I'm standing in the hallway.
Simon Illyan is in the room. He's discussing something with the other three people. It has something to do with the Tapani Confederation. He waves his dataPadd a lot.
SKIP
Someone knocks on the door.
Fyn gets the door.
Brings a young man, courier, delivering package.
Simon looks at it.
SKIP
There's a lot of smoke, a lot of mist, it's very hard to see in the room. Very cloudy.
Undersecretary is dead.
Sister Captain didn't come FULLY armed. She's got the vibroknife out, is in the middle of fighting something I can't see too well. It's tearing her apart, very fast-moving. Reminds me of Danar's shield belt projector, how the thing is fuzzy and indistinct when actively protecting a very active wearer. Whoever takes great pains to very carefully incapacitate her, turns around as Fyn runs. Illyan is unconscious, hit on the side of the head, is starting to come to; Fyn is trying to help him out.
Thing in the belt shuts off lightfoil and starts cracking bones, starting from wrist up, a bunch of double strikes.
Drops Fyn real quick.
Illyan looks at the door (can't make it, too far). Looks at his attacker. Nods, holds up a hand. "Bishop to knight's three," and hits a button on his datapadd. Datapadd shorts out, and Simon smiles. He tosses it at the feet of his attacker. He looks very much in control of his own mind and self at that point.
SKIP TO STATIC
I give this info to Danar, who leaves to check into it.
Eleni and Yeager are checking out the roof, an air duct, and so forth.
Why here?
Why were those four people meeting here?
Did Illyan not travel with any sort of security staff?
Why here?
Once I got the chance to duck out of the building -- warning Davish, not warning the newly arrived Grand Admiral/Prime Minister/Regent (still?) Count Vorkosigan and his team of lawyers for Captain Illyan -- I went off toward the Imperial Military office in the palace, and specifically to Ivan Vorpatril's desk.
That young man has been in debt to me for an awfully long time, and I'm calling it completely in. I want five minutes with Emperor Gregor Vortapani, to tell him everything I know about what's going on without someone else spinning things first: I want to ask him something relevant to this case, very pertinent, without any witnesses.
This is never, ever going to work again ... and I'm okay with that. Having someone in a debt of personal honor to me is as burdensome as being deeply in debt to someone else. I never called it in before because I never had a need worthy of the scene that first entwined us.
Someone's briefed Gregor -- and I gather it was very brief, at least on the details -- as to where his Director of Imperial Security was found this morning and why he's detained. Nobody has briefed Gregor on the actual sordid mess until now, particularly the part about the overwhelming attack style used to kill two people and vitally injure a third. I guess, since the cameras didn't catch it, nobody else has enough information to realize that the attacks were made using a particular style at all.
I've seen Gregor fight, a little. I mean, really fight, not training or showmanship or anything these people want to let their Emperor do at any age. I think Gregor, time-displaced young soul that he is, knows this particular combat technique.
Right now, that makes my personal "suspect pool" divide by zero. I refuse to even consider Gregor or Katianna Vortapani as potential suspects: no motive, no opportunity, and most importantly no need.
So who else, in Gregor's personal knowledge, practices a rare martial art style that is seven thousand three hundred thirty-plus years old?
His first suggestion is Emperor Alexander Kane.
Yay.
Other suspects? Themian Vorhejeron knows it. General Lucas Haroche also goes on the list. Gregor thinks it is quite interesting to debate Kane on the dojo floor.
!!
(This is where my brain explodes a little.)
Gregor asks me to kindly allow him this one personal indulgence: it's not like he can step out for a cup of coffee. I explain back that it's not the dojo thing that bothers me, it's that I didn't realize Kane was spending so much time away from his throne, and I'm now trying to figure out the retroactive impact on my dating life. ("Oh, no, he's only been available a couple of times a year," Gregor assures me. General Protection Fault continues in my mind for another few seconds.)
I need to arrange to start smuggling Gregor out from under official security every so often. Get the girlfriend to help, maybe. We can go to a gunshow? (Does Gabriella like gunshows?)
I volunteer to get shot by telling him I'm going to do this.
Gregor temporarily jams his office's surveillance equipment for a genuinely private five minute conversation. The back atrium is not a place to use any more, he tells me. The Lady Bene Gesserit (among Gregor's mystic mob advisors) will probably cooperate. The Mentat advisor, however, has been very rigid about everything lately.
Use womprats to give the Mentat advisor something to think about for a while.
My incoming message alert has gone off five or six times during the conversation with Gregor. I wouldn't be so rude as to check messages during our conversation, but while I'm making notes it pops up again, something from Ivan with a lot of exclamation points. I inform Gregor of this, ask if I should let him dangle in his anxiety a while longer outside the door, or find out what he wants so he will leave us alone. The latter:
Ivan is trying to insist that Count Vorkosigan has sent an armed escort to come drag me back for an accounting.
Possibly it's Yeager that has been sent here for me.
Gregor tells me that he'll have to summon all of the involved parties for an official update once he's been officially informed of the full situation; he figures that'll take about three hours. Whatever investigating we can get done between now and then, that'll be our big opportunity to get him reliable information with a little spin or tinge as we can manage.
I step out to see Thumper, Sparks, and Jenkins gleefully preparing to give Yeager the full pre-Imperial Presence search. I am just about to tap Ivan on the shoulder and let him off the hook when a very ... weird ... spike in the Force shoots off from across the street. The guys shut off their helmets completely, blocking all potential communications (hypothetically including me?) to compare quick notes. Some kind of security breach is happening in ImpSec HQ, the kind of security breach that involves words like "environmental hazard" and "direct access to the palace". They go running like mad, with Yeager and me and (once we reach the street) Eleni charging along in support.
People are being evacuated in all sorts of directions! The Beskar Aran are taking the short outside route to the roof! Hell, I've got a rebreather. The three of us join the Environmental Hazmat team in the express elevator just like we belong, which of course (pointing out the braid) I certainly do.
On the umpteenth floor, people have been evacuated to a secure containment room. We can smell burnt electronics from an interior office, and something oddly flowery that Eleni identifies as a knockout gas. (Yay, rebreathers!) Also, said knockout gas is making Danar hallucinate in the hallway outside the Director's office. And emit Force Lightning.
The Force Lightning is really not what I expected.
Eleni gets Danar to disbelieve and lay down, so Yeager can disarm him safely and the Hazmat-suited guards can start trying to figure out what the hell he's been dosed with.
Decontam takes three hours.
Dammit!
Once I get my stuff back, and as we're waiting for the doctor's "all clear" on Danar -- not Doctor Simon Tam, mind, who is present taking samples for what Eleni understandingly labels "Science", because his new stimpacks have MENTAT JUICE IN THEM AND THAT SHOULD BE JUST FINE SINCE IT'S NOT STRAIGHT SPICE OR SAPPHO JUICE, IT'S AN EXTRACT (Oh dear god WHAT?) but an actual ImpSec doctor on staff -- I try to reestablish contact with Sir Tam.
We need to talk.
Somewhere actually private.
He asks where I am, and all I dare reply is "no", because this is SO not a place where we could have any sort of privacy.
As we're talking with the recovered Danar about how to handle his uncle and apoplexy (decontam took all three of our loose hours), Captain Illyan is brought in for medical examination.
Then there's a massive assassination attempt!
Eleni tackles the first guard targeted. Yeager, armorless, goes running to jump out the window. Danar steps physically into the way of the continuing incoming shots, while I use telekinesis to yank Captain Illyan toward the floor.
The next bang through the window is solid. When it hits Danar's shield, it powders and starts driving its way through the shield.
Once I burn some of the cloud {having spent a FP to pull this off} and Danar moves the still-active belt over his head to get loose, the cloud turns into a humanoid form.
WHAT.
THE HELL?
This thing is a bunch of tiny machines, healing by replicating more parts; it is being directed by the Dark Sider over on the roof across the back street, currently lightning-frying Yeager.
I start burning through the edges of the cloud while it is focused on Danar's hand tractor beam.
No pun intended.
Eleni and Yeager tag-team the attacker on the opposite roof, and knock her way out. Eleni shuts off the unconscious prisoner's shield belt and then removes the mask, while Yeager handcuffs the prisoner's parts. She's wearing an infiltrator suit, cut in a style similar to the bodysuits worn by the Cetagandans on Geidi Prime]. It looks like Sister Captain Soya Korentz, recently dead Sister of Battle.
So Eleni and Yeager aren't happy campers over there.
Where is Captain Illyan?
It seems a struggle took place, and someone disappeared through a secure door. Miles Vorkosigan, according to Danar, was the last person through that secure door.
Being one with the Force, I reach out to locate the suddenly missing (and VERY upset) Captain. He's a floor down and moving VERY fast. We chase them down the stairwell.
Matres Merglin has possession of Victor Vorkerellin. When Danar manages to grab Illyan away, Merglin tries to lightning the shit out him from the inside out.
Victor wants me to let him go: Merglin will try again, and anyway there's another.
Suicide is not the Jedi way. And it's just as stupid today as it was when Victor's father-and-mentor did it, at the dawn of the new Tapani Imperium.
Since all my stuff is fried, Danar is kind enough to file my interim report to Master Kenobi for me.
Illyan now remembers being a Captain but doesn't remember the past thirty years, including being head of ImpSec. He also doesn't remember prior conversations today with any of us.
But he does remember the lady he loved, and this time I persuade him that I am concerned the lady might be in terrible danger. He finally confesses to her identity: Smuggler Captain Reena Weiscz.
Now known as "Reverend Mother Weiscz", as it happens.
my emails
From: General Lucas Haroche
I wish to speak with you IMMEDIATELY about this particular situation. I have sent personnel to collect you, because I wish to debrief you.
I do not want Vice Admiral Vorkosigan to know what I'm being told, because I am now acting Director.
From: Aral Vorkosigan
I wish to speak with you IMMEDIATELY about this particular situation. I have sent personnel to collect you, because I wish to debrief you.
I do not want General Haroche to know what I'm being told, because you have been fighting it out in a Navy hospital.
Response to both:
Now would not be a useful time. How's your schedule for breakfast?
From Haroche:
This is not something I can discuss over an unencrypted channel
From Vorkosigan:
I'm in no mood for your games. I already know Haroche is trying to talk to you. I was trying to get to you first. GET OVER HERE. I'm a block from you. I don't want that little rat getting in my way.
I want Simon Illyan arrested by the Beskar Aran as a material witness and Victor Vorkerellin arrested on suspicion of attempted kidnapping of a key intelligence asset belonging to the Emperor.
Lt Rico is on duty and nearby; he gets 3 more for backup while I'm calling on Lord Solicitor Londo Mollari for warrants. Mollari makes the arrangements.
to Vorkosigan:
No games. Kindly apply to my chain of command, sir.
Detonations ensue. So far, all the temper tantrum kind.
To Yeager:
Once you have your supersuit, meet at Hall of Solicitors
To Davish:
To Obi-Wan Kenobi:
_ Can Yeager borrow your bike?
- - Yeager's adopted sister
Of course Vanya; that is why I left it there. I sensed he would need it.
Grand Solicitor's orders:
- Interview Miles Vorkosigan
- Find out why attack is happening *now*.
- Track down and interview that courier.
- Watch for that chess setup thingy to come up again, and who was he playing?
- Cap'n Benacor can interview Reverend Mother about the Illyan-30-years-ago connection.
Remember that meetup to which I was not invited?
V
Old Ben
Sir Tam's search for the courier:
His name is Kip Hoban. He works for FastPenta Couriers.
FastPenta Couriers is managed by a Twi'lek named Jart Passik.
Dispatch got the call and directed it in to Hoban. The dispatch lady is Kira Taban. She has a voiceprint recording because she works a lot with certain Vor nobles; Vor are security-conscious when dealing with each other. Voice Print matches Simon Illyan. But there's an odd twinge to it; Davish suspects it's a fake. Hadn't found out who actually made the fake, Davish's analysts say it's the best they've ever seen.
Kip Hoban didn't report to work since he dropped off the package ... but Davish has his address.
Kane has alibi for more than 24 hours.
Sir Tam is going off to investigate Hoban's place with Danar and Yeager.
From: me
If you happened to storm the Hall of Solicitors to demand a reversal of their shenanigans, but accidentally happen to tiptoe to the basement room 512, I could sneak you my report without too many people finding out about it.
short list of practitioners:
Emperor Gregor, Imperial Princess Katianna Vortapani, Emperor Alexander Kane, Themian Vorhejeron (taught by retired Imperial Senator Sarn Panaka), Haroche (taught by retired Imperial Senator Sarn Panaka), Mace Windu, Captain of the Imperial Knights (Commander Ivanna Marques), Davish Tam and the rest of the Imperial Knight order, Elaine Vorhejeron (taught by retired Imperial Senator Sarn Panaka),
Sarn Panaka is probably an alias for someone they were investigating for years. Elderly man in shape, senator from ...? no planet of origin.
Illyan's explosion 30 years ago:
The Republic was in control of the sector. An explosion dealing with the aftermath of the Clone Wars happened during a mission for Lt Simon Illyan, assigned by Aral Vorkosigan, dealing with sleeper cell of droids. Someone smuggled assassin droids in. Illyan was working with Del Forma (male, explosives expert) and Ilyanna Korentz (female, Adepta Sororitas, combat arm of Bene Geserits) and Toren Vorkerellen (male)
Vorkosigan's Story:
It was toward the end of the war, but before a certain order had been given. There were some discrepancies noticed in the accounting record. I really don't know who was actually doing the investigation among the accounting records or sliding this information around, but Toren Vorkerellen had noticed something. He brought it to my attention.
Due to the nature of the allegation that it involved the funding of the Grand Army of the Republic, we suspected that we had a saboteur. I sent word to the Council, they told me they would see to it when they could. My commander told me he would give me a chance to find out whether something was going on, if it was real. So I assembled a small team. Del Forma, talented young man; Illyana Korentz, combat trained assassin, Toren of course, and Simon, best tactician I have ever known.
I set them looking for the trail of this particular allocation of money and resources and why the separatists couldn't simply overrun our grand army. Politics and posters aside: one million men against two billion droids is a vastly outnumbered force. It may sound rather heroic but the mathematics don't work. They managed to track this information to the point that they attracted unwanted attention themselves. You see, they found information that the assets were being moved around ... eventually the money trail led back to the Chancellor's office. Simon found a particular pattern and decided to try and lay some bait. I didn't know he was going to do that. He deduced the pattern was to spread the Jedi so thin they would be unable to defend key strategic elements if an attack came from within.
The group of them decided to reallocate some of these forces. The next thing I know, there is an explosion, assassin droids are involved, and by the time I could get to them, there was an Order 66 issued.
I do know they had some means of transportation. They had someone they actually used to transport them around. I never found out who. Simon didn't feel like volunteering and I thought it best not to ask. I will say the explosion did not do as much damage as what could have been. Both Toren and Illyana perished in the explosion but they managed to keep a much larger population from being harmed. It involved thermal wells and happened here on the main island at an out of the way place, quiet, in a neighborhood since torn down and rebuilt. I believe the current music hall is there.
Danar sends me to Spacer's Row to hunt down the woman who may've set the thermal wells, with Yeager for backup.
One of the waitresses, a Twi'lek, identifies the woman for us as a mostly quiet customer. One night, however, the woman got drunk, sang a Mando drinking song, and flattened a guy who hit on her. We leave contact info for me along with a note: "the Mando'ade's Jedi would like to buy you a drink."
From: vy_pi
Subject: Bar fights
Lady Ventress,
Are you by any chance available for a short while today to provide translating services for Yeager and me regarding a Mando'a huntress?
VN
I'm not in favor of any of those three.
Otherwise today is fun!
So we meet up with the bounty hunter, she's got the invisibility cloak over red Mando armor with brown trim.
Ghel Teruho and 1st daughter ( Fantee Teruho) were in employ of Chancellor Palpatine back in the day. Older sister was one of the "Dead" who taught the clones.
2nd daughter (?Faena?) knows how to do shaped thermal well charges because her dad taught her. Someone is stealing her identity and screwing up her job prospects before she can get to them.
Fan club?! Collector cards?!? ACTION FIGURES!!?
Now I have a Mando'a bounty hunter LAUGHING AT ME, and I call *bullshit*! Your covers are better than this!
We spent the next few hours terribly busy, to the point where I didn't take a lot of notes.
We were chasing Who Is Merglin Sockpuppeting Now all over Estalle Island.
Yeager got shot out of his drop-marine armor when he tried to drop into the Bene Gesserit Temple, where Director Illyan's unconscious body had been moved in a stasis pod through the sewers.
Sister Lieutenant Jenna Martovich helped get Yeager out of the hole he made in the plascrete.
Merglin infested a clone of Miles Vorkosigan. And then a Sister Captain, and former Emperor's Hand Katya Soka at the same time.
And now, we're pretty sure she just ganked Regent Aral Vorkosigan, and is using him to go hunt down Danar through the palace....
I told Jenkins to tell Rico and Sparks (who are the Emperor's Guardsmen currently assigned to Count Vorkosigan's person) to just shoot him now and blame me for it. It's part of the job description under "Roughnecks' Jedi": vet potential romantic interests, get in the way of angry Grand Solicitors, do sewer crawls after security threats are announced, take the Imperial Treason charge for emergency actions, buy the popcorn.
Thank the Force that I'd already asked my Master to go rescue Yeager from Adeptas Sororitas custody.
. . . Which he did not do.
Gregor has temporarily shut down the entire Ministry of Information, pending detailed investigation by the Order of Solicitors.
Gregor has named SIR YEAGER LEXICS as his personal champion and liaison to the military.
Gregor has politely fired Grand Admiral Aral Vorkosigan as Regent, and ascended the throne in his own right.
Gregor is acting kind of like Palpatine. And treating Yeager (in shiny black antique Mando power armor) as his Vader. So, yeah, the seventeen-year-old being right-handed by the fifteen-year-old.
Counts Vorboccioni, Vorharkonnen, and Vorkosigan lead the support in the Council of Counts for Gregor's assumption of the throne.
Master Ben is chasing down the "follow the money" lead, which has something to do with Asajj Ventress and Faena Taruho being kidnapped.
I'm asking certain people to drop out of sight with me so we can go back of Master Kenobi without getting preempted. We need to get Asajj and Faena and the kid back.
Except then I get ordered to be the Imperial Liaison to the Jedi Council. And Yoda backs it up, because he's worried about Gregor over that angry decision.
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