Lighting up the Shadows (Luca)

[tenkalus]

It was just another normal day at the Ministry back on Dromund Kaas. Stacks of datacards and reports to sift through, Agent requisitions to approve, logistics to check. It was the ideal job for a man keen with numbers, and few were as good as Minder Five. While relatively young, he was something of a rising star within the circle of his peers in the Minders. He enjoyed his work, because he'd been lucky enough to tie up any loose ends before they got out of control. Any oddities in paperwork were easily traced to source reports and reconciled.

He may have just been a paper-pusher, but he knew internally that his work was changing the galaxy. He was a gear in the grand machine, information was passed to him and he made sure it made sense and fit in with the intelligence that came their way. He facilitated the jobs of the field agents. It was very important work and he was very good at it.

Which is why today had him boggled. It should have been a normal day of reconciling. But for some reason, his reports weren't adding up. He couldn't zero out the accounts. One stray line of information had led to another, and another, and another. Agents all across the shadowy theatre of the cold war were requisitioning more and more supplies, stating that the standard reserves in the safehouses were minimal.

But that didn't make sense. A standard safe house was equipped with everything an agent would need to survive. Assorted credits and miscellaneous monies accepted in places were credits were not. Medical supplies for patching themselves up after a mission went bad. Food, armor, communications equipment, top end fake ID cards, easily modified for personal data, and weapons. Literally everything they would need to make it in the galaxy if their cover had been blown.

It was standard procedure that an agent submit what supplies had been utilized when they turned in their final mission reports. It kept the houses fully stocked when the cleaners went in to prep it for its next use. What he was looking at would have been easily passed off as lazy paperwork, it was a SH in sector 2 missing a set of clothing. But a few minutes later, he pulled another SH that was missing rations in sector 4. Then sector 8 was missing several weapons. Sector 21 was missing credits. Why was an entire cluster of safe houses in the Mustafar system of all places, missing supplies? 

Could it be that that many agents had gotten lazy and this was just the delayed gap in information hitting all at once? It didn't seem like that was possible.

Then it hit him, and the revelation sent ice into his stomach.

"Uhhhhh Sir?" He called to his section handler.

"What is it Minder?"

He looked back at his screen, pulling all of the discrepancies together and setting them up side by side. "Sir, I think we are being raided..."

“What do you mean raided?”

“Look at these reports Sir. Individually it looks like a lapse in record keeping, but when you put them together…”

The officer looked over the reports, flicking his eyes back and forth and whispered. “We’re getting cleaned out.” He stood straighter behind the chair and clasped his hands behind his back. “Very well. It appears our network in that sector has been compromised. Initiate cleaner protocol. Burn the current safe houses and establish new ones. Inform all agents in the area to be on the watch for sabotage.”

“Yes s-”

“Sir?” another analyst called from his station. “Two of our three agents in the Mustafar system have failed to report in.”

“What?! How overdue are they?”

“Both are a day overdue Sir.”

The officer turned back to Minder and frowned. “What system are those thefts taking place in?”

“....Mustafar, Sir.”


“We’re under attack.” The officer said in confusion. “Pull all agents out of the system immediately!”

[tenkalus]

“Too late for that.” Lucadonus Lestroud muttered gruffly to himself as he eyed up the intercepted transmission to the Imperial Agent network.

The Ministry had thought him dead. They had no reason the change internal protocol on how agents were contacted, or felt the need to remove Luca from the distribution list on the emergency channel.

It was sloppy work. A blunder born of comfort and complacency, and it was that kind of work that was making it easy for Luca to pick apart their network piece by piece. He was already supplied well enough with credits and weaponry to wage a private war with Imperial Intelligence, courtesy of their own logistics chain. He knew everything about them, and by the time they realized it was him that was burning their tower, it would be too late.

But it wasn’t all easy. It appeared that there was still someone smart enough in the command center in Kaas city to recognize patterns. He’d been careful to randomize the safe houses he’d hit, so as to throw them off his trail for as long as possible. But care had to be measured with haste. He had to raid as many houses as fast as possible to make sure he had the maximum amount of resources he could get his hands on. It would be very difficult to get anything for his mission from that point forward.

It was fine though. He’d made out with enough clothing, weapons, armor and money stored away off-planet to keep him fighting for a good while. And fight he would, just as soon as his first task was complete.

“Can I help you son? You’ve been sitting in here quite a while,” a calm and peaceful voice asked beside him.

Luca didn’t look up. He knew by intonation that the man speaking to him was the religious leader of the temple he was currently occupying. Luca was sitting with the door closed in a previously empty confessional booth near the front of the temple. The speaker wasn’t mustafarian himself. He was an import, like so many others that had come to the system. A human of middle age, likely here to take over for the recently deceased spiritual leader, who had of course been killed when he’d tried to intervene between the violence between the local tribal leaders. As irony would have it, the leader had been killed by a stray blaster bolt deflection by a local Jedi Knight defending himself and trying to diffuse the situation themselves.

The Jedi of course had survived. Gone back to the temple to meditate without any reprisal or reprimand. Life went on after the members of the hippocratic order finished their jobs.

Luca kept his eyes closed as he leaned back in the confessional booth chair. “I’ve come to confess, Father. Will you hear my sins?” he asked in a cold tone.

“Of course my son. Nysessos hears and forgives all. What troubles you?” Came the empathetic reply.

Luca sighed and opened his eyes a slit. The dark box he was sitting in looked like a well lit closet, thanks to the procedure to alter his eyes. “I’ve taken life, Father. So many lives. I was a soldier once, you know.”

“Ah.” The priest replied lightly, “Life taken in the heat of battle. You are blameless in that my son. A soldier has naught but to follow orders. Was your cause just?”

He nodded to himself. “It was. I took life in defense of life. With the pull of a trigger or the press of a button, I’d snatch the soul from those who would do evil in this galaxy. It’s ironic isn’t it? You have to take life in order to preserve it.”

“I was a soldier once myself, child. There is honor in serving. You have nothing to fear from these sins, as they cannot be laid at your feet. You simply ask for forgiveness on behalf of others.”

Luca Lestroud laughed, head leaning back against the wooden box he occupied. It was a deep, troubled and haunted chuckle, humorless in tone. “Is that how it works?” he asked lightly, “You get orders in war and whatever consequences come afterwards, it’s not your fault after you’ve raped and pillaged and murdered innocent people? It’s alright and all is forgiven because you were being a good soldier?”

There was no answer.

“See that’s the thing about war, padre.” Luca continued casually. “You always know that what you’re doing is evil. But you have to rationalize that every deed you throw down, is one that will save someone. Take out an enemy officer here, save a town from being sacked. Burn a dictator’s headquarters and save a planet. It’s the cosmic equation of balance. But the problem with that, is that the equation is only balanced when you take responsibility for your actions. Evil on behalf of good is still evil. We all pay for our crimes eventually.” He flicked his eyes to the grated hole, head lolling to the side. “What about you father? You do any evil lately?”

There was a long pause. “Soldiers have no remorse for doing their duty.” he said sadly.

“Funny, that’s what Kaleb said too.” Luca shot back immediately.

Confusion rooted into the priest’s voice now, “Ka- who is Kaleb?”

“Ah, that’s right, you wouldn’t know. Kaleb Porshet, you knew him as Agent Two-Hands. I always hated those nicknames. That’s why I chose an actual name, you know? But that duty line, he tried to hide behind that at first too.”

The priest stopped sounding empathetic. “Who are you?” came his voice, deep and serious now.

Luca’s eyes narrowed back to slits again and rested on the ceiling. “Been to Anobis lately, father?”

There was a sharp intake of breath from the other side of the booth. “Demon Eyes? No… no you’re dead. The report said you resisted law enforcement and were killed in prison. You’re not Demon Eyes.” Even with the finality and surety in his voice, Luca heard the door on the opposite booth rattle, trying to open. “What… where is the handle?”

“I wouldn’t try to leave just yet, if I were you. Unless you want your choirboys picking up pieces of you off the surface of the Jedi Enclave a few buildings over.” Luca said, totally at ease.

The door stopped. “You rigged the door? You’re bluffing, you didn’t have ti-”

“Temple maintenance crew, three days ago.”

The “father” flicked through his memory and dread began dripping into his gut like acid. The temple staff had requested a crew to come out and repair some aged catacomb walls below the main floor. They’d noticed cracks starting to spread through the foundation, and wanted repairs to be affected before permanent damage was done. The catacombs had been repaired to standard, but no one seemed to notice the hole that had been drilled in the opposite end of the tunnels, leading right up to the confessional booth where Luca Lestroud now sat in complete control.

The fake priest slumped back in his chair, defeated. “What did you do to Whisper and Two-Hands?” He asked in a resigned tone.

“They’re dead, Agent Songbird.” He said darkly. Luca was a man in search of vengeance. To that end, he was making sure that any agent that crossed his path would leave a message for the Ministry of Intelligence. Two-Hands had once been a soldier, like Luca and Songbird. He’d been a weapon platform on legs, specializing in blasters of all kinds. The man had been blessed with ambidexterity, and had thus earned the name Two-Hands, a premier gunman in his company. Two-Hands had been an interesting challenge for Luca. He couldn’t get close enough to the man to take him down, and a close quarters battle probably wouldn't have ended in Luca’s favor. Luca had been forced to fall back on his recon training to come out on top there. He’d watched the agent for a week before establishing his routine. Eventually, he took Two-Hands while he was on his way to to the latrine. Leg shot on a moving target from 450 yards. Not the most impressive shot Luca had ever pulled off but it had been a difficult one nonetheless.

Naturally, the agent reached for his blasters when he hit the ground. Training always kicked in when pain registered. It was instinctual. But Luca couldn’t interrogate a man who was so skilled with his digits. He’d constantly be worried about his prey escaping and turning the tables. So Luca had taken two more shots and turned Two-Hands into No-Hands.

Whisper was easier to capture. He wasn’t a fighter. The Ministry had suffered heavy losses in years prior and had since assigned teams to infiltrate their enemies together. Backup whenever they needed it. Two-Hands had been the muscle, Whisper had been the handler, making contact with command and designating mission objectives. Songbird was just a trainee, pulled in from imperial ranks for showing potential. Like Luca had. In a way, Luca felt bad for him. He was fresh meat for the grinder.

He’d questioned both Two-Hands and Whisper individually, timing their captures and holding areas close together so as not to arouse too much suspicion. Whisper hadn’t taken pain very well and had given Luca everything he’d ever need to start his quest of vengeance.

“Sing me a tune, Songbird.” he commanded gently. “Tell me about Anobis.”

Anobis was where Lucadonus was born. It is where his family lived. Or rather, lived. Upon his impromptu discharge from the Ministry and following his flight from prison with the aid of his former partner, Luca had tried traveling home to recover, only to find that his parents had disappeared. Given his skillset and extreme attention to detail, Luca Lestroud had tracked his parents down, only to find that they’d been killed.

From a psychological point of view, Luca understood. The Ministry had messed up with him. Badly. They’d burned his file and credentials and then went to burn every trace of him ever existing. They were erasing his history.

The trio of Two-Hands, Whisper and Songbird had been effective in their work, and due to their success and the unknown whereabouts of Lestroud himself, they had been hidden away on a cushy assignment on the lush planet of Mustafar to spy on the Jedi as they came and went. They’d been doing a good job of blending in, until Luca had inevitably rooted them out. Now two were dead, leaving junior Agent Songbird to attest for the facts.

There was a slight ruffling of cloth and Luca just grinned dangerously to himself, knowing no one else could see. “I wonder, Agent, is that holdout blaster you’re clutching so tightly, powerful enough to breach the reinforcement I put in this wall, do you think?”

His response was a sigh of resignation and a defeated voice. “Are you going to kill me?”

Luca blinked once before calmly responding, “Yes. But if you tell me what I want to know, I’ll make it quick.”

“I didn’t want to do it, you know.” Came Songbird’s resigned tone. “I told the others it was wrong. But they wouldn’t listen to me.”

Luca nodded quietly. Whisper had said the same thing about the junior member of the team. But he wouldn’t acknowledge the fact openly. They were at least on the right track to hearing the truth. So he waited for the man to continue.

“We were told that you were a security breach. But you’d been put down in prison. Top brass said you held state secrets and that it was possible you might have told people you knew. They dispatched us to Anobis to erase all signs of your passing. I didn’t know it was your parents. Until that day, I didn’t know anything about you. Just rumors. The kind of stuff you hear about retired soldiers, the old men in the young man’s game. You’d become the subject of legend, Demon Eyes.”

“Tell me who gave the order.” Luca commanded as he looked down at his chrono. A dull red blinking light had caught his attention. He was running out of time.

“All I know is it came from the top and filtered down to us from command. Damnit...this was supposed to be a safe deployment.”

Luca ignored the heartbroken tone, “Give me a name, Songbird.” He said as he slipped his boot under the lip of the floor panel that hid the hole he’d dug out leading to the escape tunnel below.

“Our handler’s code name is “Reaper”. I don’t know if he is the one who decided or if he was ordered to do it.”

He had what he needed. Another lead. He could now leave Mustafar with a mission success.

“Thanks for the song.”

“What happens now?” Songbird asked with a quivering voice.

Luca sighed. It was all a matter of timing. “Now, dear agent, you have a choice. You can try and force the door right now and kill me with the explosion. Or you can wait and see what happens. Right now, Jedi are on the way here. They’ve found Two-Hands and Whisper’s remains. I left them a very clear trail back to you. The proof you killed your partners is indisputable.”

Booted feet were stomping around the temple outside. Luca could hear muffled voices asking where the preacher was.

“I liked this posting you know. The work I was doing here, spying aside, I was making a difference in this temple. I was healing people. I can’t stop you, but I’ll try anyway. Please don’t do this. We teach acceptance and forgiveness in this temple. Give up your vengeance Lestroud. Wrath…. It belongs to the Gods, it isn’t for us to dispense the will of those on high.”

Luca could tell he actually believed what he was saying. Maybe people could change. But maybe they couldn’t. “Wrath belongs to the Gods huh? Which one?”

“Our books say that Yulara, God of blood and fire, holds judgement and wrath as his tenants.”

Luca stood and kicked the false floor away, nodding. “Good. He can have it back when I’m done.”

“Just… just do me a favor, Demon Eyes.”

“Hm?”

“...... If you are hell-bent on this path. Then kill the people who killed me. It’s not very fatherly of me to say that. But I never wanted this life of shadows.”

Luca’s golden amber eyes flicked down to the grating separating the two of them. “I will.”

A fist pounded on the confessional door. “In the name of the Jedi, you’re under arrest! Open the door at once!”

“Rest in piece, Songbird.” Luca said one last time as he dropped into the hole and shoulder rolled when he hit the earth below. He pulled the detonator switch from his coat and double spiked the activation stud with his thumb.

The world shook above him and fire belched down the hole he just vacated. He didn’t even look back as he made his escape, unnatural eyes shining through the dark catacomb like a deceased creature rising from the dead as some avenging angel.

The report he read later, as he sat aboard the shuttle off Mustafar, was that the spiritual leader had been killed in a suicide bomb that took two Jedi Knights with him in the final blast and injuring a padawan as well.

The balance on Mustafar had been restored.