Catching Shadows

[tenkalus]

Success was accomplished by preparation. Preparation was obtained by routine. While these were factual statements, it was also true that a strict routine could be predicted and the element of surprise could be instantly lost in a moment of hesitation or a tiny gap in planning. Something could be said for the operatives who could fall into a routine that also included improvisation.

Luca was one such operative.

Steady breaths. In through the nose for a five count, out through the mouth for a three.

It had been three weeks since his escape from Mustafar. It had been slightly higher profile than he had been looking for but it was still considered a success. He hit his targets and got out nearly clean. The fact that the Ministry had jumped so quickly on the crumbs he’d left for them spoke to a sense of guilt and fear on their part. He had been a mistake, and a dangerous one. But still one they had to deal with before word got out.

There was a part of Lucadonus that wanted to bring what he knew to the Empire, to expose the Ministry before the leadership and air all the dirty secrets of their Force experiments. The problem with that thinking, was that it implied the Sith had not sanctioned it in the first place, and that was something he simply didn’t know. Acts such as those performed on Luca were mired in conspiracy and corruption. Such things ran deep, and he wasn’t sure who he could trust. If he presented any findings to the wrong leadership, he could be executed on the spot and the conspiracy would effectively be covered. Stars only knew who was involved in giving the green light to his procedure. Which is why he was here now. He was on a fact finding mission.

It was kind of funny, in the long run, how things turned for him. Mustafar had been a tip off from an old contact who owed him a favor. Now he was back in Imperial space off of a similar tip off from an unlikely source. Agent Songbird had communicated to him from beyond the grave.

The junior member of the hit squad that had murdered Luca’s parents, had taken a posting on Mustafar as a holy man. It was an assignment to be sure. He was supposed to spy on the Jedi coming and going from the outpost where he lived, but Luca had done enough research on Songbird to know that the man had been an involuntary accessory to the hit squad, and was accepting his new post as something of a repentance for not stopping it. He’d been dipped into the depths of swirling darkness and had pulled himself back out as best he could.

And for that, Luca had staged his death.

Back on Mustafar, Luca had installed a trap door in the floor of the confessional booth at the temple Songbird was working. But he’d made sure to build in a second as well. If the man genuinely felt remorse when Luca questioned him, he’d be given a choice. That choice had been made and when Luca had dropped to the catacombs below the booth, he’d pressed his detonator twice. That first tap would have simply activated the bomb he’d set, but the second opened the floor to Songbird’s side and dropped him to safety before the bomb went off. It had been such a near thing that Songbird probably would have at least gotten singed by the blast, but ultimately, he’d live.

In thanks, Songbird had recalled one last bit of information about the mission to Luca’s home. He recalled the name of a man who the other two agents had spoken about in passing. A man who was supposed to funnel payment to them directly when Luca was erased.

Relax the eyes. Don’t strain in focus until the critical moment approaches.

The man turned out to be Imperial Governor Taravin Desoto. That Desoto had paid the agents directly immediately set off corruption bells in Luca’s mind. Desoto had been intimately involved in Luca’s coverup, and had reached out to personal assets to erase the blunder. He’d been given a task by someone higher up, a Moff perhaps, and had fumbled in his attempt at scientific discovery and personal elevation. Had Luca been a success, Desoto might have been quietly elevated to Moff himself.

Execution finger resting on the outside of the trigger guard. Don’t slide it into the pool before it’s ready to swim.

Luca had then tracked Desoto to Wayland, had infiltrated his office and stolen a list of names that had almost been difficult to find. Desoto was a fool in that way. A child playing a man’s game of dominance. He kept evidence locked away in his office detailing certain members involved in what they’d deemed “Project Insight”. A smarter man would have known that such a list would both incriminate him if discovered, and paint a target on his back by those very co-conspirators should they find out it existed. Taravin thought that keeping such a list was protection against backlash. He was very wrong about that.

Luca, might have "accidentally" leaked that information to one or two members on said list.

They were all guilty, and they would all die for the pain and strife they had inflicted upon Lucadonus Lestroud. But for a moment, Luca would let them squirm and tear and gnash at each other before delivering the coup de grace personally.

It had taken a relatively short amount of time for Luca to observe Governor Desoto’s habits and establish a plan. It would be impossible to hit Desoto at home. As a Governor, he had enough security to make it difficult to reach him personally.

But then, Desoto was a man of routine.

Even when he began receiving death threats from anonymous sources (which Luca had tracked back to his cohorts), Desoto tried to exude a face of calm to his public. It was election season after all, and if he were seen to retreat into his fortress of a house, his chances of being elected by the public would go down dramatically. He was supposed to be a man of the people after all.

When the target is in view, muscles go to ready-mode. Slightly tightened and poised to act. The body becomes more rigid, so as not to offer any shake in the scope.

Desoto would wake up every morning at 0600. He would hand pick his personal security detail for the day by 0630 and be on his morning run to Ruusan park by 0700. He would arrive at the park by 0725 and make sure to be seen by civilians, shaking hands and offering platitudes and smiles. Every day, it was like clockwork.

Only, today was different. Today, the men he normally picked for his run were out sick. It made him so paranoid that he deigned to run without security. A fool’s choice. But then he couldn’t be blamed for the decision. With his enemies closing in on him and a few new faces he didn’t trust with his protection, he had to choose between safety and political destruction.

His greed would be the catalyst to his downfall.

To his credit however, he did take his security with him, but instead of having them run with him, he instructed them to wait by the speeder.

It was tricky even then, to get the man isolated. Luca could make incredible shots with his sniper rifle. But for someone like Desoto, he needed the man to stop moving to get a clear shot. He’d get only one chance at pulling the trigger and he wasn’t about to squander it or leave it to chance. So Luca had taken an extra precaution.

As Desoto finished his run, he slowed his pace to a walk into the common area of the park where he usually made his public appearance, he noticed that today the commons were void of life. It was then, he noticed suited men closing in on him from the park entrances. It was also then, that he heard a voice in his head, courtesy of the ear mounted comlink he wore while out on his run.

“Governor, you’re about to be assassinated.” Came Luca’s modulated voice over the line. “Your friends know about project Insight, and are coming to snuff you out.”

“W-who is this!?” the Governor yelled, backing away from the men walking briskly toward him.

“That doesn’t matter.” Came Luca’s response. “If you listen to me, I can get you out of here alive.”

“Fine fine! Just get me out of here!”

“Go to the playground to your right, there is a spaceship there for children. Go inside. When you get there, don’t look out of the window. Showing your face will let the enemy know you’re there.”

“Kriff! They already know where I am!”

“I’ll take care of the ones already on you.”

And so he did. As soon as the Governor began running for the playground, the two suits in that direction dropped with smoking holes in their chest, from blaster bolts projected from an unseen location.

“Go now.” Luca instructed.

Desoto did. He ran straight to the spaceship and ducked inside.

“What now!?”

“Don’t look out the window. They are close.”

It was basic psychology. Even a trained mind was curious. If you told a human not to think of something, the first instinct was to think of that very thing. It was the mind’s way of bringing recognition of a thing to the individual. Recognition brought information on how to act. Very rarely could a person not think of a danger being posed to them.

Luca already had the window sighted down.

Hold the exhaled breath at natural two count. Squeeze trigger slowly, don’t pull.

Send it.


Desoto’s head popped into the window and immediately snapped back as a crimson bolt of death punched through his forehead, sent by Luca Lestroud from just over a half-mile away. Luca didn’t stick around to confirm his kill. He’d seen the red mist spray against the inside of the spaceship, even from that distance. As soon as Desoto’s head snapped backwards, Luca was breaking down his rifle and putting it into his backpack. By the time the Governor’s very real detail showed up to discover the body, Luca was on the street and walking calmly in the opposite direction, along the pre-designated path he had planned out for an escape vector.

This was a message to Project Insight. Desoto was dead for his blunder, but the assassins that had been sent for him were dead now too, and that would get back to their masters. Someone else was out there and would be coming for them as well...

[Rabbit]

One week later...



Keelen leaned back in his chair and rubbed a hand across his chin as he sighed heavily through his nose. The puzzle that High Command had handed him was an intriguing one, to say the least. However, the Chiss couldn't escape the nagging feeling that he was being asked to fix someone's mistake...

A mistake that had cost the lives of no less than five Imperials - two Intelligence agents, two spec ops soldiers, and the Governor of Wayland. The Praetor was currently sitting at his desk, in his personal office on board his warship, the Revenant, trying to pull together the threads that connected all five deaths. So far, Keelen hadn't found a single damn thing to tie them all together.

He had first considered the manner in which the five had died. The only commonality was that the deaths had occurred in something akin to groups - the two agents had been blown to bits and the two soldiers had been killed in hand-to-hand combat. The governor was in his own "category" - he'd been killed by a direct shot to the head.

A sniper's shot.

That was only the bit of relevant information Keelen felt he had gleaned so far from his cross examination of the files he'd been given. The governor had been set up execution style, too. Granted, most wouldn't have considered it that way...but there was absolutely no reason for a full-grown man to be in a children's playground "spaceship" if he hadn't been somehow coaxed to that location. Keelen concluded that the governor - one Taravin Desoto - hadn't put up a fight. According to forensics, the body hadn't been moved to the playground postmortem, and there were no signs of a struggle on or around the playground. So, Desoto had been in that highly unusual location of his own free will. He'd been set up.

But, how? And most importantly: why? The how intrigued Keelen - all of the deaths had been staged, in the sense that they had been carefully planned and carefully executed. Those who had been murdered had been more or less coerced into the situations that resulted in their deaths. But, the Chiss had been conscripted by High Command to find out why.

Actually, Keelen concluded after a brief consideration of that point, High Command didn't give two hoots about why. They wanted to know who. It was the why, though, that would lead Keelen to who, of that he was certain. And some intuitive sense was telling Keelen that he wasn't being given all the tools, all the information necessary, to get to the answer.

If anything, his involvement in the mystery was painting a giant bulls-eye on him. There was no evidence, really, to conclude that only one person was responsible for all of the deaths - after all, each set of executions had been different. What made Keelen conclude that there was only one person at fault, was the methodical genius that was evident in the orchestration of the murders. Give it enough time passing of the Chiss poking through things that weren't really any of his business, and he was quite certain that the murderer at large would come for him as well.

This had the sense of a cover-up to him. Keelen leaned back in his chair and squinted thoughtfully at the three screens arrayed in front of him. Or, perhaps it was more accurate to say "mop-up". After a few minutes of a thousand yard stare into the brightly-lit screens, Keelen shook himself with a grunt and pushed himself forward to click on a small icon on the left-side bottom of the middle screen. Time to take a break from the detective work. A message had come through for him and his stomach was reminding him that he had sat well past lunchtime. Thankfully, as the commander of warship and as a Sith, Keelen could call the Officer's Mess and have something brought up to him. He made it a point not to abuse his positions of authority, but sometimes...sometimes it was nice to be the man in charge.

He decided, as he skimmed over the message and then clicked on its accompanying attachment, that his next path of attack would be to figure out what tied the five victims together. If the methods of death didn't match, surely the motive did...

The Chiss neatly set that puzzle aside for another time. His duties as the Revenant's commanding officer still took precedence (no matter what the High Command would have had to say about that prioritization) and right now, the list of new officers coming on board required his attention. His red eyes scanned the admittedly brief list - a lieutenant to the Weapons Division, a captain to the special forces unit, two more lieutenants for the Intelligence detachment, and an ensign to the Operations Division. Keelen then pulled up his schedule and considered what upcoming evening he might feel like having a dinner with the new officers - it was a tradition he had started since taking command of the Revenant. Incoming officers never came in bulk, like enlisted forces did, so the Praetor made it a point to have a dinner with the newest officers under his command.

It was an opportunity for him to size them up, and for them to do the same. Admittedly...most officers were of a low enough rank, and decidedly Non-Force Sensitive, that they were rendered mute during most of the dinner. But, it did what Keelen wanted - gave his new officers a strong sense of awe and deference from the get-go. Those, he general wrote off and didn't think twice about, unless they did something to catch his attention (which was usually never a good thing, with ensigns and lie tenants). But, every once in a while, he got one who did a fairly good job of hiding their shock on finding out that their commanding officer was an alien with glowing red eyes, and who had sufficient moxie to actually interact with him. Those, Keelen kept an eye on and was usually pleased to discover that those particular officers were the ones who rose in the ranks, without scraping, sniveling, groveling, and back-stabbing to do so.

Those particular officers, he always rewarded. And rather enjoyed the company of...though he'd never admit that to another soul. He had a reputation to uphold, which was, after all, the whole point of having that dinner...

[tenkalus]

The list of names recovered from Desoto’s office had been a godsend for Luca Lestroud. Project Insight had been top tier within the Empire. Highly placed officials, political and military alike had taken part in making sure that Luca was erased from existence. And somehow, despite the number of people involved, it had remained a secret to the greater body of the government. To his surprise, some of the conspirators were actually Sith. It didn’t make a lot of sense to him why a Sith Lord or three would willingly be complicit in helping scientists try to cobble together a mystic fueled super soldier with parts from their dead comrades. But then, it appeared that everyone did in fact, have a price.

The thought made Luca sick inside. It was a thought that lacked honor. It lacked respect for one’s comrades in arms. Luca had served with distinction, and once or twice had taken orders from a Force User. They’d been arrogant, power hungry sycophants then too. But he’d done the job without complaint. The shots from his rifle had stabilized governments, or destabilized them as needed. He was a soldier. Soldiers followed orders.

But he’d always operated knowing that if he’d been ordered to kill an innocent, he’d turn his weapon on the one giving the order. Soldiers were not mercenaries or run of the mill murderers. They killed with purpose, and senseless killing was not tolerated.

After looking into the names through a net search, Luca was silently astounded at exactly how many people knew about Project Insight. There was an entire contingent of soldiers who had been briefed and then mobilized to take him out. A black ops hit squad whose sole purpose was to finish the job the prison guards had started so many months ago.

It wasn’t fair. All Luca had ever wanted was to return to active duty. He wanted to serve. He wanted answers as to why this had been done to him, why his beloved Empire had turned him into a monster and then cast him aside. But that was all before. Things had changed when they failed to kill him, but had not taken chances on fate and murdered his mother and father in attempt to erase any knowledge he’d ever existed. He’d been burned.

Now? Now Lucadonus Lestroud wanted only revenge. Blood for blood.

The agents that he’d interrogated and killed on Mustafar had been the edge of the cancer in the Empire. Soldiers in a silent war who were given too much freedom. The ones that had killed his family. He had killed them slowly. The actual soldiers that had tried tagging him on the ride from Mustafar had been guilty of following orders they should have found questionable. They’d been ordered to kill someone without knowing why and had in tern gotten killed themselves. He felt no remorse for either of them.

Desoto had been different. He was a face man. A puppet. He had other people fight his battles for him. His part in Insight had been small. Desoto had greased palms to make sure people looked the other way when the questionable acts started in their labs. He paid off anyone who looked like they wanted to ask questions and the hit squads took down anyone who actually verbalized them. He was a pawn on the board. So Luca had taken him like a pawn. Swift and without mercy before moving on to the next player.

At this point, the hands-on members of the conspiracy to wipe him out were all dead. He’d cut the fingers off and watched the hand bleed for a minute before deciding he wanted to move up the arm. By this time, the people at the top of Project Insight would be aware they were slowly being picked off and would fortify themselves, as well as dedicate even more resources to finding Luca.

His next target was a Colonel. One Markus Riibe, age 42, recently transferred to a ship called the Revenant and served as its head of intelligence, working directly with the 316th Marine Battalion. He had an entire office dedicated to shadow work and filled with people who didn’t ask questions on that ship. Colonel Riibe would be supplying mission intel to the commander of the ship, one Lord Invictus, who subsequently happened to be one of the Empire’s Praetors.

Luca had dealt with the 316th in the past. He’d covered their special forces soldiers a time or two as they went and secured objectives. They’d been the ones who had given him the moniker of “Demon Eyes” even before the surgery had taken his sight.

Riibe was insulated though. He had a destroyer’s worth of body armor and lived in the heart of the ship. He would not go dirt-side when the ship docked for supplies, he’d be too smart for that. That meant that Luca would have to go to him instead. Such a move posed its own set of challenges however. Getting on the ship undetected would be difficult. Staying hidden in plain sight would be even harder, and if there were any soldiers still around that he’d served with, someone could even recognize him. Also, given the nature of the ship, Luca would have to make the job quick. He would need to be in and out before the ship got locked down or put on alert. This narrowed his window of opportunity to when the ship was at dry dock taking on repairs and supplies. If he was on the ship and it was in motion, he’d be trapped and as good as dead. Add to the staggering list of tall odds that the commanding officer of this ship was a Force user and you had yourself a recipe for the impossible.

But agent Lestroud had done impossible before.

Luca smirked to himself as he entered the last keystroke. How and when were yesterday’s problem. There was only one person on a warship that superseded the commander of the ship was an unlikely source of authority. It was not the captain, nor the intelligence officer, or even the ops commander.

It was the lowly supply officer.

Lestroud had infiltrated an Imperial supply depot located on a fairly isolated space station and sliced into the logistics system. After some clever computer work, he put out a system alert regarding contaminated food stores. It had been a problem at one of the empire’s suppliers, he’d detailed. Unfortunately the first ship that was identified to have taken on the contaminated supplies was the Revenant. The ship would need to be recalled to offload their “spoiled” supplies and take on fresh ones. The transfer would take 48 hours from the time the ship was docked, even with the most efficient supply team. And with someone as prestigious as Darth Invictus, they would want to be thorough.

Someone would probably be court martialed for negligence, and a trusted supplier for the Empire would be politically eviscerated. But it was a price Luca was willing to pay in the great game. It bought him a face to face with Colonel Markus Riibe. He’d make sure the encounter was memorable.

Now all he had to do was sit back and wait for them to show up.

[Rabbit]

Four days later...


"...The recall is completely in order, my lord," Riibe glanced up from the datapad that he had been consulting and met Keelen's crimson gaze briefly.

The Colonel was new, so he got a pass. It usually took the Chiss' personnel a few months (of varying number) before they could maintain proper eye contact with him. The adjustment period varied from person to person, naturally, and Keelen had gotten used to it over the years. It didn't help, either, that he was a Sith. Added all up with his intimidating physique...it was little wonder that most beings couldn't look him in the face, much the eyes. It was mildly impressive that Riibe was able to look his commanding officer in the eye after only a mere handful of days on board ship. A plus in the man's favor, then.

"Very well," Keelen pushed his chair away from his desk and stood up.

He didn't elaborate as he turned his back to Riibe and walked over to the large view port that dominated the bulkhead behind his desk. The Chiss clasped his hands behind his back and stared thoughtfully out at the streaking hyperspace lines beyond. The supply recall didn't sit well with him. Something felt...off. But, his new head of Intelligence assured him that all was in order...

And a supply recall wasn't unheard of, though Keelen was much more familiar with that sort of thing happening among civilian populations, usually with produce. Speaking of which...a thought suddenly occurred to the Darth and he turned back toward Riibe.

"Is there any specification regarding what is being recalled, or why?"

"No, my lord," Riibe fell silent for a moment as he scrolled through the information on his datapad screen. "All it says is that Kaas Agricultural Supply Company has discovered a viral strain in several thousand shipped products that could cause serious illness in consumers."

"Ah," Keelen made a soft noise in the back of his throat. "But, what products? Cheese? Meat? Lettuce? That's oddly vague, don't you think?"

Riibe looked a little apprehensive as he slowly shook his head.

"Not dreadfully so, my lord. It is not uncommon for large corporations like KASC to withhold more detailed information in more broadly disseminated communications. I'll check with Lieutenant Commander Athlan in supply - she may have more details."

Riibe was right on it - he didn't even glance up to see if Keelen nodded in approval or not. There were several more minutes of silence - about five or so total - during which the Chiss stared moodily out of the view port and the Colonel tapped away at his datapad.

Something didn't feel right...

"Ah," this time, Riibe looked up and he held Keelen's gaze a few seconds longer than he had the last time; quick progress. "Contaminated nerf products, my lord. Seems that KASCS' major supplier of nerf didn't catch a widespread viral infection in its herds until after it'd been processed and shipped. It would appear that most of what was gathered from that herd made its way here to the Revenant; all the same, the recall is by the book. There's not a high likelihood of human transference, but the resulting illness should it be is serious enough to justify a full replacement of the stores we just took aboard."

The Sith listened with a neutral expression as Riibe relayed his findings from Athlan. It all sounded perfectly up-and-up - by the book, as Riibe had said. And yet...it seemed strangely convenient for a single herd to make its way to one ship, instead of being spread out among several different customers.

Something didn't feel right...on board his own ship, on board his home, Darth Invictus was growing uneasy. Nevertheless...

"If it's all in order as you say, Riibe, then I'll tell Admiral Garron to turn us back."

"I assure you, my lord, it's a perfectly reasonable occurrence. Unusual, I will grant you, but reasonable."

"Very well," Keelen inclined his head toward the Colonel. "Dismissed."

Riibe clicked his boot heels together in a brisk salute of sorts and promptly left Keelen to his restless mullings. For his part, Keelen glanced once last time out of the view port and then reached for the comm system on the far side of his desk.

"Admiral," his voice was smooth and firm, a voice of command that belied none of his deep reservation. "Return us to ISS-303 for a replacement of our most recent stores..."

[tenkalus]

If there was one thing Luca knew absolutely in his core, it was that Imperials were by the book. Very few who chose to serve in the military were flexible enough to escape the bonds of routine and procedure and consider improvisation when it came to common tasks. Those who did, became officers. Of those officers, perhaps a handful were good enough to improvise on the fly.

All to say, if you knew the procedures that the military followed and had enough clout with a computer to doctor a few records, you could effectively move a fleet. It was a structural weakness that he may have to remedy one day, assuming he lived when the last of his tormentors lay drowning in a pool of their own blood. Also assuming that he even wanted to rejoin the empire after this escapade. It was the very corruption of their system that had led him here in the first place, after all.

ISS-303 had been quiet for four days. It had taken time for the message to be transmitted, more time for it to reach the appropriate eyes, and even more time following that for a final decision to be made to do anything about it. It was not a plan without risk. If this Chiss Sith was busy, he would have deigned to simply dump the supplies in the vacuum of space and resupply at another location. But why would he choose to do that otherwise? He had advisors in place to advise on simple matters like logistics. Rare, was the officer who advanced his career in warfare by practicing standard requisitioning procedures. They were instruments of battle, and did not need to know how their soldiers didn’t have enough fruit in their diet.

Luca knew all too well what even that simple information could do to an army. He’d been the very instrument of destruction, deployed to cover those soldiers sent in to eradicate enemy food stores and supply lines. Take away food and blankets and ammunition, and suddenly the enemy force wasn’t so keen on fighting back. A hungry soldier was less likely to fight until the end, if they were already starving and in pain. A soldier with limited munitions, would have to be more picky with their shots, thus fewer enemies were being dropped. And a cold soldier was less likely to even hit said picky targets, if they were shivering.

You could take down even an institution as mighty as the Empire if you removed its supplies. It was something Luca Lestroud knew very well.

And so it was, by the end of the fourth day, word trickled down that the Revenant was returning for resupply.

By the time the ship had locked clamps on the dock, Luca had already ‘borrowed’ a spare inspectors uniform and helmet from the quarantine section of the station. Truth be told, the security on ISS-303 was woefully lacking, and to a trained infiltrator like Luca, it was only to easy to bypass and lift supplies. He’d even successfully covered his tracks by altering the inventory logs on how many of what items were on the shelf. Station security would never know anything was missing.

It was almost scary in a way, how deep someone could dig into the system when they knew which threads to pull. Slowly but surely, Luca was beginning to understand why Project Insight wanted him dead so badly now. He was the perfect weapon against the Empire. He knew their policies and procedures, he knew how they were trained and what they would do in any situation. Most importantly, he knew how to vanish from their radar.

Lucadonus Lestroud had become the bane of the Empire, and 90% of the command structure didn’t even know about him.

They would though, when the time was right.

ISS-303 had an extendable bridge that served as a giant sleeve where crews could transport materiel back and forth unhindered. The bridge was perhaps 20 meters wide and 100 meters long. The artificial gravity was even lowered to aid in heavy transport to expedite loading times. Luca had had four days to plan for setbacks, and knew that if he had to make a heated escape, he’d be exiting through a depressingly short list of options. The gravity bridge was one such option, and he’d planned accordingly.

That was a thought for the end of his mission however. He walked in the rear of a formation of inspection personnel and supply techs pushing empty hoversleds. His face was hidden by the tinted visor and breath mask they had to don until supplies were deemed fit for transport off of the ship. With the others in front of him, he escorted the empty sleds to the egress bay of the Revenant, stopping only to allow the soldiers there check credentials of the lead inspector.

They had absolutely no reason to suspect that one of the techs going in to remove the tainted food from their home, was packing enough hardware in his supply bag to turn the ship into a warzone. And they didn’t check him, because of that fact. Luca was just another face in the crowd, carrying standard equipment by the eye’s determination.

Four days was a long time to think about exactly how you were going to take down a starship. And he’d had to do exactly that in his mind. Being an agent was about moves and counter moves, planning for unseen potential or probable outcomes, shifting game pieces across the board. This wasn’t going to be as simple as getting into the ship, finding Riibe and putting two slugs in his brain pan. Killing an officer would leave a hole in their net that Luca would quickly get tangled in. When Riibe went missing, the ship would go into lockdown. Unless he killed the man quickly and made his escape before the body was found. Which led to the problem of the Sith. There weren’t one, but two Sith on board the Revenant. A master and an apprentice. Either of which would likely sense things that were off in a place they regularly occupied. If someone they usually interacted with suddenly went missing, he suspected their mystic warning bells would start going off. But that was the damndable thing about all of his planning. The Sith were an unknown entity to Luca. He didn’t know the range of their special abilities or what they could do outside of turn him into finely cut slices of smoking fillet with their lightsabers.

And this wasn't just any Sith. It was a prominently placed Darth. A Lord would have been bad enough. But a Darth was a league above, and had command of forces unknown. Luca couldn’t plan for them properly. But naturally, that meant he could create a half dozen contingencies upon his entering the ship to offset the Sith.

That was what would happen first.

He spent the first couple of hours with the inspection team, going through food crates and marking off the bad supplies. After the crates were quarantined and logged, the transportation of the bad supplies commenced and it was then that Luca slipped away.

Five members of an inspection team had entered via the sleeve. Only four left, leading the transport crew. Maybe they’d notice, maybe not. Luca was banking on the hundreds of bodies moving back and forth through the sleeve to mask the numbers shifting around.

He’d downloaded and studied the layout of the ship he was now about to enter on day two, making his plan and memorizing routes within the floating city.

First stop, was a maintenance closet.

Most ships and even buildings these days used droids for janitorial work. It was cheaper and more effective than manual labor, but the droids still needed a technician to service them when they busted.

He stripped out of his gear and tucked it in a remote corner and covered it with other supplies. Then he stepped into a maintenance staff jumpsuit and donned his black spectacles to hide his eyes. After strapping on a tool belt and filling a satchel with a few spanner wrenches and his suppressed slug thrower, he made off for the engineering deck.

The turbolift presented his first real obstacle.

The doors slid open and revealed a woman in a black military jumpsuit with a long lightsaber clipped horizontally across the small of her back. Luca hesitated at the door, stunned that it had taken no time at all to run into a Sith. Had he already been found out?

But the raven haired woman grinned at him passively. “Going up?” She asked easily.

Luca stepped into the lift a moment later, “Yes ma’am. Engineering deck.” he responded in his natural accent.

“Got you covered…” she started, and leaned in to squint at his nametag, “...Fallon.” She reached up and knuckled deck 44 on the panel and the doors slid shut again. “Hey! That’s funny!” she exclaimed suddenly and turning to Luca with a wide grin. “I met another Fallon from maintenance a couple weeks ago. He had to help me repair the training bay again. You kind of get to know the maintenance staff on a ship when you wreck things as much as I do…” she trailed off absently, staring distantly at the ceiling, as if worried that too would break in her presence. “Anyway!” she brightened, “He didn’t look like you, are you related or is it just coincidence? That accent is from Dromund Kaas right? Been a while since I’ve been back.”

Who was this girl? She seemed sharp and inquisitive one minute and a total ditz in the next breath. Was she really a Sith? The silken choker around her neck with the bronze star on it identified her as a member of the Cult of Strife, and the lightsaber said the rest of it. This was Darth Invictus’ student.

“No relation,” he said, falling into his old verbal gait of undercover work. “You should hear the guys give us crap for having the same name. He’s a good guy though, I call him ‘Other Fallon’.” He added with a light chuckle and a smile. “And yeah, that’s a good ear you’ve got! Born and raised in Kaas City.”

The girl nodded thoughtfully and continued to smile as she brushed a few strands of hair from her face. “I like your glasses.” She commented. “Very cool, I’m Astraaaaaaahhh - Veerys. I’m Veerys!” She leaned in conspiratorially and whispered as she blushed slightly. “Took my Sith name recently, hasn’t sunk in yet. You can call me Astrid, just don’t tell anyone!” She extended her hand between them in greeting.

Luca grinned and took her hand, forcing himself not to physically recoil at the muscle he found hidden beneath her fingers. “Well thank you, I wish I could say they were for style alone. I have very sensitive eyes and these help take the edge off. But congratulations Veerys. Your secret is safe with me!” he whispered back. He then pointed to his name tape again by way of introduction. “I’m still just Fallon.”

Both of them laughed together merrily before the doors opened up on the engineering deck and Luca stepped off. “Well this is me.”

Astrid waved out at him. “Work well Fallon! It was nice meeting you, I’m sure we will run into each other again soon!”

Luca reached up and tipped the hat he wasn’t wearing in farewell as the doors shut. As they did, his cheerful smile evaporated and he was back to business.

What a strange Sith, he thought to himself before stalking off to begin his preparations.

As the doors shut, Astrid’s smile remained and she rocked on her heels.

“What a nice man...” she said to herself.

A moment later the lift chimed again and she was heading down the hallway to the bridge to be with Keelen as he instructed some junior officers on procedures on a Sith ship.

[Rabbit]

There was only one Fallon in engineering.

There was only one Fallon on the entire Revenant.

Keelen's relationship with Astrid was genuine...but if ever he were to be called out for having such a paternal relationship with his apprentice - ahem, former apprentice - Keelen would point to situations exactly like this one. When a being trusted you, when you had a good rapport with them, when you treated them like a being worthy of your attention...said being confided in you. Told you things. Chattered away at you about the most inane minutia, if the being was Astrid Blackspyre. And as Keelen had learned long ago as the heir of House Inrok, the devil was in the details. Inane minutia could often make the difference between life and death.

In Darth Invictus' experience, inane minutia usually made all the difference.

Astrid had told him about meeting one of the enlisted men from engineering in the lift. Keelen had a good enough Sense about things that he could usually tell within a few sentences if Astrid was telling him anything of actual importance or not. Most of the time he listened, even if most beings (much less Sith) would have strongly discouraged her youthful exuberance. The first sentence was barely out of her mouth though, before Keelen's red eyes had latched onto her profile in laser-like interest. There was a tug to her words and the unsettled feeling he'd had ever since getting the communique to return to ISS-303 roared to life.

He didn't want to alarm Astrid - or, more likely, pique her interest - so Keelen played it cool and didn't interrupt her as she told her story. The longer she talked about this "second Fallon from engineering", the more he felt it in his gut that this character simply wasn't right. "Fallon" hadn't been who he said he was. Eventually, Keelen redirected Astrid's attention to the matter at hand - a series of tactical "war games" he had set aside for her on computer simulation. While she focused on those, however, he pulled out his datapad and did a thorough search of all personnel aboard his warship.

There was only one Fallon.

The Chiss sent a message to the head of security, Warrant Officer Ellys, to take a squad down to engineering and inquire after this mysteriously un-related-to-the-real-Fallon character that had suddenly appeared on board their ship. An hour later, Astrid had successfully finished Keelen's simulations - to top marks, he was pleased to see - and Ellys had sent him a message back.

No one knew a thing about a stranger passing themselves off as Petty Officer Fallon.

[tenkalus]

Training was everything. The old soldier mantra of “Train how you fight” sprang to mind every time something went wrong in the field. Luca just happened to be one of the few men who actually paid attention to their gut feelings and fell back on his training in those situations.

His cover as Fallon from maintenance would no longer hold up against cursory inspection if the monstrously tall and muscled girl named Veerys said anything. There was a stigma that Luca had been counting on to get by on this mission. That stigma was that a destroyer like the Revenant was a floating city. A city that was run by 24 hours of rotating shifts comprised of literally around a thousand people. It was impossible for everyone to know each others’ faces everywhere. It was good camouflage, blending into the sea of people. But the problem came in when you chose a group of people who were small in number. Maintenance staff employees likely ranged in the realm of a couple dozen at best. It wouldn’t take much for them to come down on him, after merely a suspicion.

Time for plan B.

After exiting the lift, Luca reached up and ripped off his name tape, returning the non-descript uniform to total anonymity. He stuffed the tag in his tool bag and quickly crossed to a maintenance junction several hundred feet before one of the primary reactors of the ship. The technicians at the reactor monitor station noticed the movement and looked up. Luca just raised a hand from the distance he was at in greeting and called down, “Checking some frayed connections. Won’t be a moment.” They nodded in irritable boredom and Luca disappeared down the passage.

He found the duct almost immediately. A cooling duct that would lead all around the reactor, delivering forced cooled air to the computer components used to monitor and regulate power to the ship. He took his spanner and worked loose the bolts fastening the duct cover to the wall. But he did not slip into the duct. He simply left one side loose, threw some random wire ends on the floor by the duct and walked back the way he came.

If they suspected Fallon, they would send a team to deck 44 and investigate. Since no one had seen him clear enough to get a read on him or see his name tag, they’d simply point the direction he’d come and gone. Further inspection would make it seem as though he had entered the air duct and shimmied around inside to some nefarious ends, and the debris would look like he had dropped some of his supplies while exiting. Supplies that looked suspiciously like equipment that could be used in a bomb.

At best, it would put the ship on alert and he would be able to move a bit more freely without attracting attention. Alert stations meant people would be locked into position and ran less of a risk of him actually having to talk to someone face to face.

At worst, it would distract any pursuit of him and cause an investigation of the area, pulling resources away from where he needed to go. He had done something to the area, but what? They’d never find out, because there wasn’t anything.

An hour later found Luca walking into the NID (Naval Intelligence Division) cluster of the ship. They had their own section of the vessel, which was off limits to all personnel. Except mechanics. Spies knew a great deal about a lot of subjects. But they still had to call the computer fixit guy when their console froze.

He’d already paid a visit to the main hangar bay and left a little present in their computer system. After that he had made a long distance comm call and had promised some credits to a certain group of mercs for a certain job he’d lined up.

Luca walked in like a seasoned veteran and retraced the path in his mind that he’d made for his plan B. It found him flashing credentials at the section supply officer. Luca had his jumpsuit rolled down his waist and his tool bag slung behind his back. Without looking directly at the make of the bag, no one would know the difference between that and a standard satchel.

He was a recent transfer now, having been waiting for pickup on ISS-303 and needed to requisition his initial issue gear for the field. This gear was much different than a soldier’s kit. Much more specialized, and unlike a marine, spies and operatives got to choose their gear before a mission. The officer waved him back after verifying his credentials and unlocked the supply room.

Luca took a deep breath as the door shut behind him. He first went to outfitting. There were a number of ready disguises for any operatives work, but this time he just slipped into a body glove and some lightweight armor plates. Riibe had come aboard and replaced the entire staff of NID with his own people. No small feat for a new officer. Any one of them could be on the lookout for Luca, they were protecting Riibe. The armor within the armor of the ship.

Soon, there wouldn’t be any hiding.

He stepped out, fully kitted out and that was when his plan went south. He was standing five feet away from Colonel Riibe. Both men exchanged looks. Riibe had another officer with him and they had been looking over a datapad when Luca stepped out.

Riibe stared at his glasses. The glasses stared back.

Luca reached up and slowly peeled the shades away from his glowering golden eyes.

“IT’S HIM!” Riibe screamed. “INTRUDER!! TAKE HIM DOWN!”

“Not today…” Luca snarled and sprang into action. He tossed his glasses at the officer next to Riibe, who had been reaching for his blaster. Out of instinct, he stuttered and reached up to catch the object being thrown at him, taking his focus away from Luca and his own weapon for a fatal second.

The suppressed slug thrower sighed twice in succession and the officer dropped with a red stain spreading across his chest and a new hole in his forehead.

Riibe had darted away immediately, raising arms as he sprinted past consoles and stations. All of his staff jumping into the fray.

Luca placed both hands on his pistol, keeping both of his elbows bent at 45 degree angles, and strode forward with murder in his eyes.

With every flex of his finger, a man sprouted crimson livery on their uniform. Some with blasters got a few shots in, but Luca ran forward and dropped to a knee, sliding across the floor and going beneath the shots while returning more of his own. Then he was back on his feet as if he’d stepped on a springboard.

A slower technician drew late and aimed at him. But Luca wasn’t there anymore. The blaster and the hand attached to it went slipping into the gap between Luca’s elbow and forearm, trapping it between the inner arm and the triangle it formed with his gun hand. The spy pivoted his hips and used his elbow as a joint lock, yanking the “technician” over his console and dropping him to the floor without even letting go of his slug thrower. Luca dropped with him to one knee and put a single round in the back of the man’s head before shoulder rolling out of the way of more fire.

He was a riot of motion, a dervish bringing dead and destruction. His face remained impassive of it all, now spattered with some of his enemies’ blood. But though his lips and nose and skin remained smooth and composed, his eyes held a rage reserved for men guilty of only the most heinous, and personal of crimes.

Two blaster shots punched into the back of his armor and pushed him to the floor, a third burned through his lower abdomen, fire spreading through his awareness.

But he didn’t stop. He tossed a grenade he’d procured from their own stores at the shooters and climbed back to his feet with a grimace and stalked after Riibe. The grenade exploded and Luca thumbed the magazine lock on his pistol, flicked his wrist to release the spent mag and jammed a new one home, then rode the slide back forward to load the first round into the smoking chamber.

Three more dropped before his quiet fury before he found Riibe back in his office on his comlink.

“-NOW!” Luca walked in on him screaming into his com.

But at seeing him, Riibe just sighed, laughed and dropped to his chair in resignation. “You’re hurt, Demon Eyes.” he said.

It was a tactic, meant to force Luca to look away from his target. A spy tactic, much like the sunglasses had been. Luca didn’t look. He just kept his demonic gaze on Riibe. “I’ll live.” he said back.

“The council is going to find you. Do you have any id-”

Luca shot him twice in the head. The man must have thought him an amateur, waiting for the plot to be revealed so the enemy could stall for time.

He turned and walked back out into the atrium section and heard a groan on the floor. Luca didn’t even look. He just pointed and squeezed the trigger till the groaning stopped.

Then he reloaded and kept on walking.