Nar Shaddaa

Nunki sits in the garden, two datapads sitting on her lap. She marvels at the beauty of this place in the cess pit that is Nar Shaddaa.

“Nunki, how goes the investigation?” Satele asks.

"Well... I am supposed to speak to Kristal Serasai at some point today, and talked to Layne Hoshin already. But yesterday, when I had visited the docking bay, and later visited Kidaja, things went a bit better. I have one suspect, a Twi'lek slicer named Faz who was on contract with the docking bay for two weeks. According to the Nikto there at the time named Toz, he was quiet, kept to himself, and did a lot with computers and fixing droids. By the time I landed and was able to look around, most of the explosion was cleaned up, so not much I can do there."

She places the top datapad to the side, sighs, and says "Now the troubling part... My conversation with Layne wasn't too productive, but she revealed something very worrisome. The Empire has Faz pinned down, and they have a very, very good motive. This particular slicer was involved in a mission on Yavin IV, during the same time I was evacuated. A lot of Republic soldiers, and a Wookie Jedi, as well as our slicer. Kristal, Layne, and a Rodian named Grenda were sent into the temple they were in to dispatch them. Slicer is the only survivor. And has Republic affiliation."

And finally, she hands the datapad on her lap, the one given to her by Kidaja, to Satele. "And finally, Kidaja gave us this datapad. It has..." she makes air quotes. "'footage' of the explosions. And they very clearly implicate the Empire. But I'm barely trained in these things, and I knew it was doctored on my first watch of it. He's said Dango would very much like the Imps to be implicated in this, and that he'd be willing to offer me 1000 credits for it. He didn't give me much else."

After finishing her monologue, she lets out a sigh, and says "I have no idea how to proceed. The Empire has a very good case against Faz, very clear motive, and the means to push this against us, hard."

“Have you looked into the suspect and gotten his side of the story. Everyone is innocent until proven guilty. We won’t just hand him over because they think he is the one. We need evidence, Nunki,” she says looking at the Datapad footage.

“Your job has to be thorough.”

"I understand this. But I may have his name, but I have no way to track him at the moment. I've not been given any documents, just his name and description. I've mostly come to you for help with this, as well as clarification on him and Yavin, and your guidance with the Hutt."

“I wasn’t involved personally with the Yavin mission, but I can shed some light. It was a reconnaissance mission, we wanted to learn more about the Emperor and his goals. Faz returned to Republic space with highly sensitive data on the Emperor. A powerful dark side ritual of some kind, the Jedi for now have kept this information sequestered to the Order until we fully understand the purpose of this ritual,” she responds.

“As for Faz, speak with SIS, it should be easy for them to track him down.”

"I'll put in a request when I leave here. Is Faz an independent contractor? Or is he actually one of our agents?"

“He was a friend of a Jedi and she brought him on the mission as he was the best for the job. I am not sure what he is doing now,” Satele says honestly.

"Well, hopefully SIS can get their butts in gear and find him before the Imps do. I have some ideas, as long as he has no official association with the Republic we can deny it, and depending on him we can even spin it."

“I think we should focus on finding him, the reputation of the Republic is secondary to my concern of his mental state if he is at fault. We should be trying to help him, Nunki,” she says in a soft but chiding manner.

"I understand his safety comes first, and hopefully when SIS finds him we can get him off Nar Shaddaa to somewhere safe. But it still gives us an opportunity to get in good with the Hutts. He obviously took the loss of his friend pretty hard, and took revenge. In fact..." She trails off, lost in thought for a moment. "It shouldn't be a Jedi who confronts him first. It is very possible he will blame the Jedi just as much as he blames the Imps for the death."

Satele frowns and says, “I don’t like the idea of profiting from his misfortune just to make good with the Hutts.”

"I don't either. But the alternative may be angry Hutts and angry Imps."

Nunki Malyna wrote:"I don't either. But the alternative may be angry Hutts and angry Imps."

"Then find another way, Nunki," she says.

Nunki nods. "Protection first. I'll work with SIS and get him off world, probably have to change his name to keep him protected."

"I trust your judgment to handle this, Nunki, you have grown considerably in my care," she says with a smile.

"Thank you for the compliment, Master." She says, returning the smile. "I am assuredly not the same woman I was when I left Korriban."

"Korriban changes everyone," she agrees.