Continued from Previous RP
Nearly twenty minutes had passed since Turel Sorenn and Jon Silvon had decided to delay turning Celevon Werd'a in. In that time, Artemis Suoh-Werd'la and Marius Apollo Edraven had arrived and were subsequently introduced to the others; Artemis had known Turel for years, but had yet to meet Marius. Neither had formally met Jon Silvon prior to this.
Whilst Marius joined Jon for a glass of rum or two, Jade and Turel were going over the information in the intel packet with a fine-toothed comb. Meanwhile, Artemis had removed the outermost layer of her set of Inquisitorius armor and had shut down HK-72 and set about carefully retrieving a copy of the specific memory from his databank.
Celevon had left the room for a few minutes, then returned quickly in an entirely different outfit. Turel’s eyes had narrowed on the Shaevalian-Umbaran when he noticed that the younger male was carefully placing all of the weapons he typically carried into a chest.
Before the Knight of Allusis could ask after this suspicious behavior — Celevon was almost never without a weapon or two, at the very least — Artemis had succeeded in the removal of the scene and started it playing.
Excerpt from COU Report #10
“Look, unlike Your Highness, the man has to make decisions his people can stomach. He has to be palatable to everyone and has to make compromises. If he doesn’t, he loses his position; he becomes another voiceless in the grand scheme of things. He may never be ‘a poor’, but he’ll likely never reach his current heights again either. They come from an entirely different set of rules than you, Kaltani.” The Shaevalian-Umbaran visibly shrugged.
“It’s time they learned our rules, then. If the man is replaceable, it’s time he’s replaced with someone who will respect the ’politics’ of their neighbors and who won’t harbor terrorists. And you’re going to see to it,” the Empress ordered, her own gaze flinty.
“As you wish.”
Whilst everyone else quietly contemplated and Artemis turned HK-72 back online, Celevon continued to disarm himself of all of his weapons and gently closed the chest.
After being handed a copy of the memory for safekeeping, the leaf green eyes of the former High Councilor turned to the Shaevalian-Umbaran, not allowing himself to be distracted from the suspicious behavior.
“In all the years I’ve known you, you’ve never been without a weapon. And now you’re purposely disarming yourself, wearing robes instead of armor,” the Jedi Master commented, drawing the eyes of the others to him, then back toward Celevon. “What aren’t you telling us?”
The Seeker sighed, looking up toward the ceiling in a resigned manner before he looked back to . “I was already taken into custody. And escaped twice. I wanted people that I could trust to have all of the pertinent information on my case, because I know that the Council will not believe me without proof. Without Artemis, HK would’ve self-destructed the moment someone other than her tried to meddle with his internal components. A lot of innocents would have died unnecessarily out of stubbornness. I was going to tell all of you anyway, but Turel caught on more quickly than I expected.”
“We will be discussing this, but it does make sense. The moment you mentioned proof of being ordered to assassinated the Burmessian Prime Minister, they wouldn’t have allowed your daughter anywhere near the droid,” Jade spoke up, visibly pushing her own frustration down. “How long until—”
“She’s already here, just outside,” Marius interrupted softly, his blind gaze focused on the door.
“Mihoshi, please come in. HK, stand down,” Celevon ordered as he pushed himself to his feet, having spotted the retractable blade the droid had ejected from his forearm.
The moment the petite Councilor of War walked in, amethyst eyes burning a glare into the Shaevalian-Umbaran, Celevon held out his arms.
“I freely turn myself in. I won’t resist.”
“Father—” Artemis began.
“No, Artemis. I’ve already caused enough problems.” He gave his daughter a small smile, though his eyes were resigned. “Marius, look after your younger siblings.” Like he said, he did not resist as Mihoshi Keibatsu moved his arms behind his back and slapped on a pair of stun-cuffs.
“Do you have any weapons on you?” the Dragon of Kyataru questioned roughly, visibly reigning in her temper.
“No, I put away all of my weapons before you arrived.”
“Then I won’t bother repeating your rights or why you’re under arrest.”
Celevon nodded to the others before he was led out of the room, toward the awaiting transport, imprisonment and inevitable trial.
Turel stepped in front of Miho as she was leading Celevon out of the room. There was a tense moment where the two exchanged icy glances before the Jedi Master stepped aside. He didn’t need to say it and the War Councilor didn’t need telepathy to know that this matter wasn’t concluded.
Turel turned to Jon after Miho and Celevon were out of earshot, “we have some house cleaning to do in SeNet.” He brandished the datapad, “someone is trying to use us as pawns and whether the Empress is involved or not, I want them exposed.” <@230809550297497600>
Jon raised an eyebrow at Turel.
“You’re suggesting we, what? Go snooping around classified documents in the heart of the Clan’s intelligence network unauhtorized? Peep into what may very well be Vatali state secrets? Poke around your brother-in-law’s vivacious sex life?”
Jon let his words sink in for a moment before belting out a hardy laugh, and slapping his fellow Knight on the shoulder.
“Sounds like a hell of a time! You!” he pointed to Celevon’s droid. “Bring me the rest of this rum. I have a feeling we’re going to need it; I have no idea where this is going to lead, but Force knows I am not doing whatever it is sober.”
He turned to walk out the door and stopped when he realized Jade was standing there. Jon turned to look at Celevon’s various relatives in turn.
“…I take it you’re all wanting to come as well?”
Over HK’s loud objections that he was not a Servant Droid, Jade grabbed the bottle and smacked it into Jon’s hand with a small smirk. “One, I’d avoid annoying HK; it tends to be bad for your health. Second, Celevon and Morgan aren’t married.”
“He would tell me to ‘look after my siblings’, knowing full damn well that I’m blind,” Marius grumbled to himself, which was dutifully ignored, save a slight twitch of his twin’s lips.
“You bet your ass we’re coming along,” Ruana finished bluntly.
Jon quirked an eyebrow, popping the top off of the rum bottle before taking a swig. “Why do I get the feeling that keeping track of your family’s most multifarious lineage would be a full time task for SENnet?”
He looked to Turel. “Well, that’s a team all set. This was your idea. Where shall we start? The Grande Carnivale awaits.”
Turel exhaled as he held the datapad close, “Getting answers from within SeNet HQ will take time but I have my sources. I have a talented slicer who owes me a favor….or two.” The Master’s thoughts turned toward Vez Hirundo his informal mentee and sometimes partner in crime. Call Vez his ‘student’ would require her to enter into some kind of formal Force training.
“But this dossier came through the fusion cell on Kiast….which is probably as good a place as any to start looking.” Turel turned from Jon to the rest of this make-shift crew, “The fusion cell is where SeNet and the Vatali Empire share intelligence. It’s staffed by analysts from both agencies. Really it’s more of a closet in her majesty’s royal spymaster’s building that he graciously lets us use. The Master smirked, "How do yall feel about breaking into Vatali Central Intelligence?”
It was Marius who took the bait Jon dangled, lips curving into a smirk after Turel finished speaking. “Tarvitz would often swear and claim that he required a diagram to remember my father’s children, both biological and adopted. He eventually threw up his hands and gave up on the matter when he learned that Father had myself and Artemis with his first wife, was widowed, then married to Xathia and dating his sister simultaneously,” Celevon’s eldest son pointed out with a nod toward the Master Jedi.
“I’m fairly certain it’s a three-way relationship,” Ruana piped up, seemingly enjoying the identical disgusted expressions this comment brought from her wife and brother-in-law.
“Don’t make me think it!” The twins groaned in stereo.
When Jon looked her way, Jade sighed loudly. “Yes, weird osik like this is normal.”
“Also, Uncle T, I… might have a way into VCI,” Marius added after he successfully banished the thought of his father’s sex life. “It won’t require breaking in as such, though it’d require me borrowing an ex-boyfriend’s passcard with no intent to return it.”
-# <@185939710005215232>
“Borrowing” the ID off of Marius’ former fling was a slightly more involved process then Jon would’ve liked, but at the end of it all the rag-tag group was standing outside the VCI base.
“You’re sure this ex has the security clearance to get us inside?” Jon asked with a casual air. Marius shrugged.
“Fairly confident.”
“Fairly confident? And what, pray tell, was the precise occupation of this recently dissociated valentine?”
Marius looked away blushing slightly. “…Janitor,” he muttered.
Jon let out a long suffering sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose as he did so. “Well, we’re here now,” he said. “May as well see where this leads. Follow my lead and if anything should come up, let me do the talking.”
Jon looked over the band he had chosen to throw his lot in with. Turel was dressed up in a Vatali security uniform, his face concealed under a medical mask and no small amount of make-up carefully applied by Jon’s own hand. The Jedi might’ve had a working relationship with the Empress and SeNet, but with current events no one wanted to chance his being recognized snooping around such a secure location. Celevon’s family even less so. The only one here without any form of disguise was Jon himself, a newly sewn Vatali crest prominently displayed on his outer jacket.
He bit his lip in thought. He still had no idea where this was going to lead, and he was fairly certain Celevon had earned whatever punishment that the Clan and Empire decided to give him.
But Turel’s words about the SeNet packet nagged at the back of his mind, a loose thread he couldn’t not pull on, as much as he dreaded what he would see when the curtain unraveled.
“Alright,” he said at last. “Let us begin the show.”
They walked up to the entrance, where Marius flashed his ID card; Jon half expected the blaring of alarms, but was pleasantly relieved when they were ushered inside with neither fanfare nor suspicion.
Now to see how long that would last.
“Alright Turel,” Jon whispered. “Where’s the fusion center?”
“Fourth floor, east side,” Turel replied in a hushed tone, “It’s a secure area so one way in and out, reinforced walls, tiny air ducts, you name it. And the entrance is manned at all times by a pair of guards.” The Jedi Master sped up his stride for a moment to avoid suspicion as his comrade processed the information he had just given.
This will be a challenge he thought to himself as he mentally went over all the ways this little hiest could go wrong. The guards on the outside would be easy enough to distract or mind trick but the analysts working on the inside would be another matter entirely. There was simply too many of them to effectively mind trick. The computers inside the fusion cell would be easy enough to slice with the dataspikes Turel had brought along. He just needed a minute or two alone at a work station.
Turel slowed his pace down as the group traversed the ornate Vatali decorated hallways to get back within earshot of Jon and the others, “we will need a distraction for the analysts inside the fusion cell.”
<@230809550297497600> <@248237225202941964>
As the motley group walked through the halls to their destination, Marius couldn’t help but notice the occasional burst of Force energy that was seemingly coming from his twin sister’s eyes.
“What do you keep doing, sis?” Marius asked quietly, though just loudly enough for the others to hear.
“Temporarily disrupting cameras along the way before we’re close enough for them to capture detail,” Artemis replied immediately, pale laurel eyes flitting to another camera. “It’ll seem like a glitch in the system or something associated with any electrical gear we have on us. The moment we’ve passed their view, it’ll reboot.”
“Wouldn’t that—” Jade started to ask, only to be cut off by the half-Sephi.
“I’ve been doing it to every camera I’ve spotted throughout the building, not just the ones in front of us. If I disabled the network entirely, the building would go into lockdown,” she explained quickly.
“I can easily provide a distraction for the analysts… that is, making them think nothing is wrong,” Marius smirked slightly, tapping the ground with every other step with his Electro-staff.
“He’s a Master of Illusions,” Ruana spoke up, her own voice modulated by the helmet of her ARC Trooper armor. “We’re almost there. How are we planning to take out the guards?”
Spotting the Mandalorian opening her mouth, the Pantoran quickly continued.
“Without killing them, Jade.”
“Myself and Marius don’t have our father’s gift with Mind Tricks, but we’ve studied the techniques. We could force them into unconsciousness that way,” Artemis suggested, giving the Jedi Master a curious glance. “You’re much more skilled in that technique than we are.”
“Bah,” Jon said with a dismissive wave. “You and your space magic. You could learn something from Turel, he knows better than to rely on the Force for every little thing.”
As they emerged onto the fourth floor, they occasionally passed staff in VCI uniforms; these Jon met with a grin and a friendly wave, to which they simply nodded. At most one or two gave a raised eyebrow but passed them by without comment.
“The trick to getting into places one ought not be, is to act like you’re supposed to be there. No mind trickerying required.”
As they approached the door where two sephi guardsmen were posted, Jon smirked back at his compatriots. “Watch and learn, my young padawans.”
Jon simply strolled up to the door with a friendly nod to the guards, before swiping a fake id card. A negative sound emerged, causing the guards to look at him. Jon frowned in apparent annoyance before trying again.
“Damn computers can’t do anything right,” he muttered in annoyance, before looking at the guards. “Well? If one of you could kindly open the door it would be most appreciated.”
“We can’t open the door without proper authorization,” one guard responded.
Jon huffed, and crossed his arms. “Proper authorization? Do they not tell you anything? Open this door already, before I report you for interfering in Vatali Empire business.”
“What business?” the other guard responded. “Who are–”
“‘What business’? What business he asks? Are you asking me to reveal state secrets to you? You know that could get you brought up on treason? What’s your name soldier?”
The guard began to get flustered, and his compatriot stepped in. “Now wait just a minute–”
“Look, look, gentlemen, I have no interest in seeing either of you arrested or, heaven forbid, executed,” the strangled noise the guards made at that almost made Jon break character. “So open this door, and we’ll forget all about this lack of decorum, alright gentlemen?”
“Is there a problem here?” A stern-looking male Sephi with lavender skin and long white hair inquired as he approached. The newcomer wore an immaculate Vatali uniform complete with a blue cape and gold chestplate adorned with medals.
“Lord Zakfein! We were just checking this person’s clearance–”
“–as you should. But these two are with me,” The Royal Spymaster gestured at Jon and Marius. “They have time-sensitive intelligence about the Burmessian Republic that we need to brief our Sentinel Network counterparts on. So if you would get the door please.”
“Certainly, my lord.” The guards scrambled on their console to open the durasteel vault door that led to the fusion cell work area.
“Excellent, now these ladies,” The male Sephi motioned his hand toward Jade, Ruana and Artemis, “Will be conducting a security audit of this station while I am inside. I expect your full cooperation.” ‘Lord Zakfein’ snuck a wink at the trio behind the guards’ back.
The Spymaster led Jon and Marius into a vestibule for storing unauthorized electronics and droids just past the security station. Once the vault door closed behind them the visage of her majesty’s royal spymaster faded away to reveal a smirking Turel. “Never gets old.”
Marius seemed unimpressed and Jon sighed from Turel completely invalidating his earlier point about not relying on space magic. Turel pulled out the data spikes he had compiled for this precise mission. “I just need two minutes with an open terminal and I should be able to gather the evidence we need.”
Jon took up a position at the door, keeping an ear pressed for anyone approaching.
“I’ll have you know,” Jon said to Turel, “I had those two eating out of the palm of my hand. And what are we to do when the real Zakfein gets wind of this? He’s a stuck up old bastard with no love for Odan-Urr, you know.”
Jon had never actually met the Royal Spymaster, but one didn’t operate in Kiast’s underworld without knowing the name. And it was an open secret that he distained Odan-Urr for being, in his view, ‘upstarts claiming thrones the Vatali have spent centuries guarding.’ Which was a fancy-pants way of saying ‘classist conservative who doesn’t like change.’
“Tell me the second you find anything, Turel.”
Turel sat at the terminal and inserted the data spike. Tense moments ticked by as the cluster of programs on the spike did their work to gain access to the system.
Vatali Central Intelligence
Access Granted
Query:
The Jedi Master glanced around the room to ensure the coast was clear, then began searching the VCI database for the fabricated dossier. There were numerous entries to sift through and very little time. Finally, he hit it.
“I found the original dossier and the doctored one….and oh look the Royal Spymaster himself authorized the modifications to make the Prime Minister look irresistibly guilty. Let’s just download that.”
Turel continued combing the database until something caught his attention. The Spymaster had a series of detailed dossiers and psychological profiles of prominent Odan-Urr members in a single folder.
Directory: Operation Nightfall
Director Level Access Required
“Oh, this is too good.” The Sentinel Master pulled out a second dataspike and sent his best malware to work, overriding the security protocols. Turel was well aware of the historical allusion to Operation Nightfall, where Darth Vader destroyed the Jedi Temple during Order 66. Hopefully, it was a coincidence and not an indicator of the spymaster’s intent.
#*(#&$&((*#$&&*($*( ERROR
ACCESS GRANTED
Lord Zakfein had full on intelligence assessments in addition to the dossiers on Odan-Urr members. Apparently, they had been assessing who was most loyal to the Empress and who would be easiest to push toward committing an aggressive act toward the Burmessian Republic. They had double agents within the Sentinel Network feeding them information on the internal deliberations of the Odan-Urr council going back years. Turel noticed his own dossier was sloppy and incomplete. The spymaster seemed particularly concerned Odan-Urr would let a former criminal serve as High Councilor.
Subject Celevon Werd'a
Assessment: Violent tendencies compared to peers within Odan-Urr, Skills in assassination and an ongoing relationship with her majesty make for a prime candidate for inciting incident
Turel finished downloading the Nightfall folder as the lights in the room turned red and alarms began blaring.
“Guess that’s our cue to leave.”
Artemis paid little to no attention to her brother’s snarky retort in response to the former High Councilor’s quip, her focus entirely on reaching out with the Force. Temporarily disrupting the circuitry in lone cameras was one thing; disabling an entire network was another thing entirely.
Instead, the Huntress took it a step further, breathing out sharply as she forced the delicate mechanisms powering the video feeds throughout the building to overload.
Coming back to the present, the eldest of Celevon’s children triggered a switch in her vambrace. A half dozen beskar-tipped miniature rockets shot out, whistling to their programmed destinations, which she had done as she ‘provided security’. Each hit a computer terminal, frying their circuitry.
“Sis, what the f—”
Jade interrupted Marius’ minor freakout over the series of small explosives caused by Artemis’ Whistling Birds. “No time! The building is going into a security lockdown. Let’s move!”
Jon Silvon and Ruana Suoh-Werd'la had taken care of the initial two guards that rushed into the room, quickly knocking them out.
Whilst there was no way to plan for when the osik hit the fan and their initial one went out of the window, all six had been in agreement on their methods. No killing whatsoever.
It was for just this reason that HK-72 had stayed behind on the ship.
To go along with that, all of their blasters (but Jade’s) had been set to stun long before they even came near the building. Jon was more than skilled enough with his variety of throwing knives to target an opponent from across a room, let it fly and hit precisely where he wanted in a span of seconds.
Speaking of whom, the Scoundrel quickly handed the Mandalorian a few items before all six of them began to move. Security teams knew enough to converge on their location before the video feeds had been disabled.
Marius Edraven stuck to a combination of Martial Arts, the Force and his Phrik Electro-staff that doubled as a visual aid.
The lone Mandalorian amongst their motley crew planned to use her own Martial arts skills to their fullest extent, alongside her gear, whilst the Beskar Beskad and Dual Blasters stayed holstered. This was proven as she rushed ahead of the other five, grabbed the first guard that rounded the corner by his wrist and slammed him face-first into the opposing wall, then followed that with an elbow to the base of his skull to render him unconscious.
She continued on to a far, outer wall, letting the others handle keeping the guards off of them.
Due to the limited space in the hallway, Artemis Suoh-Werd'la and Turel Sorenn took them on using Hand-To-Hand techniques and their own gear. Though, it must be said that the former High Councilor seemed to be utilizing Mind Trickery and Illusions with minimal gestures.
Jon Silvon was kept at range from the guards that rushed in amongst them, with Ruana keeping them covered at range with a pair of DL-44 Heavy Blasters.
The group of five left in the hallway were prepared for the explosion that rocked the building, then the rush of air that followed from an outer wall being blown out. The guards, not so much.
Jon and Ruana took advantage of this distraction to deliver several knockout blows, taking down the rest of the guards that Turel and Artemis hadn’t already handled.
The five rushed to where the explosion had come from, finding the bright sunlight coming in, along with a fresh breeze.
The Pantoran wasted no time in kneeling, firing the underslung grappling-line launcher at an adjacent building, then secured the other side of the line to a secure surface. “Go!”
One by one, the group of six slid down the line to ground level, with Ruana coming last, her Bo-Rifle back over her shoulder.
Jon rushed through the alleyways alongside the others, ears listening carefully for any sign of pursuit. Luckily, it seems the VCI was more baffled and confused by the sudden eruption of violence then anything else. A good bit of fortune for them, though one he would have to drill them on correcting –
But was he thinking. The VCI were the ones spying on Odan-Urr. They were the ones who selected Celevon for the role of assassin to kick off this little war with the Burmessians.
Zakfein, the bastard, might have thrown together some false evidence to make the pill easier to swallow and the Jedi culpable, but Celevon was right: Kaltani had given the order.
How many times would Jon run in this circle, he wondered? Tracing his grandfathers footsteps in the sands of time? Throwing his support behind empires that proved just as fallible as the last?
And what would he do now? What could any of them do. Odan-Urr’s biggest ally had a knife against their back this whole time, and now it was openly against their throats. There was chatter, word coming up through the grapevine that Jon hadn’t had time to fully deal with, about stirrings on the surface of Kiast, of unrest back home in Kaal City – when had he started thinking of it as home? – and of something weird happening on Solyiat.
Things were in motion now, and like it or not Jon had allowed himself to fall squarely in the heart of them. People needed to know what they found. That was the first thing. Syreena, Dune, Masahiro, Mihoshi. They had sent him to find answers. He had them.
A burst of pain split his skull and he stumbled in his run, falling to one knee as he gripped his head in blistering agony. He could vaguely hear the sound of Turel and Marius’ voices as they asked him what was wrong, and felt someone’s hands on his shoulder.
He couldn’t tell who, though, couldn’t answer, couldn’t do anything as once again the images of something forced their way into his brain with neither his beckoning nor his consent. The images of fire, the familiar sights of war. A banner burning against a smoke-black sky; the image shifted and flowed like a dream. One second it was Odan-Urr’s crest that burned and curled, then it flowed into that of the Vatali. A building crumbled into ash as enemies assailed it, but was it the Praxeum, or Kaltani’s palace, or something else? Were the attackers carrying lightsabers, or the defenders? Every time he thought he had a grip on the vision, it shifted like reflections in the water to something else.
He couldn’t tell, and all at once, the images fled, the pain left him, and he was left kneeling on the ground, sweating, gasping, looking up into the eyes of his friends.
Moments before Jon had ceased running, the Sentinel Shadow had sensed a disturbance in the Force and thus was the first to skid to a halt. The sound of his boots grinding to a halt on the duracrete alerted the others that something was amiss as the Mercenary tripped, then fell to his hands and knees.
Whilst the others began to question what was wrong and Turel placed his hand on his friend and ally’s shoulder, the former Force Cultist could see in a way very few could through the Force. To his Miraluka-like view of the Force and Senses, the brightness that was the Scoundrel was clouded, with the darkness centered on the taller man’s head.
Worse, what he could See of the Human without looking deeper — an invasion of privacy, even in an emergency situation — was a combination of both horror and pain.
“Something is wrong,” Marius announced, both abrupt and loud in the pause of the others watching in concern and Turel’s attempts to gain their friend’s attention. “Something is affecting his mind through the Force.” The Shadow placed a hand on the man’s shoulder, though he saw Silvon’s hands start to unclench.
“Jon!” Turel repeated, echoed by the Force Disciple, who had began to fuel Healing energy into the Scoundrel, ceased the flow abruptly as the Human gasped and pushed himself to his knees, eyes wide. “What’s wrong/What happened?”
“Vision,” Jon Silvon gasped, out of breath from both what he had seen and the exertion of the sprint. “I’ll be fine… Let’s keep moving. The pain is already gone.”
Blind eyes and leaf green met before both men hauled their comrade to his feet. Behind them, Jade, Artemis and Ruana exchanged a look and nodded before the Mandalorian contacted the ship, alerting HK to prepare the medical bay droid. When Jon nodded, five of the six resumed their run to their awaiting ship.
Jade waited only a moment, unleashing a cone of flame to Jon’s previous position to destroy evidence, then followed.
The royal spymaster’s cape flowed behind him as he strode with purpose through the still chaotic halls of Vatali Central Intelligence. Zakfein was irate but outwardly projected calm with the practiced discipline of his aristocratic upbringing. Guards and analysts who were normally scurrying like a distressed ant colony paused as he passed to salute. Finally he arrived at the fusion cell with a senior staffer following close behind.
“Odanite upstarts,” Zakfein muttered under his breath as he surveyed the damage. The royal spymaster held no love for the hodgepodge of criminals and mystics who had come to the Kiast system years ago as refugees. The fact that they demanded and largely got full equality as citizens of the Empire alongside noble houses who had served the royal family for centuries was offensive to the spymaster. The fact that the bleeding heart Jedi had stirred up the Quorhai also to demand equality was just icing on the proverbial cake for Zakfein.
“We haven’t positively identified the assailants yet my lord,” his female Sephi staffer corrected very matter-of-factly.
Zakfein held up a datapad, “based on the files they accessed and presumably downloaded, we can safely assess they were at least working for the Odanites.” His voice dripped with venom as he named the clan.
“The network security team hasn’t been able to identify the source of the dataspikes, but the forensics team from Capital Security is on site and has found several partial prints. We’re running an analysis of the prints now. Regrettably, none of the assailants were captured on holo surveillance.” The staffer’s voice trailed off as she studied the single holocam at the security station.
“Let’s call them what they are, terrorists,” Zakfein paused for a moment as inspiration struck. This could work to his advantage. “Prep a briefing for her majesty immediately.”