Space over Corellia, Corellian system, Corellian sector, Core Worlds
Thranta-class warship The Vanguard
10:55 S.T.
21st day of the 1st month, 1 ATC
Two human males, wearing the official GIS armour, alight from their red and black space shuttle and are welcomed by a Nautolan wearing a similar outfit:
“Welcome aboard. Operative Mitchell, operative Blayne, nice to see you again.”
“What’s this all ’bout? This was supposed to be my off-duty day, ya know…” Mitchell said.
“The usual: a lot of blood, a lot of corpses, no explanations,” the Nautolan replied, annoyed by the man’s attitude.
He pointed in the direction of the bridge and motioned them to start moving towards the crime scene.
Eric Mitchell was heavily built and had a very imposing attitude. When he had turned eighteen, he had signed up and joined the Republic Military to fight in the Great Galactic War. With the signature of the Treaty of Coruscant, however, he had had to leave the army and had been recruited by the Galactic Investigative Services, or GIS, to work as a senior operative. His new partner, Aaron Blayne, was a former Jedi who had felt he was obliged to leave the Order because of his dissenting opinions concerning the conduct of the war. Eventually, he had been accepted in the GIS where he teamed up with his old acquaintance.
“Something’s amiss,” Blayne whispered.
“One of ya ‘feelin’s,’ kiddo?” his older partner retorted.
“No… I mean, where is the crew?”
“Good point. So, chief, where is the crew?”
“Dead.” The two operatives the Nautolan was ushering through the cruiser look at each other, puzzled by their companion’s answer.
“Waddaya mean, dead?” Mitchell insisted.
Leids kept silent, refusing to answer, for a minute. Suddenly, he snapped: “Why on Coruscant do you think I called you two here, of all people? The crew’s all dead. And it’s not a pretty sight, believe you me. But we’re almost there, so be quiet and wait for us to get to the crime scene.”
When the door opened on the bridge of the warship, Blayne and Mitchell understood what their guide had implied. There was blood everywhere, each blood spatter covered by more blood spatter. The crew was, well, scattered around in pieces. A large circle had been drawn on the main windshield and there were unreadable writings and forms traced in blood in the middle.
“I’ve seen this before, Mitchell.”
“Me too. I know what ya’r thinkin’ ’bout.”
“What are you two babbling about?” The Nautolan felt left out. After all, he was a supervisory operative, and was supposed to be the one in charge, the one that knew what was at stake.
“We reckon it’s the Sons of the Plague’s doin’. Some kind of Sith cult that’s been around for centuries. Blayne here first went after them three hundred years ago.”
The Nautolan felt more and more self-conscious. He knew that some Jedi lived longer than normal beings, but still… And Blayne did not look a day over thirty. He did not really seem all that muscular (even though the GIS armour helped a lot, Leids remarked) but he was in otherwise good physical shape.
“Long story, chief. I’ll tell you all about it one day,” Blayne said, absent-mindedly, while he was kneeling down to observe the damage that had been done to the bodies. “Lightsabre wounds. This is a first. Only one or two of them, I guess, otherwise there wouldn’t be that much blood.”
“What’s the word from the crime scene unit?” Mitchell inquired without even looking at his supervisor.
Leids took a datapad from the inside of his vest, and turned it on. “All right… So, apparently, the scribble over there is some kind of manifesto. They say they are going to destroy the phoney Republic and the Jedi Order or something like that. They say they will start with the Core Worlds and move on to the capital…”
“Megalomaniacs. I had forgotten that part as well.” Blayne was still scanning through the crime scene while Leids was reading the CSU report.
“Probably. Still, they have killed a whole brigade and none of theirs was killed. Nanobiological analyses confirm. And they have stolen at least two RM shuttles. So, they might have landed somewhere undetected already,” Supervisory operative Leids continued.
“We got a lead?” Mitchell had suddenly decided to acknowledge his superior’s presence.
“As a matter of fact…” Leids move towards one of the consoles next to Mitchell and started to tap away at the computer. Suddenly, the hologram of a planet appeared. “They might not have known that as long as they are on the warship, shuttle transmit hyperspace coordinates to the bridge. They apparently went to Metellos, in the Coruscant Sector.”
“I guess that’s where we’ll start, then. Ya comin’, kiddo?” Mitchell said as he was leaving the bridge of The Vanguard.
“Don’t forget to report…!” Leids shouted while the door was closing behind the two operatives.
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