The Wolf Pack

Chapter 70

"Huh, an assassin droid. How did it end up in the hold?" Rex wondered out loud after they managed to stabilize Kriari.

They were all still a little shaken from the surprise, but mostly alert and already starting to ask questions.

"The question is: Who smuggled it on board?" Asked Kriari with a lot of residual panic in her, but trying to be of help to everyone.

The thought of possibly having a traitor on board did not sit well with any of them. It was a grimm prospect to have to doubt your own. As they all started to draw possible conclusions, they walked over to the protocol droid that had been hiding behind crates ever since the fight started.

"We're looking for the droid who services the cargo bay." Said Anakin with authority.

"Uh, yes Sir. Are all those creatures dead?"

"That's what I'm trying to find out! You're in charge of the Cargo Manifest, right?" He answered, quickly losing his temper.

He could still feel Kriari's panic, her thoughts and emotions were being broadcasted into the Force like the clearest hologram he had ever seen. It was unsettling how much power she had, he was trying to block her emotions from his own Force space and even if he was making a conscious effort, all he could do was filter them. He still felt all of it, only that with less intensity.

All of this was only adding to the frustration he was feeling at the moment. He wanted it to stop, he wanted to stop feeling Kriari's panic, he was so invested in stopping it that his own temper started to flare.

"Uh, yes, I have it right here." The droid seemed to be a bit skeptical of us, maybe it's circuits had been damaged in the fight.

"Well, where did they come from?" At this point Anakin was very clearly running out of patience. The clones were not going to intervene on behalf of a droid and Kriari was a bit too shaken up still to care.

"It is right here on the manifest"

"'For immediate delivery on coruscant, one container marked medical supplies-' there's no name on this chart! There is no indication of who shipped it!" Anakin was very much on the verge of punching the droid, and everyone was so tired of not getting a straight answer that they wouldn't have stopped him.

"No, sir. Just the senate stamp, always accepted for transport here aboard the coronet."

As the droid said that, there was a strange mixture of dread and relief from both Kriari and the clones.

The traitor was not a trooper, it was a Senator.

The relief came from knowing it wasn't a friend or a brother who had betrayed them, and the dread came from knowing the enemy had infiltrated further up the ranks than they were aware of: the enemy had infiltrated the senate. Kriari had managed to tell the Jedi order the moles had most likely found their way up the ranks, but she had never expected them to have made it all the way up to their governing body.

This information sobered Kriari right up. The panic left her like someone had dunked her head in freezing water, and her mind was suddenly clear and ready for action. She could not allow herself a second of weakness, not when the enemy had been influencing the orders and directives that came from the Senate.

Anakin managed to breathe easier when Kriari regained control of herself, at least a little bit. She stopped clinging to Cody and stood up straighter, nodding her thanks at the clones but saying nothing else. Cody and Rex said nothing, and would be saying nothing on the matter. They both knew she had been struggling the past few months and all they could do was support her and not make her feel like a burden. They respected her way too much to question her, not that it would lead anywhere, Kriari was by no means a liability, so they would not intervene.