STAR WARS: HERALD OF FURY

Chapter 26

"Now's not the time for secrecy, boy, unless you're enjoying your captivity in SKYE Building A?"

"Stop toying with me, DarthPwnage, and help me get out of here. Or give me whatever exploit you're using and I can help myself." Kid has spunk; I like that.

"Not going to happen. I'll cut to the chase — I'm working as part of a military operation to rescue you, your parents, and the rest of the hostages. We're still a long ways out from being on site. I can't jeopardize our mission by letting you out of your cell before we arrive, or by letting you muddle around the SKYE network and drawing their notice."

"So you're going to just leave me here high and dry in the meantime?"

Pretty much, kid. But there was something he could do.

"Look, I'll share footage with you so that you can study your guard's patterns and get a sense of the security detail in your building. And I'm forwarding you a layout of the building right now. Be ready when we arrive. I'll unlock the door, even disrupt security footage, but you'd better be prepared for you and your brother to get out."

"I thought you were coming to rescue us!"

"We'll have our hands full with the main group of hostages and ensuring their safety, but I'll try to send help. We may not get there. And say we do, things will be much smoother if you can understand what's going on beforehand. Either way, be prepared to follow instructions. I'll pass on coordinates to you, and try to guide you to safe passage. That's as much as I can do."

It took nearly several moments for the boy to respond; Til'trius figured it was quite the chunk of information to digest. "Thanks. It's amazing anyone's coming for us really. I'd begun to fear the worst. Focus on getting my parents out if you can." An impressive attitude for a kid; a good son.

"We will. Just stop messing with the network or you could get hostages unnecessarily killed. Believe me, I'd know. An earlier infiltration during the first trial cost two lives. Anyway, I've got to get back to prepping for our operation. Nice chatting with you, SarlaccSnax."

"Look, it's Anakin. And there's information I should pass on to you. My brother recognized a tattoo on the arm of one of our captors, who wears a mask and calls herself Chona Fidra. It identified her as one of the Crimson Dawn, a bounty hunter. So the terrorists aren't all disgruntled miners or SKYE employees."

"Chona Fidra..." He ran a search. It was the name of a famous Rodian revolutionary from millennia ago, and several others had donned the name since then. Not likely her real name. "Have a picture of her?"

"Saw her. I'm making an image right now." Til'trius nodded. Anakin could amalgamate a pretty accurate image of the Rodian straight from his memory to pass on digitally to Til'trius. Mental imagery had a short shelf life on reliability, but it was better than anything he possessed.

Til'trius felt excited. He'd known the Righteous Flame was hiding something. A handful of the Rodian miners wore masks, this "Chona" among them, which wasn't in itself particularly unusual. Street thugs often did so to protect themselves from facial recognition while performing illegal activities.

What hadn't made sense was why they bothered using masks if they were going to perform such a public act as a corporate takeover? They'd get caught inevitably. At least he couldn't see a way out for the Rodian terrorists.

So were the masks for mockery, or a fashion statement? That was possible, but Til'trius suspected something more going on. He hadn't figured it out. The problem wasn't conceiving the right reason for it, but in making that right reason stand out against other plausible, although incorrect possibilities.

"There," noted Anakin. "It's done."

A bust of the female Rodian appeared before Til'trius. He extended his arm to increase its size and twirled his clawed index finger to make the bust spin around. He ran a facial recognition on the bust and within moments found a 87.3% match for a member of the Crimson Dawn. 

Til'trius twitched. "Are you sure this is the right Rodian?" he messaged Anakin. "You're not imagining someone else?"

"No — that's her," Anakin responded. "Why?"

Til'trius gave Anakin some lame excuse to not worry him. That it was just as they'd suspected: the miners had hired or inspired a few mercenaries to help advance the cause.

It was a kind lie.

In truth, Til'trius couldn't help but cringe as he gazed on a looming form with a T-shaped visor. That Rodian he'd pictured — Chona — and perhaps other Rodian "miners" were nothing less than Mandalorian warriors.

He needed to inform Kenobi as soon as possible, and seriously revamp his sims.

*** Thanks for reading! If you liked it, don't forget to comment and vote! ***