Freedom of the Press

[Atton Kira]

The crew had departed; Atton had chosen to remain behind, avoiding the ensuing complications that followed their discovery of a young stowaway in their midsts. The girl's background certainly made for an mystery that he was intregued enough in to hope to solve, but in deference to their Captain, he had set aside his reporter's instincts; for now at least.

With a reluctant sigh he eased himself from the bunk, setting down the Corellian murder mystery novel that he'd acquired during their last time in port. His mind had already detected many of the clues that the author had - not so subtly - sowed throughout the opening chapters. It was obvious that the ex-wife's sister was the guilty party, and he was beginning to resent the Coronet Telegraph's assertations that it was 'a literary masterpiece, with twists and turns that will leave you giddy for weeks!'. Then again, he supposed, the target audience probably didn't have his somewhat unorthadox background and training.

He stretched, the vertibrae of his spine crunching under the motion. With any luck, he'd be able to secure himself a more comfortable bunk for the duration of their stay; however long that was.

Their stay. He scrubbed a hand over the carpet of stubble that lined his jaw. It was ironic. Ever since those lowlife engineers back on Nar Shaddaa had 'lost' his ship - apparently, someone had broken into the hanger, held the engineering crew at gunpoint, stolen the ship and somehow managed to outfit it with new transponder codes before smuggling it off-planet, never to be seen again - he'd been stranded among the crew of the Knightfall, waiting for some wiff of a story that might earn him enough credits to get back onto a boat of his own. Here he was now, right in the middle of the biggest story in history; and his word was all that kept him from being able to cash in on the secret of the Jedi's congregation, here at the Wheel.

He shook his head, patting the cone head of his R4 droid as she rested, systems powered down beside him. "Luyfe's a bitch," he muttered under his breath, easing his aching and protesting muscles into standing, with a groan, "And then y'die."

The deck plates clunked beneath his scuffed and battered shoes as he ambled through the ship, tugging on the jacket of the tired blue suit that he habitually wore. The hatch loomed ahead: a great open maw leading down into the impressively white interior of what Atton could only assume was a Mon Calamari ship. The Valiant, he recalled. Reaching for his pocket, he pulled on a pair of tinted glasses, and stepped out into the harsh artificial light and heat deprived atmosphere of the hangar bay.

"Atton Kira?"

Very few things made Atton stop; having a blaster aimed at him by a burley-looking man in a Rebel Alliance uniform just happened to be one of them. The individual stared at him with an unflinching gaze; he seemed certain that his identification was accurate, and yet had phrased it as a question.

Despite the obvious threat in his mannerisms, Atton didn't allow him to flinch. "If I was, I certainly wouldn't admit it t' the guy aimin' a blaster at me chest."

A pair of strong hands gripped both of his arms; apparently in his distraction, he'd allowed the gunman's partner to sneak up behind him. Atton scowled, straining against his captor, but from the feel of it the man was either a particularly burly human, or of one of the numerous near-human species that had the advantage of evolving stronger muscles on one of the higher gravity worlds of the galaxy.

The first gunman slipped his blaster away, and pulled a datapad from his belt. He held it beside Atton's face for comparison, and exchanged a knowing look with his partner. "Mister Kira," he began, eyes scrutinising Atton's features. "I am under orders to place you under arrest, as a possible threat to Alliance security."

Atton's scowl deepened; he strained again against the second guard. "Its Doctor Kira," he muttered under his breath. His head jerked towards the datapad. "Either y're intel is a bit sketchy, or y'can't read, an' the Alliance education system ain't pullin' its weight."

The guard remained stonefaced, save for a slight narrowing of his eyes. "You will come with us, Doctor Kira."

[Grace Van-Derveld]

3 Standard Hours Later

Durasteel blocked out all artificial light coming from the outside doorway leaving Kira with only a small flickering glow lamp behind him. The overhead lights were purposefully turned off. Being in the near dark was usually enough to give a bit of scare in civilians. On the wall to Kira's side, a one way viewscreen was visible only to the Rebel Intelligence officers overseeing the suspects comfort.

One of those officers was the Director of Rebel Intelligence herself, Grace Van-Derveld. As her crew monitored Kira's activity inside the spartan room - one chair in the center that was bolted to the ground, as was the table, and a small toilet in the back corner. There was no sink.

Amidst the idle chatter and punching of switches, Van-Derveld studied the manifest scrolling across her datapad monitor. Atton Kira and the numerous alias' he has been caught using, was a former Republic Intelligence Officer that had turned into an Investigative Journalist - who had a penchant for writing about various mysteries throughout the galaxy. It was uncertain where his loyalty was, but any sort of free press aboard the Wheel was a serious breach of security. It didn't help his case that he didn't identify himself when he first came aboard either ...

[Atton Kira]

Someone had taken the liberty of removing his glasses. Atton didn't like that very much. Granted, in the minimal lighting that had been provided for him, the lack of tinted transpariplast over his eyes was probably an advantage, but they were part of a carefully crafted visage. Not being able to look at an individual's eyes - or more specifically, not being able to read and kind of body language from those eyes - tended to make people nervous. That was one of the reasons why people were so reluctant to trust Rodians: their big, unblinking eyes betrayed nothing; fortunately, most of them didn't have enough brain cells to actually contemplate doing anything sinister.

For Atton, the air of mystery they conjured was part of an array of traits and quirks designed to unsettle anyone he spoke to, thus making them more receptive to his questions. Even if it didn't affect them enough for them to reveal anything aloud, they gave just as much away in how they moved. All of the non-verbal language training he'd endured back with the Republic on Coruscant had managed to come in handy after all.

In this instance however, it seemed he'd need to rely on his interrogation training instead. Minimal lighting was an old trick, but an effective one. Not only did it restrict one of the senses that most species relied upon strongly, causing unrest; it also had physiological implications for many species as well. A portable flashlight to the eyes could cause discomfort: an all-important first step in breaking down an individual's psychological defenses.

That he wasn't restrained was an interesting sign. While he knew that his abductors were likely employees of the Rebellion - self-proclaimed defenders of the exiled Jedi that Barton had brought them all to, apparently - many of their core military servicemen came from Imperial backgrounds. Atton had heard rumours of the kind of techniques that they employed. While he wouldn't allow himself to show it openly, he was certainly relieved at being handled with the 'soft' approach.

His eyes focussed on what was - as best he could tell - the doorway. It didn't matter where he looked, really; there was nothing of any interest to see. But staring steadfast at one point in particular, rather than letting his eyes dart around in the dark, was an easy way of appearing calm and controlled, regardless of his emotional state: something else that Republic training had taught him.

"Y'know," he called, speaking to the empty room. He was being monitored; he could be sure of that. Video and audio, probably. Poor guards must have become pretty bored by now, watching him sit still and do absolutely nothing for however long it had been. "If yer waitin' fer me t' break down and start confessin' things t' the darkness, you're gonna be there a good while longer. And y'might wanna give me a few questions; guide me t'wards what y're after. Might save y' a bit of time when y're analysin' these recordin's."

[Grace Van-Derveld]

"So ... are ya gonna go in there, Boss? Or make 'em not sweat more, heh."

Van-Derveld quirked a brow down at the mousy haired Intelligence Operative assigned to over see this questioning.

They are getting younger and younger aren't they ... she mused to herself, until she realized that she was the one getting older. It was a depressing thought.

Vic was young and full of optimism, even after surviving a raid on Talos by Mercenaries that heard a rumor of a Rebellion safe house. You couldn't tell by his cheerful face, munching on a stencil's end, that he personally killed four of those mercenaries by blaster and by vibro-knife. Details were left out of the official report and the rest of his squad were not open to discuss just how vicious this unassuming scrawny young man could be.

But he was stable and reliable as witness to interrogations. Vic never lost his temper and played by the rules - the complete anti-thesis of Kazaar. It also didn't make her eye twitch every time Vic called her Boss.

"No, I thought we could serve him some coffee and order him brunch," she sniped back.

Vic mouthed an ouch and looked up at Grace just to see her rather pleasant derriere turning the corner - a thought that would always be kept to himself. With a wandering mind, he returned to the one way viewport and watched as the Boss entered the room with a datapad and serious grim (which was pretty much always plastered on her face since Belargic was killed). She sat down and that was his sign to hit the recorders ...


* * *

Kira heard a soft click against the table as the datapad was placed upon it. With no introductions made, Grace slid it to the center so it made be picked up by the accused. His name, several known alias', current, and past, job descriptions, and articles written by Kira were some of the highlights displayed upon the screen.

Van-Derveld crossed her legs and waited patiently for the severity of this knowledge to sink in. Kira was a smart man and should deduce on his own why he was detained.

[Atton Kira]

Atton Kira had nothing to hide.

Well, that wasn't exactly true. He had pleanty to hide, and it was only the fact that he'd spent so much of his life crawling around in the underbelly of Nar Shaddaa that there hadn't been any authorities kicking down his door by now. But the important fact was that he didn't have anyone to hide from. He wasn't a Jedi. Wasn't a fugitive. Wasn't a terrorist; well, save for by association, apparently. He'd walk into a bar, and didn't give a flying kriff if people recognised him by name or not.

But there were times when being yourself proved problematic and, drawing on the skills that his career with Imperial Intelligence had taught him, he had crafted a number of aliases to make his life easier. His eyes skimmed the list that the woman had presented before him, memory pulling out stray factoids to combine with each. There was a corporate lawyer from Coruscant in there; he'd flashed that identity around trying to get past security to interview a suspect for one of the articles he was working on. Another was a Tarisian Professor of Forensics an Psychology; pretty good if you wanted to play the concerned and helpful citizen at a crime scene to sneak an extra glance or two. While the authorities wouldn't have been particularly happy to find out about his 'lets pretend' identities, Atton didn't care that someone else knew; hell, he'd probably have told them, if they'd asked.

What left him a little shaken was that they'd found out anyway. Granted, his efforts had hardly been extensive, never intended to hold up to more than a moderate level of secrecy. He wasn't going into witness protection after all; just looking to fumble his way through a few low-level civil servants. Even so, he took a certain amount of pride in his work and, while he could take solace in the fact that there were a few names missing from the list, that they had unwravelled all his hard work left him feeling a little disgruntled.

Impassively, he allowed his gaze to direct towards the woman opposite, carefully masking his features to avoid giving anything away that he didn't want her to see. She was Alliance, clearly; he allowed the brief arrogant assumption that it had taken the Bothan SpyNet to crack his work, and let that notion buoy his arrogance. Gently, he eased the datapad back in her direction, a hint of a smile cracking on half his mouth. "If y'get me somethin' t' write with, I c'n autograph these for ye."

[Grace Van-Derveld]

His attitude and denial were nothing new to the Veteran Spy. She cut right to the chase.

"You are a Journalist, Mister Kira. One that is quite clever at hiding your true identity to unlock the mysteries of the galaxy," she stated, over exaggerating the response with outstretched arms. "So how did you manage to stumble your way into a secret base of operations for the Rebellion?"

Her tone was deadly serious and there was no need for pretense. He knew exactly where he was, having free roam of the ship in the non-sensitive areas for close to a day. His silence to what he did was just as damaging as to the job itself. There was no one shred of trust left for him.

[Atton Kira]

"It's Doctor Kira, if y' don't mind," Atton replied calmly, scratching casually at an eyebrow.

His hand retreated to his mouth, a crooked forefinger drumming against his lips as he pondered a response, gaze settled on the datapad as a focus. "The term journalist is somewhat inaccurate," he stated, eyes climbing back to look upon Grace with unwavering resolve. "I solve mysteries, t' satiate my own curiosity. Time t' time, I sell the answers I've uncovered. Used t' be that I'd sell t' whoever wanted th' information I had t' offer. Nowadays, I mostly just sell t' th' press; a few extra credits t' make ends meet."

He shrugged; non-commital. "I'm a registered passenger aboard th' Knightfall. Under m' own name, in fact; no deception involved. That ship happ'ns t' be employed by th' Alliance; if y'think m' presence here is a potential breach of y' precious security, then the oversight is on th' behalf of you an' y' collegues."

His arms folded across his chest, head cocking slightly to one side as he frowned heavily at her. "What exactly is this meant t' be? If y' want to know somethin', just ask. If y' here t' ensure that y're secrets stay secret, then hand over a non-disclosure agreement, an' I'll sign it. Hell, I can put y' in touch with more than a few bounty hunters who'd be more than willing t' off me if I break m'word." His eyes narrowed. "Unless y've already got a nice cosy cell picked out f' me somewhere; in which case, this is just a formality, an' y're wasting your time, and mine."

[Grace Van-Derveld]

"You like to hear yourself talk. Don't you, Mister Kira," she said mechanically, refusing to be told how to address the man. It was difficult for the good Doctor to read her at all or what her intentions could be. "We did know you were on the ship and brought you aboard under suspicion for the very facts you just outlined for me."

Her confidence mirrored in her smile, "Thank you for doing that."

Grace moved to her feet and began to walk towards the door, but then stopped short as she snapped her fingers. "Oh, sorry. Forgot to mention that we did choose the cell. Good day."

[Atton Kira]

An unspoken admission of defeat floated across his conscious; he supposed that, when viewed through the tinted lenses of a paranoid faction of fugitives, locking their problems away in a cell was a much more viable option. Unlike the Republic and the Empire, they couldn't fall back on their law enforcements and intelligence agencies to ensure his silence any other way: and if the secrets they tried to hide were ever revealled, they might not survive the damage that the fallout could cause.

At least they didn't pick the 'throw him out the airlock' option, he mused.

Still, the prospect of being incarcerated indefinately was somewhat lacking in appeal. Atton had read in her demenor that the woman viewed this instance with a certain degree of absolution: there was no scope for interpretation; no zone of grey into which he could fall. Even if he did have enough of a lapse in his personal sense of pride to make a plea for his freedom, it was unlikely to be successful.

His eyes narrowed; he needed leverage, and there was something about her that seemed familiar. Had his notes been accessable, the process would have been simple; instead he was forced to shuffle through the various fragments that floated about inside his memory. He grasped onto something relevant. Van-Derveld. One of the Empire's most wanted. Quite a sizeable bounty on her head in fact; for information on her whereabouts, as well as her actual apprehension. A few years ago, the notion of stumbling upon such a profitable discovery might have excited him; nowadays however, it wasn't nearly interesting enough to hold his attention for long.

What was interesting however was the names his memory associated with it. He grasped one at random, tongue wrapping around it and crafting a comment laced with sarcasm to propel in her direction. He had no idea of the kind of reaction it would provoke in Grace, but if any of the names he recalled was likely to, it was it. The Rebellion apparently prided itself on taking care of their own. "I hope I can expect better treatment here than y' friend Dasquian Belargic enjoyed lately," he called, reclining casually in his chair. "I'd prefer if y' settled for a different endgame, if it's all th' same t' you. Not really photogenic enough for a public execution."

[Grace Van-Derveld]

Her back still to him, she visibly tensed. Vic saw it too and was panicking because he had no idea what sort of reaction this would provoke in the Boss. Van-Derveld might ignore it (hopefully), or she could end up beating the dren out of the idiot just because of the memory it invoked. Or hell, she was unpredictable as of late and might end up walking into his verbal goading and give Kira exactly what he wanted - a nice juicy emotional fury so he can twist it around to exactly what he wanted. Which was the Force knew what. Crazy reporters with hidden agendas?

Investigative journalism. Pah! thought the Rebel. Their minds were filled with conspiracy theories with loyalties that could be bought. That was why he was in that cell, and Kira knew bloody damn well that was the reasons why. He was just being a prick since he was caught and backed into a corner he couldn't talk his way out of.

Vic was getting out of his seat just as Van-Derveld turned around. He didn't think the Boss' scowl could reach any lower but the old scar that creased the right side of her face look down right intimidating, though her eyes were starting to betray the hurt of loosing her partner.

She did not turn around entirely. Just enough so that painful eyes could see straight into the ones that belong to the callous fool that had nothing to gain. "You'd best never repeat his name in my presence ever again," she replied with deadly calm, which was eerie - though it was clearly evident that Grace couldn't bring herself to speak Belargic's name out loud.

Vic even stopped, perplexed eyes blinking and trying to think if he should go or stay. He didn't want to jump the gun and be in hot water with her either. She had been surprisingly fair, something the Advisory Council was impressed with, in her duties since taking over as Director of Rebel Intel. But everyone that knew her well enough realized that she reverted back to being extremely guarded and professional. The small indicators of Belargic's influence upon her had been sealed off and never to return. Newer recruits never saw the sarcastic wit of the former Intel Officer. Instead of dry humor, it was callous remarks that disapproved of anything humorous.

So to be heckled by someone trying to save some dignity after being outed, Grace was torn between crying and slamming his mirthful face against the cold metal table.

Much to her credit, she just turned and walked away.

Vic poked his head outside as the doors to the cell closed behind the Boss. His mouth clamped shut as she walked by and ignored him. Which was fine. Seeing Van-Derveld's troubled face and ugly eyes, he rather just let the Boss go off and deal with whatever demons that still were raging inside her...