Silent Songs

It was raining and grey when she left the landing bay, hard enough to send the beggars which usually hung by the entrances and held out their hands for the intermittent mercy and pity of passersby into the shelters they almost never slept in.

The sunlight was muted, a mottled but still bright grey that seemed to cling to the buildings with a slimy and gilded sheen that had everyone lowering their eyes to the ground.

This was Coronet, the capitol city of Corellia.

No one stopped her. Anyone who looked, saw the long cape and the hood, hiding her facial features from eyes which did not pry. She even wore gloves, keeping anything except her rough height and weight to be estimated by any curious watcher.

She continued walking, her pace quicker than those around her. It was almost military in its staccato rhythms. She only slowed and stopped in front of a large building, a number of planetary security officers setting up a barrier to isolate the crime scene.

"Who are you?"

"I am Agent Inspector Iscandar, from Imperial Intelligence," she responded. The security agent smirked cynically. She pulled a small holocard from her pocket, which carried her likeness and information. He looked at it, and at her.

"Hold on," he replied, pulling out a communication unit and speaking quickly into it. After a few moments of back and forth, he placed the unit back onto his belt and lifted the tape. "Head on up, Inspector."

Once inside, she pulled the hood from her head, and looked around the dirty lobby of the apartment building. Ignoring everyone else, she entered the turbolift, and exited a few moments later to the sight of security agents and officers everywhere.

"Who are you?" one asked. He was a taller man, with a few days' unshaved growth on his face. "This is my crime scene. No one is supposed to be in here. Fersi! Hey, Fersi! Yeah, get over here, we got someone in here."

"I am Agent Inspector Iscandar, with Imperial Intelligence, Detective Raviné. Zere are some aspects of zis case, and ozzers, zat I am to clarify for my superiors."

Detective Raviné frowned, but nodded and motioned her into the crime scene.

"I will not be disturbed while I am cataloguing ze scene. Understood? Raviné, stay 'ere. I will speak with you after."

Raviné pulled a cigarra from his pocket and nodded, his face growing as stormy and darkly obstinate as the clouds outside.

"Yeah, go ahead," he said finally. "Don't take too long, sister."

The rain tapped a lonely cadence against the plexiglass that ran floor-to-ceiling in the bedroom, casting rippled shadows on the white carpet. In one corner was a bookshelf, one that actually contained genuine pulp-and-binding books. To one side of the bed was a stack of canvases leaned facing the wall, with only splashes of vivid colors over the tops and sides to suggest the beauty they were hiding. On the other side was a desk with a datapad whose faintly glowing screen displayed an acceptance letter to the Imperial Institute of the Arts, Coronet Campus, to begin classes on the fourteenth of Telona. And underneath, peeking out from the edge of the 'pad, was a ticket on flimsi for a passenger flight to Bespin on the eleventh, which was, if memory served, in the opposite direction.

And then there was the bed. While the rest of the room was tidy and meticulously organized, cluttered only in the sense that it was full of the debris of a rich and active life, the bed was a picture still of chaos, sheets twisted and bunched, fallen blankets pooling at its feet, torn scraps of painted canvas littered over the mattress, and as a tragic centerpiece there lay, in a tortured tangle of limbs and striped lekku, a young Togruta female, no older than seventeen, with a deep and ragged wound across her throat.

Reverend Solomon stood just inside the bedroom doorway with rain spatters across the broad shoulders of his long nerfhide coat and with his broad-brimmed hat held over his heart. Underneath his coat he wore a clerical suit with a black overshirt buttoned up to a tall, white collar that creased as he bowed his head in prayer and meditation.

But his sacraments were interrupted by the gentle hiss of the front door, and he knew, by the sound refracted in the air rather than by any footsteps, that someone had entered the apartment. It was in the living room that the struggle had taken place, where most of the carnage was, and where small beacons projected holo-placards describing points of interest the police had identified - dirty footprints in the carpet, a spilled bag of groceries, a spray of ochre blood across the loveseat. Solomon could hear the stranger moving through the scene, increasing the tension in the local atmosphere by the sheer intensity of her concentration. And then he knew who it was.

For a moment, he considered escaping. And in the next moment he put the thought aside. After all, the two of them were here for the same reason.

The preacher turned around and stepped into the bedroom doorway, a towering silhouette outlined by the dull light of the rainy skyline. "Hello, Inspector," he said. "I didn't expect to find you here."

He had caught her unawares, that much was obvious by the slight tremble in her hand as she pointed her still unactivated lightsaber at him. The dark room silhouetted him and kept him in darkness, where she stood in a band of light cast through one of the viewports.

"'Ow did you get in 'ere?" she asked, glaring at him. "Zis is not a place for civilians."

"I told the detective outside that I needed to perform last rites for the deceased," Solomon replied, with a wave of his hand that might have been a benediction. "He believed me. But I'm sure that story's not going to satisfy you."

He made another gesture, and the lamp on the end table by the sofa switched on, throwing a pale yellow light over the room and across his long, ebon features.

"I mean no harm, Inspector. I've been in contact with Miss Shirii. I'd been hoping to meet her today."

Inquisitor Iscandar lowered her unactivated lightsaber and stared at the man in front of her with wide eyes.

"It is impossible," she murmured. She quickly schooled her features and marched to the doorway, and stared at the young Togrutan female, a small feeling of dismay rising within her. "So it is true, then."

She turned to the Jedi.

"She was Force sensitive?"

Solomon turned with the Inquisitor, and a profound weariness descended on his face and his shoulders at the unhappy sight in the bedroom.

"I never had the opportunity to test her," he said, his voice heavy with regret, "but all the signs pointed the same way. I think it filtered through into her artwork. She had an uncanny sensitivity to the Light."

They both knew he wasn't talking about her painting technique. There were a few of her paintings hung up in the house, a couple still lifes, a portrait of her grandfather - how could there not be, with two parents bursting with pride over a daughter who'd been welcomed into the most prestigious art school outside Imperial Center. But none of her artwork was on display in her room. Solomon had an inkling as to why, based on the ticket to Bespin.

"I sense, Madame Inspector, that this is not the only murder you're investigating."

She stopped, and gazed around the room as if sullenly searching for answers to the mysteries she'd been handed in the walls and paintings. The air was mostly still, but the air filters started up, and a breeze, soft and chilled, brushed across her cheek.

"You are right," she said, finally. Outside, she could hear the low grinding tones of Detective Raviné speaking to another security officer. "A string of murders, and all of ze victims are suspected to be Force sensitive."

She pulled her communicator from her belt and powered it up.

"Sergeant, I need a droid 'ere. Documentation of ze scene is needed."

The small figure of the Inquisitorial trooper saluted and flickered out of being.

She turned and gave the Jedi a look, and then gave her attention to the datapad held in her hand, while affixing the communicator back onto her belt.

"It's the fourth one I'm aware of," Solomon said. "The first two..." His eyebrows pinched together at the thought of Merran Threl and Lucentia Pavan, plucked out of the very circle of the Wheel. "...were already in training. The third was a Iktotchi boy named Anaeis Finn. I found him with his throat cut on Subterrel. Much like this."

He gestured toward the body of Onna Shirii and the gaping, ragged hole where her throat should have been.

"Even at point blank, a blaster wouldn't leave a wound like that. A plasma cutting torch, maybe. Or a lightsaber."

"I was aware of ze Iktotchi boy," Inquisitor Iscandar replied, making a few more notes in her datapad. The Jedi didn't need to surmise that she was unaware of the deaths of the two all ready in training.

"Was 'er training ze only reason you came 'ere?" she asked quickly, her brow furrowing. There were too many questions, and no answers, but she worked in such circumstances every day. She was trained to search for the answers.

Even now, she was studying the room, noting the position of the objects, and especially the body of the young girl. Iscandar herself wasn't much older, being only twenty-three or twenty-four, but the twi'lek Inquisitor had experienced much more than the girl had.

She glanced sharply at the wound.

"Ze wound, it is too roughly cauterized to be a lightsaber," she noted quickly, but refrained from saying anything else. This man was an enemy, despite the fact she did not treat him as such. There was a knock at the door, and she quickly shot a sharp glance at the Jedi.

But he'd stepped back into the shadows at the first sound.

Raviné opened the door and let in the floating Imperial droid.

"You almost done in here?" he asked with a frown.

"I shall inform you when I am finished, Detective," Iscandar said shortly. Raviné huffed and shut the door behind him.

Solomon waited until the Inquisitor had returned to the room. The droid scudded through the living room, its repulsorlifts knifing the air with an abrasive wobwobwobwob as it passively scanned the apartment. The preacher ignored it. He already featured in his share of Imperial records.

"In the first tenth of a second after a lightsaber is ignited, there's a violent burst of ionized plasma before the magnetic field constricts the blade into a stable loop," he said. "Hold the emitter against someone's flesh and push the ignition, and you'll see a nasty wound like that. I saw it done during the Purge."

He clasped his hands together behind his back, content to stand out of the way of the Inquisitor's investigation.

"To answer your other question," he added, "I believe Miss Shirii was looking for a way out. She had no love for the Empire, and she didn't want to use her talents extolling its virtues. She also seemed to think it was only a matter of time before they found out about her other affinities. I got the idea she wasn't keen on joining your outfit."

Iscandar smiled grimly enough that the expression hardly counted as one at all.

"I imagine not," she replied. She regarded the fatal wound and found herself agreeing with the Jedi, from what she knew of lightsabers. "And I imagine so."

The droid took a holopicture of the desk, and scanned the ticket to further identify it. In the meantime, the droid was sending the information to her datapad, and she continued to make notes. The droid hovered by Solomon for a moment, doing nothing but remaining stationary. He moved, and the droid began its work again, avoiding any angles and scans which would include him in the final data.

After another few moments in silence, the Inquisitor made for the door, and opened it. Raviné entered, regarding the Jedi with a little suspicion at first, but soon affixed his suspicions completely on Iscandar.

"Inspector," he drawled, though a little curiosity burned through. Iscandar knew he was wondering what a non-human was doing in her position in the Imperial bureaucracy. "What about this murder brings you out to our little corner of the galaxy?"

"Classified," Iscandar replied. "I want information, Detective. All zat you have."

Raviné's face soured, knowing all too well how unlikely the Inquisitor was to reciprocate. But he lifted his datapad and began walking them through the particulars of the case. Onna Solarii Shirii, seventeen standard cycles, daughter of Tanek and Anadesia Shirii, who both worked for an interplanetary real estate firm. The parents were away at a conference for the weekend, leaving Onna home alone. The neighbors had an apartment key, came in this morning to check up on her only to find her dead, called the cops in a state of panic. Quiet neighborhood, nobody reported a break-in. The door hadn't been forced. They had people reviewing security footage from the lobby and the elevators, and they were already canvassing a list of Onna's acquaintances, including two boyfriends who'd departed on less than even terms. No solid leads yet.

The detective glanced up from the last line of his case notes and turned a suspicious eye toward Solomon. "And what's your role in this investigation, Reverend?"

"I am assisting the Inspector," Solomon replied. "Anything past that, you'll have to take it up with her."

Raviné eyeballed the preacher, then gave a sigh of resignation. Picking a fight with the Inquisitoriate wasn't in his pay grade.

Iscandar's own eyes went to the preacher, surprised as much at her own agreement with his statement as the statement itself.

"I want more information, Detective," Iscandar said, powering down her datapad and stowing it on her belt. "Everyone she knew, where she went for primary and secondary educations, who worked at zose institutions, for how long."

Raviné grumbled, but Iscandar smiled again, this time a bit more genuinely.

"I am not using you for slave labour, Detective. I will be researching as much as you. Look into 'er past relationships, but it can be reasonably assumed zat 'er previous partners are not to blame for zis."

"How can you be sure?" Raviné asked.

"You do not think so eizzer, do you Detective?" Iscandar replied quickly. "'Ow could you? Five murders in three months. Almost nothing to indicate zey are related, but even for zis place it is not so normal for so many to die like zis."

Raviné stayed quiet through Iscandar's explanation, but nodded at the end of it.

"Fine. I'll start digging up what I can. Meet me at Corazo's Diner on 467 Adimina. Five hours."

He marched out, shutting the door firmly behind himself. Iscandar turned to regard the Jedi, an ironic look on her face.

"Since you are 'elping me with zis, per'aps you can do ze same? Or I can take you along to my next destination."

"I think I'd better go along with you," Solomon said. "We can compare notes on the way."

Outside the apartment building a black, unmarked speeder idled in the roundabout with its wipers churning the rainwater off its canopy glass. The Inquisitor climbed in and beckoned the preacher after her, and she gave a clipped order to the driver, who pulled away from the curb and merged into the morning traffic.

"Five murders, then?" Solomon rumbled. The words tasted bitter in his mouth. "This is the first I know of on Fell Astar."

Iscandar paused again, but nodded finally. The Jedi was all ready a part of this investigation, and he had information that would undoubtedly prove very useful.

She reached into a compartment along the side of the speeder and pulled out a device, no larger than a credit chit. She placed it into the bracer fitted on her right wrist, and pressed a small button beneath a display.

"Zere 'ave been five murders in a three month period 'ere," she said, crossing her legs and watching the driver through the sound-proof glass. "It is not known if zey are all related, but one of zem was a known Force sensitive, if untrained. Zere is suspicion zat the 'unter is targeting Force sensitives, given the lack of evidence of any ozzer reason for zese particular murders."

She passed Solomon the datapad she'd been working on in the apartment.

"Ze first murder was of a Force sensitive we 'ad been keeping tabs on; 'e was trying to get in touch with ze Jedi, and we 'ad 'im tagged. 'E came 'ere, probably looking for you. After three weeks, ze signal disappeared. We looked in on it, and found an article on ze local 'olonews about 'is murder.

"A more thorough search revealed two more murders, and zese were of people 'e 'ad met. Given 'is search, we searched zem and found one did exhibit signs of Force sensitivity while zey were alive."

She sighed, and looked out the viewport of the speeder, though the scene outside was blurred, like bad water-colour painting. It was a truly horrible day, and they were not even at noonday yet.

Solomon listened and continued to read the datapad, containing notes on the method of killing, the estimated time of death, and the circumstances found about the hours before the victims being investigated by the Inquisitoriate had died. Two were human, one a zygerran, and the fourth was a Gossam accountant/slave for a business man who worked with the manufacturing of electronics and repair parts for Imperial weapons and ships. His name, Sho Mok, was followed by a question mark, followed by the notes 'rare for one to be Force sensitive', and 'no prior signs of sensitivity recorded'.

"Zis is not a small city. Ze people are not open, and most are too cynical to speak unless arrested and threatened with a term in prison."

"There are ways to loosen people's tongues without resorting to intimidation," Solomon replied. He glanced up from the datapad and caught a stormy look of skepticism from the other side of the seat.

"Of course," he added, "if it looks like I'm not getting anywhere, I can always step out for a cup of stimcaf."

He returned to the datapad, and his eyebrows lowered like frowning stormclouds. "I know this first name," he said. "Resh Onarri, I was in contact with him. A steelworker from Druckenwell. I told him I'd swing by there when I was done on Fell Astar. I guess he couldn't wait."

Solomon tapped through the rest of the case notes. Most of the information was new to him, aggregated and gridded out with the ruthless efficiency he'd come to expect from the Empire - at least, from those sectors that weren't yet corrupt. He couldn't help wondering how much good he could do with just fifteen minutes of unfettered access to an Imperial census registry.

"I'm sure I don't need to tell you how difficult it is to find Force sensitives by any conventional means," he said. "If our killer is seeking out adepts, it's reasonable to assume that he is an adept himself."

Palara did not answer for a moment.

"Yes," she said. "Zat is ze assumption I am operating under as well."

The rain was slowing in its fall; they could see through the viewports clearly now, straight into the facades of office buildings and factories, all built by the Empire. They were efficient buildings, in every testable way, but they were ugly, built without any care for aesthetics at all, for the people who would have to look at them everyday for the rest of their lives.

They had entered the manufacturing sector of the city. It was darker, not because of pollution, which came mostly from the older factories farther in, but from the colours of the buildings themselves; they were all slate grey, and black.

The speeder stopped in front of one of them. A long line of people filed in through the front of the building, leading up to a teller droid sitting behind thick, reinforced glass of some kind.

Iscandar marched past the workers placidly, but still quickly. In this mostly human city, her features and lekku, no longer hidden since she had pulled the hood of her cloak down, she caught the eye of many of them.

"Name?" the droid asked.

"Harivel," the man in the front of the queue said. "Merrak Harivel."

"One moment please," the droid responded. "You have earned four-hundred and thirty credits for the past pay period. Please sign."

Merrak looked tired, beaten, and still managed to look crushed by the total he'd been given.

"I should have made six hundred."

The droid's answer was lost as Iscandar skirted past a janitor, who looked up, almost surprised at her being there, before moving to the side with a mutter and grunt and ignoring her. Behind him was a set of doors that resembled blast doors, with less armour.

As they approached, the doors opened, revealing a short, chubby man, balding, wearing nice, if old and somewhat faded clothing and boots.

"Inspector!" he said, rushing forward to shake her hand, but changed his mind at the last moment and bowed low and quick, straightening as if his spine were a spring coiled too tightly. He frowned on seeing Solomon flanking the Inquisitor. "I'm glad you could come. Who - who is this?"

Iscandar dipped her head slightly.

"'E is none of your concern," she answered, but the man looked dismayed to see another person.

"I'm sorry Inspector, but I - "

"Enough," Iscandar commanded. "'E is assisting me with my investigation, Master Dellyrd. Zat should be enough for you."

He nodded tiredly, as if he couldn't bring the energy to be dismayed anymore. He pulled a handkerchief from a pocket inside his faded coat and wiped his brow.

"Come," he gestured. "We should speak up in my office. It's much better up there than down here."

Dellyrd led them through the doors into a small room lined with hazardous material suits and masks.

"Only needed for emergencies," he explained, waving a hand as if brushing away any questions they had, and striding toward a second set of doors which slid open as he neared.

The doors led to a metal grating, which looked out over a large factory floor. A catwalk shot over the floor straight and unerring to the other side, where an office, likely Dellyrd's was perched, large viewports allowing an unfettered view of the place. Steps led down from the grating to the floor, where workers moved around, checking machinery and moving products to, a room to be picked up and shipped out.

"I run an efficient business here," Dellyrd said, looking from the Inquisitor to Solomon and back. An unlikely duo, to be sure, but Iscandar's position and Solomon's appearance and clothing intimidated him quite thoroughly. "Inspector and... sir."

"I am not 'ere to discuss your business," Iscandar said shortly. "I need ze events surrounding ze death of your accountant... a Gossam, Sho Mok."

Dellyrd sighed and pressed the combination to unlock his office door.

"How much do you both know of it?" he asked. Upon receiving silence as an answer, he continued. "Sho was just finished running over the numbers for the day, and was getting ready to leave. He left through the freight entrance. I wasn't there, but he saw someone getting murdered. He had enough time to raise the alarm, but was killed. He apparently survived long enough to tell the security officials that the killer was using some sort of bladed weapon.

"It's such a shame," he said, looking over his desk. "Sho was something of a wizard when it came to numbers. He was able to do incredible things in the name of efficiency, and sometimes how he was able to streamline things was just... uncanny."

Solomon thought back to the question mark by Sho Mok's name in the Inquisitor's case notes. Had he been another target or just an unlucky bystander? The blessing of the Force came in many forms - an adept could just as easily show a preternatural talent for numbers and logistics as for combat. But it wasn't uncommon for Gossam to show uncanny business sense, and even during the height of the Republic it was rare to see a Gossam adept.

"Does he have any relatives on Fell Astar?" Solomon asked.

Dellyrd turned uncomfortably toward the preacher. "Not that I know of," he replied. "Sho kept to himself, mostly, and he never talked about home. I don't even know if he was from Castell or from the colonies. He was a model employee, so I respected his privacy."

"Show us ze scene," Iscandar ordered. Dellyrd nodded quickly.

"Right this way, if you please," he said, leading them down a set of spiral stairs. "Our facility uses up quite a bit of room, and our lower floors extend down almost 150 meters below ground level. If we were going down there we'd use a turbolift, but it wouldn't be very cost effective to go down just one floor, would it?"

He grinned back at them as they tramped down the metal staircase.

He led them through the middle of the bustling factory, and hurriedly waved some of the more curious workers off.

"Back to work, back to work, ha ha, no time for loitering!"

They left the factory floor and entered the loading bay, a darker enclave that was open to the outside, and a side road cut along between Dellyrd's building and it's neighbour. Within the garage-like structure a hauler sat, almost completely loaded down with crates. Some of the workers moving the crates stood and took off their caps in greeting.

"Never you mind," Dellyrd said. "Just getting Sho some justice, I hope!"

He jumped awkwardly down from the landing where the crates and packages sat, waiting to be loaded onto the hauler, down to the ground and strode quickly out into the middle of the alley.

"It happened around here," Dellyrd said, looking a bit flushed. "My cameras don't scan out this far, so we only see him walk out to here, and then run back and hit the alarm before the attacker came up on him and hit him with that weapon."

"Where is ze footage of ze event?" asked Iscandar. Dellyrd grimaced as he wiped his face with a handkerchief.

"It's all recorded and saved onto a central server in the security office," he said.

"I want to look around," she replied. "Go get ze footage ready for viewing."

He nodded and left, leaving the Jedi and Inquisitor alone in the alley, save for the odd curious glance sent their way by the workers still in the loading bay.

Iscandar looked around.

"Ze security system 'ere is of an older model, with less definition of backgrounds, and poor resolution at night. Zey also 'ave problems with transferring recorded 'olos to ozzer systems," she said, glancing at the buildings around them and noting possible exit and entry points. "Sections of ze record go missing, and poor resolution becomes... 'ow you say, a nightmare."

An uninformed observer could be forgiven for thinking that Solomon wasn't paying attention. He'd wandered a few meters away from the Inspector and was slowly surveying his surroundings: oily streets crowded by sheer duracrete walls, slick and glistening from the rain, pallets of crates stacked high and awaiting delivery behind a chain-link fence, the occasional load lifter and the curtain of fine spray its repulsorlifts raised from the saturated blacktop as it scudded through the yawning factory doors. There were Jedi who looked at such a place and despaired of finding the rhythm of the living Force in a canyon of concrete and steel, but Solomon had been born on Coruscant, and he knew better. The Force followed life, and that was as true in a city as in a wilderness.

"There are other ways to look into the past, Inspector," the preacher replied. "Some Jedi investigators had a skill called postcognition."

He turned to find her studying him with guarded interest. "Even those who are not sensitive to the Force leave their mark on it," Solomon said. "Mighty deeds and strong emotions may resonate in a place long after the people have passed on. That's why we speak of some places being strong with the Light Side or the Dark Side of the Force. I can sense something of the Dark here, now. If you'll permit me, Inspector, I might be able to guide you in listening for it."

If nothing else, she was grateful to the Jedi for continuing to address her as 'Inspector', instead of 'Inquisitor'. Despite her instincts telling her that he was being truthful and that there was no guile in his words, she continued to look at him guardedly.

"I would," she said finally; to learn a new skill like this would benefit her greatly, but why would he freely give her this knowledge? He could just as easily do what he was saying himself and direct the investigation from there. Why waste time and teach her a skill she would undoubtedly use against Jedi in the future and, possibly, against him?

"Show me zis 'postcognition'..." she paused, unwilling to say 'Jedi', but unsure of what else to call him. The collar he wore undoubtedly referenced his public persona, though she was unaware of its meaning and title. If he would be circumspect and not reference her true profession, she would do the same for him.