The music was loud and the multi-colored lights shined on statues, holograms, toy droids, and various other bits of memorabilia commemorating holo vid programs, favorite bands, and other assorted stories. It was a shrine, a man cave, for one perpetually embracing his by-gone childhood.
Allast Prime sat in front of a large array of the most highly advanced computer screens and terminals that money could buy. Only the military could possibly have a more advanced setup. As he sat in front of the computer screens, he fingers flew across the keys and swiped at the holographic screen displays. He had spent the better part of a week slowly and carefully infiltrating the Republic security databases. Allast had a frightening number of electronic trip-wires in place designed to alert him when anyone was looking for him, and a few weeks before several of them were tripped in rapid succession. Whoever was looking for him wasn’t someone with a passing interest; they were looking hard to find him. Back-tracking the source of the signal revealed heavy-duty Republic encryption.
Allast almost panicked. If the Republic military was trying to bring him in, he would have to destroy everything and disappear. Allast forced himself to be calm. Panic spawns mistakes. He had more than enough protections in place that if he needed to disappear, he could be gone long before anyone ever had a chance to get close to him. So slowly, deliberately, he began gently working his way through the Republic encryptions, careful not to set off any off their counter measures. It turns out that the information searches originated from a terminal assigned to one Dargo Karr. After finding the name, Allast had to hack into sealed government files to learn about the man that was trying to find him.
Allast was stunned. If these reports were accurate, this Karr was a genius. Highly decorated by both the Imperial and Republic militaries; that was an interesting fact. But Karr had left the Republic military after little more than a year of service. After that the government kept close tabs on Karr, but it seems that he had no greater aspirations than to sink down into Corusant’s lower levels and become a drunkard, and that is where he remained for years. The only interaction he had beyond hustling bar games was to arrange discrete payments to the daughter of an Imperial Officer that had been killed in action during a battle in which Karr had taken direct action. Some kind of penance, perhaps?
But that’s when it gets strange. All at once, just days before Karr starting looking up information about Allast, the government monitoring stopped. No reports, no follow-ups, nothing. A few days later, a terminal assigned to Karr came online and he began searching Republic databases, the Holo Net, and various other sources, compiling a list of people with specific talents; mostly pilots, but also mercenaries, sharpshooters, splicers, thieves, and even a few washed out soldiers, but no one with direct ties to the Republic. This Karr had obviously been conscripted by the Republic to put a team together that could not be traced back to them, which meant some kind of black op. Allast considered the ramifications of this and could only come up with two possibilities. Either Karr wanted to hire him, or killing him was his mission. Although it seemed unlikely that Karr would be adding Allast to his ‘list’ if he wanted Allast dead. Far more likely Karr wanted to hire him.
No sooner had he realized this than he decided that he wanted no part of it. Allast had never used his skills to hurt anyone that didn’t deserve it, and, besides, whatever the mission that this Karr was putting together was, it had ‘conspiracy’ written all over it. The thing about conspiracies is that everyone involved tends to end up dead, and Allast had no intention of finding himself on the wrong side on an airlock door.
So Allast started setting up a series of electronic dead ends and misdirection. By now, Karr likely knew what planet Allast lived on, but no more than that. That’s fine. Even if Karr came looking for him, Karr would find himself in a series of empty warehouses, restaurants, and, if that weren’t enough to deter him, eventually he would find himself in some of the more dangerous areas of the city.
Allast entered the last few keystrokes and leaned back in his chair, admiring his work. The most complicated web of misleads and dead ends he had ever compiled. He smiled to himself. No one short of a Jedi would ever be able to find him now. For Karr’s sake, Allast hoped that Karr would find another slicer before looking for him, otherwise Karr was in for the wildest goose chase of his life.
A small notification screen popped up on one of the monitors.
“Oh!’ Allast said to himself “The fourth season of Tales of Severenthia has finally gone on sale!”