Name: Cilghal II                    Date: 10-19-1998 23:39

     Great, just what he needed, a Rebel patrol overhead. The transmitter should be safe from

detection, but if they were using bio-scan....Good, the sound of the engines faded and were gone.

Now to get out of here, back to the base, and find this Twi'lek woman. Ro'lana, Bortes had said.

Just what he needed to complicate his assignment. Well, this job needed doing, there was no

getting around it, might as well get started. He made his way back to the Rebel base, inventing

new curses for Bortes all the way.

Dewlanna

        In a corner of the commissary, Dr. Jaynoel Riswok and the former actor Rorik Ceque sat at

a small table.

     "Let me think back to the meeting," said Rorik Ceque between bites of syntho-nerf

burger,  "Were you there when Sam gave his report on Jackbur's duty stations?"

     "Yeah, caught that.  Boy, did Jackbur get around."

     "Well, 'Join the Troopers, see the world' " Rorik quoted.

     "Yeah, the dregs of the galaxy!  How did he end up at so many backwater posts?"

     "You must have missed Kayta's report.  I don't think Jackbur ever had a chance at a good

post, being Corillian."

     "What's that got to do with it?" Dr. Riswok asked.

     "The Empire doesn't exactly trust Corillians.  Figures they're all either overly dedicated

CorSec officers like Hal Horn or major smugglers like Booster Terrik or that Solo kid.....now

there's one who'd make a good rebel, too bad he works for Hutts."

     "I've heard of those smugglers, but who is Cal Corn?"

     Rorik slipped into his famous Corillian peace officer role. "That'll be Ha-Hal Ha-Horn,

me dear.  He's the cop what finally sent old Booster Terrik to Kessel.  Oh, Jay, Jay, you're just

like most of the Galaxy, Thinkin' that we're all a bunch of hooligans." He choked down another

bite of the burger and continued it his usual voice.  "The other thing that disturbs the

powers-that-be is the average Corillian's tolerance of non-humans. And, if Jackbur hadn't had

such outstanding scores on Carida's entrance exams, he'd have never gotten in, given his family

background."

     "Let me guess," said the Doctor, "His mother's a smuggler, his dad a cop, and his nanny

was a Selonian."

     "Close, his mother was with CorSec, and his father taught advanced math at a

species-mixed public school in Corenet City, had the credentials to teach at the University, but

choose to teach poor kids.  No nanny, but he did have a music tutor who was a Drall."

     "Doesn't sound like the type of family background to produce an Imp officer, does it?"

     "Nope, didn't to Gen. Ma'cambo either.  Sam's searching what we have of Carida records

to see what he can find in Jackbur's entrance app.  When we can talk to Jackbur, either Gemma

or the Contessa will see what they can get out of him.  Both of them are VERY good at getting

men to talk about themselves."

     "Well, the family explains being sent to Agamar as his first assignment, but the rest of

them?  Was he an incompetent officer that couldn't be trusted with a post in the civilized world?"

     "No, quite the opposite.  He seems to have been an exemplary officer, well liked by his

men.  Good record with the trainees he was in charge of.  No, his problems were with the

civilian population, mainly young woman and their fathers."

     "Jackbur? He seemed quite nice when I spoke with him.  Not a womanizer. Not even

what my Granny called a 'ladies' man.' Not at all."

     "No Jay, you've misunderstood me.  Not THAT kind of trouble.  No, mostly he got into

trouble with Damsels in Distress," the capital letters were unmistakable.

     " 'Damsels in Distress?'  Like what?"

     "Oh, helping a local governor's daughter leave home long enough to take the entrance

exams at Ord Kippl Engineering School.  The father was furious but the girl was such a genius

that he had no choice but to let her go away to school.

     "Then there was the time he juggled the trooper rotation so a certain trooper, that a sweet

young thing had taken a liking too, would be available to take her to the annual Hunt Ball on

Dstrina.  He's arranged meetings for star-crossed lovers, helped at least one couple elope.... you

get the picture.

     "He got in trouble over aliens, too.  In one case he reported a trooper for ongoing alien

hazing.  The sort of thing that's illegal but most officers turn a blind eye to.  Well, Jackbur

reported the man.  The Base commander had no choice but to discipline the trooper.  He was

sent to a Corucsant mirror station.  Jackbur ended up on Sullust  not long after."

Cilghal II Date: 10-23-1998 00:03

     Jackbur. Jackbur? Could this be right? Caldron thought to himself while scanning

through the base personnel log. He'd found the Twi'lek Ro'lana on the list, as Bortes had said, but

finding Jackbur here was a surprise, and he didn't surprise easily. If he got his hands on that......

              He quickly shut down his terminal when he heard muffled footsteps. Too muffled for

being so close his instincts told him. Someone trying to hide their presence. Someone not

supposed to be there. Were they trying to sneak up on him? Who knew he was here? Or were

they doing some spying of their own? Either way, he didn't want to meet them. But he did want

to discover their identity. He slid into the darkened blind corridor across from the computer

terminal, hid behind a chest-high stack of metal crates stored there, and staked out his quarry.

Jedi Turner Date: 10-25-1998 14:46

:      ... Just as Dr. Riswok was going to excuse herself from the table that she was sharing with

Rorik Ceque, her commlink beeped. "This is Dr. Riswok-" said Jaynoel into the commlink.

     "This is the Comm Shack, Dr. Riswok, your Communique from your colleague Dr.Halty'z

just came in," said the commination's operator.

     "Councilor Ceque, if you will excuse me. I am hoping that this communique contains the

information I need, to bring Lt. Jackbur out of his comma," said Dr. Riswok as she left the galley

and headed for the comm center....

Cilghal II Date: 10-26-1998 00:20

     Caldron stayed crouched behind the boxes till he could get a good look at who was either

tailing him or sneaking around here. Either way, he better find out who it is. A black cloaked and

hooded figure tried to walk noiselessly through this section of the corridor, and up to the

terminal Caldron had been using. The figure paused, turned to the terminal, but the hooded head

was quickly whipped back as Caldron grabbed the figure around the neck with one arm, pulled

back, and put a blaster to it. The hood slipped off, and he was looking at a Twi'lek  female........

Dewlanna 10-26-98 5ish

     As Dr. Riswok hurried down the corridor, toward the comm center, she ran into, quite

literally, Gen. Ma'cambo. "AH Doctor, just the being I was hoping to see," the tall Ca'tharian

said.  "How did that neural scan on Ro'lana come out?"

     "Oh General, I'm so sorry, I was rushing to the comm center, I hope the answer to Lt.

Jackbur's coma awaits me there.  I really must hurry, I don't have time to stop and talk."

     "Well, I'll walk along with you.  The neural scan, Doctor, it really is of the upmost

importance."

     " I hate to disappoint you, but the neural scan was totally inconclusive, the read outs were

meaningless.  I don't know if Tom, Dr. Davies, can't run a simple neural scan on a nonhuman,

or if our equipment is just not up to the task.  I'll rerun the tests myself after I tend to Lt.

Jackbur. What I could gather from the test was the Ro'lana had, at sometime in her recent past,

fairly massive doses of tetra-methoyxryllium with a good jolt of dimethisoryllicquin, and enough

ryll to totally knock out a non-Twi'lek"

     "Are those drugs that I should know about, Doctor?"

     "Only if you traffic in dancing girls.  The two synthetic drugs are often used to..'pacify

the merchandise,' I believe was the term I heard used.  And many dancing girls are ryll addicts,

who could blame them.  Had I  done a routine tox screen on Ro'lana, none of that would have

surprised me.  But, with what you have said about Ro'lana maybe being that Twi'lek blockade

runner, and Ro'lana's own admission of memory loss. Well, if the equipment is working, the

amount of those chemicals is way beyond anything a normal dealer would have given a valuable

commodity such as Ro'lana appears to be.  It wouldn't have killed her, but it most certainly

could have induced a state of mental pliancy that would have left her with only those memories

that had been recently reinforced.  On that basis, I could hazard a guess that someone wanted to

get your Captain Ro'lanavena out of circulation without actually killing her.  I really do need to

run a complete neural scan to see if some telltale sings of mental tampering are evident.  I really

couldn't say now if, assuming she is who you think she is, we can restore Captain Ro'lanavena

to her true self.  Now if you'll excuse me, General, I really must see to Lt. Jackbur's problems.

Cilghal II Date: 10-26-1998 18:24

            Caldron expected a struggle or sheer panic from his Twi'lek, who he assumed was his

quarry. Ro'lana. What he didn't expect was the quick reaction of a trained fighter, with a quick

elbow to his midsection, a swift turn in his arms and a knee to the groin. He was able to block

the last, but not before she'd gotten hold of the small personal blaster she'd had up her sleeve. So

it was a stand-off, was it? She looked as surprised as he felt, but only for a moment. He broke the

pause.

               "Who are you and what are you doing following me?"

                In a bold voice she countered with "Who are YOU and what are you doing spying on

ME?"

                Caldron thought. This wasn't a broken slave girl he was just going to throw over his

shoulder and deliver to Bortes in a bag. There was more here than simple delivery of lost

property. Maybe he could use this to his advantage. The information he'd been able to glean

from the computer before he had had to hastily break off, stated that the Twi'lek Ro'lana had

come to Dantooine base with Jackbur, so now that he had fortuitously found one of them,

perhaps she could help him get to Jackbur without putting the whole base on red alert. She

wasn't just going to come with him quietly, that much was evident. This stalemate of blasters

pointed at  each other had to end if they were going to get anywhere.

                "Name's Caldron. I'm with intel, looking for leaks," he said matter-of-factly.

Cilghal II                    Date: 10-26-1998 18:47

               Ro'lana had hurried down the corridor with as light a step as she could at this speed.

She wanted to move quickly, before those guards retraced their steps  again and blocked her way

to the computer terminal.  What had been going on? Why couldn't she remember  the things

they'd been telling her? Why was her past such a blur, and wouldn't she remember being a

blockade runner for the Rebels? Did they know more about her that they weren't telling her?

This was her past they were talking about, and she needed to reclaim it. Fast. Being on a Rebel

base with no remembered past was a risk.  Would they think she was a spy whose memories had

been altered by Imperials? Were they themselves responsible for this memory wipe, and were

they getting ready to use her for their own purposes? When you can't remember the good, you

also can't remember the bad.  She'd stolen away quietly to get some answers without being

observed. She might be able to slice into some secure files that way. She had just reached the

terminal when her head was snapped backward in a flash, and before she had time to think, her

arms and legs were moving like a cat's, spinning, jabbing, kicking, and ending in her whipping

her stolen blaster out from her sleeve. As she stood looking at the tall, dirty blonde-haired man

in front of her, she was momentarily shocked at what her body had just done for her. Where in

blazes had she learned that? Well, she couldn't confront that now, she had a more immediate

confrontation in front of her. The man demanded to know what she was doing following him.

          "Who are YOU and what are you doing spying on ME?" she heard herself retort. She tried

to size him up.  He was no clumsy Gamorrean-wannabe. This man thought for a living. There

was no winning this showdown.  But maybe, if she played her cards right, she could use him to

get the information she wanted. Just don't trust him, she told herself. Play it carefully, give him

reason to trust you, and our blasters can come down.

      "Name's Caldron.  I'm from intel, looking for leaks," he said.

              Yes, she was going to have to play this very carefully.

 

 

 

 

 

Cilghal II Date: 10-31-1998 16:54

     The answer Dr. Riswok received regarding Jackbur's poisoning was not the answer she

had hoped for. A genetic poisoning? DNA configuration? Individualized murder? New

technology? A copy of the genetic structuring process stolen? This was not good news. So his

individualized antidote had been made prior to poisoning, and couldn't be re-duplicated now.

The only hope was finding that antidote. She needed some help here. She was not a detective,

she was a physician. Her weariness worsened as she looked in on the comatose Jackbur.

: Cilghal II Date: 10-31-1998 16:24

           Jackbur stirred imperceptibly to the med techs near him, and his monitors only showed

slight heart rate and pulse increases. But Jackbur was far from his  body in the med center on

Dantooine. He saw the primeval bonfire first, its orange light reflected off the black robed

figures dancing and chanting their way full  circle around the fire. He looked down, and realized

he had no body here. He was slowly being pulled downward, towards the fire, till he was stopped

in front of a tall black haired woman with a silver star on her left cheek. Her eyes were a

beautiful but evil slate grey, pools of darkness, promising delights on the road to hell. "Give

me back my daughter, Nelson Jackbur, and I will give me back yourself," she hissed.......How

was I to get her back with no body, he mused. And what kind of dream is this.  Llana has her

own life now, and she wants to be left alone now. As much as he had dreaded letting her go, she

could no more be "his" than she could be her mother's. She had found her own life, her own way,

and he wouldn't help the likes of her find Llana again. Of course, it looked like there was this

problem of getting on with his own life too. Lying here in this drug induced coma may have been

Tylana's vengeful doing, but it won't help her get her daughter back.

Cilghal II Date: 11-01-1998 19:47

       From the expansive bay window high up in her castle, Tylana looked down at the large

expanse of land that comprised her manor. It had been worked over the generations that

preceded her, by generations of slaves, although now the preferred term was serf. They were still

essentially owned by the manor with the outward appearance of freedom to leave, but just let

them try, Tylana smiled to herself. With carefully planned  profits and harvests, their servitude

could be ensured for  generations, with little hope of buying freedom. Most hoped, many tried,

but few actually escaped the system. There was that troublesome Twi'lek woman Ro'lana,

though, sister to Fri'lana.  Ro'lana had managed to escape five years ago aboard a supply ship.

The audacity! Well, with her sister safely still here, she knew she would always have some way

back to her, if the need was great enough. And now it was. Ro'lana had dared to try a rescue

attempt of her sister Fri'lana. She had become a rebel blockade runner, she had learned from

trusted

sources, and that evidently gave her the nerve to try to return and save her sister. Strange that she

hadn't changed her manorname, 'lana, before joining the rebels. Well, if she felt it gave her some

sort of tie to her sister, or if she felt it was a symbol of defiance against me, she will learn soon

enough how wrong she is, Tylana mused. She actually thought she could get away with stealing

the antidote to Jackbur's poison, and live? Tylana laughed to herself. Foolish child. Bortes will

retrieve you and what you have stolen, and then we shall see how smart you are, Miss Ro'lana.

You will be mine again. I will have revenge for Jackbur stealing my daughter. And I will have

Llana back. Yes the plan was working out just fine. With the help of those stolen Imperial

genetic lab files, the hiring of a thug like Bortes, and some dark help from the Book of Bahl, the

plan was working out fine.

Dewlanna 11-2-98 6ish

 Rorik Ceque was considering asking the Contessa just how she had come by her impressive

language skills.  He wasn't sure how to broach the subject, so he drank a bit more tea ~this

stuff's as bad as the caf, ~ he thought.  Suddenly Dr. Jaynoel Riswok, slammed open the

commissary door, stomped over to the caf dispenser, drew a cup of the scalding liquid, which

she promptly dropped, spilling it all over the counter.  Both Rorik and the Contessa rushed to her

side, the Contessa with a fistful of napkins.

     "Are you ok, Doctor?" she asked.

     " Yes, no...oh I just don't know" Dr. Riswok said shakily as the actor got her another cup

of caf and the Contessa led her to the table she and Rorik had been setting at.

     "What's wrong, Jay?  Did your colleague have no help for you? No antidote for Jackbur's

poison?"

     The Contessa perked up her ears ~Jackbur?~

     "Bad news, it's a genetic poison, keyed to Jackbur's DNA.  What I thought was a simple

native justice poison is really a very sophisticated bio-engineered poison."

     "Who would....who COULD do such a thing?"

     ~Mother!~ thought the Contessa. She felt the icy fingers of her mother mind, trying to

control her, again. ~How did SHE find Jack here, when I didn't even know? How did she get his

real name when I didn't know it?   She must have found out who he is, if she was able to grow a

poison just for him  How did she track him?  Does she know where I am?  She'll trace me

through him!  I won't go back to her, I'll do ANYTHING to stay out of her reach.  There's got to

be a way to cut the trail without harming Jack! I hope there is, but if I have to........~