Chapter 49: A Clue

The eyes of the guards, both human males, went wide, and the one with brown hair blurted, “Realy, your Rey Skywalker.” The Jedi in question nodded, leading the guard to ask, “The Rey Skywalker that helped destroy StarKiller Base.”

The clocked woman nodded again as the other guard with black hair came in and asked, “The Rey Skywalker who killed the False Emperor.” After a third nod, this guard asked, “Who fought off the Dark Apostles and saved Admiral Sveck?”

Rey was tired at this point and spoke out, “Yes, now may we head inside.”

The two coursed in unison, “Yes, ma’am.”

They swiftly opened the security screens and stepped inside the building. From the way the black-haired man walked, it was clear he had undergone imperial training, while the brown-haired one hunched his back in a way that was common for those who flew X-wings with old scopes. It was obvious the two came from opposite walks of life, and it made Rey happy to see them being able to work together now. This warm feeling swiftly faded once inside as her vision was filled with a virtual war zone.

The walls of the bar were char black from explosions, and slightly darker marks indicated where blaster fire had missed. Broken chairs, tables, and bits of electronics were scattered across the floors, but despite all of this, ritualist markings could still be seen throughout the room. From the outside, Rey had sensed nothing, but on the inside, the presence of the Dark Side was so intense it was suffocating.

The two guards shivered, and the black-haired one began to speak, “I'm all for a Sith Emperor, but this stuff creeps me out.”

The other guard punished his companion in the arm and snapped, “Watch your mouth; we're not having this argument in front of Rey Skywalker.” The black-haired guard snorted at this, and the brown-haired one let out a nervous laugh before coughing into a fist, “Well, as you can see, the crime scene was pretty beaten up. Once the cultists were surrounded, they resorted to kamikaze attacks and destroyed most of the evidence.” While the man was talking, Rey began to move around the room, observing the archaic symbols and objects scattered about. Some she recognized from other cultists she had encountered, while others were foreign. The brown-haired guard eventually found the courage to ask, “Ah, do you know what this stuff does.”

Rey walked over to what remained of a ring of characters inscribed on the floor and spoke in a distracted voice, “This used to be a concealment spell. The cultists should be using this method to hide from me.”

The black-haired guard seemed interested and asked, “This spell, does it use the Force.”

Rey scratched a symbol with a nail and examined the residue before moving on and responding, “Somewhat. Dark Side sorcery is very strange. It interacts with the Force, but its source is typically different.” She smeared as she picked up a rather nasty device she had encountered in the past that was capable of filling a person's mind with nightmare-like visions. Putting the calm down, she elaborated, “It involves gaining power through sacrifice or collecting the negative emotions of people.” The Jedi shook her head and let out a sad sigh, “Many people died or suffered in order to create all these artifacts.”

The two guards gulped, but the brown-haired one also nudged his co-worker and sniped, “Told you so. This is some evil shit.”

The other grumbled back, “These are cultists, not Sith; there's a difference.”

Rey ignored the two, who started to bicker quietly and continued to work her way through the scene. She searched not just with her eyes but with her feelings, opening herself up to the Force. Doing so in such a place of darkness filled her heart with a deep, cutting coldness, though she endured and continued to investigate. Now more than ever, she was cursing herself for her foolishness and getting a forced injury before the Concord had even begun. Compared to her usual investigative ability, the Jedi believed she was only expressing a fraction of her true capabilities.

In the end, she was either too weak to sense anything, or there really weren't any clues left behind because her search came up clean. The one item that had barely stuck out to her was a broken piece of lens, which she could not make any sense of. She took this item and showed it to the guards, willing to try anything at the moment, “Do you know what this is?”

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The brown-haired one shook his head while the black-haired one eyed it and responded, “It looks like the lens for a camera. The bar had several, but the cultists destroyed them all.”

Rey considered this and then asked, “What about the surrounding shops? They must have had cameras, too.”

The black-haired guard nodded and responded, “We used hundreds of cameras throughout the city to track the cultist's movement as much as we could. But there appears to have been many targeted attacks on the electrical grid to ensure security systems went down long enough for the cult's main force to escape.”

Rey nodded and asked, “Could these power outages be connected with anyone.”

The black-haired guard nodded again, “The trail led us to one of the delegates we ended up pressing, but he took poison before we could investigate him further. “

Rey had already read up on the arrested delegates and knew very well they had either died from poison or assassination once captured. Their identities were lackluster and scrupulous, to begin with, and could not be connected to any major faction. Although they were all ex-imperial, they had long been cast out of the major social circles, so few people could claim this was a scheme by the Remnant Generals.

The Jedi shook her head and walked over to Emi, “Let's go to the next base.”

Emi nodded in her hood, and the two swiftly left, leaving the guards a bit surprised and in awe that they had had the chance to be a part of history.

There had been a reason Rey had chosen to visit the hideouts in order that she had. While the bar had plenty of leftover scraps and artifacts, the workshop she and Emi soon arrived at was barren. A potent incendiary bomb had been set off, vaporizing everything within the shop. There were many holes in the walls as well where debris had broken through. The guards here were less talkative and let Rey invitatie in peace. However, after nearly half an hour of searching, she found nothing.

A female Security officer with a prideful expression permanently plastered to her face remarked, “Jedi, you're not going to find any clues here; real investigators spent hours looking and couldn't find even a scrap.”

Rey didn't like the guard's tone or attitude but had to agree. There was simply nothing left. The trail of the cultists was thoroughly cold. Walking out of the shop, she sighed and asked, “Was there really no other suspicious activity in this area.”

The co-worker for the prideful woman, a rather sleepy-looking Rodian, stepped forward and, in a bland voice, explained, “The only abnormal activity was an attack on the neighboring shop when we believe the cultists first arrived. There was some minor petty damage, and investigators were due to come by in the next couple of weeks.”

Rey looked at the guard and repeated, “Next couple of weeks.”

The Rodian nodded and commented, “It's a big city; there's lots of crime. The report, along with other evidence, was enough to help us find the location, so I guess we should be grateful.”

It was at this point in time Rey felt something tug on her sleeve. Looking down, she saw a Jawa in its traditional dress holding a pile of scrap metal. It began to spew off a series of words in its native dialect that left the Jedi baffled and confused. On her home planet of Jakku, Jawas was considered in the upper class, which said something about how default it was to survive there. He had never gotten the chance to meet any and thus had never learned their range.

The female guard, however, became angry at this and snapped, “Shove off, you title bastard. We're not here to pay for your broken junk.”

Rey looked at the woman who didn't look like she knew a word of Jawa and asked, “You know what it's saying.”

Seemingly offended, the woman snapped, “Hell no. She's the owner of the shop that got attacked. An interpreter took her statement. She comes by every few hours, or when new people arrive to demand, we pay her for her damages.”

Rey didn't know what to make of this and looked back at Jawa, feeling a bit bad. This Jawa was just trying to survive in a harsh city and got caught up in a terrorist attack. Taking pity on the angry shop owner, the Jedi squared down and reached into her pocket, pulling out a few New Credits and offering them. The jawa crossed its arms, and Rey sighed, returning the New Credits and pulling out Old Credits, which many shop owners still recognized as the only real money, at least within the Galaxy's inner worlds. Very pleased by this, the lady Jaway solved the pile of scrap into Rey's hands and took the credits. It scurried away a few feet but then turned back, cutting the money, and bowed before rambling on a bit more. Rey nodded back, and the Jawa darted back to its shop that looked rather respectable for something on the 1434th floor.

The female guard rolled her eyes and remarked, “What a waste of money.”

The Rodian indeed added, “At least the Jawa will stop bothering us.”

Rey let out a sigh and stood up, “Emi, let's go.”

The two hooded figures left, though after moving a few feet away, the cyborg commented, “That was very kind of you.”

The Jedi shrugged and responded, “It seemed like the right thing to do.”

Emi nodded and concluded, “Even if the Jawas 'son wasn't really sick, at least you got a broken camera.”

Rey felt a jolt of electricity course through her mind as she looked down at the scrap she was still holding. It indeed was the remains of a camera with a bright blue logo in the shape of a dragon’s head and a very familiar lens.