It Reminds Him of a Story...
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Post Obroa-skai, pre-Fondor
When you think intelligence work, you think of cloak-and-dagger skullduggery. Secret drops and data-cubes hidden the soles of boots, holdout blasters tucked up sleeves and secret handshakes in seedy cantinas. You think of bold agents wooing ladies with fluttering hearts and cunning wordplay exchanged over long-stemmed snifters of wine during extravagant galas. You think of slicers with holo-goggles hanging upside down in dark rafters, tapping into databanks guarded by goons with stern expressions and sterner blasters. Maybe interrogations in dingy basements.
Those were all mostly true, actually, because he'd been on one side or another of just about every one of those adventures in his years. Something that everyone overlooked though, was the honest, simple and pleasant job of people watching.
After the whole affair with Delta Source, you'd think unobtrusive observation would be on more people's minds, but apparently not. It just wasn't as sexy, he supposed. Strolling down a street in broad daylight, full view of everyone, wearing an ident-tag pinned to his unzipped jumpsuit just wasn't as fantastical as blasterbolts in the dark and swoopbike chases.
His ident declared him a licensed trader. These Exiles, along with throwing open their doors to refugees, also started allowing limited traffic for trade. There wasn't much on the market, since by all appearances the locals were enjoying all the pleasantries of a planned economy, but there was a remarkable amount of credits in escrow accounts and standing orders for a lot of simple goods. Foodstuffs, raw materials, some specialty technology. Requirements to get certified were steep - had to be human! - and there was a tonnage limit on freighters, but with the location of Eboracum (and it would just be bad taste not to use the official name) and the security provided by the monster dreadnoughts in orbit did entice in private traders who'd lost their usual ports-of-call.
His own freighter, an aging Nova Courier, had a hold slowly emptying of ag products and a couple crates of repulsor coils. The local guilds handled offloading, part of the Exile's security demands, which left him plenty of time to wander around the portside facilities of 'Eboracum Civitas'.
The offerings weren't bad. There were two 'cantinas', though they had much more in common with plaza cafes. A boardwalk wended around a small lake, which had a surprisingly amount of green preserved along the shore, and small vendors offered a variety of snacks and fingerfoods from carts. Alongside Basic, their signs also declared offerings in the local language: Gothic.
They took credits here, though there was also an exchange set up to convert to, again, the local preference: thrones. Take all this alongside the fresh-faced and pleasant constabulary that conspicuously wandered around, offering guidance or directions with big smiles and a plot of land set aside that had several massive tanks and a thick-armored gunship sitting inactive behind a delicately worked iron fence, and the point of this all was so obvious.
It was all pantomime.
The local guilds handling offloading everything for you? Gave freighter captains and crews time to wander and mingle with the 'locals'. The cafes? Unique fare served up fresh and hot, contrasting boring shipboard rations. The little parking lot of tanks? Everyone, look at our toys!
There were even rooms to rent at a small hotel, which he had on good authority were plush and well-appointed.
This is why people watching paid off. He got to stretch his legs, fill his stomach with something fried, greasy and delicious, and best of all, not have to worry a second about a knife coming for his throat. Well. He still kept an eye out. Old habits and all that.
He took a carbonated, mildly alcoholic mix from a vendor. His five fingers briefly brushed their four.
They were Arkanian. Not even a five-fingered offshoot, but a full blooded Arkanian. White hair, white eyes. Tanned complexion. Interesting.
"Enjoy!"
He smiled his ten-thousand credits smile, because it always paid to be nice. That's the thing with people-watching. You needed to blend in. Be pleasant, because folks will remember a bad customer, but benign enough not to stand out as 'that one really nice guy'. It's a careful dance and it's one he was thinking he was maybe a little rusty at.
Nowhere near as good as some of his people, but that's what having people was for. You had them do things like this. No man was an island and what was the point of getting rich if you couldn't delegate? He didn't have to come to Eboracum himself but he was in the area and it caught his attention and you know what, following his gut instincts paid off in the past.
Across the boulevard, sitting proper and tall was a human woman, middle aged. Very striking, even in a spacer's jumpsuit. Her hair was tied back with long, decorative pins. Their eyes met, slid past each other, natural as could be.
She'd be meeting him later, but right now was still pretending unfamiliarity.
Unfortunately, she'd gotten here earlier than the plan, which meant the clock was ticking. A hundred, maybe two hundred various humans and near-humans were visible as he ambled away from the vendor's stall, sipping his beverage. Both locals, constabulary and offworld crews. Well, he wanted to enjoy this interesting little concoction before getting to business, but if she was going to cheat and show up early, then it was time to get to work.
He'd already twigged the guy pruning bushes. A local - obviously a newly naturalized one - but even with contacts and some minor implants in the cheeks, his bone structure was too distinctive. Candrel Let, out of Yaga Minor. Imperial Intelligence, usually non-intrusive assignments. An observation, long-term deployment guy. Might even be Ubiqtorate, but that was a fool's bet.
The Remnant was here already, of course. Anything the New Republic cared about, they had to. Given the location of Eboracum to the Remnant, that too made it a priority. Word was that Pellaeon was scrambling to get together a diplomatic package, since the New Republic had beaten everyone else to the punch. Word from Bastion had their time table in less than a month, but that wasn't a sure thing.
Then there were the two women giggling with their heads together at a cafe. They were people watching too and pretending it was only the masculine specimens that passed them by. But they were only here during the day and they were both above average height and fitness. Easy on the eyes, but really. You'd think Hapes would be less obvious with their agents.
Why did Hapes have people here? Now that had him rubbing at his chin. The little cluster was famously inward looking, usually needing industrial scale tractor beams to haul them out of their navel-gazing - or Leia Organa Solo. Was it just prudence to keep up with what was drawing so many other eyes? Nothing in Queen Djo's record pitched her as a particularly proactive ruler.
Then again - Hapes. There was a good chance the Queen had no idea these two were here and it was all the action of some rival family. It wouldn't be the first time a rival tried to depose their 'savage' Queen and looked for support in doing so. Maybe the Exiles could bring the Hapans the technological advances the rest of the Galaxy had been denying them.
Those three were three points to him, because screw her, he'd already noted them before she showed up. He's got the entries on his datapad to prove it. With timestamps.
A whole crate of forty year old Tholk brandy was on the line and he'd be damned if it slipped through his fingers.
Even if he'd still end up drinking half of it. It was about pride, after all.
NRI? He'd already picked up three of them. Two he had even worked with - or his organization had, rather - in the past ten years. Easy points, almost insulting actually. The third was good, way better than he expected: one of the local police. He wore the uniform too easily and too comfortably to be a newly inducted refugee. He had too much experience with authority. He'd have to check the databanks against his discreetly snapped holos, but the face and posture were familiar.
Then there were the other ones, the little guys. A Zeltron out of Nal Hutta. A rare Human working with the Bothan Spynet. He was fairly sure that Nouane had some agents, though he hadn't been able to sight any. Others that he knew from smaller brokerages and intel networks, all getting their sticky little fingers in the second the door creaked open even a sliver.
All of them had their own interests. The Bothans, paranoid as they always were, saw the New Republic's overtures and needed to bank up some investigative capital so they could feel secure in the face of a new player on the galactic field. The Hutts, given that their tentative peace with the Yuuzhan Vong was as sure to last as long as a Tatooine winter, could either be looking for an ally, a mark, or a new market for their 'delicacies'. Considering how straightlaced the Exiles seemed to be, setting up a spice trade had to be the lowest possible goal. The most likely aim was some manner of currency to keep currying favor with their new, scarred overlords. Anything to let the Hutts squelch along for another month before their usefulness ran out.
For Nouane? That sector was practically on Eboracum's doorstep. Already seeing Vong tendrils snaking into their territory and the New Republic Navy continuing to sit on their hands, those looming dreadnoughts of the Exiles likely looked inviting. A standard defensive alliance, probably, and getting a measure of their new neighbors before an official overture.
In the couple of days he'd been here, the old joke kept coming to mind. Seeing the sheer, laughable density of seasoned intelligence agents in a few square kilometers reminded him of a classic, apocryphal story. He'd recently heard a version of it that filtered from Corellians: there's a radical cell of Corellian nationalists. Selonians, Drall, Humans. They're operating out of Coronet and they have a plan to set explosive charges at a local Corellian Engineering fabrication plant. CorSec finally has enough information to roll up the cell, so they bring out armored landspeeders and a dozen cops. They kick down the doors to the hideout, just in time to see every single member of the cell in the process of arresting each other.
Turns out, that radical cell had been all undercover agents. Not a single Triad true believer.
So you've got Ubiqtorate trimming the hedges, Hapans ordering mimosas from the Spynet, while the Hutts swept the floors and he could only imagine how hard the Imperium Exiles were laughing at it all.
He ran ringers through his silver-streaked hair, tugging gently his goatee into place.
"You really stand out, you know," says the cheater, who'd left her bench and circled her way over while he was lost in thought.
"And you weren't supposed to be back until tomorrow."
She shrugged, making the gesture elegant with her usual and permanent poise.
"I finished early."
"Total count?"
She offered a datacube between two long fingers. Unlike an actual swabby on a freighter, her nails were straight and manicured, painted in cool tones with nary a chip or crack in sight.
"Thirteen," she said, grin widening as she tasted victory in his dejected expression.
"Damn. Ten."
"You're old and out of touch, Karrde."
"I'm fairly certain we're the same age."
Shada D'ukal took his offered arm, linking her own through, and Talon Karrde led the way.
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Moranda Savich was old enough to be Karrde's mother. Possibly grandmother. A lifetime of hard liquor and cigarras left her oddly preserved - in the sort of way that nerf leather could be. Yet the woman loitering outside one of the freight port entrances looked no more than sixty or so standard years old. Silver hair, tied back in a tail, looked soft and healthy. Wrinkles at eye and mouth made her look distinguished, instead of Moranda's usual craggy countenance.
It wasn't vanity that pushed this change.
Savich looked over Karrde and Shada on his arm, heaved a long and throaty sigh and tucked her datapad into a pocket of her flashy, Coruscanti-style suit.
"I go through all this effort, and then you show up looking like a holovid."
"I can't imagine what you mean."
Exasperated, the mistress of disguise looked imploringly to Shada. Karrde's right-hand seemed entirely too interested in the convoys of groundcars leaving the starport.
"Shada and I have seen more than twenty agents in three days. You heard about Luke's Jedi?"
Savich ran a finger along her lapels.
"The droid and the boy? I saw them. Fools and flatfoots, both of them. Young Skywalker needs to rap his Jedi on the knuckles, that's what. At least that Durron stopped running around like a womprat on fire. But those two? I was shadowing them from the second they landed and they couldn't have been more obvious. Can you believe an HRD can look angry? That woman was beaming blasterbolts with how much she was glaring. They went right to the disposal pits. Who does that? Not any real refugee, that's for sure. If I had-"
"I was surprised they let them live." Shada cut in, one hand twiddling with the lacquered needles in her hair. Give Savich time, and she'd ramble for hours.
Savich snorted. "Live alright. They put enough stuns into the Ken boy that he probably woke up a week later and took both of the droid's arms off."
"But both 'unharmed'. These Exiles are smooth operators." He gestured around, at the freight port, to the more distant refugee landing fields, to the towers of the city that seemed to visibly grow as you watched. "I haven't seen propaganda this polished since the Empire."
Savich huffed.
"Shows your youth, that does. Why, back when the Clone Wars, you should have seen what it was like on Coruscant. Clones on every corner! You wanna talk hearts and minds? That was hearts and minds, and all Palpatine's doing."
Savich rambled on. She loved the sound of her own voice, but few infiltrators in Karrde's organization were as accomplished or as unbelievably talented as she was. She could code-switch in seconds, do up makeup and prosthetics that could trick any scanner and confuse natives with a better command of their own local sayings.
"-and that's all well and good, but I'm retiring here."
"Are you, now?" Karrde raised a brow, glancing to Shada who showed her incredible surprise at the intractable thief by slightly narrowing her almond-shaped eyes.
"The alcohol's better here. So are the smokes. I'll stick it out as long as you want me to, boss, but I'm putting in roots when it's over." Savich held out a laminated ID tag for both of them to study. "This girl's already approved for 'provisional habitation'. They've liked the freight I've had coming in. They've got an eye for talent, these Exiles."
"I'm glad they appreciate my connections," Karrde observed, mildly. Savich didn't even blink.
"And my go-between work. What? You sent me here for a reason, boss-man. Don't get shirty."
She showed them to her ship, setting them up in the lounge. Savich had ditched her old, flighty scout ship and taken one of Karrde's numerous Corellian freighters, large enough to meet the demands of the Exiles. With their new deal with the New Republic Senate, the doors had been flung (with caveats) open. It was big enough to bring in profitable hauls, garnished with specialty goods only an organization like his could source, but like everything, moderated so it would never stand out entirely from the crowd. Aim for the upper echelons, but never the top.
"I'd grumble that you blew my cover, but that was before I saw how infested this port is. They're like mynocks out there. Can't swing a dead polecat without clubbing Ubiqtorate or NRI."
"Noticed that too, then?"
Shada was adjusting her hair, shifting her needles around, though Karrde stayed perched on the edge of his offered seat, hands clasped and elbows braced on his knees. Of course Moranda pegged the same people he and Shada did.
"I'm guessing since you went 'round, smiling at the local ladies all sultry-like and showing off those silver stripes, that you want these Exiles to know I'm yours."
"You're as perceptive as always, Moranda. Luxum and Ken made their mistake by overreaching. I would lay Nar Shadaa odds on Ken being let in without issue. Bringing an alien in a droid body too? Bad decision."
Savich lit up a short little cigarra with a click of a flick-burner, taking a long draw and exhaling in pleasure.
"It's all realpolitik. The Exiles know they can't keep out all the interested eyes, so they let in the ones they know and watch them. But there's always a fig leaf. You just ripped that one away. Captain Talon Karrde, Rogue and Hero, out for drinks on the promenade. I bet the local holonet is going to be proper choked up as everyone tries to phone home about this."
Shada lifted up a long leg, propping her boot against the low table between the three of them and adjusting the fit of her boot.
"And with his right-hand," Karrde said, poking a thumb over at D'ukal. "Who is as quiet as always."
"I'm here to be easy on the eyes," Shada demurred. "And maybe to kill people."
"None of that now, girlie. There'll be no killing and upsetting my position."
"The idea," Karrde cut in over Savich, "is to set you up as my public contact. I'm above-the-board now, didn't you hear? A proper, licensed and legal information broker. Nothing shady at all about us. Bastion and Coruscant both come to me, I'm impartial. Don't advertise, Moranda, but be available."
The grey-haired woman tapped at her thin lip, mulling it over.
"And if they let me in anywhere, they won't imagine the intermediary is the best damn thief in the galaxy."
"I didn't hear that. Our organization is entirely legit."
Savich cackled.
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Savich's report could have been sent as datadumps through shadow-routers, but the trip was well worth it. Eboracum and the Exiles were setting themselves up as a new power in the region and Karrde liked to have seen where people came from. He'd been to Bastion and Coruscant - everyone knew Coruscant - and he'd bounced around to most major capitals. It's context. Information was great, but if you couldn't properly see where it came from, how it all slotted together… Savich gave her impressions, including bringing the news that something was afoot. Exile sailors were returning to their ships from shore-leave and word had it that the new, massive fort was ablaze with new activity.
He'd seen some of the baroque Imperial ships moving around in low orbit near the growing orbital station and it had all the looks of a muster. His friendship with the Jedi and their Praxeum gave him an intimate knowledge of exactly what had gone down on Obroa-skai, in contrast to the sanitized and brief public release. Mara had also reached out to him, hoping his own slicers and analysts could dig through the recovered data from the archives.
They'd turned nothing up so far, but it was still early.
As for Eboracum and these Imperial Exiles, Karrde could admit interest. The look and size of their ships in orbit were impressive and rumored to have a bite as nasty as their look implied. Did they come from another Galaxy? It wasn't that ridiculous of a claim. The Galaxy itself had a number of satellite clusters and dwarf galaxies that orbited close. Trade and travel between them isn't something new or unheard of at all.
More distant galaxies? At this point, it was inarguable that the Vong managed that feat. Even without being privy to the kind of information Karrde had, there was just no way such a staggering military power could have hidden out in the Unknown Regions.
A small group like this? Well, one point might be this they had only a few warships. That would make it easier to lurk in some lost corner of the galaxy, but it was a very surface level analysis. No nation was going to devote all their resources into just building a handful of dreadnoughts and nothing else. To make ships like this, there had to be a manufacturing base. An old one too. The number of starship foundries in the known Galaxy that could run a ship like the Exiles' off the production line numbered in only the few dozens at best.
No, the fact of the matter was that Karrde believed their claim. It matched far too closely how cautious they acted, how confused they were about local politics, and the near-fever pitch they threw themselves into building this world up into something.
Even if the facts didn't quite line up, what mattered was that they believed it completely, which meant that practicalities demanded that everyone else believe that they believed it and act accordingly.
On the ground, there was an energy to the place that was surprising. Extragalactics or not, rigid sensibilities aside, he could easily see, what with teetering opinions of the New Republic and the Senate, the up-and-coming Exiles providing an attractive alternative.
For humans, that is. Humans and near-humans. That one Savich had tracked from several angles. First from the direct route, making a point to hire a Muugari for her crew. Then she put out feelers, chatting up other near-humans that worked at the trade port. Then even asking Imperials their opinions.
Turned out that in the eyes of the Exiles, near-human just meant 'human with some oddities'. Good news for SELCORE, he figured, since that did expand who could immigrate. Odd that he hadn't heard any news of this through his agents within SELCORE's ranks, but that organization was…haphazard on the best of days.
A very small positive set against the powerful negative that was their heavy bias toward non-humans.
To other points, speaking of SELCORE, the way the Exiles handled refugees was sterling compared to other worlds, but their ulterior motive was as obvious as a gravity well. These Imperials were nation-building and nation-building fast. There was no 'goodness of their heart' going on here, they were swallowing up every able bodied human they could get their hands on. Cleared land for firing ranges and drills was impossible to miss from the air and orbit. Factories were popping up all over the place and from what Savich saw, most of them weren't making baby bottles and hoverbikes.
If Savich wanted to retire there - she'd worked on and off with him for decades - she wasn't a permanent member of his organization in the first place, then it could be for the best. He'd bless her choice and send her flowers, just so long as she kept a tap for him that fed the best morsels about this new power.
After all, as Karrde had long ago learned (and what made him one of the rare spacers who could consider retirement) was that knowledge, not money, was power.
Although cold, hard credits were always pleasant.