Showdown at the Riggs Farm, Chapter 6: Nothing Is As It Seems
In honor/horror of the AO3 outage (the first on my posting schedule!), I'm tossing the chapter here until the archive is back.
Rating: T
Pairing: Theron Shan/Smuggler; background Akaavi/Mako and Hylo/Gault; on/off Lana/Koth
Note: This is a cozy mystery, so nothing is too scary, sexy, or upsetting. Everything is going to be ok.
~~
“That doesn’t look native to me,” Eva commented, Theron’s shirt drooping off her shoulder. It was clear she’d hastily gotten dressed once she’d heard the blaster go off. She peered over the makeshift autopsy slab that had been made out of Corso’s card/kitchen table. “And you said it gave you --”
“Rancid vibes, just like Guss says,” Corso finished, wriggling his fingers. Yup, he’d shot it. Yup, he’d carried it back. And yup, he’d washed his hands.
But the tingly, scary, slimy feeling on his skin remained.
Theron was already dressed in fresh clothes and had come prepared for…something. “Sith alchemical creature. Sort of like the Monolith on Ziost, but much, much less evolved. And smaller.” He snapped on a pair of surgical gloves he pulled from his go-bag. He pointed at the entrance wound from Corso’s blaster bolt. “They’re almost like living slimes…no, more like slugs. They have some ganglia clusters in what I guess would be their head, but that’s about it. They got thousands of tiny razor-like structures in their mouth, but no teeth, per se.”
“So it’d be more like an oversized leech on me, than actually taking a bite.” Corso shuddered. “Still, ain’t nice to find something like that, any time of day!”
Eva had grabbed Theron’s datapad from one of the small tables in the living room area that Corso had thrown together. “Vibes can be explained by any nest of these being around, asleep or awake, if they are Sith alchemy. Mechanical malfunctions – could these things be attracted to the power or energy as a food source?”
“Well, they are Sith after all,” her husband glibly replied. “But maybe more like keeping them warm rather than actually eating it.”
“And if there’s a big enough pile around the generator, it might overheat, spark or break down, and send them running and bring the people out,” Eva reasoned. She cast a slightly disgusted look over at the creature. “That a burn mark on its left side?”
Corso pulled his flashlight and shone it right on the spot as Theron rotated the creature. “If slugs could burn, sure, that’s what it looks like.”
Corso tilted his head. “Or someone else got a shot at it. I heard some people sayin’ their animals were getting upset at night. Fired a warning short – not up in the air, but into the darkness beyond the fence. That might have done it.”
Eva rapidly scrolled through the reports on Dantooine. “Still. Nothing has gotten killed here. Everyone is just acting like something has – it’s what these things are making them feel, supposedly.” Eva herself was mostly immune to sensing this sort of thing; Ziost had been an extreme exception. Then a new report caught her eye. “Huh.”
“What?” Theron immediately asked; Agent mode was on.
“Courier was due from the main Republic base at Blba Civic Center – where all the main festivities are. Didn’t show. Also hasn’t gone back home to the Republic base.” Eva clicked the datapad off. “We have an MIA.”
“When’d he disappear?”
“Last sighting was at 1300 entering the security checkpoint at Blba. MIA report came in at 1900 back at Pub base when he missed dinner.”
“During the day. No debate about that – nowhere near sundown or sun up, so it ain’t cuz of these guys.” Corso looked out into the night. “Should we --?”
“No!” the pair answered in one voice. Then they fragmented. “We don’t need to deal with a higher evolved version of this now.” “He might be plowing someone out in a field somewhere.”
Theron gave Eva such a look. “Really? On the job? For that long?” His gaze dropped back to the autopsy slab.
“What? You’d be amazed how much time wasting one person can do when sufficiently motivated.”
Corso could just see an efficiency joke begging to escape Eva, but she was a merciful goddess; she never did torment men more than they deserved.
Theron shook his head. “I have no doubt. And if that courier is dead, he’s been dead for awhile. If he’s alive, he’s his boss’s problem.”
Eva took another look at the creature’s business end. “It’s like Corso said – overgrown leech. Would it take a pack of them to take a person down?”
Theron shrugged, eyes never leaving the creature. “We’d have to see it in action to figure out how strong it was. But like I said, Sith alchemy. There’s going to be something strong out here by now, if they left something on Dantooine a few years ago.” He stepped back. “Now, what are we going to do with this?”
Eva made a face. “Send Lana a holo to confirm and burn it. Pretty sure Corso doesn’t want to use it as compost.”
“Hell naw, don’t want anything more corrupting my land. And it ain’t nothing worth eating, from what I can see.” Corso had eaten some mighty interesting things in his time, but he wasn’t so coz-mo-poly-tan that this looked like a good idea.
Theron nodded. “Ok. After we burn this thing, nobody goes out alone at night. Sorry to kill your social life, Corso.”
“More like, y’all gotta come with me to mingle,” Corso retorted.
“We are here to be wingmen,” Eva reminded Theron. He grimaced.
“And I ain’t sorry for that – when there’s a will, there’s a way with Eva, so I got no guilt about reducing your night time opportunities.”
When the words registered, Theron abruptly turned the same color as his jacket, which was hung on the coat rack near the door.
“Still so Temple!” Eva quipped as she snapped on a pair of lab gloves. “C’mon, Corso, let’s hope it doesn’t stink when we torch it.”
“Aye, aye, Cap.” Corso grabbed another pair of medical gloves in order to help Eva haul the creature out back to his firepit.
~~
HK-55 knelt down in the hallway of Virtue’s Thief. “ASSESSMENT: The intruder made no motion toward the young master’s room.” He ran his articulated fingers along the floor and the wall, seeing the nearly invisible scrapes. “He went directly to the galley. There are no indications of trapping or rigging in the master’s chambers or the quarters of the Captain.”
“Yes, they were locked down when she left,” C2 replied. He wrung his hands a bit; he had always made sure the ship’s was locked when he left it. “I did check the logs: I had locked the door behind me when I left. There is no documented unlocking until you returned with Argo. And no one accessed the Captain’s quarters until I did so, at your request.”
HK nodded. “QUERY: Has Dr. Oggurobb delivered his assessment of the bottles in the food preserver?” HK pushed himself up to his feet and stalked around the curve of the hallway away from the galley.
“Yes. The formula bottles are perfect as perfect as if Dr. Oggurobb had made them himself, personally. The breastmilk bottles are untampered with, minus defrosting,” C2 replied as he shuffled behind HK. “No medication or hazardous substance was added – not even calciferol. The good doctor has generously used his equipment to preserve the items with no risk of bacterial growth, despite the defrosting. There will be no waste.”
“WONDER: No traps, no poison. No effort to make contact with the boy. On the other hand, the exploding kettle aimed at one of his primary caretakers. Is Lord Beniko the target?”
“Why come here at all if the target was Lord Beniko?” C2 asked, quite reasonably. “There is the thing that sentients do, in their arrogance – showing off.”
HK’s ocular sensors went a brilliant red. “OUTRAGE: Showing off infiltration skills by accessing the young master’s food supply!? Just because they CAN?! Should not the grudge to the Sith herself?”
C2 put a firm hand on HK’s shoulder. “…speaking of infiltration. Can someone infiltrate the ship in other ways? Not through the main door?”
That brought the other droid up short. “AFFIRMATIVE!” He wheeled around. “I had wondered why the scrapes only appeared on the floor and walls near the galley, yet not at the entry way through the gangplank –”
“The cargo bay door!” the two of them stated in unison. HK reached up to his head. “Activating infra-red vision and microscopic analysis.” Then he double-timed it to the cargo bay.
“I’ll check those access logs. We rarely do – it’s a smuggler’s ship, after all!” C2 called as he shuffled back up toward the cockpit, which had also been checked for tampering. There were millions, if not billions, of entries over the life of the ship – the cargo bay doors opening and shutting were part of business. But if only people were coming out, then the gangplank sufficed.
While C2 was up in the cockpit pulling the logs, he hailed Aric Jorgan back at the main base. “Come in, Colonel Jorgan.”
“Hey, C2,” came the reply. “Aygo’s off-shift, so I’m on the desk in the military hangar. Anything new on the Thief?”
“HK is currently investigating an alternative entryway into the ship,” C2 replied, carefully. Given the intruder might be on base, they did not need to know exactly how close the investigation was. “How is Lord Beniko?”
“Blondie’s fine,” Aric replied gaily. “And I can say that because she’s in too good of a mood to be bothered that I’m not Bowie. She’s got the kid, literally in hand. And I got my eyes on the two of them here.”
Lana gave him a very token glare from her position at the mainframe across from Aric, that immediately tapered away as she bowed her head slightly to press a kiss to the top of Argo’s dark hair. Kid really did pull Eva’s gene pool. Aric gave the pair a smile, which Lana did returned.
Over her shoulder, Aric saw something. “Hey, Djannis,” he called. “Hylo called. I don’t have your jewelry. Police your own brass.”
She made a sour face at him. “Sorry, Paws, I thought your kind was into shiny objects.”
“Check under the shuttle – might have batted it there,” he shot back. “That, and some hair ties.” He pointedly let his gaze settle on the crown of Kaliyo’s chrome dome.
“Ugh. Fuck you,” Kaliyo replied.
“Language,” Lana sharply objected.
Kaliyo shot a dirty look at the baby. “For someone who doesn’t walk, he sure travels fast.” Then she spun on her heel to her shuttle. She yelled at Aric, “Did your people at least fuel it?”
Before he could reply, Aric saw a flashing light on his console. “Hang on, Baldy.” Aric linked the two comm lines together so they were all on the same channel. “4X, you got something? I got C2 on the line.”
“Colonel Jorgan! I have made a forensic breakthrough!” 4X proudly proclaimed. “After I dropped off young Argento Shan with you –”
“After I told you to hand him off to Lana,” reminded Aric. There was something in that droid’s programming that made him hesitant to hand off any materiel, baby or otherwise, to her. So he’d handed Argo to Aric, who handed him over to Lana after saying, “Hey sport” and boosting him once.
4X barreled on, unconcerned. “I assigned myself patrol duty around Virtue’s Thief in order to determine whether anything had been left behind by some villainous would-be kidnapper. I found myself in the depths of the wilds, having expanded my search perimeter --”
An ugly noise emanated from Kaliyo’s shuttle as the engines failed to turn over. Aric craned his neck to look at it among the sea of ships. “When was the last time you got the oil changed on that thing? Tag it and give it maintenance.”
“I know how to read a maintenance manual! It just had it last sun cycle!” came the annoyed reply.
Aric sighed and tuned back into 4X’s monologue. “Ok, buddy, what’d you find --- ”
“—in the majestic wilds of Odessen! I quite literally nearly stepped upon it, but fortunately, my appendages are sensitive to even a micrometer of contact–”
“MISSION SUMMARY, STAT!” barked Aric. He normally let him go, but he was putting Argo to sleep in Lana’s cape, and it wasn’t naptime, and that meant bad times for everyone when the kid woke up off schedule.
With a roar of triumph, 4X answered, “I HAVE FOUND AN EARRING THAT DOES NOT MATCH ANY KNOWN STYLE OF THE WOMEN OF VIRTUE’S THIEF!”
PFOOM!
Kaliyo’s shuttle craft exploded almost vertically, the flames licking the ceiling of the hangar.
Aric’s hand slammed down hard on the red alert on his console. “FIRE IN THE HANGAR. EVAC, NOW! FIRE TEAMS, GET HERE STAT.”
Well, Argo was awake as his startled wail went up over the din. A purple bubble seemed to enclose him and Lana, and she shot off, using every Force Trick in the book to escape at top speed as ordered by Aric.
These things he saw as he vaulted over the edge of the platform. “KALIYO! Kaliyo, I’m coming!”
~~
“I don’t understand why you never let me drive on-planet. I am THE best pilot in the galaxy, and you you’ve said it yourself – ”
Theron cut Eva off, neatly. “But you are an utter terror once introduced to gravity,” he spoke over the comm units in their helmets. “You do not belong in any driver’s seat, planetside.”
Eva gave him a squeeze around his waist as they performed the same argument they always did whenever Theron was driving the speeder or the swoop – swoop, in this case.
Corso was on a swoop bike alongside them. “Woman, you dragged me through Coruscant, and I thought I wouldn’t live to see 22. I’m with Theron – you don’t drive on-planet.”
“You boys have no sense of adventure. Dr. O says I got the soul of an artist when it comes to flying the Thief-- ”
“Eva, creative driving planetside is illegal. There are laws, rules of the lanes,” emphasized Theron.
“This is why there aren’t as many rules about space fight – freedom of expression, freedom of travel, freedom of – hey, you see that debris?” Eva gave Theron’s waist another squeeze and then she raised her right hand to point at the very edge of the horizon to their northeast.
“And I drive because you’re a better at sighting targets,” Theron told her as he easily looped the bike around at such as speed and angle that Eva felt the g-force on her – but they sure got there fast. “Isn’t this why I married you on Aargonar?”
“Among other things,” Eva confirmed. She reached into her saddle pack and pulled out her macronoculars. She got them up to her face while balancing behind Theron. “I think it’s the courier. Robbery was not a motive – there’s stuff spilled everywhere.”
“Poor guy,” Corso murmured. “I hope he was just dumb and hit a gopher or something and died instantly.”
“…yeah, that would probably be the nicer way to die. Embarrassing, but instantaneous.” Theron carefully eased off the throttle as he circled the crash site once before landing, Corso right behind him. The three dismounted.
Theron was immediately in investigation mode. “Set up a perimeter. Whatever caused this may have left something behind. Kits are in my bag.”
As he rattled off a list of protocol, Eva picked her way around the debris to approach the downed rider. Corso saw her give the body a look – one of those Captain looks that could immediately reckon something was not right. He could tell by the cock of her head, even though she was still wearing her helmet.
Then she bent over and plucked the poor guy’s head off.
“Uhm. That may not be necessary.” Before Corso could say anything and before Theron had even finished his crime scene standard operating procedures recitation, Eva gave the helmet a good shake.
A droid’s head fell out.
Now Theron stopped short, and his head tilted. “That’s not the courier.”
“And I don’t think this whole thing is what it appears to be,” Eva replied, putting one hand on her hip and bracing the now-empty helmet against her other side.
M1-4X's companion conversations are so funny. He tells you all about these high profile Imperials he's going to go kill, and you're just like "that's great buddy, have fun:)"
