Part Nine

Rooster had been able to recount for Kyle Murrian every person she had spoken with and what each person had said regarding Electro's disappearance. "You have remarkable recall, private," he said.

"It's a talent most Lumi's have," returned Rooster. "But is this really important? Will it help find Captain Schock?"

Kyle Murrian conferred with Raven, Hyl, and Stryker for a few moments and left the three Liberty pilots intently pouring over a computer display and turned back to face the uneasy Rooster. "I think so private. I think so."

Hyl pointed at the screen. "Here!" he exclaimed. "Came aboard a month ago. Teeves is his name. But how did he get the flight information?"

Raven pressed a button on the commlink on the conference table. "Get me Lieutenant Schenk," he said to the duty officer in Operations. Then to Hyl, "Hang on, I think I know how we can find out."

The commlink came to life, "Schenk here."

"Eddie, this is Jim. Listen dude, how can I determine if a slicer might have been doing some unauthorized computer access? We think that someone on the Liberty illegally tapped into the Tac Ops files."

Eddie "Storm" Schenk, in addition to being the best fighter pilot in Rogue, had a computer warfare rating of seven. "Tough one Raven, if the bloke tapping in is any good at it. He'll have avoided the normal safeguards or we'd already have heard about the tap. Hmm, any idea where he could have entered the system? Did he use a ship's terminal? If he sliced into the optics he'd of run the risk of triggering any of a dozen safeguards. Easier to use a terminal."

Raven looked at Hyl who turned back to his datapad. There followed some discussion of the various places that Teeves might have broken into. Stryker was arguing that security was too tight for anyone to have gotten physically onto the Operations deck when Rooster, who had been trying to get the assembled pilots attention, emitted a ear-piercing whistle. Everyone fell silent and turned to stare at her.

"Ah, what about the terminal in the galley on C deck? It's a smart terminal and tied into the main computer core." She looked at the pilots a bit apprehensively.

The investigators, with Rooster in tow, hurriedly made their way to the galley in question and there they met up with Storm. He sat down at the station and plugged an analyzer into the auxiliary data port. "Most slicers are very careful about leaving tracks in the systems they break into, but are sometimes careless at their entry point when they think it's secure."

Storm's fingers flew across the keypad and it wasn't long before he nodded and grimly announced, "Here it is. This station was used to access the central core just before Electro went missing. See here," he indicated a file that was displayed on the analyzer screen. "He dumped the Op log that had the details of Corsair's recon flight to the local terminal here. Once he read it he then deleted the file. Looks like he's been reading the daily Tac Ops postings several times since as well. I think you've found your man."

"We know who we want, but we haven't found him yet," said Kyle Murrian. He flipped on his hand-held commlink and issued orders to security to pick up Teeves.

Raven looked thoughtful. "Kyle, if Teeves is this clever he won't be easy to surprise. I suggest you have Ra'kaat seal the ship. Hyl, get down to the flight deck and get all departures canceled. I'm going down to the Lounge."

There was an awkward moment with everyone but Storm looking somewhat uncomfortable with Raven's last announcement. Raven regarded his comrades and gave a sly wink to Storm. "To have a word with Rory, who is playing in a Sabacc game at the moment. If anyone can find a single person on a large starship, it's a Banshee."

The Lounge was near pitch dark and Raven worked his way carefully over to the Sabacc tables. Rory was sitting at an empty table and was intently watching Mixer at the bar as he poured drinks. "Game break up early?" he asked as he sat down. He placed the bag he was carrying next to the chair.

The Banshee cocked his head and regarded Raven with one eye, the other staying on the bartender. "Yessss. I sssseem to have run out of credits. Have you found Electro yyyet?"

"No, but that's what I came to talk to you about."

"You musssst find him soooon. Kerbeeee needsss Electro." The gator turned both eyes back towards the bar. "I have said thissss to Mynockkkk, but he doesss not understand."

Raven scratched the side of his face. "How do you know Kerbe needs Electro. Is that why she is sick? Because they have been separated? Can you talk to her?"

"Noooo. Ssshe does not talk to me. But I hear her. Ssshe speakssss only you do not hear. Her need iss great. Soooon she will die. Find Electro or he will die as well." Then without hardly a pause he asked, "Do you think Mixer will extend you any more credit on your bar tab?"

Taking a deep breath, Raven reminded himself for the millionth time that his alien friend's thought processes were very different from any creature he had ever encountered and could not be judged by human standards. "Rory, there's a human on board who knows where Electro is. His name is Teeves and he's somewhere on the ship."

"Teevesssss? I do not know hisss ssssmell," replied the Banshee. But Raven noticed he again had one hundred percent of the reptile's attention.

"Here," said Raven. He pulled a pair of work coveralls from the kit bag he was carrying. "I got these from his quarters. We need to find him fast and find out where his friends have taken Electro. They, have, ah" Raven knew that Rory did not understand the concept of 'capture' or 'incarceration' so he did not know how to explain what Lee Lo had done. Then he thought of a concept that the Banshee understood very well. "You see, Teeves and his friends have 'stolen' Electro from us and from Kerbe."

Rory was now very interested. "They will eat Electro? He is their enemy? A matter of honor perhapssss""

Raven knew he was finally getting his point across. "No, they will not eat him. The want to trade him for credits. They are wagering with us but it is without honor. And they are killing Kerbe and perhaps Electro for that matter. Look, there's a Special Operations officer in charge and he's searching the ship, looking for this man even as we speak. But the cruiser is a big place with lots of places to hide. Can you find Teeves, and can you find him right away?"

Both of the massive foreclaws of the reptile sank effortless into the top of the marble Sabacc table as Rory sniffed the garment. The scales of the Banshee took on a deeper green coloring and began to go black around the edges, a sign that he was very angry indeed. Raven knew that Rory was very touchy on the matter of what he called 'honor' and that he had definitely touched a nerve. The problem was you never knew quite what to expect from a Banshee with a sore nerve. Raven stared slack-jawed as Rory's eyes suddenly rolled back into his skull. The massive jaws parted and deep thrumming sound began to emanate from the Banshee. "Geez! No! No! Damn-it! Not again!" shouted Raven as he knocked his chair over backwards and scrambled away from the Sabacc table as if he were trying to get away from the edge of the gates to hell.

Teeves shoved the last of the equipment he had stashed in the machine shop into his carryall. "Time to go," he said to himself. His black box had picked up an increase in commlink traffic and his sixth sense told him he had worn out his welcome on the Liberty. But he was not overly worried, as he had prepared for this eventuality shortly after he first arrived. By monitoring the security frequency he confirmed that a search was underway. And he figured he was the target of that search.

Trying to go to his quarters was out of the question so he slipped into the stolen overalls of a maintenance technician that he had stashed here with his tools. Working his way to the repair facilities of the Liberty, where a number of starfighters were being refitted with new motivators, he cautiously climbed up the ladder to the pressure-maintenance hatch leading up to the next deck. There was one tech at the other end of the bay, working on a partially disassembled X-Wing. Teeves slowly tried to work open the hatch but the release seemed to be stuck. He heard the sounds of the blast doors opening at the far end of the bay and guessed that the search was closing in on him. Slipping a pry bar into his hand he tried the release lever again and it sprang open. The bar slipped from his grip and fell to the deck below with a loud clang.

Corporal Mike Hawkyard heard the noise and looked up just as a party of security officers entered. The senior officer checked Mike's ID and description against his datapad. "Have you seen anyone pass through here?" the officer asked.

"No, but I heard something over there," Mike said and pointed towards the ladder in the far corner of the bay.

A security rating found the pry bar on the floor and looked up the ladder. Climbing up to the hatchway he called down, "Looks like it's been opened recently."

"Damn! That leads to the shuttle bay." The officer in charge counted off two of his search party. "You and you, up the ladder and secure it from that side. The rest of us will get to the mid-ships turbolifts and go up that way." With that the security detail split up and moved off at a run. Mike shrugged and went back to work on the X-Wing.

Two decks down and going in the opposite direction, Teeves had to resist stopping to pat himself on the back. He was leading the search teams on a merry chase. "Easy as stealing candy from a babe," he said. He was monitoring the security channel and knew the chase was centering on the shuttle deck. "Too obvious! What a bunch of shmoes!" He was now near the aft end of the Calamari warship, just forward of the massive engines. He needed a speedy exit from the Liberty and here he had prepared an escape pod for just such a contingency. He slipped into the seldom-used part of the ship, being careful to avoid any surveillance cameras. The pod was just as he had left it weeks ago. He checked the hair thin wire he had placed near the top of the lock. If the pod had been opened the wire would be broken but it was still in once piece. "Better and better," he said to himself.

He had rerouted the sensors and remote computer controls for this pod and had modified the ejection sequence. He could release the pod without the event registering on the bridge and instead of an explosive ejection the pod could be eased slowly away from the cruiser. "By now they're searching all the shuttles and real soon some bright boy will figure out that they can better secure the ship by taking it into hyperspace. And just before they do I'll slip away and they'll never know I'm gone. Man, I am good!"

He entered the pod and resealed the lock behind him. Just to make sure he scrambled the door entry sequence and then searched the small pod from one end to the other. With satisfaction he sat down in the pilot's chair and relaxed. From his bag he took a small box and set it on the console, this would warn him just before the Liberty made a jump to hyperspace. He would then disengage the pod and drift away from the rapidly accelerating cruiser.

He stretched and closed his eyes. "Life is good!" he said just as a strange sensation seemed to pass through him and his ears popped as though the pressure had changed inside the pod.

The last thing in the galaxy he expected was a response to his statement but that's just what he got. "Dependsssss on how long you haaave to live it, nooooooo?" A voice that sounded a lot like a leaky steam pipe said.

Teeves spun around and sitting in the acceleration chair next to his was a huge, green, scaly reptile with a preponderance of teeth, and some rather nasty looking claws. Shock and bewilderment passed over his face and Teeves wondered if he was hallucinating. Not that it really mattered he thought as he slipped his hand into his carry-all and gripped a vibro-blade in his right hand. Rory slipped out of the chair and hooked one claw in Teeves overalls and pulled him very close so that they were almost nose to nose. "Nowwww, tell me, where issssss Electroooo?"

In the medical bay a torn and broken body was floating in a bacta tank. The left leg was missing just below the hip and there were massive chunks of flesh missing from the right shoulder and lower left abdomen. The right arm ended at the elbow. Mynock had worked for two hours just to stabilize him enough to get him in the bacta. He pictured Guardian tapping the creature he called 'Rory' on the snout and shuddered.

In a nearby conference room Kyle Murrian was listening to Raven talk to the creature described to him only as a 'Banshee'. The creature was very difficult to understand, as his Basic seemed to consist mostly of slurs and hisses.

Finally, Raven stood up. "Kyle, Rory has the coordinates of where they're holding Electro and Guardian. Seems Chris got hurt when they snatched him and they needed Guardian to try to patch him up. But Rory thinks it's paramount that we get Kerbe and Electro reunited soon or they'll both die."

Stryker looked puzzled, "Kerbe? What's Kerbe got to do with it?"

"I don't know but Rory thinks it's important. Very important. Kerbe and Rory are pretty close and if Rory says it's a good idea I'd go along with it. After all, he not only found Teeves he managed to, ah, debrief him pretty thoroughly."

Kyle snorted. "That's one way to put it. What exactly does the Banshee say is the connection between Kerbe and Captain Schock?"

"Well," Raven said. "He didn't say exactly."

"He doesn't know?"

"Look Kyle, Rory didn't say. That does not necessarily mean he doesn't know. He's a sentient being but his is a different kind of intelligence than ours. He is under the impression that he knows what he's doing and he is trying to help us as best he can. If you think you can get more out of him, be my guest."

Kyle looked at the massive Banshee, the creature seemed to be twice the size it was when it had first entered the room. Then he thought of what was left of Teeves, floating in the bacta tank down the hall. "No, I don't think that will be necessary. Hyl, tell Mynock to get Kerbe ready to travel. We're going after Schock and Burns." He issued orders to have two assault transports prepared and to have the commando teams standing by for briefing. Then he turned back to Raven. "Captain, do you think the, ah, Banshee would accompany the attack force?"

Raven shrugged and didn't say a word. But Rory rose up into a sitting position and curled his massive head down so he was looking eye to eye with the Special Operations officer. Twin rows of curved teeth seemed to extend from the massive jaws as the creature's mouth opened. "Yesssssss Kyle Murrrrrian, I will go withhhhh youuu. Together we will eat these people who would killll Kerbeeee."