Crime and Punishment: VN Ysadora
General Summary
I hear there's dancing, but I'm not helping with it.
The Apes call me up at the end of my date, wanting help: a flock of refugee ships from 2 directions have arrived and need sorting. Davish and I pile in, of course.
The refugees are telling us stories of weird things happening on the neutral zone between Alliance of Worlds and Tapani Confederation. They've heard rumors of shadowy creatures that come after people in the dark. One crew just started screaming "oh God they're eating us" into the comms. Ships just suddenly explode. It's not as Cold War-esque on that front line any more, some shots are occasionally being traded. Suddenly a quartermaster spaced himself, no explanation.
Galactic Core refugees have odd stories about machines, odd machines that seem to be taking the place of regular security forces. Not the old battle droids. It's like they're there but you don't see them.
Jenkins senses an ambush coming, by air and ground, in plenty of time for the Apes to set up a defensive perimeter and Jenkins to tell me and Davish to take off. Which we don't. So we get arrested! Although I made damn sure that most of the arresting was done by the clones drafted into helping arrest me. Whose custody I then turned over to the nearest Jedi Master. Which was Yoda. Who went on a wild tear when he found out the LEAST IMPORTANT part of the situation, that being how I'm arrested. So I had to get hold of Master Skywalker and bring his attention to Jenkins. Anyway, I asked the Roughnecks to deal with my bail, and Davish said he'd see that I'm released ... only that's not exactly how he phrased it ... and Rico added something about "any means necessary".
This'll end well.
Anyway, I'm charged with a boatload of things, including terroristic activities, and High Treason. Only about a third of them are accurate.
Actually, we're ALL under arrest.
Tsu Vorboccioni: {holds up manacles to cameras} And THIS is how VORMECETTI treats those who believe in the rights of sentients!
Our first prison visitor is Captain Simon Illyan. He's here to tell Danar to erase his report. And to tell Danar that he may not reveal that he did work as an intelligence officer of the Imperium; it would create a problem that would be very messy. The Imperium is under attack by an enemy that Illyan cannot see. It is an enemy that he cannot even foresee. Vorleobund (or maybe his name is Vormecetti, I can't figure this out) is aggressive and a twit, but he is a noble twit. He hates Danar and Tsu, and the rest of us by extension. It is difficult to say if he has been manipulated. There is a great danger present to Gregor. Illyan cannot directly help any of us, and that is not through lack of trying. Danar asks if Yeager could at least be extracted since he's not charged with High Treason, but the loopholes Vorleopold is using have screwed that up. And they want a speedy trial, of course.
Most of the Counts are present at the pre-trial hearing in front of the Council of Counts for formal laying of Vor charges (vs Khun and Danar and apparently me). Prosecution team: Gregor picks the following advisors: a member of House Vorreena, a member of House Vorbarnaba, the stodgy Count Vorhalas, and Vorleobund immediately pops up that he wants to clear up he is NOT going to represent us. Yeager wants to know the rules on Trial by Combat. Vorhalas says the duel is viewed in a negative light, there's pistols at dawn, there's knife, but hand-to-hand is forbidden as too base. It can be proposed, as you are the accused you may offer it up; but strangely you are also evidence, and unfortunately, evidence has to be protected, and so you would need a second; you yourself may not offer any kind of accusation or trial by combat. It must also be a person of noble blood.
The prosecutor winds up being from House Vormecetti, of course.
As for the representatives, who does the High Lady of House VorCadriaan suggest for the defense? Emperor Kane.
Who in turn presents the count of a lost house: Count Dragomir Vorharkonnen
Crazy shit goes down. Somewhere around the end of it, Eleni is Yeager's champion and Ellaine Vorhejeron is Count Vorleobund's champion, and they're fighting knives, and I'm sitting quietly in our "box" using Battle Mind while His Vorness keeps me from being worth noticing. Sure, this is a fight to yield, but since Ellaine is pretending to be a Nightsister, that's not likely to be the stopping point.
I suddenly remember the memory of a woman laughing and telling me, "This is such a lovely little game. Do you really think it would be that easy, that your pet would use this as a means to get out. Surely you can do better than that."
And then: "Were you particular about any of those other ones? Does it matter if I pick one to keep? I like the fiesty one, d'Arcy. I think I'll keep him." We remember seeing going hand-to-hand with a Nightsister and her whip; it's the one that had possessed the guy in the kitchen. She's on the bridge of an Alliance battle cruiser, and she uses lightning to put D'arcy through a steel door.
And again: {laughing like crazy} "Oh, how cute! You're going to tell the boy who would be king. How sweet! You think that impotent child will do anything? They hold him on a tight leash. Probably good. Sounds fun, I should try it sometime. But since you're intent on your little play, mind if I send some friends to join you? I'll keep the Admiral ... comfy. Because after all, we have to prepare for guests. I believe Master Obi-Wan is on his way to see us."
The fight is stopped because Danar seems to have succumbed. Men in black ( PEACEKEEPER ) armor descend in ziplines through the windows. They turn out to be clones, but not Tapani clones -- in fact, NEW blond clones.
Eleni conducts the interrogation of the Surprise!Man-e-gesserit, after treating him with the antidote.
Eleni and Yeager are now no longer under arrest. I have one of my lightsabers. Everything else is still a fustercluck.
Someone determines that the entire fake-Peacekeeper attack was in fact an assassination attempt on the three remaining prisoners: Count Vorboccioni, Lord Danar Vorpaderan, and Padawan Ysadora. Why me? Why during the opening phases of the trial process? Why during the what-modern-civilization-DOES-this Trial By Combat to clear the two people NOT being assassinated?
The obvious answer is that someone just doesn't want their own program preempted for this circus. Is the scheduled event to be preserved an upcoming Council vote? Or a holovid serial like ""Luna Jones, Jump Scout"? (Saranya Carr is pretty damn sexy, and it's a shame how the program gets bounced for every slightest excuse.)
I'm itching to get to work on this mystery, but I don't have my DataPadd. How's a woman supposed to work in these circumstances?!
Since this was an assassination attempt, the expected remand to house arrest is cancelled. Our Imperial Master decided that, for our own good, we three should be moved to a far more secure holding facility: the maximum security wing of the prison ship Nocturne, in high orbit over Procopia.
Shortly, there we three are, in Cell Block G. No special "Vor accomodation" touches. Two guards for the three of us at all times. A Vor in each of the two middle cells on one side of the aisle, and me in a cell across the aisle. The topic of our potential legal defense comes up.
Danar has a plan:
He'll claim to have tricked all of us into thinking he had permission for us to do what we did. Sure, we look like dimwits, but charges should be reduced if not dropped entirely, leaving him the sole defendant, a rogue operative.
This is incredibly noble of Danar. I'm just not sure the prosecution is going to be willing to go along with it: buying that the Jedi is dumb, okay maybe, but that Count Vorboccioni didn't wonder? That Lord Solicitor Londo Mollari was either fooled, or in on it?
Count Vorboccioni has a plan:
For every point of inquiry, or establishment of fact: "That information is classified, my Emperor, and this chamber has not been secured for it."
Which will run aground if Gregor drags him into a private chamber long enough to say even "okay, who's not supposed to hear what?"
Also, classified information by its nature cannot be used in a public trial -- but the prosecution has plenty of public information already in its presentation, so refusing to answer anything just means we're not defending ourselves.
I have a plan:
I'll go do my homework.
Emptied of my thoughts, the Force flows through and past me. A bright spot rises in the Force, a new force of nature, that grows into a wave that propels itself forward, ever-increasing.
Be interesting to see if it drowns me once it arrives.
Master Skywalker (an utterly unsurprising presence, given the bright spot in the living Force) prompts me to awaken early and find out just what is going on belowdecks: his daughter says a Holonet message board (discussing coverage of Lady Skywalker's speech) claims that we have zombies in the medbay of Prison Ship Nocturne.
Danar makes the excellent suggestion that I use the Force to look down there in the Medbay and find out what's going on. There is a HELL-WALRUS from Tor Ceti in the smoke and gas, about eight feet tall, and it is looking right back at me!
The fire alarm goes off, and then the Battle Stations alarm goes off, and finally Lieutenant Aaron Hawk -- one of our current power-armored guards -- accepts Tsu's parole by conscripting the three of us, assigning the Vor to gunnery stations defending the ship, and takes me off to Property for my lightsabers and rebreather so we can go clear out the hell-walrus infestation.
Riding down the ridiculously slow elevator -- seriously, there is NO WAY that a maximum security wing is more than ten minutes away from the medical facility -- we stop on a prior floor for an extra passenger: Captain Benacor! And she's got a basket full of pineapples.
Religious thing, I guess.
The hallway between elevator bay and medbay entrance is littered with remains of dead guards and dead prisoners. Between the holes punched out of them and the bite marks to the sides of heads, we're not hopeful that a regular prison riot did this. If little twig men show up, I'll be registering a huge complaint with the Council (and I don't mean "of Counts"). The mobile prisoner we spot "searching" a guard's body develops giant snakey fangs and bug eyes as soon as it thinks Lt. Hawk might be in snacking range. Fortunately, I make a decent distraction and Eleni is as always awesome.
And then two more prisoners come out of the medbay, one chasing the terrified other with intent to spread the worm infection.
And then a hell-walrus drops down from inside the ceiling at either end of the hallway.
Merglin's memory-inventing trick surfaces again. She wanted to tell most of us "Bon voyage!", but we also got a brainbleach-full of information regarding an affair she apparently had with Danar. Wow. Umm.
ANYWAY. Merglin tried to have the entire prison ship transport itself to a specific location in a nebula in Melantha space. Tsu had to dump the entire hyperdrive to make it stop. Dr. Tam escaped the prison riot by gassing every nook and cranny into unconsciousness. Danar knocked enough armor plating off the bridge hell-walrus that lightsabers, once the elevator finally brought me to the place, could hit a soft spot and kill it. Eleni saved the actual survivor from the medbay, and Lt. Hawk, from infected-and-mutated wormsnakemen and a hell-walrus and the infecting worms, and she would've cleaned out Engineering too but Tsu and R5 had already vented all of Engineering out to vacuum so Admiral Naismith and his Dendarii Free Mercenary Fleet could shoot the hyperdrive out of becoming a bomb.
When we arrived on the surface, Razak and Senator Skywalker were there to not put manacles on Count Vorboccioni. What is it with that guy I don't even.... Anyway, they had an encoded message for Danar from Jenna Vormecetti about various prisoners, including some Clan Soka Nightsisters, Clan Dire Mandalorians, assorted Alliance personnel, a couple of isolated guys from K7, my old chat buddy Sarge, Eleni's old project Tik Sandrell (in Alliance Commando armor!), and rare good Kaminoan Taun We. Meanwhile, acting as Corrections Officers are such party poopers as Themian Vorhejeron and Victor Vorkerellin. (what?!)
As I was slipping off to my own devices, I heard someone confirm that all charges against us have been dropped. Which is handy, as I apparently have enormous amounts of stuff to do.
From: vy_pi at oldfolkshome.allandor.gov
To: Razak.257 at beskar.aran.org
Subj: _Dear Razak:
Vorboccioni doesn't decide what you do or where you go.
(Which is probably why they are talking so much so I will wander off without doing or saying anything.)
We're still in favor of healthy planning though, yes?
Love,
V
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