Ziost - Crown of the Sith Empire

Hala sat in her office, going over reports. The morning had been busy enough she was quite behind.

"Whole wing?" The Shadow came out of herself.

"A colonel would normally be in charge of several thousand troops. This is just the small space they gave for my support staff while I'm assigned to General Unjin," she said with a smile.

She glanced back at the wicked looking blade of Nikto origin hanging carefully on the wall. Besides that and flags for the Empire and her unit, there is little other decoration in the spartan office. One section is walled off slightly, electronic gear humming faintly behind it. A second desk is visible in the room, with the label of Lieutenant Tyber Rook neatly stenciled on a nameplate.

"It seems your taste for Mandalorians have lasted since the Moon." Moyr sat down in view, leaning back into the chair. "I believe I've met him, during the meeting with Malgus."

She paused. "As you know, I am now forced to diversify in sources of assistants. By the way, my Watcher is waiting outside. She's discovered something interesting. Shall I call her in?"

"If Imperial Intelligence doesn't mind sharing with Military Intelligence?" Hala said with a hollow smile.

At that moment, the medically cleared Mandalorian walked in. He had moved past the entourage to get to the office. His armor was severely scratched and scraped on the side wherenhe had been dragged along the tarmac by the out of control jetpack. The visor had several scorch marks, as did the jetpack and armor again.

He internally winced as he got to his desk. He was at least innhis feet again, but only just. His system flooded with stims, his head felt two sizes too big inside the helm.

Reaching up, he pulled it off, setting it on the desk. Bandages were wrapped around his head, senses still scattered, if manageable.

"Armor damage will be buffed out. I'll take the DUMs to tune up the pack later." He finally looked up, to the Colonel and the Fett/Aspirant. "Target was apprehended, ma'am. Picked up by Section IX. An investigator was lost." He offered her a salute, and then a bow to the Sith Lord. "Suc cuy'gar, my Lord."

"I believe in this case some interoperability is merited." A quick comm-call led to someone knocking. In the meantime, Moyr showed a sentence on her databad to Hala. But first, turn off the computers in this space. You may or may not have been hacked. That was right before the Mandalorian came.

"Su cuy'gar, ner vod."

Rook's entry was followed by the quiet half-Chiss.

Tapping quickly in response, 'Okay to tell her?'. Her gaze glanced at the sectioned off area. Then Hala's eyes caught the Mandalorian and she slumped slightly.

"Jutrian, unplug from whatever you're doing and get out here. Rook's broken again."

"Again?" came a younger female voice from behind the section. Some stumbling and rustling of fabric and a younger female human emerged from her improvised tech cave.

"I'll go get the medkit," she said before flipping a quick salute then squeezing past the assemblage. She returned a few moments later with a small black box.

"Lieutenant, what's your current dosage on stims?" she asked as she opened the kit, pulling out tools as well as prepping a stim syringe for injection.

Moyr shrugged, adding nothing to the conversation for now. Hala had to make some own calls.

"I get anymore, and all they will do is make me throw up." The vambraces on his forearms were slowly removed. Carefully, lovingly even set on his desk. The word unplugged triggering something.

"If it's networked, it needs to be unplugged as well!" There wss alarm in his voice, looking to the others, before indicating to his disassembled workstation.

"My reports will be handwritten for awhile, colonel. Sorry about that."

"Crap, Lieutenant.... what the hell happened to you?" Elise mused aloud as she slipped in her earphones, once again starting the first aid treatment guide. Her movements were mechanical and rote as ever, but whoever had done the initial triage had set her up in good stead. Her bedside manner had yet to improve though....

Healing Tyber, again.... with medkit: 4eA+1eB+2eD 4 successes, 1 threat

((heals 4 wounds, inflicts 1 strain))

While Elise worked, Hala shot Tyber a questioning look but relented. Moving from workspace to workspace, she unplugged everything that was still hooked up. This even included Jutrian's slicer den, which clunked offline. The warrant officer whined slightly at the rough treatment her careful setup sounded like it was receiving. Once she was done, Moraal returned to the main office.

"No worries about report method. Explain though?" she asked.

Trojan. was typed on the hand datapad and passed to the Colonel.

"Got shot. A lot. Jetpack was hit, scraped along the tarmac while unconcious." He said, deadpan, as he looked to Eloise, "Common, potentially fatal, result of Mandalorian fighting techniques." He shook his head, noting the passed datapad.

"I think she just showed you why." He was a perceptive individual. Looking to the Sith Lord, sent a mixed thought through his mind.

"If she did. The origins of it are from Imperial Intelligence."

Moyr looked at Razzya instinctively, trying to discern if it was a shocker to her. It was to Moyr to an extent, and sent her thoughts spinning.

Her aide just listened and said, "I already told you about the trojan, I am still analyzing the code, best I can tell it came from an Imperial Intelligence slicer which means it is sophisticated."

"Alright Jutrian. Once you finish patching up the lieutenant, you get to purge all our local systems one-by-one. Nothing gets reconnected until you've confirmed it's clean."

The warrant officer sighed but nodded, "Yes, ma'am."

"As for the trojan and it's source...... I don't immediately see how to fit it into the puzzle.... Gil said their mole was in Public Security. Unless it is an IIS asset placed there.... or we have multiple moles.... or," she said, musing. She raised her attention to the Sith Lord and added, "or it's someone placed highly enough to compromise both intelligence services."

"They are linking the infected systems together. They want all that computing power for something, from what I uncovered." At this point, the Lieutenant was out of the armor of his torso, down to the bodyglove to let Jutrian work unimpaired.

He pursed his lips. "When we raided the Temple, the Killer was speaking to someone via holo. I tried zooming in to see, but the resolution was garbage. It was someone in a hood. And then Darth Malgus' actions." He shook his head.

"Something is festering, rotting underneath all of this. Who knows how much or who all has been compromised." He picked up one of his written notes from the morning. A diagram that had more questions than answers. "This goes as low as the Eagle, and as high as Darth Malgus."

"Darth Malgus appeared to intervene in my conversation with Unda Nuwadi," Hala frowned. Walking over to her pad, she calls up a holorecording and plays back the events of her conversation that morning

"She also seems very confident that she is protected, even if she claims her activities have ceased. And Darth Malgus seemed to be directing me to halt my inquiry, even if he did not directly say it. I'm not sure what to do, other than to surface this to the council and hope someone there finds enough advantage to seize on the opportunity."

Moyr weighted what Hala's gaze had indicated. It had crossed her mind too, and now it got some plausibility.

All in all, it could be Jadus, with Malgus as his ally. And it was likely that she herself had triggered it. Damnation.

She suddenly realised she might not be on the same side in this as the other people in the room.

"This confirms that she's protected by someone much stronger than her father, but Malgus may be just a convenient face playing his part." She said nonetheless.

"Or that he doesn't want a faithful servant and vassal tarnishing his expensive PR campaign. The data support no conclusions at this time regarding his motives," she agreed.