A New Jedi in an Old Republic

Mandalore

Padme spun around, her Naboo blaster in hand, only to find in wrenched from her grip by the Force. "Agent Ors?" she said aloud just before the agent in question slammed a hand over her mouth and dragged her back into the shadows, the third person there watching to make sure they were not followed.

"What are you doing?" Ors whispered in a tone that spoke a lot of incredulity. She had heard that same tone from Master Obi-Wan on occasion when dealing with some of Anakin's more unusual choices of action. It was odd hearing it directed at her, but she had withstood the slings of contempt from her fellow Senators and all along her political career. This would not deter her.

Instead, she pointed at her still covered mouth, and Ors slowly released her. "I was following up on something I had heard," she said quietly. "That you are also investigating is happenstance."

She heard a snort from behind her and turned to address the third person there. She and Agent Ors knew each other, so it would be important to establish the nature of their relationship with this unknown party.

The woman was tall, lithe and pale, dressed in a long black robe that stood out against her own pristine white shirt and pants. She had chosen those to blend in with the general Mandalorian public, while this woman obviously didn't care. "And you are?"

"Senator, this is Agent Ventress," Ors introduced her coworker. "She is here on another assignment, and our paths crossed. We determined that it would be better to cooperate."

Ventress sneered. It wasn't a polite gesture at all. "A Senator?" she questioned. "What is someone like you doing out on the streets, and not in some office or palace?"

Padme bristled at the accusation. "Not everyone in the Senate is a useless voter who cannot for their own opinion and simply exists to be the voice of whomever donated to them last," she stared down the Agent without fear. "I may be in the minority, but I cannot stand by and let my efforts come to nought because of the small-minded and short-sighted efforts of the Confederation to ruin this Galaxy with their petty war!"

"Let's not have a politics talk," Ors put a hand between the two of them, hoping to forestall a fight which she knew the Senator would lose. And lose badly. "That can be saved for later. "What did you hear that would bring you down here, by yourself, without Obi-Wan?"

Padme relented, recognizing what the Agent was doing. "He is busy with the Duchess," she admitted, "and is covering for my absence. As for what the cause is, 3PO reported that there was a disturbance in the air-control center as someone was trying to bully their way through the system." She sighed. "Anakin's influence, I suspect, always with an eye to the skies. Regardless, it was odd enough that I made my excuses, changed, and came down here to investigate." She finally took her blaster back from the other Agent and holstered it. "I am glad to see that you are already on it, but your time is running short."

Ors processed this with long experience, and the best she could come up with was that the Senator's actions and words were simply too audacious to be false. She glanced at Ventress, the Confederate Sith sensing her question and giving a nod. There was no duplicity here. "Very well," she said. "Go back and the two of us will handle things here. Most likely, we will sabotage the efforts of these people to escape, allowing the local forces to take them into custody."

"I will help," Padme argued, "for by 3PO's words, we do not have much time."

"We can only assume that the locals are on their way now," Ventress pointed out to Jan. "If this is ban enough that a Senator has decided to intervene, there is no way for them to not act."

Jan nodded, but she didn't like it. "We'll need to prevent them from leaving in such a manner that they don't destroy the evidence," she thought out loud. "Ventress, do you have any suggestions?" A Force-user had a lot more options than normal people when it came to such things.

"We could cause the doors to lockdown if we trick the security or safety systems," she suggested.

"A fire could do that," Padme pointed out. "Make them think it's an accident, or some street punks causing a ruckus so that they don't think they're under attack."

"Electrical fault," Jan said, looking at Ventress. "Think you're up for a little arson?"

"Fire is a source of fear in many sentients," the Sith agreed with a smile. "I can do that."

Jan pulled on her experience. "Near the cargo doors," she said explaining her plan. "Electrical fire in the control panel for the doors. A simple fault. Enough that they can react to it quickly, will raise tensions meaning they can make more mistakes, and is something that will prevent them from leaving with their cargo."

Ventress nodded. "It will be done," she said as she turned and left the two Republicans by themselves.

"She's an odd one," Padme commented as she peeked around the corner. "What was her mission here again?"

"I'm not about to tell you that," Jan chided the Senator. "Intelligence has their own responsibilities, ones that cannot be spelled out to everyone involved."

"Yet I have the ear of Mon Mothma, and she is on the Committee," the Senator pointed out.

Jan chuckled for a moment. "That means nothing. Here, we stand in the shadows of the Galaxy now, far away from the heights you are used to. The Jedi do not come here. Only scoundrels and their like. You are an intruder. An outsider."

Padme wanted to reject the Agent's point, but found that now was not the time or the place. She did have counter-arguments at hand, but she simply lowered her voice. "Not now.

"You're right," she agreed. "Ventress?"

"Listen," the other Agent said from right behind Padme, causing the Senator to not jump in fright. "Right about..."

A small clanging could be heard from the target warehouse, the familiar sound of a fire alarm that was universal across the Galaxy. "Now."

"It's drawing attention," Jan said. "We can join the crowd, get closer."

Padme nodded and moved ahead, leaving the two agents behind. "What happened?" she asked the first person she came across, a random Mandalorian dock worker. "Is someone hurt?"

"No," he replied with a short shake of the head. "Sounds like a small fire broke out. We should be seeing a response in a few minutes."

Jan couldn't believe Padme's lack of tact and sheer luck, a feeling she saw was reflected in Ventress' own face. "Come on," she jostled the Sith with her elbows. "Let's see who panics."

Ventress didn't vocalize her response, instead tapping into the Force to leap into the air and onto the building they huddled beside. Jan caught up to Padme and the two of them followed the flow of the crowd to watch the building that now had alarms going off. In the distance, sirens could be heard, the approaching aircars of the responders to the potential emergency.

"See anything?" Jan asked, trying for a better look herself. Padme also craned her neck, the shorter woman unable to see over the people in front of her.

"No," she admitted.

"I do," Ventress said through her comlink. "We must have scared one of the higher ups, as they are in the office, packing quickly. They appear to have opened a safe and are extracting material from it."

Jan smirked. "Well, this is working out better than anticipated," she said quietly. "Ventress, let us know when they leave, so we can start following them."

"And the warehouse?" the Sith asked for clarification.

"You said it yourself, we're after the bigger fish." Jan saw an interesting expression cross the Senator's face. That was a story for later, she knew. "And the leader or manager getting ready to bolt is an excellent way forward."

Padme, now that she was seeing the results of the Agent's plan, began to approve of it even more, recognizing that there were people who panicked under pressure in all parts of society. She had seen this sort of behavior before, and recognized it as a sign of poor moral standing.

And poor morality could be compromised, that their failures be used as an object lesson. She put her hand on her blaster. "I'll be behind you," she promised the Agent.

"I'd rather you be with Obi-Wan," Jan muttered, "but I'll take that much."

"He is on the move," Ventress said quietly. "Moving toward the personal access on the other side of the building."

Jan moved, not hurrying nor with impatience. She moved into the crowd, and Padme almost failed to keep up with her until she realized that she would be better off as seeming to be with Jan, rather than following her. The two of them moved around the building and into a wider side street where Jan noted the most likely exit point.

"I'm surprised they didn't flee underground," Padme said as they waited nearby.

Jan shook her head. "No, this way they can vanish into the crowd." That made sense to the Senator, something she had done herself in the past with the help of her handmaidens while she was still Queen. She looked around for the other Agent, but did not see her. She didn't bother Jan with asking, knowing she would be rebuffed.

The door opened and a man who on any other day she would pass without a second glance casually stepped out of the building, closing and locking the door behind him. He had in his hands a briefcase, something so ordinary that Padme was beginning to suspect was deliberately engineered as no one could be that... plain.

Jan was already in motion, and Padme was caught off guard for a moment before she decided to catch up to her. What was more natural? Two women going places, or one following another? She and the Agent moved parallel to the person they were following, Jan whispering something into her comms that Padme couldn't hear.

The person they were following took a hesitant step to the right, then regained their footing, turning into an off street. Jan didn't pick up her pace, and Padme wondered why, given that they could lose their target if they didn't.

The answer came as they turned the corner themselves, and saw the man standing there, blocked off by a dark figure. Ventress stood there, glaring at the male. "What do you want?" he demanded. "I don't have any money! Mugging me will do you no good!"

"We're not here for money," Jan said coolly, causing the man to jump in terror. "We're here for something a little more important.

"You want to give us the papers," Ventress stated firmly, and Padme's stomach dropped. She recognized that tone of voice, that perfect inflection. It was the same as the Jedi technique to pressure others into their will. Was the Agent a Jedi too? That made no....

No. It made sense. Obi-Wan was here too, so why not another Jedi? Ors had experience working with them in the past, so another Jedi was something that only kept being more and more likely as the seconds ticked by.

The man hugged the briefcase to his chest. "N-No! I can't!"

"Yes, you can," Ventress said in a slightly lower tone of voice. "We can take care of it better than you can."

"No!" the man objected. He was afraid, and it wasn't of the three people around him.

"Yes," Jan said. "You do. You know bad things are coming. Your luck is going to run out and when it does, do you want to be the one caught holding all the evidence?"

"It's too important! You can't make me!" The man was all but wailing now, and Padme turned to see if anyone's attention had been drawn to them. No. Not yet. But would be soon. There was no way they wouldn't be seen, and she put her hand on her blaster.

Then she heard the snap-hiss of a lightsabre, and for a moment she forgot that she had deduced that the other Agent was in fact a Jedi and thought that Obi-Wan had somehow come to their aid. She looked at Ventress, and saw that her weapon was a brilliant crimson. That wasn't a Jedi color that she knew of, in fact the only times she had seen that color associated with Jedi was when they were evil.

Ah, she realized, it was an act, and she relaxed. "It won't do you any harm." she added gently. "Let us have it and you can be on your way."

"No, I need this!" the man said.

"Enough of this," Ventress said as she raised her weapon to his neck. "Give me the case now, or I take it from your corpse."

The man laughed. "Fools! Shoot them!"

Padme dived for cover, Ors doing the same in the other direction. She heard the sizzle of a lightsabre behind her cutting through something, and her fears were made real when she heard a body fall to the ground.

Blasters erupted from the end of the street they had come from, missing the two in cover, but the Jedi covered herself well as she picked up the case. Ors and Padme returned fire on their attackers, more Mandalorians who were of the rough-and-tumble type. If the death of their leader affected them, they didn't show it, instead advancing under covering fire even as a couple of them fell.

"Fall back!" the Jedi commanded, and Ors nodded for Padme to go first. She held down the trigger on her blaster, letting it fire as fast as it could cycle as she ran past the Jedi who defended herself with the ease of all Jedi. Memories of the Arena flickered in her mind, but she put them down. Instead, she took more cover and started firing to cover Ors' escape. Then once she was past, the Jedi casually strolled backwards, away from the body, lightsabre in one hand and the evidence in the other.

They repeated this until the attackers gave up, not able to advance fast enough to catch them, and when they tried, they were gunned down. Instead, they retreated in good order, leaving the three Republicans alone in the alley.

"We need to leave," Ors said as she checked her blaster. "There's no way Security isn't on route by now."

"Agreed," Ventress put away her weapon. "This needs to be examined."

"We can go back to my quarters," Padme offered. Obi-Wan can deal with the Jedi, she and Ors could look through the evidence.

"I do have slicing equipment there," Jan mused aloud. "Ventress."

"Anywhere but here," she agreed. "But I am holding onto this," she indicated the case.

"Then we're agreed!" Padme was proud of her minimal-effort negotiation. "You two, lead the way so we don't get caught."

They arrived at Padme's quarters via the back way, Jan and Ventress settling into the servant's quarters to do their thing while Padme got changed. She joined the other two as they were leafing through the stacks of papers in front of them, searching for more evidence of wrongdoing. Time passed, and they only became aware of it when a very strained Obi-Wan spoke up.

"Senator. Agent. Why is there a Sith here?"