Anabeth: New Beginnings

Chapter 10 - A Lead

The next morning, it was time for Ana to say goodbye to Satine, Obi-Wan and Grace. They had insisted on escorting her and Windu down to the docks personally, but now that they had reached the landing platform it was time for them to part ways. At least for a while.

"Be a good girl for your mom and dad, Grace," Ana said to the little girl, although she knew full well she had no idea what she was saying and was just cooing back because she was excited to receive Ana's attention. Ana couldn't help but laugh at her cuteness. "I know, I'll miss you too."

"You're welcome to stop by whenever you like," Satine told her.
"I know. I feel like I might be a little preoccupied for the foreseeable future though," Ana replied. "But call me if something comes up, I'll reschedule what I'm doing and fly right over."

"Let's hope you don't have to though," Satine chuckled. "Have a good flight, Ana. We'll see you soon."
"See you soon," Ana replied, waving as she walked over to Obi-Wan and Mace.

"I'll go and prime the engines already," Windu announced, heading for the shuttle so Ana and Obi-Wan could talk one on one.
"I'll back as soon as I can," Obi-Wan promised. "No more than a few weeks. You can just pretend I'm on another deployment with Cody."

"It's not the same without you though, whether you're on deployment or not," Ana laughed. "But Satine and Grace need you more right now. Take all the time you need, we'll be fine back home. I'll help Mace out and make sure Anakin doesn't set the Temple on fire or something."

"Thank you. And just call if you need something. I know how Anakin can get," Obi-Wan replied.
"Don't we all?" Ana said sarcastically. The two of them let out a laugh before getting serious again.
"I'll see you soon, Ana. may the force be with you."
"And with you, Obi-Wan," Ana returned the sentiment before heading to board the shuttle.

She went straight for the cockpit and took a seat in the co-pilot chair. looking out of the window, she could see the Kryze-Kenobi family still standing at the side. Obi-Wan was excitedly talking to Grace and pointing at the shuttle as the little girl giggled in Satine's arms.

"I'm going to miss them," Ana stated.
"Don't get any ideas about staying too. I can't have all my best Jedi away from the Temple," Windu joked as he closed the boarding ramp and activated the engines. They quickly took off, the Sundari dome getting smaller and smaller beneath them until it was eventually completely out of sight.

Several hours later, they dropped out of hyperspace over Coruscant and went to land back at the Temple. When they got off the shuttle, the all too familiar sounds of people working in the Temple's landing bay surrounded them again. Only this time, it suddenly seemed a lot louder than usual.

"What's with all the noise?" Ana asked.
"We're getting some last cleanups and fixes done before everyone starts returning from the frontlines," Windu explained. "It will get too cramped in here otherwise."
"Makes sense," Ana mumbled as she looked around in awe. This place hadn't been this lively in her entire time with the Jedi, but somehow, she still liked it very much.

They were barely out of the landing bay, when Windu's commlink began beeping. He quickly picked it up to hear Anakin's voice coming from the other end.
"Sorry to bother, but landing bay informed me you're back and I kind of think I found something in the code from our Mandalore hacker."
"Great. We'll meet you in the strategy room then," Windu acknowledged.

They quickly made their way there to find Anakin already awaiting them.
"Oh, look who's back. The Order's diplomatic prodigy," Anakin joked the second he saw Ana.
"Oh, look who's still here," Ana sarcastically returned. "The Order's chaos prodigy."

The two of them began laughing as Windu just sighed. "Good to see the two of respecting each other like that."
"We always do," Anakin assured him. "Now, onto important things. I think I finally found something in the code.

"Go ahead," Windu encouraged him.
"Well, I went over everything a couple of times, and eventually a few lines struck me as familiar. So I tried to remember where I had seen them before since hackers often reuse certain lines of code as a way of marking a job as theirs."

"That's quiet genius. What did you come up with?" Ana asked.
"It was before your time with the Order, but Mace might still remember that time they stole a holocron from us," Anakin began.
"Yes," Mace confirmed. "A techno droid, a changeling and Bane were involved if I recall correctly. Hired by Palpatine."

"Yes. I checked, and the code they used to hack our systems back then had striking similarities to that used on Mandalore if you knew where to look," Anakin explained.
"Well, the techno service droid was destroyed during the robbery. But neither of the two bounty hunters are still in our custody," Windu informed them.

"What? But we had the changeling arrested that day, and Bane was caught during the festival of light on Naboo last year," Anakin recalled.
"The changeling got a mild sentence thanks to her snitching on Bane's plans. She completed her sentence over a year ago. And Bane managed to escape during the chaos that was Ahsoka's escape from prison during her false accusation."

"Well that's going to make our job harder," Ana commented. Windu moved the type something into the console in front of him, after which the files of both bounty hunters appeared in front of them. They quickly skimmed through them before Anakin spoke up again.

"Cato Parasitti, the changeling, doesn't strike me as the one we are looking for. She had basic tech and hacking skills, but nothing I'd consider advanced enough to pull off the amount of repeating code I found."
"Which leaves us with Bane," Ana sighed. "Has anyone seen or heard anything about him recently?"

"Not according to our spies in the underworld. He seems to be keeping a low profile right now," Windu replied.
"Well, he's our only lead right now, we need to find him," Anakin said.
"How though?" Windu asked. They all looked at each other thoughtfully for a moment.

"I might have an idea of who could help us," Ana spoke up. "But I'm pretty sure you're not going to like it."
Windu gave her a wary look. "You saying that already makes me not like it already."

"I could ask Ventress for help," Ana finally voiced her idea.
"You're right, I don't like that idea," Windu was quick to reply.
Ana sighed deeply. "She's a bounty hunter herself though. And she has some really effective ways of getting information."

"Can't we hire like any other bounty hunter to find Bane though? One less entangled with the dark side?" Windu asked.
"Good luck finding someone that isn't scared of Bane and won't make us go bankrupt for good," Ana pointed out.

Windu looked her critically.
"That's a good point though," Anakin spoke in support of her.
"Fine," Windu agreed. "If you can get Ventress to help us for a reasonable price, then go ahead. But don't concern me with the details if I'm not going to like them. Just get it done."
"Will do," Ana promised.