Anabeth: New Beginnings

Chapter 16 - An Almost Ordinary Call

"The Shadow Collective and Zygerria?" Mundi asked skeptically. „what could they possibly be working on together?"
"Well, it's Zygerria, you can take a guess," Ana said sarcastically.
Anakin's face grew bitter beside her. "Slavery."

"Historically, we Jedi have always dropped by to put an end to their slave trade. A weapon, like the one Bane stole on Mandalore, designed specifically to work against us, would greatly boost their odds should history repeat itself," Obi-Wan pieced the puzzle together. "And the Shadow Collective is made up of he biggest crime families, living on shady spice deals. Spice which is mined by illegally obtained slaves more often than not."

"So here's what we know then: Slave traders have teamed up with the slave buyers to obtain a weapon that can fight Jedi," Master Plo summarized.
"I don't like a single fact stated in that sentence," Ana mumbled.

"Shouldn't we have eyes on Zygerria after they tried to rebuild their empire a year ago?" Anakin asked.
"We do actually," Windu informed him. "Quinlan Vos has been undercover on the planet for months now. He sends regular updates, and so far, nothing seemed out of the ordinary."

"Quinlan might be a little rough around the edges, but something this big doesn't go right past him," Obi-Wan advocated for his old acquaintance.
"I agree," Ana joined in. "I got to know him and his Padawan a while ago, and I didn't take him as the oblivious type."

"His former Padawan actually," Windu corrected her. "Talin was knighted while we were on Anaxes. He was then pulled off the Zygerria mission and sent straight to the front on Umbara. He returned this morning."
"Talin was knighted?" Ana was pleasantly surprised. It had been months since the two of them had talked after all.

"We should summon him. Anything he remembers being out of the ordinary when he was still there might be vital to us," Anakin suggested.
"Indeed," Windu agreed. "And a call with Quinlan might be a wise choice."

They waited for a few minutes until Talin arrived. He seemed surprised about being summoned by the Council at first, but was happy to help out when the situation was explained to him.

"Well, nothing was out of the ordinary when I left," he recalled. "But we had only been there a few weeks when I was called back to Coruscant."
"Anything else that could help us in any way?" Windu asked once more.

"It might be nothing," Talin began. "But after i was knighted, I still had pretty regular holo calls with Master Vos. Short, but frequent. And then as the weeks passed, the calls got less and less until they eventually stopped. I haven't heard from him in weeks at this point. I kind of put it off to me just growing out of role as Padawan, but maybe given the situation, there is more to it."

"Sounds suspicious enough for me," Obi-Wan cut in. "I remember Quinlan practically bugging me with calls even years after we both became Padawans."
"Let's call him and see what's going on," Windu decided, already tapping at the screen in front of him.

"Wait," Talin cut in. "Let me do it, just in case there is something off. We don't want to risk the Zygerrians becoming suspicious."
"Good call," Ana praised him. "The stage is yours then."

Talin quickly pulled out his won commlink and searched up his former Master's contact before hitting the call button. After several long seconds, the call connected and the holographic figure of Quinlan Vos came to life. At first glance, everything seemed normal.

"Talin buddy, how are you?" the Kiffar asked in his usual cheery voice.
"Really good. I'm finally back at the Temple now and realized you hadn't called in a while, so I thought I'd check in."
"Look at you being a softie," Quinlan joked. "You know I'm just fine on my own."

"Well, that's good to hear," Talin replied. "Make sure to call if that changes though."
"Don't worry, softie. I can handle myself just fine," Quinlan assured him again.
"Great. Listen, I have to go now, I'm scheduled to help with the new intake of troops that are landing soon."

"Alright. maybe the force be with you," Quinlan bid him goodbye.
"And with you, Master. I hope I'll see you soon," Talin replied right before Quinlan ended the call.

"Seemed pretty normal," Plo Koon was first to comment.
"No, that wasn't normal at all," Talin quickly insisted. "The nickname, softie, it's a code word we used during our missions when we for omen reason couldn't speak freely."
"Now that you mention it, I never did hear him call you that," Ana agreed.

"So what do we make of this? A theft of an anti Jedi weapon orchestrated by the Shadow Collective and Zygerria. And now our operative on said planet can't talk freely on his call. How do we go about this?" Windu asked.

"We need someone to go Zygerria and get us a clear picture of the situation. And we need that to happen fast. I'm sure they'll realize we have bane sooner rather than later, and that will only make our job harder," Anakin spoke up.

"Who could we possibly send in though? We'd need someone they would trust very fast. Ideally someone with experience with such kind of jobs," Windu pointed out.
"Well, that description excludes basically everyone of us," Obi-Wan stated.

"Ana has some experience dealing with the more shady people of the galaxy," Anakin pointed out.
Ana only rolled her eyes in response. "Like they'd ever trust me as a total outsider."
"Well, maybe if you turn up looking like you did with Ventress last night they might," Anakin teased.

"Looking like what?" Windu asked suspiciously. He was quickly cut off my master Allie though.
"Ana is right though. They're not going to trust an outsider. We need someone they are familiar with."

"Who would possibly be friendly with us and familiar..." Obi-Wan trailed off mid sentence as he caught Ana's wary eyes. He knew immediately what she was onto "No, that's a bad idea. It's not happening."
"I didn't even say anything yet," Ana protested.

"But you were going to. And you know how poorly received it will be."
"How poorly what will be received?" Mace cut in.
"Well we have Maul," Ana blurted out. "He ran the Shadow Collective before we captured him which is currently friendly with the Zygerrians."

Obi-Wan facepalmed as the Council's skeptical eyes fell onto Ana.
"Bad idea indeed," Mace mumbled.
"You got a better one?" Ana asked in return.
The room was quiet for a moment when Anakin spoke up. "As much as I would love to disagree, I think Ana might be onto something.

Maul would gain their trust fast enough, and they'd never suspect him to be collaborating with us since he's a Sith. And that's another positive thing, the Sith have a long history of supporting Zygerria, he'll be well received there."

"And what exactly will stop him from betraying us and actually teaming up with them?" Master Fisto asked.
"Well, so far leveraging me has worked out pretty well for us," Ana pointed out. "So much so that he did me the favor with bane this morning without expecting something in return."

"You're right about that," Obi-Wan replied. "But it's still extremely risky."
"Well, so we have another option?" Ana asked in return.
"We don't really," Windu spoke up again. "Are you really that confident that you can get him to do this for us?"

"Yes," Ana replied determinedly.
"Then go talk to him. If you can get him to do this and be sure he won't betray us, then we have to shootout shot."
"Thank you, Master. I got this," Ana assured him once more before heading for the door.

"Talin, you're coming with me, I need some information from you," she called after the Chiss.
"Right," Talin mumbled as he hurried to follow her.
"While those two do that, we also have some work to do. We need to be ready incase we won't like the news from Zygerria after all."