We can sense Droids? 😖
In any case, Xeth will have Marcus help him carry Nesere along.
"You should contact the Council, in person," Xeth says. "Take the Knights with you; the Renegades and I will go directly to Taloraan to report Ryamore's death, and return Nesere to his home."
Xeth then has Marcus carry Nesere. "Take him to the ship...I'm confiscating the droid..."
Xeth will then head back for the droid. "Alright, Med-Droid, come with me. We need to scan your records..."
(I'm hoping we can get some computer logs from its computer brain, to see what Ryamore's been up to...)
He knew nothing of the sort, and you nearly didn't. Part of what worries you is that he killed himself before he knew he was going to lose.
Still, things move on. Time to tend to your wounded and move on yourselves.
Nesere is going to be fine- they didn't use anything too damaging because the details they wanted were very specific and technical and any small error caused by brain damage would have ruined the whole deal.
But... he can't remember any of what happened to him.
-----
The case comes to an end.
On Coruscant, an inquiry into the malfeasans surrounding the Techno Union is held. Surprisingly, it is finished in less than a year. Considerable evidence emerges from a very co-operative Techno Union, following an exhaustive disection of Ryamore's activities and logs, about how he was personally profiteering throughout his tenure as Vice-President. As Outer Sales Director he had vast resources and acces to markets that could make quiet sales. Starting from when he intercepted one of the shipments of the Federation army to be dis-mantled after Naboo and sold it to Shareth the Hutt, continuing when he trafficked the modified limiter chips to the hi-tech slavers market as personified by Arazi, and finishing as he prepared to sell another droid army- complete with samples of the new droid version- to an unknown buyer in the Outer Regions, before the heroic Jedi intercepted and stopped him first, presumably transmitting to the buyer to warn him off. Sadly, Ryamore killed himself before capture, presumably knowing the enormity of the charges surrounding him. His diaries reveal a man obsessed with obtaining Nesere's services; his kidnapping of Nesere is assigned to Ryamore's obvious failing mental state.
Senior Union Vice-President Cirus Cannes makes a statement about "how much we in the Union regret the activities of the wayward Mr. Ryamore. Had we known of his activities sooner we would most certainly have taken steps to prevent any further damage. Raymore's actions were those of a man gone mad, and in no way systematic of Union policy. I would like to remind people of the great benefits the Union has bought..." and so on. He concludes: "... and my personal thanks to the Jedi Order, who brought this matter to our attention and finally brought the issue to an end. We were only to glad to be of what assistance we could be in this matter."
Questions of compensation to the victims are still tied up in the Courts.
-
On Taloraan, there is a certain amount of discontent. Turandi tells Xeth that the matter is currently remaining open pending future inquiries. As ever, the people there close ranks at times of crisis and are not communicative.
"There was nothing we could have done," explains Turnandi to the Commissar, some days later.
"We should have seen it coming. It's a question of scale. One of them in the Conspiracy is nothing on a Galactic scale."
"But to sacrifice one of their own Vice-Presidents?"
"Stop thinking like a moral being. They are not. Since the Trade Federation fell apart the pressure has been on the Union as the Jedi pursued the leads. Now by simply blaming everything on one man, the entire rest of the organisation gets away scot free. It's perfect. Every lead points towards him. They even got it so that three seperate Jedi investigations identified him as the main suspect. With the Order having that on record, the outcome cannot have been anything else. No evidence, no questions."
"But what could be so important that they would go this far to deflect suspicion? And to get their man to kill himself?"
"They've done far worse than provoke a suicide before. As to what it is... it is something to do with arms production. They are planning invasion."
"Of what?"
"Does it matter? Naboo was a prototype. It only went wrong by the merest whisker and the fortunate intervention of the Jedi. We know there is now vast collusion between the Union and the Federation. How many other remote planets might they invade to get their way, with the Senate doing nothing?"
"To invade entire planets? They can't do that with specimen armies, surely? And the new arms development laws are limiting the amount of armies they can produce. Since the Naboo invasion, and since Master Marcus exposed the arms manufacturing facility in Neimodian space, the Techno Union has to prove that demand exists and sales are made before they build any armies. And the Federation itself is now limited to deploying its armies for defensive means only! They are under too much scrutiny to build invasion forces!"
"They will have to build them in secret."
"How?"
"That's where we start."
"Start?"
"Yes. Ryamore was our lead, now he is busted. We have to start again."
"But it took us years to get this far!"
"We start again!" The Comissar took some moments to watch the news screens.
"Turandi... tell me everything that Xeth had to say about this Cirus Cannes..."
-
At the Temple, the Council can only conclude that they must be happy with what they have.
"Some justice, anyway," says Windu to Marcus. "Scapegoat or otherwise, Ryamore was considerably guilty of many crimes. You could not have prevented him killing himself, but at least he has been stopped. As for the Union as a whole... we shall keep our eyes on them. But all we can do is wait for an opportunity to see if there is more to this."
"Of course," says Mundi, "we have no evidence that the Sith were involved, or reason to see how they could have been. As ever, we remain having an open mind in this area, but without leads we can only speculate, which we have done enough of for the time being. With Ryamore dead, the evidence destroyed, and the Viceroy now enconsed on Seronno and refusing to talk to the Order, we have very few leads left. Rest assured, we shall pursue any remaining tails from this case very vigorously indeed."
-
On Poenae, Cannes watches the gaggle of Outer Rim dignitiaries during the weapons demonstration.
"The Hailfire Droid will bring a badly need support artillery capability to the foot armies provided by the battle droids," he explains, "should your needs go beyond the purely security, and into open field warfare."
An alien speaks in an unusual tongue, translated by the protocol droid.
Mr. Cannes, I understand you have had considerable research problems creating a pinpoint accurate missile artillery system that works entirely on automatic.
A moment after the translation, rockets trailing black smoke fly through the air behind Cannes and thud directly into the floating target spheres, blowing them into tiny pieces.
"I think you will find," says Cannes, "that we have recently made a breakthrough in this area."
Click-click
"Any questions?"
-
End