revivalproject | You won't find me looking back

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You won't find me looking back

WHO: Kaz, Ezra, Tony
WHERE: Near a Hangar Bay on Coruscant
WHAT: A holocron is seen as a gag since it refers to Agra-10, which obviously doesn't exist. But Kaz is still buying it
WHEN: During the Coruscant event
WARNINGS: None anticipated, TBD

The merchant Kaz was meeting with was a ferrety little man. Like he literally looked like a ferret with a tool belt and some sort of hoodlike hat. It was through a couple of different people Kaz had met that he had been told that Agra-10 was only mentioned once, supposedly in this 'Holocron thing. He had been warned that he wouldn't be able to open it, but since Kaz has been on Coruscant for a few days now he had already heard of the Jedi. And if the one he had spoken to was any indication, they were pretty similar to the grisha where he was from. Which is to say he already knew he'd need to cajole or manipulate a Jedi into opening it.

"Is just a glowing brick." The ferrety man insisted.

"All the same." replied Kaz in his rocksalt rasp.

The ferrety man squinted at Kaz, sensing a possible way to get more money.

"Is junk. But you want junk? Then 50."

Kaz tilted his head to one side. Then while saying nothing he used his cane as a hook and took hold of a sliding hoist. If grabbed from the end with the handles it was possible to slide freight weighing hundreds of pounds into spacecraft. At the moment the hoist slams the ferrety man's tale. The ferrety man squeals in pain and immediately drops the Holocron to grab his trapped tale.

"You're going to want to rethink that." Kaz says, still completely calm.

"4-40!" The ferrety man says quickly. Apparently, Kaz leaned on the hoist because the ferrety man squeals again.

"30! Take for 30!

Kaz says nothing, just unhooks his cane from the hoist's handles and puts it back at his side. The ferrety man whimpers and removes his injured tale to cradle it. Kaz takes one step forward and removes a small bag from the inner pocket of his suit jacket and tosses it to the ground. It clinks with (stolen) credits. He picks up the fallen Holocron. He would need to find a way to disguise it as soon as possible.

"I would say it's been a pleasure doing business with you, but I'm not that good of a liar."

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Ezra quirks an eyebrow, not sure how seriously to take that bit about fame. Or how impatient Mr. Stark seems to be, for that matter.

"No, that's ok. Force user, right here. Who's opened multiple holocrons before."

And with that, he closes his eyes and starts calming his thoughts and dropping into light meditation. Another Force sensitive nearby would feel his presence in the Force blooming and brightening.

The holocron starts moving, as if it too, is unfurling. It opens slowly, spreading out in the air before the faint, ghostly projection of a Jedi stands in the center. She is human and looks nervous as she stares forward toward whoever managed to open this and hear her words. Her voice is quick and desperate as she finally begins to speak.

*"This is a message to all Jedi. I am Master Taren Jid and for the past four years, I have been a prisoner in another universe. While this time has passed for me, all who knew me did not notice even a second of my departure; I was taken and returned to the same place in my timeline, as were others I knew. For reasons I cannot understand, I alone have retained some of my memories of this time so I alone can issue this warning to others. Although, I don’t know what good it will do.

The last thing I remember is being on a planet called Agra 10. The Agrii there were an intelligent, highly advanced race with a flourishing civilization.” Taren’s eyes shine with emotion. “For the four years, I and others from many other universes were held captive for the amusement of those holding us. They would move us from planet to planet at a whim. And then... they would make their show interesting. However they needed to.”

Taren moves closer to the item recording her, desperate to be understood. Desperate for this warning to be heeded. She still looks miserable and grieved but beneath it is determination.

“Our captors tortured that race. They installed strange technology to hurt them and forced us to evacuate the planet. I was returned here before I was able to see how it all ended but I can’t imagine it was well.” She shakes her head and stares forward, finally angry.

“I don’t know how I was taken and I don’t know how I was returned. All I can recall are bits and pieces of my time in the Fleet and the names of our captors. To all Jedi, beware the Atroma. Beware any and all who come to you with that name. I don’t know how to help you avoid capture and imprisonment yourself, but this at least I can provide.

And, if in your travels, you ever find Agra 10… please administer whatever aid they may still need. If there is indeed anything left there at all.

Good luck, brothers and sisters. May the Force be with us all."*

Edited 2021-03-20 04:26 (UTC)

"Well, that explains why everything on Agra-10 went to shit to begin with."

His voice was still perfectly calm. Kaz was not surprised. Intrigued and interested, but not surprised. Because in his experience everything was reduced to the worst-case scenario eventually. The idea of the Agrii being mostly benevolent watchers had never squared with things in his experience. At the moment he just raised an eyebrow.

Tony was starting to doubt that this Force thing was really all that rare, and cocked his head to watch Ezra focus curiously, not sure what to expect. There might have been a lot of them, but they all seemed to work a little differently. It was thus a surprise to him when the puzzle box looking thing bloomed, catching his wide-eyed attention at the imperceptible mechanism of it.

The message produced a catalogue of about 800 questions, but the first and most necessary were its context. "Where did you get this?" he directed at Kaz, which didn't exactly mean Tony wanted a description of whatever sewer it was found in. He had to direct his more specific target at Ezra, he thought, focus jumping back to him to elaborate, "Is there, like, a publishing date on these things? Where is it coming from?"

Ezra has opened his eyes to watch the message and was still frowning thoughtfully was Tony spoke in his direction.

"I..don't know how to pull that kind of information from it. Or authentication or anything like that. The archivists at the Jedi temple would know, if anyone does." He looks a little sheepish. "I am a Jedi, but from after the Order was mostly killed," he admits. "Most of my learning's been hands on."

"Not through what you'd call 'respectable' means."

Kaz replied to Tony's question, but he gave Ezra an icy look.

"Then don't use the network to see if it's genuine. If it is then we can't let anybody or anything watching the network know that we have it. Only tell people in person or not at all."

"Okay." It was a start. And Tony's turn to close his eyes, because a start was not the time to start a squabble like Kaz's tone implied. They already seemed to be in a kind of agreement about the next steps, no need to get feisty about it. "No one shows it to anybody," Tony declared for them, there, end of discussion. "Not until we know what we have. Ezra, you'll go to the temple, ask about...archiving. Don't get too specific, but find out if there's any way to trace this. Kaz, you found it, does that mean you can follow the papertrail? The holo...thing.." Whatever they had called it, Tony held out his hand expectantly. It wasn't going with either of them, that was for sure. "It'll be here. It takes a force of nature to get on these ships. I promise I won't drop it."

Ezra glances between both of them with a frown. He understands need to know, really he does, but he doesn't quite get the leap to secrecy in this instance.

"I can go ask questions about holocrons, sure. If you're worried about keeping the information...among Tembarians, in particular, and not making people inside or outside the group paranoid, Master Kenobi's the next person to bring into the loop. He's way more experienced than I am."

Kaz turned that icy look on Tony. It did not escape his attention that Tony was attempting to take control of the situation and trying to tell both Kaz and Ezra what to do. In silence at the moment, Kaz plucked the Holocron from Ezra's hand. It closed again the moment his hand touched it, but he only put it into a pocket inside his jacket.

"I know neither you nor Kenobi, so I think I'm going to hang onto this right now."

He wouldn't be able to stop Ezra or Tony from talking about it, though.

"I was planning to look into the origins of this thing, anyway. And since I'm not a Jedi, I'm more likely to get certain merchants to talk."

He looked at Ezra again. This time less icy but with those dark brown eyes gone as flat and black as a shark.

"Kenobi already doesn't much like talking to me, so you'll have to tell him in person. If he agrees to keep any mention of it or its contents off the network, then we show him. But keeping mention of it off the network is the important part."

Ezra trying to suss out the logical limits had Tony raising his free hand to tilt, so-so, grimacing at the options and possible outcomes and not immediately sure how to articulate his concern. Both of these guys hadn't been around for the last time they went off planet and the shitshow that very nearly was, so he had to pick apart where to even begin. "It's hard to tell who or what this might set off, not just...Tembarians?" It didn't help that he was distracted by this choice of words, unaware that they had an official designation. In the beat of this confusion, while Tony was still holding out his hand, Kaz neatly snatched and tucked away the issue, leaving Tony's fingers outstretched and empty while he stared in bewilderment.

He thought the plan had been pretty uncontroversial. Mostly because it was correct. "You're just going to carry it back into all of those 'respectable' places, and broadcast that you probably have it," Tony acknowledged for the party, stirring his finger between them so they were all aware of Kaz's tactical strengths. Maybe he should have put that call out to Cal. "Can you agree to stick together, then?" he proposed, arms folded again to look more stern, brow raised like he already didn't think that was going to happen. "I mean, it's not like anyone can tell he's a Jedi. Can they? Is it...the hair?" he tried, hand already escaping to gesture vaguely around his head at Ezra.

"I'm not in Jedi attire; I don't have the padawan braid just about any human Jedi my age would have here. I haven't even built a new lightsaber yet. I can take a blaster if I'm headed somewhere shady, and I'm good with one. Unless I do something obvious with the Force, no one's going to know I'm a Jedi," Ezra spells out.

"But for the record, I think a better plan is putting the holocron somewhere safe while we're investigating - like wherever you've been sleeping, Kaz, if you're going to be weird about it." Because Kaz was definitely being weird about it, in ways that reminded Ezra of Maul. Not a great association, in his mind. "Although I'm still not quite sure what both of you are worried about. There's not much to do with the little information there is, right now."

"That's exactly the point, there isn't much to do about it right now. But with time we can first figure out if it's genuine and second we'd have a small but useful bit of surprise. Provided, of course, none of us talk about it."

Kaz looked between Ezra and Tony with those dead sharklike eyes.

"I'm not going to carry it around in my pocket, you don't need to worry about that. But also don't worry about what I do with it, it'll be safe from anyone on this planet or this ship. All of that aside, I don't think Ezra would want to 'stick together' in the first place."

It didn't take a genius to tell that Ezra had his share of building resentment toward Kaz. That was okay with Kaz. Everyone did.

That was actually pretty useful information that Ezra was offering, because Tony hadn't really worked out how genetic the Jedi thing was and he had yet to be informed about particular aesthetics. A braid, got it, he'd keep an eye out, maybe. "That's his thing, he's weird," Tony muttered out of the side of his mouth, looking to Kaz very innocently like there was any possible way he didn't hear that.

Though it wasn't clear how much they agreed on why, Tony wasn't about to argue Kaz out of the idea of not telling anyone until they knew what they had, so he was effortlessly switching sides as Kaz responded to point to him with a sagely nod for Ezra to agree as well, come on, stop being weird.

There was clearly something brewing between the pair that Tony didn't particularly want to stay in the middle of, so that was where his malleability was going to end and he took a step back, ostensibly to head toward the drink dispenser in the galley. "You're both very independent and we're all very impressed," he said. "I'll be here to let you know how you did when you figure out which way your pants go on." While they were screwing around, maybe Tony could get the job done himself.

Ezra gaze slides slowly from Kaz to Tony, and then back.

"Do both of you think this is some kind of contest?" Not the same sort of contest, maybe, but that's the vibe he's getting here, and it's very confusing.

"Who are you hoping to surprise, Kaz?"

"Yes, I do think this is a contest, and the loser dies. The fact that you're asking me that question is all the more reason to keep any mention about this Holocron thing off the network."

Kaz looked at Ezra as if Ezra was being too precious. It wasn't necessarily about 'who', it was about making the best possible use of a secret. A secret wasn't like a coin and wouldn't keep its value in the telling. Kaz couldn't stop Ezra or Tony from talking about it either but he didn't have much of a choice. He just hoped they were at least intelligent enough to figure out the value of secrecy on their own.

"The only problem is the need to be 'Force-sensitive' ,as you put it, to replay the message."

"It's a game," Tony corrected, turning to face them once he had his glass of water and leaned against the counter. "One that something far more powerful than us has been playing for a very long time. That little lady in there," he gestured toward Kaz and the concealed holocron, "is trying to warn you. Dollars to donuts, you are supposed to have that thing right now, and they're hoping you do something stupid with it."

Were they following yet? It wasn't like they were all that enthusiastic the last time Tony tried to tell them how to handle this. He nodded slowly, waiting for either of them to join him and let him know they were on board now, only to quickly grow impatient with a frown and elaborate for them, "You start making noise about pursuing this and get a little careless, either you're going to spook off the only lead we have right now to get our hands around the throats of the people who brought us here, or they're going to put you down for knowing too much."

He tilts his head back and thinks for a moment. Ok, a game. Taking the message at face value, possibly played by the Atroma, or whatever they were a stand in for. Sure. He'll go with that for the moment.

"I can also look up Taren Jid. I can't know if the Archives have been altered, obviously, but if she was a real Jedi Master, she should have a record in the Archives."

This time Tony was making more sense. Kaz could see that he was still trying to control the situation but Tony wasn't being overt about it.

"Alright. You find out about this 'Taren Jid' person. Tony and I will do what we can to backtrack where this thing came from."

It might seem like a compromise on the surface but cooperating would mean Kaz would be able to keep an eye on what Tony was doing. He at least trusted that Ezra wouldn't have time to talk in a library, so that should keep him distracted for a little bit. Kaz had acquired the Holocron because he listened to another 'junk-trader'(read smuggler) who was complaining that he'd gotten stiffed. And as a result, he had a fancy box that held a glowing brick. Even the message, which still took a Jedi to open it, was just a lot of unknown names and places. It refers to the planet 'Agra-10' but it's on no star chart he could find.

Needless to say, it was a long night of bar-hopping for Kaz, as he eventually found a way to obtain the Holocron. Money helps with that, too. But aside from that first link, Kaz had no idea how long or short the rest was going to be.

Now, that sounded like a good place to start from Ezra, earning him a grin of appreciation that rapidly froze in rictus with Tony's eyebrows climbing in surprise and some distress at the revelation that he had done something to get on Kaz's good side. After his cold response to Ezra, Tony was no longer sure the Jedi was the one that deserved the sympathy and tried to will some of that Force-communication into being to beg Ezra's help with this revealed personality defect.

He did get what he wanted, though, didn't he? Tony effortlessly transformed the teasing toward Ezra back into an easy smile for Kaz, what, he wasn't doing anything. "Anything comes up, send a raven," he instructed. "Consider everyone that approaches you now suspect, but don't, you know, be weird about it. Where to first, big guy?" See, Tony didn't have to control everything. Just where they ended up and how they did it.

"You think you're being funny, but I bet I could get one of the sparrow from around the temple to track you down," Ezra murmurs.

Big guy? Kaz wasn't even particularly tall.

"The one I bought it off of was just a low-level crook who was trying to make easy money and the smuggler he bought it from said it was a part of the valuable scrap that he was running to avoid paying taxes on it. But where did the scrap come from? There have to be records somewhere. But because this place -" he waves vaguely to include all of Coruscant "- doesn't use paper, I've got no idea how to find it."

Of course, when Ezra makes that comment, Kaz's attention goes back to him.

"Could you do that to any bird?"

A bird was far more subtle than Tony was capable of being, though that wasn't a high bar to cross, never mind Tony and Kaz trying to charm their way through a paperless trail. Over the rim of his glass, Tony narrowed his eyes thoughtfully at Ezra, not sure if this was big talk for a kid having a sulk or if he might come around to the same realization on his own. It was hard to tell; animal communication was a new one yet for the Jedi power array as Tony understood it.

"We can pay," Tony added, prompting Ezra along to reveal his hand. Not that he knew what a bird would expect as reasonable compensation. He could probably find some seeds.

'Pay' Ezra mouths in bemusement.

"Doing something for them always helps, sure. And it's not a bird only thing, or all birds, it's just...animals. Or living beings, really. I'm good at making connections with them through the Force. How useful that is depends on how friendly the creature is, and intelligent, and a little bit how much of a connection they innately have to the Force, too. The Temple sparrows live where the Force is strong, and they're used to Jedi. If I ask nicely, I'm sure they'd track someone for a reasonable amount of time or carry a message."

He can simply...command animals, too. But that trends close to the Dark Side, at the very least. So he's not going to even give anyone ideas along those lines - much less that he's taken forceful control of the minds of humans.

Kaz raised an eyebrow at that. He also has no idea what a bird might take as compensation. But the second joined it when Ezra admitted he could 'talk' to any animal. Apparently, all he had to do was ask nicely. He almost always had the same calm, cool expression but this is amazing to Kaz and could be a very valuable skill in the future.

"Is this any animal or just the ones here?"

By 'here' he meant Coruscant and this galaxy in particular.

Being able to communicate with animals at all wasn't as much of a novelty for Tony, so the exact details and limitations of Ezra's abilities were not as interesting as solving their immediate problem. He wandered closer again to pass a hand briefly over Kaz's elbow to get him to focus, he could play with his friend later when it wasn't taking up Tony's time, and asked, "Do you think they can find out where the video came from?"

"Works fine on the glownies around Temba," Ezra replies. "They're just not very complicated. Project the feeling of happiness and safety and maybe promise some food, and they'll go where you want, but that's about it."

He eyes Tony. "I'll be honest; I'm not sure we can find out where it came from. Holocrons last a long time; that recording could be centuries old. We don't have great leads. A way to carry a non-Agrii network message is probably about the right level of task for birds."

You won't find me looking back

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