Moonlighting as three people was, Aran decided, her limit. She knew Xan had gone back to the flat but in the end she'd edged away from returning there, pulling the usual routine of bribing through checkpoints, evading cameras, and weaving the crowded streets until she hit decidedly cleaner floors. The air was filtered - the Empire paid well for their facilities on Nar Shaddaa to reflect their desired atmosphere - and the floors clean and the usual rabble was gone. Before she moved too far into the hangar she pulled out her identification, flashing the guards her credentials - forged, like nearly everything she carried - and moving towards the small hangars.
The small skirmish between the Empire and Republic forces on Corellia had been hard to track. She wanted to rage at Ahn'akiir, or the Apprentice, or Dorjan but in the end she realized she couldn't. Ahn'akiir put up with her foibles and eccentricities but they were - what? Uneasy allies at best. Ahn'akiir was Sith and - Aran felt a grin stretch her lips briefly - likely offended that the Apprentice ever address her with any measure of rank. She was fairly certain that she'd found the Republic records from the day's battle though, the wounded and dead. She had their names to add to a growing list.
Fingers keyed entrance to the ship, waiting for the landing ramp to hit the plascrete floor before she stepped up. The ship was empty, footsteps echoing dully on the grated flooring; the droids she used to use to fly it were long gone, banished to act as secretaries at the company offices. Her medical droid was disabled and she'd fitted it with a restraining bolt to keep it deactivated. But on the upside, the number of times she'd attacked a droid had gone down. She wasn't likely to wrench the nearest one apart out of pure defensive reflex.
It was an improvement.
This was where she was stashing the trinkets she needed to study. Her hand briefly rested, flat palm, against the sides of the holocron she'd stolen from Proteus' office. Moving past it she pulled out the two stones lifted from the museum. Ahn'akiir had the one that was still living, from what Aran could tell of observing the shields. And if she was going to figure out what it was they'd acquired for Dorjan she needed to figure out what the Green Jedi had taken the artifacts for, why these two were not responding...
She pulled a chair with a curl of fingers and force, absently removing the holster on her thigh and setting the blaster on the table. When it'd connected with Mildred she'd felt that flare of Dark. So whatever reason the Green Jedi had taken these artifacts, it'd been a good one. She'd started to talk amicably with the Gatekeeper of Proteus' holocron as well, starting to get a feel for the knowledge that she might glean from it.
Picking up one stone she lifted it, balancing it on the tips of her fingers. 'Ris had surprised her in the sandy dunes of Tatooine, waiting for her because she wanted to go to Tython. She'd called Tel-raan to meet them on Nar, eventually pulling away to watch, with amusement, the Jedi Master and the Sithling talk, almost trying to intercede when she saw the moment Tel-raan spoke just one thing wrong. A small thing. But it was better to let the Jedi speak about Jedi business, she told herself.
Setting the stone aside she stood up, moving to the nearby console. Drakkan. No matter what they were both saying Aran knew it was long, long past a business relationship going sour. He was making it personal. Her hand curled into a fist and she took a shallow breath. First check the Empire... then see what the Republic had to say. She doubted that someone who hated as much as Karv seemed to had been passive against the Jedi or Republic.
And then - what? She stopped, mid-typing on the query before she finished sending it off.
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