“So Ensign Tyrol, let’s go over this one more time.”

Ibram sighed and leant back against the cold, hard chair they had given him to sit in when he had arrived.

“If we must,” he said wearily.

“Well forgive me Mr. Tyrol, but the VE Intelligence service takes great interest when one of its officers receives money outside of his normal pay check, exactly at the same time as an important diplomatic envoy goes missing.”

Ibram rolled his eyes.

“And not only did you and your wingman intercept Mr Kaufman’s shuttle, but you escorted it down the first moon where the ambassador, his 6 other crewmembers, and the shuttle, promptly disappeared.”

In essence, Ibram mused, I was in the wrong place, at the wrong time, doing the wrong thing.

“I’ve explained all that,” Ibram said. “Myself and my wingmate, were on a routine patrol around one of Tadath’s moons when we intercepted the ambassador’s shuttle having what appeared to be internal difficulties. We guided the shuttle down to the surface so that we could help.”

“So your report says,” the intelligence officer commented. “It also says that you were promptly attacked by a green skinned Twi’lek, who you managed to over-power and restrain.”

“Yes,” Ibram said. “With the prisoner restrained, we did a search of the vessel to find copious amounts of blood everywhere, but no bodies. I managed to identify the man as one Nush Qualles and I sent a signal off to central command.”

A smirk, “Which Coms has no record of receiving.”

Ibram shrugged, “Well I suspect those bounty hunters had something to do with that.”

Another smirk, “Yes... this ‘Roworth Hunters Agency’ you refer tool. You know we can’t find anything on them?”

“Well I suppose if you could then they wouldn’t be very good at what they do would they?”

If the man wasn’t even going to tell him his name, then Ibram had no qualms about being glib. He remembered how, half an hour after he had sent a signal, an un-marked assault shuttle had landed near them and several unmarked troopers had stormed out. The leader had thanked him for capturing such a dangerous criminal, took both Nush and the shuttle and left, giving Ibram a business card of all things. Now, barely a few hours later, he was being grilled by VE Intel. A bit of an odd day.

The intelligence officer was about to continue when one of his associates walked in and handed him a datapad, along with a worn out piece of durasheet. The man’s face darkened and he looked up and scowled at Ibram.

“Well, it seems you are free to go Ensign. We’ve found Kaufman’s body, and some... illuminating evidence has turned up. You are dismissed.”

As Ibram stood up and left the room, slightly bewildered, he caught a glimpse of what was on the Durasheet.

Smeared in what could only be blood was the message:

IT WAS ME
- NUSH QUALLAS

OOC:

495 words - had to ever so slightly alter the parameters somewhat. but only slightly. Sorry!