Vickie returned to the apartment to find it empty, save for the strong presence in the Force Josh was presenting. That presence was comforting to her. She detected no darkness around him, only light. It was going well, of that she was sure.
With a smile on her face, she made her way to the computer. Zee appeared beside her. "May I help you, Jedi Boyd?"
She sat on the floor and pulled the computer to her, laying it on its side to remove the panel. "No, I've got it," she said. Removing her jacket, she remembered the two bags she carried. "No, wait. Could you analyze these for me? Or have Hyper do it? See if any of it matches with Captain Nolan." She handed the protocol droid the bags containing the blood and the torn shirt.
The droid's head cocked to the side. "Where did you find these?"
"In the underground catacombs where Josh had been running," she said, pulling the hard drive out of another pocket. "I found this too. Hopefully we'll get some answers somewhere."
"Yes, of course." Zee turned and headed to where Hyper was plugged in to a recharging station.
Vickie scanned the inside of the computer and found an empty bay. She slid it in and connected the cables. Sliding the cover back on, she pressed the power button and climbed up into the chair.
She watched the start up screens flash by and waited for Windows to load. It detected the new hard drive, luckily. She went through the process to make it accessible. Once finished, she scanned the drive and opened the history files for ICQ.
Scanning the files, she found IMPSTAR1138 and went through the messages. Most of it was boring "hi, how are you" conversations. However, a few messages from a little over a year ago showed the two discussing the recent sightings of TIE-fighters and X-Wings.
She grumbled when it was obvious that there wasn't going to be any more conversation. She went back to scan the drive for anything that had to do with Bill Skywalker. "Bingo," she exclaimed as she found a recent conversation the owner of the hard drive had had with Skywalker in IRC.
Opening the chat, she went through, scanning for anything familiar.
BillSkywalker: A guy calling himself Mr. Star. He's after some guy in Brisbnae, he says, and gets me to help him w/ accomodation and stuff. Anyway, apparently somehow the guy Mr. Star's after went to Paris... and he's promised cool stuff for ppl who devlier him to hinm... 'alive, but not necessarily unhurt.'
LurkerBelow: Whoah.
BillSkywalker: So, I thougth, you're in Paris, if you can find him, we could split the goodies...
LurkerBelow: Got piccies?
Pictures! She went through the drive and found a folder for Skywalker. Inside were several images. She pulled them up and immediately regretted it. She saw exactly what she was expecting.
Josh Nolan.
She hurriedly went back to the conversation. "Alive, but not necessarily unhurt." She read over it again and again and breathed a sigh of relief. At least she knew he was alive. The question was, who is this Mr. Star and why exactly is he so interested in Crispy?
Putting her head in her hands, she pondered on this. Skywalker had something to do with it, that much she was sure of. And both Josh and Nick had seen Skywalker.
Looking over the conversation again, she tried to find Skywalker's IP. It was no use. The software didn't keep track of that. Cursing to herself, she made copies of the conversations and emails that took place between LurkerBelow and Skywalker. She put them into an email and sent it to Nick. Hopefully he'd have better luck than she had.
Leaning back in the chair, she put her hands behind her head and watched the email send. She sensed Zee approaching her from behind. "Have you found out anything?" she asked the droid.
Zee was startled. She had tried to keep her servos as quiet as possible, knowing the Jedi usually preferred things to be still when they were busy. "I am sorry to disturb you, Jedi Boyd."
"It's ok, Zee. I was just thinking." She sat up and turned the chair to face the droid. "What did you find?"
She looked almost sad. "The blood you found was definitely from Captain Nolan. At least most of it. The rest was unidentifiable, other than it was from a human."
Vickie frowned and nodded. "What about the shirt."
"That was the interesting thing. We found non-human traces on the cloth."
"Non-human?"
"Yes, ma'am. And the odd thing is, they're Trandoshan."
A Trandoshan on Earth? That is not good. "Are you absolutely positive it's Trandoshan?"
"We found a scale that could only be from one of that species."
She let out a long breath and chewed on her lower lip. "Ok, at least we're one step closer to finding Josh."
"If I may, are you sure Captain Nolan is still alive?"
"I have good reason to believe so, Zee. He was wanted alive, not dead. I'm going to let Nick and Kristy know that there's a Trandoshan involved." She turned back to the computer to compose another email.
"I am glad that you are sure Captain Nolan is still alive."
"So am I, Zee," she said while typing. "So am I."