Sithspit

[Kal Doran]

Biro was going to owe him big time.

Kal had spent the better part of the last month tracking down a Rodian known as Geb, a spy that had *sensitive* information on one of Biro's clients. The guy worked as an independent low-level information broker, yet had somehow come into possession of recordings of personal business dealings that were way above his pay grade. What he lacked in sense, he made up for in ambition and had fled Nar Shaddaa and sought refuge in Alliance-controlled space. From what Kal could gather, Geb was using up every last favor he had, trying to contact an Alliance agent to distribute this information. Kal asked the slug what this information was about, but Biro dismissed his question, stating that Kal knew all he needed to.

Biro was getting a little too comfortable with Kal. The arrangement they had was simple: Kal worked for Biro on the occasional job, and Biro would give him access to his network of contacts so that Kal could continue his search for the siblings that the Imperials took from him. The arrangement had worked out fine for a while. Biro paid well enough, and he was resourceful. After all, how else would he have met Mal? Still, the work was becoming more ... distasteful, and Kal was running out of leads faster than Biro could offer him. Kal may be a merc, but he has standards. He followed the Codex to the best of his ability, and Biro was starting to push past that moral gray area that Kal operated in out of necessity.

Yet still, he found himself on Jovan Station, chasing down this Rodian that had wronged one of Biro's clients. And when you wrong one of Biro's clients, you might as well have insulted the Hutt himself. Now Kal had to bring the Rodian back for Biro to dispense with. He was very clear that it was a capture, not a kill mission, which eased Kal's tensions a bit. Sure, Kal was no stranger to killing for money, but he was a Mandalorian. And Mandalorian's have standards.

Jovan Station was a sprawling complex of mashed together architectural features. Kal could make out Imperial designs in the some of the base framework that was similar to what he saw during his brief time in the Imperial Academy. Yet for every Imperial arch, there were a thousand more features from a thousand more cultures. It was an amalgam of science and culture from worlds across the galaxy. It was beautiful in its own way, and Kal could almost sense an undercurrent of pride that was pervasive throughout the complex. And they earned it. Getting these many different people in a single station right on the border of Imperial space without having everyone tear at each others throats was by no means a small accomplishment. Kal made a mental note to himself that when he had the time, he would take a vacation here.

There was no mistaking the Rodian's speeder that Kal had managed to place a tracking beacon on. It was a garish yellow color and had all the refinement and taste of bantha poodoo. However, the Rodian was nowhere to be seen. He was docked in one of the many entertainment districts, so he would likely be trying to hide in plain sight. He would be a nervous wreck, as this would be his last chance for Alliance protection before Kal caught up with him. He was too predictable for his own good, but Kal liked it that way. The easier this particular job was, the easier it would be to avoid unnecessary entanglements with the local law enforcement. Although Kal might have some backup with the Mandalorian embassy on the station, he didn't want them involved in whatever mess could possibly be created if this whole situation went belly-up. Yet Kal had a sneaking suspicion that the embassy already knew he was here.

Kal sent out the few recon droids he had purchased from a slicer on Nar Shaddaa to scan the area and look for Geb and report back to him. In the meanwhile, the Mandalorian strode through the district, trying to balance a need to remain discrete with recon work of his own. He would need to plan a precise exit strategy for when he finally had his mark, otherwise, this would have been all for nothing. He couldn't help but attract a few stares in his direction. An armor-clad Mandalorian with a blood-red terentatek head emblazoned on the chest isn't exactly what anyone would call subtle. Still, being noticed has its advantages. If Geb caught wind that Kal was here, he might just be skittish enough to try something stupid. And that is exactly the opening that Kal needed.

[Untaaura Verratoa]

Untaaura opened the carton up, and the piqued expression on her face quickly turned into dour disappointment.

"What jiss thjiss?"

She glanced up to the human constable, Marc Kailis.

"Four thimiarr, ma'am. Like you asked."

With disdain, the Jaani'sarri Major hoisted one of the Shili-native rodents up by it's tail. It hung limp in her grasp.

"jIt'ss dead, Consstable."

Untaaura dropped the rodent onto her desk where it thumped with finality. She tilted the carton over, with two more dead rodents rolling out. The fourth one was still alive, but it moved in a sluggish manner.

"Thejy sshould be aljive."

Kailis shifted on his feet. He rubbed at the back of his neck.

"The lady I bought 'em from, she said sometimes they died in captivity."

He fished a credit chit from his pocket.

"She...she did give a discount though, on account of the uh, well, state of them."

Untaaura's look was pure disgust. She carefully began to put the thimiarr back where she'd found them.

"Sshe sshouldn't have ssold them to begjin wjith. Dead and ssjick frrom the look of jit. No Cizerack would eat thjiss, jit'ss unssanjitarrjy."

The Major sighed. She tidied her hands with sanitizer, then massaged her temples to avert a headache.

"Forrget jit, Consstable. Therre'ss no wajy jyou'd know a rrodent mongerr wass sswjindljing jyou. jIt'ss mjy fault forr ssendjing a human to begjin wjith."

She paused, course correcting slightly.

"No offensse."

Kailis shook his head tightly. "None taken, ma'am."

The Major rose from her seat, picking the carton up by it's carry handle. She walked to the security office's garbage chute, and dumped the offensive lunch order down the tube. Goddess, she was starving. What a waste. Couldn't be helped. She'd just have to skip lunch and figure things out after her shift. In the meantime, there was the matter of the apprehended Pyke spice runner that had turned up on a routine transponder check. He hadn't been saying much, but Untaaura wanted to get him talking before she had to remand him to the penitentiary on Torque.

"jIss the Pjyke rreadjy forr quesstjionjing?"

Untaaura fished out a cigarette, sparking it up as she retrieved the file she wanted. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to go into this thing a bit hungry and grouchy. Maybe she'd get under this guy's skin.

"Yes ma'am. Not that he's said much of anything so far."

The Major gave Kailis a grim smile that creased the scar tissue that streaked the right side of her face.

"Leave that to me."

Just then, the doors of the security post slid open. A very agitated-looking Rodian entered, but not before hurriedly glancing over his shoulder. The Major and the Constable both paused, looking at the man.

"You have to help me! My name is Geb, and I have important information for the Alliance!"

Untaaura and Kailis looked to each other, then back to their guest.

[Li Ho Fook]

There was no mistaking his target's speeder. It was the illest yellow, with sick black and white stripes running its length, and gilded brightwork. From a peek inside, the interior was custom as well, fresh green leather on the seats, and illuminated surrounds on what had to be a hella bangin' stereo system, yet there was no occupant to be found. Li Ho Fook (https://theholo.net/forum/showthread.php?56125-Li-Ho-Fook) would have to ask his target what shop he used, so he could get himself hooked up later with prime custom talent. But he was getting ahead of himself.

At four feet, two inches in height, Fook was hardly an imposing figure among the crowds on Jovan. Compounded with furry features and a puffy, orange and cream ringed tail, and the little fellow appeared downright adorable - until you got to the heavy stun pistol holstered at the back of his belt. Lethal projectile weapons were not allowed on Jovan, being a sealed. pressurized environment, outside of security forces, so a stun pistol was all he could legally carry, and all the diminutive bounty hunter needed. Garbed in his street clothes, Fook wove through crowds, taking any vantage point possible to spot his Rodian target. Sneakers, jeans, and a casual shirt and hat allowed him to blend in, despite the absolute rarity of his species.

Fook was a Wah (https://theholo.net/forum/showthread.php?56035-The-Wah). Specifically, he was the only Wah most of the galaxy had ever met, if they'd met one at all. Armed with nearly two dozen false identities, he'd made many names for himself among the stars, yet his most famous name was his own: Li Ho Fook, bounty hunter with high standing in the Bounty Hunters Guild. Eleven years of successful service under his belt, he was bucking for promotion to Hunt Master, and hoped that a quality Hutt job would put him over that mark. After all, a good reputation with a Hutt typically meant for lucrative and lasting contracts in the future, and Biro seemed eager to get his slimy hands on this Rodian fellow - eager enough to take a contract with the Guild, while letting them know he already had someone else on the job.

"Yo, G-Dawg," Fook spoke into his wrist computer. "Guild office got you that sensor sweep, yet?"

Above the wrist computer's surface, a small, green hologram of a bearded human's face appeared, and the tinny speaker boomed "YES, MASTER FOOK! I'M BRINGING IT ONLINE NOW. BUT I DO FEAR THERE APPEAR TO BE QUITE A FEW RODIANS ONBOARD THE STATION AT THIS TIME, AND I CANNOT IDENTIFY WHICH IS OUR TARGET, SIR."

"'S'cool, homie," Fook shrugged, then swiped a claw over the computer's surface, activating a three dimensional map of the station, red dots interspersed throughout it. Section by section, Fook zoomed, panned, attempting to discern where this Geb fellow might be hiding. Staff-only sections were ruled out, with the station's security having been heavily upgraded after the droid assault, while a few other Rodians were marked off as unlikely. His paw froze, however, when he located one in Security, but not a cell.

"Dag, yo, what you doin' chillin' with that 5-O, homeboy?" the Wah sighed.

His left wrist fell again, station map vanishing as he broke into a run, ducking under handrails and zipping through groups of slow or otherwise inattentive aliens. His left paw reached under his shirt to pluck his Guild badge from his belt, where it often lived clipped between a pair of blaster pistol power cells. If he had any chance of bagging his bounty, he had to do it before Geb was in a security cell.

[Kal Doran]

The food here was exquisite. Kal had never seen so many vendors all in one place. In between the cargo shipments crossing the thoroughfare, stalls were set up haphazardly, all pressed together like the many buildings on Nar Shaddaa, though definitely more pleasant. Kal was occupied with a Sullustan selling spiced meats when a ping issued from the data screen on his vambrace.

"ZP-9392 scouting report: Adult Rodian: Codename: Geb. Identity and Location Confirmed. Transmitting coordinates."

Kal spun on his heels and rushed to a more private corridor to view the live security the droid was transmitting. Sure enough, the Rodian was present. He was skittish, constantly looking over his shoulder before he made a mad dash into a security outpost. Before the doors slid shut, Kal managed to get a glimpse of a Cizerack female, looking disgruntled yet stunned by the intruder.

"Sithspit!" muttered Kal, the helmet's voice modulator giving a raspy, gravelly quality to his voice. The Rodian was a lot quicker than he gave credit for. If he managed to spill his guts out before Kal reached him, well, Kal didn't want to think what a Cizerack would do to criminal scum like Geb.

Kal kept watching the live feed to scout the area when suddenly the feed exploded in a mass of sparks. Someone had just blasted the droid to bits!

"Leave it to Biro to set up an impossible job in the heart of Alliance space. If I get through this, the slug and I are going to renegotiate our terms."

Kal lept to the nearest security port and jacked into it, downloading a map of the station. Cross-referencing the partial co-ordinates the droid transmitted with all of the publicly known security stations, Kal was able to pinpoint the exact location of his target. He then quickly sent an encrypted message in Mando'a on the Mandalorian embassy's channel.

"To anyone listening. I, Kal Doran of Clan Doran request assistance in the apprehension of known a known fugitive. A Rodian, by the name of Geb, is seeking to sell sensitive information to the Alliance. I will need diplomatic assistance in the apprehension of the target. The bounty on him is yours, but we need to make sure that the information he has doesn't fall into the wrong hands. Kal out."

Kal then lept over the security railing, igniting his jetpack as he dashed downwards in the direction of the security station. He prayed he would make it in time.

[Untaaura Verratoa]

"jImporrtant jinforrmatjion?"

Untaaura eased her datapad back to the desk. She turned to face the Rodian, crossing her arms across her chest as she took visual stock of him. His posture was all nervousness. Shifting feet, twitching antennae and proboscis. Didn't seem military to her, she'd seen the type. Not to mention if this was official channel stuff, why would he be wasting both their time coming to someone like her?

"Alrrjight, let'ss get a sstatement."

The Major sighed, gesturing to the seat across from hers. She returned to sit behind the desk, and brought her computer online.

"Sstarrtjing wjith jyourr name."

The Rodian didn't take the seat, instead choosing to stand just behind it.

"Look, we don't have time for this! It's important information and I...I think I'm being followed by people who want to shut me up."

He paused, then talked excitedly, gesturing with his hands.

"Besides besides, I can't...I can't give you my name. Look, I've got a history with you people and, lets just say that I don't want my name falling in your lap. It makes things complicated. Way too complicated for me, alright?"

Untaaura raised an eyebrow in sync with her bobbed ear. She glanced to Kailis with a momentary side-eye, who merely shrugged.

"Let me tell jyou how thjiss worrkss. jI enforrce the law. jYou brreak jit, jI arrresst jyou. jYou want to make a deal, jyou talk to a courrt afterr the fact. Call jyourr ssoljicjitorr, jif jyou have one. One wajy orr anotherr, jyou have to gjive me ssomethjing, orr we don't have anjythjing to talk about, and jI sshow jyou the doorr."

For emphasis, Untaaura gestured with a hand in the direction Geb had entered.

"Don't wasste mjy tjime, forrda. jI have a lot of rreal crrjimjinalss to deal wjith and jI don't -"

And in that moment, in a singular act of desperation, Geb dove over the chair and desk, lashing out with a closed fist. It connected along the Major's bobbed ear. Not enough to do damage, but definitely enough to make her mad.

And she'd been looking for an excuse.

Well now he could stay here all he wanted. Assaulting an officer was a felony.

Untaaura wrenched Geb off his feet, applying pressure at his wrist to sling him to the floor where she could straddle his back. From there, she drove her elbow into the small of his back enough times to knock the breath out of him, leaving him to wheeze while she applied stun cuffs in peace. Untaaura glanced up at Kailis, pointedly jerking her head towards the detention cell.

"Well go on! Get jit rreadjy. Lookss ljike the Pjyke jiss gonna have companjy!"

[Li Ho Fook]

"A RATHER INTERESTING MESSAGE HAS JUST BEEN SENT TO THE MANDALORIAN EMBASSY, MASTER FOOK," Guan Yu's voice thundered into Fook's earpiece as the Wah ran.

"Ain't about cheese this time, is it, G?" Fook grumbled before vaulting a row of potted plants.

"OH GOODNESS ME NO, SIR, I LEARNED MY LESSON ABOUT PRIORITIES LAST TIME, I ASSURE YOU. BESIDES, MANDALORIAN CHEESE IS MOST DISAGREEABLE," his ship's AI replied with a chuckle. "IT APPEARS TO RELATE TO YOUR QUARRY, SENT FROM A MERCANRY NAMED KAL DORAN, OF CLAN DORAN. HE IS REQUESTING ASSISTANCE IN APPREHENDING MR. GEB."

"Sucka' won't need assistance," Fook quipped. "Grandmaster gettin' to homeboy first. This is my collar, feel me?"

Muffled steps on commercial grade carpeting turned to high-pitched squeaks as his sneakers churned over vinyl flooring as he ducked down a side corridor. By now, Fook had made enough trips to Jovan to learn a few of its shortcuts, though his ears canted up at the roar of a jetpack overhead. Jetpack. On a space station. Had to be a Mandalorian. No one else was that cocky.

But Mandalorian with a jetpack meant that Fook was now likely racing the very man who requested assistance in catching Geb, and there was no way in the Force that Fook would allow himself to be beaten to the punch. A deep breath flooded his bloodstream with fresh oxygen, and the little Wah put on a turn of speed which appeared very much superhuman as he became an orange blur through the promenade. Sure, using the Force to amplify his speed could be considered cheating, but if you have a tool available to you, it would be whack to not use it. And when money was on the line, it wouldn't just be whack, it would be mad whack.

Skidding through the doors of the security office, Fook held his badge up high. "Licensed bounty hunter!" he announced, his right paw not going anywhere near his stun pistol. He then spotted the stun cuffs on the Rodian, and hoped he wasn't too late. "I can take him from here, Ma'am. Mr. Geb, here, has a bounty on him, and I am here to retrieve him. Thank you for your assistance," he nodded to the Cizerack woman he presumed to be in charge.

[Kal Doran]

Kal had just managed to get within half a klick of the outpost before he noticed something fast making a dash towards the very same outpost. Kal did his best to slow his approach, landing atop a balcony that had a straight view of the entrance. Kal couldn't make out what creature had just entered, but he was clearly after the same charge as he.
The slug and I are going to have that conversation after all.

Whoever he was, the bounty hunter had just provided an opportunity for Kal. It was possible he could get in and out of the outpost with his charge with the bounty hunter taking the fall. Kal summoned the remaining recon droids to him.

"New order: find the power junctions to that outpost. On my signal, I want you to cut power to the entire facility. After that, post yourselves on all key exits. Broadcast all your feed directly to me, and send an alert if anyone even comes close to us."

The droids buzzed off in separate directions. The local area was starting to fill out with dock workers coming back from their lunch break. Kal would have to be precise. If he mucked this up, there would be a whole lot of witnesses, as well as a few casualties. And Kal was unwilling to take the life of an innocent or put them in harm's way if there was a choice in the matter.

[Untaaura Verratoa]

Maybe the Rodian wasn't full of bantha poodoo after all.

Untaaura turned to face the hirsute alien the moment it crossed her threshold. The Jaani'sarri beat it into you through training that you squared to face the threat. Threat was sometimes literal and sometimes metaphor. Nevertheless, it affected the unconscious economy of movement of a Pride Marine in such a way that conversation or knife fight were always shoulders perpendicular to threat.

For the moment, this was not a knife fight.

The Major's blast-cropped ear flicked at the sight of the alien as it frantically tried to assert hunter's jurisdiction. As the creature rapidly made his case, Untaaura's jaw tensed, relaxed, tensed. Her tail stilled it's sway, the tuft ticking upwards slightly with the hunter's cadence.

"That won't be happenjing. Thjiss man jiss underr arrresst perr Alljiance law forr asssaultjing an offjicerr."

Untaaura extended the blade of her open hand in the direction of the door Fook had just entered.

"jYou majy sstate jyourr clajim wjith the Gujild forr cusstodjial prrecedence once thjiss charrge hass been ssettled."

A distant sound in the concourse broke Untaaura's eagle-eyed attention. Her ears quavered, tilting to triangulate the noise. Whatever it was, it meant nothing good. She tilted her head so that she could catch Kailis in a side-eye glance.

"Consstable, rrecall the patrrol ssquad back to ourr posst."

"Yes ma'am."

[Kal Doran]

"Now."

The droids made a whirring sound as they drilled their way into the secure junction boxes, not stopping until they reached the main power switches. The three of them precisely timed their execution so that the security measures wouldn't fry each of the droids when the alert went up, if it did at all.

Kal could hear the low rumble as the power shorted out and went down. He summoned the droids to the security exits before zipping down to the security outpost. Kal was lucky, as the crowd was beginning to thin out. Bad for cover and discretion, but good for minimalizing casualties. It wasn't Kal's style. He avoided skullduggery and firefights whenever he could. He was a professional, and he had a code to maintain. The more work he did for Biro, the further he strayed from his true goals.

Kal removed a few canisters from his belt. They were filled with a thick, noxious gas, perfect for what Kal was planning. It would definitely obscure vision, with only those who had infrared capabilities able to penetrate it, but the secondary effect that Kal was counting on was its ability to knock out those with weaker constitutions. He couldn't guarantee that anyone else inside the outpost would be affected, but that damned Rodian would.

Kal pulled the pins on the canisters one by one, sending three into the room and waiting a few seconds. He could hear the unmistakable sounds of violent coughing, but he waited for one particular sound. As soon as he heard a light thud, he crept his way into the outpost. The thermal imaging worked well enough in the dark and cloudy interior, but Kal didn't expect the cloud to be so thick. Without the ventilation chambers in his helmet, he would be experiencing a coughing fit as well. He scanned the floor until he saw his charge. The Rodian was out cold, so Kal activated the whipcord launcher on his vambrace, watching as it snagged itself around the target's legs. Now, if he woke up at all, he wouldn't be able to get very far. Kal dragged him as silently and swiftly as fortune would allow him, making his way to the exit before backup could get there. Or so, he hoped.

[Mackenzie Tallen]

Mackenzie hated bounty hunters, and everything they stood for. Maybe it was the last buried vestiges of his Imperial Security Bureau past rearing their ugly head, but everything about them rankled his sensibilities. To the untrained mind, that may have seemed hypocritical: after all, ISB Agents were just as notorious for their dubious morality, ruthless pursuit of targets, and the ambiguous survival chances of anyone they were sent after. But at least the Bureau stood for something, in theory at least. The people they hunted were supposed to be the bad guys - traitors, criminals, terrorists and the like - rather than whatever poor soul had pissed off someone with enough credits to have them hunted down. Sure, there were guilty and innocent folks on both sides, especially when the Imperial bureaucracy and political interests came and muddied everything; but operatives like Mackenzie had actually cared about guilt and innocence, something bounty hunters were too busy worrying about their profit margins to consider.

Not that Kal Doran was a bounty hunter, of course. It hadn't taken long after his request for assistance to run his name. He was a mercenary for the looks of things, one with ties to the seedier end of the employment spectrum; Mackenzie couldn't decide if that made him as bad as a bounty hunter, or worse. Complicating matters was the actual bounty on the head of the Rodian he'd named in his transmission, and that thoroughly pushed this into the theatre of embassy business. The relationship between Mandalore and the Bounty Hunters Guild was strange, and for Mackenzie it was uncomfortable. He didn't quite understand how having bounty hunters camping in their back yard was a benefit to the Mandalorian people, but the Guild certainly seemed to benefit from their enclave within neutral Mandalorian Space. An unlicensed Mandalorian, trying to collect on a sanctioned Guild target, in the middle of an Alliance space station? Oh yeah, this was going to go swimmingly.

It was at that moment that the lights flickered and faded, some sort of obvious disruption affecting the power grid for this section of the station. Mackenzie muttered a string of curses under his breath and quickened his pace, retrieving his helmet from beneath his arm and settling it into place over his head. A good thing too: the next corner brought him into a corridor slowly beginning to fill with smoke. The heads up display pressed against his eye adjusted for the depleted lighting, and drew a crisp outline against the floating reconnaissance droid that bobbed on repulsors in the doorway ahead.

"Doran, this is Tallen, from the embassy," he hissed into his comlink, broadcasting back on the frequency that Doran had earlier used. "What in the nine hells do you think you're doing?"

[Li Ho Fook]

"He's fuckin' shit up mad whack, homie!" Fook's voice snapped back across the line. "That's what home-skillet's doin', dawg!" Though he had not been requested to do so, Guan Yu had left the communication line he'd found open to monitor for any further messages, and had inadvertently patched it in to Fook's earpiece, allowing the Wah in on what had been intended to be a private conversation. Only after he said it did Fook realize he might be set for inbound audio only, though, and the other end might not have been able to hear him.

The smoky gas inside the small chamber was thick and infuriating, noxious to taste and burned his eyes. Were it not for the emergency re-breather stashed on his belt, and now clenched between his teeth, the little bounty hunter surely would have hit the floor before Geb did, and as it stood he had perhaps another thirty seconds before its supply of breathable oxygen ran out. Thirty seconds in which to act, secure his target, and get the hell out of there. Plenty of time, really.

While his stinging eyes failed him, the gas could not block sounds from reaching his radar-dish ears, and years of experience with equipment were enough to give him the gist of what was going on. A tether cable had been launched and secured, and whoever this Duran Duran sucka was, his punk ass was not gonna bounce with Fook's meal ticket. Cursing his decision to leave his customary goggles back in his ship, Fook instead reached for two implements from his belt which had come with him: his modified heavy stun pistol, and a blaster pistol power cell. As light poured in from the doorframe, a large enough silhouette was given to him as a target, with the notable bulge of a jetpack on its back. Raising his blaster, Fook sighed, shook his head, and fired off a three shot burst at the silhouette - two stun blasts, with an ion charge blast between, just in case his opponent was yet another droid. He didn't wait for a reaction, instead lunging toward the shape, while his left paw snapped that energy cell to the side, unleashing its secret.

From its tip shot forth a yellow blade of plasma, around two feet long, humming in the smoke and whipping an arc through the air intended to sever Kal Doran's whipcord - if Fook guessed his distance correctly, that was.

[Untaaura Verratoa]

Before the Wah could comply with the order or question it, the illumination at the security station died without a flicker's hesitation. Not just the lights, but also computer terminals, comms, forcefield generators. Everything. The Major took a defensive half-step backwards, but before she could even draw her weapon from it's holster there was already another incoming blur of movement, punctuated by a metallic sound of tink tink tink as something metal caromed off the walls and floor behind. Kailis sounded the vocal alarm as Untaaura realized the threat.

"Gas! Gas! Gas!"

Before Verratoa could squeeze a center-of-mass shot at the silhouette at the threshold, it was swallowed from her vision behind an opaque white fog. The Major took what she hoped would be a deep and unimpeded breath before ducking behind the veil billowing from her desk. Too late, she realized sourly. She must have caught a trace of the chemical agent mid-inhale, and her chest shook with conflict as her lungs rebelled against her needfully-drawn breath. Streaming tears overspilled and blurred her vision as she fumbled for the emergency hazard kit under the desk. Eventually the levee broke, causing Untaaura to violently expel her breath in a broken cough. She took in another breath of fouled air before she could resist the urge, and the agony doubled. Dropping her pistol, Verratoa tore open the seals on an emergency rebreather, shaking the beginnings of a rope of mucus from her nose with a violent back and forth. She cut loose with one last ragged cough before slipping the apparatus over her head, cinching the elastic tight at her scalp beneath her tight fade. A twist of the filter covering opened a breatheway, and Untaaura took in quick and greedy breaths between her labored hacking.

By now, the security post had been inundated. Whatever the agent was, it was both noxious and dense. The single shell transplast of her rebreather only saw a matte wall of white in front of her, accented by shadowed grey. She traced the floor with her palms, bumping into the grip of her sidearm, which she quickly reholstered. It wouldn't do her any good in this visibility. In lieu of that, the Jaani'sarr removed her knife from it's scabbard, clearing with a silken sound of oiled steel on leather.

"Consstable..."

No response. Untaaura blinked the residual moisture from her swollen eyes as her large sensitive ears pivoted forward to triangulate any sounds that might betray threat. Not that she had to strain whatsoever to hear the Wah's guttural street slang as he barked stun bolts into the mist. The Major advanced, leading with an open hand as she trailed the edge of the desk. She stumbled, her boots catching something on the floor. Untaara knelt down low. From this close, she could begin to make sense of form and shape, finding Constable Kailis lying still on the ground. The Marine carefully tilted the man's jaw aside, pressing two fingers just beneath the crook.

"Thank Goddesss."

A rhythmic pulse. Whatever this was, it wasn't dioxin or some other poison gas. That didn't mean she wasn't about to find whoever had assaulted her position and gut them like a fish.

A new sound caught Untaaura's ears in an instant, swiveling towards the source. This wasn't small arms fire. It sounded like...she knew that sound.

A lightsaber.

Untaaura advanced on the flicker of a yellow corona in the mist, catching sight of the Wah's diminutive silhouette shaded in relief by the charged plasma. Through the local illumination, she also caught a fuzzier shape - taller and humanoid.

"Sstop rrjight therre!"

[Kal Doran]

Three blasts streaked their way through the crowd in Kal's direction. The first glanced off of his shoulder. He could feel a jolting pain, though it was likely only able to do cosmetic damage due to the armor. The second blast hit his pack. Electric energy coursed over it, which then sizzled and popped before it finally grounded itself. The pack would be no good until a system reset, which Kal simply didn't have time for. The third blast, however, did the most damage. It went wide, missing Kal, yet it ricocheted off the corner of the wall and struck the Rodian in the head. Normally, stun blasts to the head would knock someone out for a week or so as the energy did serious but not lasting damage to the nervous center. A Rodian's head, however, had triple the nerve endings of most humanoids. If Geb wasn't dead, he would be comatose for the rest of his life.

Kal let the bounty hunter cut the chord. Kal preferred to not be on the business end of a lightsaber. As the wrapped Rodian fell to the ground, a datapad stumbled out of his vest pocket. Kal swiped it off the ground as he stumbled out into the corridor. The Cizerack barked an order that only further emboldened Kal into getting the hell out of there. The bounty hunter may have been firing non-lethal, but Kal knew the reputation of the Cizerack. Proud warriors, ferocious, and as deadly as they come. And he was on her turf.

Kal saw Tallen before he registered his voice over the comlink. He looked pissed. Kal didn't blame him. It was his every intention to leave the embassy out of this. Any heat that this job made would be directed at him, not Mandalorians as a whole. They already had a negative reputation amongst too many people, and Kal didn't want to perpetuate it. But this was apparently too important. Just then, two of the recon droids started broadcasting live feed into Kal's HUD. One entrance had what looked like an entire platoon of Alliance soldiers marching to their location. That was to be expected. What worried Kal was the number of thugs that would meet them in a few moments coming down the opposite corridor. Kal knew the look, knew the dress and armament. They were Biro's guys.

Kal had a sneaking suspicion about what was on the datapad, though he couldn't be sure. Whatever it was, the Empire was not going to get their hands on it, no matter what. Kal ran over to Tallen, thrusting the datapad into his hands.

"No matter what, keep this safe. It can't be entrusted to anyone else's hands but yours. Whatever is on it, the Imperials cannot be allowed to have it." Kal then dashed down a side corridor, drawing out his blaster pistols. He couldn't take on the thugs alone, there was just way too many of them. But he could slow them down, and give Tallen an opening. He could hear a lot of noise behind him coming from the security outpost, but he couldn't make out what it was.

"Too many innocents. Too much blood. Biro will pay for this."

[Mackenzie Tallen]

What?

It was the only semblance of a coherent thought that Mackenzie could form, given the circumstances. Had he been gripped by the urge to relieve himself in a quiet corner when this crisis had first began, he'd still have been mid-flow by now. Explosions? Power cuts? Fleeing Mandalorians? Secret data? This was not the deal he had made with the day, when he'd been forced to blearily clamber out of bed that morning. He was an embassy guard on an Alliance station, for shrike's sake. His existence should have been monotonous, not chaos.

Kal Doran of Clan Doran - it didn't take a Security Bureau veteran to match that name with the departing merc - was gone before a demand for clarification could be issued, leaving Mackenzie standing alone in a corridor in a state of confusion. Alone in a corridor. A lone Mandalorian in a corridor.

Oh, karabast.

Mackenzie thought fast, but acted faster, relying on instincts and training to urge him towards the best course of action given the circumstances. He could run, and he probably had enough time for that; but that would leave station security with two Mandalorians to chase, and that halved the odds of Doran and his withheld explainations being found and retrieved. While granted, more than a cursory glance at Doran and Tallen would make them easy to distinguish - Tallen wore the dark and blue livery of the Death Watch that Mand'alor had adopted for his personal guard, and lacked the red creature emblazoned on Doran's chest - the smoke now billowing from the darkened security post made Tallen doubt that anyone would have had the opportunity to pay that much attention in the heat of the moment, and standing there with his arms raised calling don't shoot, I'm a different Mandalorian didn't seem like the most prudent strategy.

He sighed, stepping across to the edge of the corridor, and slumped against the wall, sliding down until he could sit somewhat comfortably on the floor. The datapad thrust into his hand was quickly flipped over, the case opened and memory card pulled, safely stashed into a convenient crevace in his armour before the datapad was reassembled and set down on the ground beside it. To his other side, he removed and replaced his helmet, microexpressions from his right eye subtly controlling the heads up display to remove the thermal filter from his vision. Last, from a pouch on his belt, he produced his ident card: one that plainly detailed his status in the employ of the Mandalorian Embassy, and the legal immunities that provided.

Satisfied with the display of surrender he had constructed, Mackenzie placed both hands atop his head, leaned back against the wall, and waited for security to arrive.

[Li Ho Fook]

Amidst the choking, stinging smoke, Fook's eyes squeezed shut, blinking tears down his furred cheeks. Whoever it was that had attacked was gone, leaving Fook with his prize. Lightsaber extinguished, he clipped it back to his belt and groped about for the cable attached to Geb, not knowing his own stun blast had struck the Rodian. If there was any chance that the gas could be lethal, Fook had to get him out of the security office quickly.

"C'mon, yo," the Wah grunted around his rebreather, already tasting it running out of fresh air. The cable was wound around his left wrist, providing more grip, and with that he drug Geb out of the security office and into open, clean air as if he weighed nothing. Only there did Fook open his eyes again, wiping away sticky tears to blink and adjust his vision. The Mandalorian was nowhere in sight, and a panic had gripped the area. Thinking quickly, he holstered his stun pistol and shifted his badge to clip it to his shirt so that it was openly visible.

Plucking his rebreather from his mouth, the bounty hunter sucked in lungfulls of clean, safe air, then spoke to his wrist computer. "G-Dawg, page dat Guild office, let 'em know I've got Geb. Bringing his sucka-ass in for that paper, feel me?"

He'd done it. He'd captured Geb, and that was all his contract required. Fook could practically taste that sweet, sweet Hutt contract already.

[Untaaura Verratoa]

As Fook waited for a response on the line, a thundering of four pairs of boots rushed down the corridor towards him.

"Jovan Security!"

"Hands! Show me your hands!"

The returning security patrol arrived in time to see the darkened frontage of the station belching out the last remnants of noxious smoke. Just beyond, they spotted a Wah bounty hunter with a tether leashed to an unconscious Rodian that fit the description of a recently-arrested perpetrator. Three human men and a Nautolan female each fanned out with pistols pointed dead-to-rights at Fook, shouting him down to submission.

"On the ground, now! Don't resist!"



* * *


Once free from the leading wisps of smoke in the corridor outside the security station, the Major tore off her mask, wiping at her dripping eyes with the back of a hand as she sheathed her knife, coming up instead with her sidearm again.

"Thjiss jiss Majorr Verratoa! jIn foot purrssujit of an arrmorred..."

Untaaura trailed off, blue eyes locked onto a kneeling man in a very conspicuous suit of...

"...Mandalorrjian."

Well that was easy. Too easy. She squared to face the threat, drawing a bead on the kneeling Mandalorian through her iron sights.

"Handss wherre jI can ssee them!" she growled, ears pinned back as she closed the gap with a series of quick and measured steps.

"Easse to the deck, handss fjirrsst. jIf jyou even twjitch jI wjill fuckjing ssplatterr jyou!"

[Kal Doran]

Kal peered around the corner before ducking from a blast that melted a fist-sized hole the durasteel wall behind him.

What the hell are they thinking!? This is a pressurized environment!

Disintegrators were illegal in just about every star system, and for good reason. They atomized and slagged whatever they and were notoriously prone to accidental overcharges. Kal had his own pair of modified blasters using the same tech. Reduced the power, but also ensured that the overcharge scenario wouldn't be a problem. Unfortunately, Kal wasn't packing them due to weapon restrictions on the station, which just made Kal more curious as to how Biro's guys managed to smuggle weapons like these onboard.

Kal blindly fired from ard the corner with his blasters, hoping to send them ducking for cover. The station's alarms rang in his headset, preventing him from hearing the squad sneak up from a side corridor and flank him. A volley of blaster file erupted from his right as Kal narrowly rolled away from it. The blasts struck the exposed paneling, showering the corridor in sparks as a lance of electricty struck the squad carrying disruptors. An eerie whine pitched from the unstable energy cells in the weapons, filling Kal with a sense of dread. In the distance, Kal could make out the Alliance guards descending upon the security outpost, so he did his best running towards them, dodging blaster fire all the way, shouting as loud as he could.

All he could make out was a brief shout before the shockwave sent him careening forward through the air and into a wall with a loud thud.

[Li Ho Fook]

The job should have been easy. It should have been a walk in the park, capturing an unarmed, single Rodian in an controlled environment. But somehow shit hit the fan sideways, and now the 5-0 was bustin' his ass like he was ridin' dirty.

Tether cable slipping from his grasp like a length of soggy udon, Fook raised his paws while simultaneously dropping to one knee, then the other, making no sudden moves whatsoever. He hadn't technically done anything illegal, he had nothing to fear. This was just a minor setback, and in short time he'd be cleared and released - hopefully with his rightful bounty.

"Licensed bounty hunter," he announced. "Just pulled this sucka out of the gas so he wouldn't choke to death, feel me? Stun pistol behind my back, it's licensed. I know my rights, dawgs."

[Mackenzie Tallen]

"My hands are already on top of my head," Mackenzie said calmly, not flinching at the angry tirade that the Cizerack snarled and hissed in his direction. "How much more in view would you like them to be?"

It was just his luck that Major Verratoa would be the one aiming a gun at him: the perfect garnish to tie this whole clusterfuck banquet together. He'd read her file as soon as she'd been reassigned here to the station; even the parts he wasn't supposed to have access to, thanks to a strategically placed application of one of the few remaining favours he was owed from the old days. Professional curiosity was one word for it; threat assessment was another. Given his role at the Embassy, the Saarrda'rrou and he were required by their duties to work together, and in Mackenzie's experience that invariably meant coming into some sort of conflict. Knowing who he was dealing with was essential to his survival - or at the very least, to his success - in such situations; and that was why Mackenzie was confident that, despite all her bull and bluster, he was not in any imminent danger of being fuckjing ssplatterred any time soon. A stock strike to the head perhaps; but the Major was not quite unprofessional enough to murder a surrendering suspect just for the hell of it.

What he needed right now was time. Time for what, he wasn't quite sure; but time allowed a crisis like this to focus. Time allowed the heat of the moment to cool. It allowed Kal Doran of Clan Doran to go make a scene somewhere else, to endorse the idea that the threat the Major was all riled up over was still at large. Time allowed -

Mackenzie heard it, just at the limits of his hearing. A whine, the snapping explosive tear of disintegration; a disruptor, not unlike the one Mackenzie himself had stashed away for a rainy day. From the subtle twitch of the Major's ears, and the vague shift in her attention, it seemed that she heard it too. Thank the Force for Cizerack and their damned ears. Mackenzie took a hold of the knife of opportunity jammed into his situation, and twisted.

"I am Mackenzie Tallen of Clan Koine. I'm with the Embassy - my ident is right there on the floor - and I'm not the Mandalorian you're looking for."

He tried to see it from an external perspective. Smoke, commotion, full body armour that robbed a person of the facial cues law enforcement and soldiers were trained to pick up on and recognise; side by side you could tell one Mandalorian from another with ease, but in isolation and with only glimpses, one could very much be mistaken for another. Ordinarily, Mackenzie would have just thrown himself on the mercy of station security, and let his diplomatic credentials smooth all of this over in due course; but if someone was firing disruptors on the station, it was in everyone's best interests - Mackenzie's sense of self preservation included - to see that resolved before someone went and carelessly punched a hole in the hull.

"The guy you're looking for sent out a broadwave on the Embassy channel, relating to a Rodian you have in custody. I was on my way down here to try and figure out what the hell is going on, and that's when I heard the commotion. Your Mandalorian came blasting out, shoved that datapad on the floor there into my hands, and took off in the direction where that gunfire is coming from. Now, I am happy to surrender myself to your custody, and go through the motions until my creds force you to let me go with a smile and an apology - but your suspect is still at large, and it doesn't sound like you have time to dick around."

Cooler heads, Mackenzie mused to himself quietly. Please let cooler heads prevail.

[Untaaura Verratoa]

Untaaura took quick stock of the situation, not wavering her sidearm an inch as she surveyed. An embassy ident card and lanyard on the deck next to a datapad. The Major dropped into an easy crouch that allowed her to retrieve both items from the floor without sacrificing her clear shot. As she did so, she took careful stock of the Clan Koine man's submissive hands - and the gauntlets clasped beyond each at the wrist. She was looking for something - a particular piece of incriminating tech. One mechanism appeared to be a portable field generator, the other a defensive blaster. None of the items featured a weighted projectile and high tensile wire spool that would have betrayed a grappling cable, a device her quarry certainly carried. To top it off, the paint on the Mandalorian's armor seemed to match his story. For her limited time at the security station, Untaaura had noticed the Mandalorian Embassy guards all seemed to favor a blue and grey scheme. While that may have been simply a common fancy among the warrior peoples of Mandalore, a Marine naturally segregated common appearance into common purpose. What it all spelled out to Untaaura was that Mackenzie Tallen of Clan Koine was not her prey.

Somewhere during the process of reaching that conclusion, the powerful din of impacting weapons fire twitched the Jaani'sarr's sensitive ears. Untaaura broke eye contact, glaring sharply in the direction of the blast. Not a blaster, a disruptor. Alarm bells rang in Untaaura's head at the sound. Civilians and unknown quantities with personal carry weapons were bad enough, but something this powerful should never be legal on a civilized planet, let alone a pressurized space station. The Mandalorian had looked calm enough being held at gunpoint, but he looked downright itchy after hearing that sound too.

Quick calculus, quick decision. Untaaura held up the ident badge and data pad.

"jI'll make cerrtajin thjiss holdss waterr - laterr."

She pocketed both swiftly, then lowered her pistol.

"Forr now, Mackenzjie Tallen of Clan Kojine, jI'm deputjizjing jyou. No one fjirress a djissrruptorr on mjy sstatjion."

Clasping hand in hand with him, the Marine hoisted the Mandalorian up from his knees.




* * *


"No pulse on the Rodian. He's a goner." The Nautolan officer flicked nictating membranes over her glassy black eyes, withdrawing two fingers from under Geb's jaw.

"Shit." Korrik Yann muttered as he disarmed the Wah of his stun pistol. A quick scan of the serials and of the short alien's guild credentials came back clean. Still, there were a lot of unanswered questions.

"What were you doing collecting on an Alliance prisoner at a security brig, er, Li Ho Fook?" he paused, giving the Wah's name a try. "Sounds less like a lawful grab and more like a jail break."

Just then, the piercing sounds of thwoom thwoom thwoom filled the corridor, gavelling away conversation in an instant. The Nautolan, Ainjal, was up on her feet with her weapon drawn again. She snatched a comm stick from her belt.

"Command, this is Patrol Six at the G Sector security station. We've got shots fired in vicinity. Heavy weapons fire. Request backup dispatched to this location."

While she waited for the callback, Ainjal tossed a pointed glance back to the other two security officers, her head tentacles quavering with caged urgency.

"With me, come on! Korrik, bracelet the talking womp rat and hoof him to Sector H."

[Li Ho Fook]

"Aw, hell naw!" Fook spat when his bounty was confirmed dead. So much for a Hutt contract, he wouldn't even be given a second chance, now!

Tail drooping, the Wah looked defeated momentarily, and he allowed his stun pistol to be taken without resistance. But when his motives were questioned, the fire blazed once more behind his little black eyes. "I was saving his life, yo!" he snapped. "Or at least trying! Sucka had a bounty out on him, I went to collect. Then homegirl said this fool done assaulted her, so I backed off. Then some jive-ass turkey gone and gassed the shit out of that office and tries to kidnap my meal ticket, so's I stopped him and tried to get bug-eyes here out before he he choked. Wasn't fast enough. So I-"

His ears perked at the sound of weapons fire, which could be interpreted to mean that whoever killed his bounty was still out there. Immediately he was on his feet again, brushing off the cuffs. "Like hell, dawg. I'm gonna bring that sucka down! A moment was spared to glare at Ainjal, "Besides, that was racist as fuck, homegirl."

[Kal Doran]

Kal awoke from a daze, trying to lift himself off the cold floor with very little success. His helmet lay scattered a few feet in front of him, though he could barely make out the shape through the red. He wiped the blood from his eyes, though his vision improved little. The high-pitched whine echoing in his ears prevented him from hearing the shouts between Alliance soldiers and Biro's thugs, but Kal made out just enough to know that he was caught in the crossfire. The explosion had drawn the attention of the Aliiance soldiers towards this position, but not before another wave of mercenaries set up by their fallen comrades. It looked bad.

The hallway filled with blaster fire as he crawled into a side corridor, grabbing his helmet and affixing it to his head. The security feed was down, so it was likely that the droids were destroyed. With as much strength as he could muster, Kal tossed the last of his smoke grenades, bouncing it at an angle so that it would land near the mercenaries. He couldn't do much to help in his state, but a cloud of cover for the Alliance might just allow them to get the civilians out of the way.

One such civilian lay at Kal's feet, a Twilek engineer by the looks of her. A large shard of durasteel had pierced her thigh with blood pooling all around her. If she didn't get medical attention soon, she was a goner. Kal removed an emergency tourniquet from his pack and quickly applied it above the wound.

"Don't move, I'll get help for you."

[Untaaura Verratoa]

Ainjal immediately found cover as disruptor shots sailed overhead. Though, to her chagrin, she was starting to wonder what cover would do against something like this, as half the wall paneling boiled into vapor behind her.

"Karrabast! They've got disruptors!"

As if she had to say it. Even the incidental contact with the corridor wall caused a cascading energy overload that arced through the power conduits, flaring out every light in their section of the hallway. With a quickened pulse, the Nautolan clutched her blaster pistol close, feeling laughably outgunned as she peeked up for a shot.

"Cover me, I'll advance when they pause for a re-" one security officer immediately flashed in a corona of light, immolating into plasma and a handful of embers as a disruptor bolt hit him.

Korrik Yann peeled back behind the bulkhead he'd been peeking out from.

"Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit..."

He locked eyes with the Wah.

"The hell with this! You want 'em, you got 'em!"

Yann unlocked Fook's cuffs as he peeled around the bulkhead again to support his isolated squad leader...



* * *


Untaaura didn't wait for the Mandalorian to mull over or consider her proposal. She had far more important places to be, such as nearly getting her head taken off by a standoff shot fired blind down the corridor. The Marine hit the deck, grumbling as she felt the hot pin-pricks of embers showering from above. She snatched her comm stick from her belt, pivoting it close to her mouth as she lined up an angle for a shot.

"Verratoa to Command, rrequesst ssecurrjitjy sscrreen lockdown ssectjion H ssubssectjion forrtjy ssjix to forrtjy sseven!"

A moment later, the air twenty meters down the corridor quavered as defense screen sconces set into the walls activated. One of the thugs cut loose with another shot, splashing it against the shield nearest Untaaura with a rainbow of flickering energy.

At best, it would slow the gangsters' advance, making it easier to gather a suitably strong security response. That is, until they got wise to the shields and either tried to overload them outright with a volley or to forego the limitation of walls. Either one presented a problem. The Major rose to a crouch, tucking her comm stick away as she searched for a utility panel in the wall. Running her fingers along the seams, she prized it loose just in time to see Mackenzie Tallen of Clan Koine finally catch up to her.

"Gonna need jyou qujickerr than that, deputjy..."

[Mackenzie Tallen]

The Major had found a hole to crawl into. How feline of her. Mackenzie kept any comment on the subject at bay, alongside thoughts about what he might do if he heard the Major butcher the pronunciation of deputy too many more times. He also rallied against his mind's impulses to remind him of another feline with whom he was far more familiar: his kid sister, off being an Alliance patriot or some such nonsense. Still, there was no question in his mind over which cat woman he'd rather be ushered into a maintenance crawlspace by - due in no small part to his sister's propensity for turning into a large tiger creature and clawing off people's faces.

"You realise that those defense screens aren't opaque, right?" he grunted, voice distorted slightly through his helmet's external speaker, as he manoeuvred his armoured frame into the crawlspace that wasn't designed with such considerations in mind. "It's not like they're not going to see that we crawled in here."

Mackenzie squinted a little with one eye, the subtle microexpression adjusting the settings on the tactical eyepiece he wore beneath his helmet, disabling the targetting reticle that kept attempting to acquire a lock on the Major's betailed backside as it shuffled along ahead of him. Idly, he wondered what his past self would think of him now, his service to the Imperial Security Bureau set aside so that he could apparantly be conscripted by the enemy on a whim to crawl foolishly through conduit tunnels to try and sneak up on an enemy that station security seemed to be laughably unprepared to deal with. This wasn't the way the Empire would have dealt with the situation. An Imperial commander would have just sealed the blast doors, and vented the atmosphere -

Realisation flashed across Mackenzie's features. His hand snatched out, grasping the Major by the ankle. "We're going about this all wrong. This is an Imperial station, right? There must be some sort of riot suppression installed. Seal the bulkheads, flood the compartment with vertigon, or nytinite, or FGA-583, T-238 - whatever non-fatal suppressant the station is rigged with. No one gets shot at if everyone in that corridor is incapacitated."

[Li Ho Fook]

It was a dangerous gambit, trading express freedom in exchange for immediate danger, but Fook knew what he was doing. If someone was shooting up the station with disruptors, they clearly didn't care if they also hit a little fuzzy badass in cuffs. Better to be free and defend one's self, even if all he had was his stun pistol.

"Dag," was all that escaped his lips as he pulled it free and charged toward the relative safety of a corner which had already been hit. Taking up that guard's blaster would have been nice, but it had gone up in plasmatic flame along with him, rendering the thought moot. Glancing out around the corner, he attempted to see just how many sucka-ass fools he was gonna have to bounce, only to see them all vanish in the billowing release of another smoke grenade. Clearly that Mandalorian playa was working with these homeboys.

There was only one thing for it. If he couldn't see them, they couldn't see him, and that put everyone on equal footing - Fook's being more equal than others. His stun blaster raised, firing off a barrage of blasts into the cloud before taking a deep breath and rushing in at blistering speed. Being inside the cloud was dangerous, as he would not be able to see any shots coming his way until it would be too late, but it also meant that those trapped in it with him would be in just as much - if not more - danger. Remaining low, he found the first form in the cloud, delivering a stun blast directly to the man's crotch, before the yellow blade of a short lightsaber snapped to life in his left paw. From there it was a hectic dance of stun blasts and low swings aimed to take the legs out, or off of, any of the likely mercenary crew he could before making it out of the smoke on the other side.