Author note: StarWars : The old Republic and Star wars does not belong to me. Dragon Age does not belong to me. OC were made from characters that I played as in the game of SWTOR. Please if you see that there are some grammar mistakes, just point them out. English is not my primary language, this is my first story, so I am happy to receive small critics on that field. :D. Will probably update every once in the week. University and that kind of stuff. Hope you will enjoy the story.

Rakghoul blight

Chapter 1 - Contract

Time: Star wars: The Old Republic, somewhere between 12 ATC and 16 ATC

Place: D5 Mantis, Arkanax POV

The crew was nervous, to say at least. Not because that the job was hard or complex, but because it was strange. Sure, they had some weird jobs and bounties to collect, but this screamed weird. All that was written in contract was that contractor needs to meet the Grand champion of Great hunt and his expertise for a journey and that everything will be explained when they arrive on a given meeting point.

Arkanax and his crew tried to avoid this kinds of jobs, because they turned more often than not to be Republic`s or Jedi`s traps. In this case, however, he could not decline this job, for it came on his personal hologram, addressed directly on his name. What also surprised him that the message was coded by Old Imperial Intelligence and that is managed to bypass Mako`s defences was not a small feat. Whoever was behind it, it was someone of great influence that he could manage to get some agents of Imperial Intelligence, and Arkanax had even an idea who it may even be... Cipher 9. That was something that sent shiwers down his spine, even to the seasoned bounty hunter.

Arkanax had his code of honour which was close to the Mandalorian`s, but he himself did not yet thought of true Mandalorian. Torian was a good teacher of Mandalorian history, culture, language and code of honour. And one of lines in Arkanax code of honour was not to kill bystanders and those who do not have bounty. Unfortunately, many people that stood in a way of him and his bounties decided to throw their lives by attacking Arkanax. The one who he thought as a saddest example of those was a jedi apprentice, whose master was his bounty. Who thought that jedi could harbour a great amount of hatred, grudge, and bloodthirstiness hiden behind a mask of peacekeepers. On the other hand ...Cipher9 was a ruthless being, to get a job done he would walk over the skulls of bystanders. Arkanax saw one of his works, the blowing of a skyscraper full of people just to get the Republic attention there so that he could bait out his target for assassination. Of course, that is not information that anyone knows, but he heard rumours about Cipher 9, saw the news about destruction of building and assassination of a Republic leader. Everyone with a little bit of brain could connect the two and two on what happened.

And now Arkanax got a contract that was coded by Imperial intelligence, mostly by Cipher 9, that he was needed. The more he thought about the job, the weirder it got. The templates of his forhead were hurting him. "Boss , Blizz made you some coffe to think better. Need a Boss to be more optimistic." "Thank you Blizz, how is the ship? Do we have enough of spare parts, or shall we get some? " "Do not worry Boss, Blizz loves the ship, already has prepared spare parts and spare parts of spare parts. Managed to acquire them very cheap on Tattoine. Good trade with other jawas, very happy. Must check them again, hope Boss thinks of something out."

He was happy for the little fella. Meet him on the Hoth, a planet of ice, rescued him from the prison and managed to get the best mechanic he could think of which also turned to be a caring friend. Not like certain old gang boss of Black Suns, but he should check those parts that Blizz mentioned he got on Tattoine. No matter how genius a Blizz was and his ability to make something from almost nothing, it would not matter if some parts were of poor quality, and with jawas you never knew. But that may come after he resolved the matter of mysterious contractor. Well, the ship is currently close to the Taris, the meeting point. It would not hurt them to check what is that all about, but that does not prevent them for not getting out of it with guns blazing and some explosions. He went to inform the crew of his decision.

"Crew, we shall dock on Taris space station in 6 hours. Get a good sleep and double check your gear, we do not know what can we expect, but make sure you have with yourself several vials of rakghoul serum and that your suits are tightly sealed, do not wish that anyone gets bitten or infected with rakghoul plague. If things go south, keep your head cool and down. Mako, Gault, you are coming with me on the ground. Blizz, Turian, you take care of ship and be ready to depart at any given time. I do not like this mission all at all, but as all others weird jobs we have done, the sooner we finish it, the sooner we will get back home." And with that, he went into his room that he shared with his darling, Mako.

On Taris, Galas Lausk POV

"From all places, did we really have to come over here? It is not that I am complaining, I truly love and can`t hide my excitement from possibility of getting poisoned from just breathing air, or that some of wildlife sees me as a nice intercourse, seasoning or even delicacy. Don`t make me start on even how happy I would be to maybe turn into one of the natives, the Rakghoul. Wonder how the twi`lek rakghoul would look like ... "

"I can assure you, nothing will happen to you Vette, have some faith in me, will ya? We were already once here, and if there was not a cute twi`lek who was always asking me to find a cure for this plague, we would still be spending our secret honeymoon. "

He got hit by her first a little bit. It was not like it could do a harm to Sith juggernaut, but he played along. He loved her, and he never forgot the first time they were on Taris. After seeing the rakghouls in their full force and their ability to corrupt or infect everyone into one of them just by a single bite or scratch, decided that studying bio analysis would be a good idea. There existed the antidotes and serums against being infected by rakghoul plague, but once you were infected there was nothing you could do against it. After Vette once found him searching on holonet information of rakghoul , she helped him quite a lot by making some contacts with the archaeologists and some experts on history of rakghouls plague.

It was not showing any progress, until Galask Lausk decided to call an "ally or friend", sith inquisitor, now a dark councillor of sith, for insights. They knew each other from their days of being apprentices of siths where they aided each other with their mission. Chakara was a quite a bookworm and history enthusiastic, but that never made him want to get on her bad side. He saw her powers in the Force, and they were even for sith pureblood quite terrifying. But theirs ways have parted after Korriban, and now they were one of influential people in Empire politics. He thought that she would not remember him or not help him all at all, so he played on the card that always proved a hook, line and sinker combination for her, and that is history and mysteries. She helped him a lot, but she had a condition of her own and that was that she would work with him on project, and they will both find answer to the cure and root of plague.

After several months of working on their project, they fund that it was not an easy mission, but they came up with some information. Rakghoul plague was made by sith which enabled him to put his control on everyone that was infected and thus making them their slaves. They also found that the first rakghouls were made purely by sith magic, but that some aliens and force sensitive proved immune to sith magic and so the plague was made to compensate for it. But the problem was where it was made. Some of the scripts containing the knowledge of whereabouts of sith who made the plague showed that he was several years in Unknown Regions before showing again on Taris.

They did not know what to expect, so they decided to hire a bounty hunter. It was not because they were weak or could not protect themselves, but because the bounty hunters were always prepared for everything, and had the top grade technology always with them. They didn`t want dark council catching up to them on this project and had some contacts in disbanded Imperial intelligence, so they asked for Cipher 9 to make a contact with a bounty hunter.

And now he was waiting for the bounty hunter to come to meeting point. Well, only he could make it without Dark Council becoming suspicious, while Chakara stayed studying some of the artefacts, making sure the Dark council would not start suspecting. Well, he managed to get a doctor Lokin on his side or rather, the doctor found him. The doctor was with them here, he said he wanted himself to evaluate the bounty hunter. Galas did not know what to make out of doctor, but he knew that doctor knew more than he let it be known. "Doctor, tell me why are you seeking to evaluate the bounty hunter by yourself?" He wanted to break the silence and spend some time while they waited for hunter. "You never know with the hunters, and knowing Cipher 9, he probably spiced things a lot and somehow got the so called best in their line of work. But what do I know he could only have some good sponsors and not be fit for the job. And speaking of devil ... "

Galas felt him before Doctor even said anything. He sensed him with the force, but was puzzled because the person seemed familiar from somewhere, as he knew him long time ago. The armored man was clearly a mandalorain by the armor he was wearing, if that was any indication. He was followed by a smaller person equally well armored, and he thought that was probably a female by her smaller body frame. He also sensed another one, who was going through shadows and going on some elevated place. The leader of man said something on Mando`a, langauge of Mandalorains to a famele one. Well, the things got interesting. He wanted to greet the group, but the Doctor was already ahead of him an introduced himself to the group.

"Name is Doctor, and my allies are the sith warrior Merlin and his companion twi`lek. And if we could know your name, mister ... ?" Galas was baffled but understood the precaution of doctor. You never knew if the hunter was already working for someone else already.

"If we are going to play a game of lies, tricks, backstabbing, and betrayal, I will turn back and go back home no matter how many credits you throw at me. I know very well that this sith juggernaut is not Merlin. So, come clean of the job so that I can decide to even form a contract with you. By the way, call me Cabur and mine companion Shusai. "

"It seems that we can`t hide anything from you. Name is Galas Lausk. Well, we need to get few people to follow us on expedition in one of tunnels of Taris infested with rakghouls. What we seek is anything out of ordinary or that it may have an archaeological importance. We will pay you as much you seek, but there is a condition. We need secrecy, and once the job is taken you cannot leave the planet until the job is finished. We mean strictly business, and this is not any kind of trap. So you can say to your third member to get out of shadows and stop aiming at us with sniper". He liked how the hunter was straight forward. He was not selling them fog, and also prepared an ace in sleeves if things went south and also, hunter knew him from somewhere, probably heard a thing or two about Galas. Doctor gave him a look, and he gave him a sign not to probe or test Hunter anymore. It was an imperative for them to get this hunter on their side and to sign the contract. It was not because he showed professionalism and a little bit of being prepared for anything, but also something else was telling him to pick him as a Hunter.

"Well, now that you have given those terms... I will have to think about those. Need to speak with the rest of the crew about this. We will inform you of our decision in a matter of a day. Here, catch." And Hunter threw at him the little hologram." It is coded so it will not be easily breached by anyone. Will send you message through it. If we do not accept the contract it will self-destruct. If we do accept the contract, we will use this as communication device between each other. "

With that said, the Hunter left the meeting point, and his companions followed after him. Well, Galas thought, that went better than expected. Even though he could see Doctor was annoyed that he was not in charge of everything, Galas just returned the favour. Doctor was a valuable pawn, but Galas was a commander of this operation and had a final word. Now, even thought he could not command everyone, he knew that he could only wait and prepare his part of team for this mission. With or without Hunter, he would go and see the expedition done.

Several hours later:

Bip, Bip , bip ... Bip Bip Bip. The hologram was responding. Galas put him somewhere where it could be safe if it self-destruct. It started the bepping and bipping , so Galas was ready to respond if the message arrives. Then, it stopped bepping. The only thing later, there was a single message: " We accept the agreement and terms of contract. We will a week to be fully prepared if we do not wish to leave planet. That is on name of my honour, the Winner of Great Hunt. " Galas could only smile. The cogs are starting to move.

Thedas: Unknow POV

The cogs are starting to move, and great events will take place. Blight is on horizon, and the winds of change are coming. The world will not wait to get hurled into the chaos, it will be embraced in it. And chaos, change, fate, who knows what anymore, will shape those who will fight and survive. A change is coming to all and nothing will stay same. Only those who presume to know nothing will be the only ones with wisdom in these times. Good will become evil, evil will become good, the protectors will turn into aggressors, the caged will free themselves, fear will rule over all.