CHAPTER ELEVEN:

OFF-WORLDER SECTOR, KUAT CITY, KUAT 40 ABY

EIGHT DAYS AFTER THE BOMBING OF THE ELITE HOTEL

The silence was an uncomfortable one.

Talisa wasn't happy with the situation she was in, having the bodyguards of the woman she had been sent to kill standing over her with unblinking eyes was unsettling. They didn't look any more thrilled to be watching over her but it was all they could do until the box in the small medic's hand delivered the results of the blood test. The wait had only reached the fifteen minute mark but it may as well have been fifteen years. Desperate to break the silence Talisa decided to take the initiative and open some kind of dialogue.

"You said something about a family feud between you and Dain?" She said tentatively, not knowing how sensitive the subject matter was.

"That's the story." Tyran said. "Don't bother asking me how it got started, all I know is that it started after the Mandalorian Wars and that I was brought up to hate the Dolvos."

"You don't even know the reason?" Talisa said incredulously.

"My father didn't know the reason, his father didn't know the reason and my grandfather's father didn't know the reason." Tyran said simply. "They just knew that the Dolvos were supposed to be hated and Dain will tell you pretty much the same thing if you ask him about it."

"How do you know that he will give me the same answer you did?"

"Because I asked him while we were fighting against the Yuuzhan Vong in the Outer Rim. He said the reason for the feud was just as much a mystery to him as it was to me."

Talisa let out a mystified huff of air. "That seems like a really odd reason to hate someone." Tyran turned his head in her direction but remained silent so Talisa continued. "You don't find it odd that you hate the Dolvos simply because you were told to hate them by someone else who was told to hate them?"

Tyran shrugged. "It doesn't really matter. Dain and that child you are carrying are the only Dolvos left in the galaxy and me, my son, my brother and our uncle are the only remaining Numecks. The feud won't last much longer, not at the rate my brother is accepting ridiculous contracts. My uncle isn't exactly on the youthful side and probably only has a few years left in him, and my luck in defeating the Hapans is bound to run out eventually."

Talisa stared at him. "You haven't lost a confrontation yet with any of the Hapan squads that have attempted to kill Neada Tash, which is rather impressive."

Tyran snorted. "Just because I'm good at killing people doesn't mean it's impressive. It's dirty and I don't really have a taste for it anymore but I don't really have a set of skills in a more leisurely trade to fall back on."

"You could do some modeling on Hapes." Talisa offered. "I'm sure you'd make quite a bit of money doing that."

Tyran squirmed inwardly as her gaze wandered over him in the typical Hapan fashion of. It was mostly a look of assessment but he could see the promiscuous intent behind her green eyes. What was worse Dyir could see it to.

"Ni mirdir ibic solus guuror gar." I think this one likes you. Dyir said with a laugh.

"Tion'gar ibic?" Tyran said sarcastically. "Ar'ika ne'guuror ori'shya Hapase o'r ner briirud be burc'ya." You think so? Aru won't like another Hapan in my inner circle of friends.

"Ni guuror bah haa'taylir Ar'ika akaanir te Hapase." I'd like to see Aru fight the Hapan. Dyir grinned at Talisa.

"Ni guuror bah akaanir kaysh." I'd like to fight her. Talisa said with a smug grin as she took in the surprised look on Dyir's face.

"Well aren't you just full of surprises?" Dyir said as he crossed his arms over his chest.

Tyran slowly paced across the room and returned his gaze to the medic who was still pushing buttons on the display of the small box that was analyzing Talisa's blood sample.

"It isn't really that surprising Dyir, she is trying to kill someone who hired three Mandalorians as her bodyguards. It would be hard for her to listen in on any of our communications if we speak in Mando'a, that's a risk she can't take so she learns how to speak the language."

"So you aren't just all brawn after all, are you?" Talisa said appreciatively. "No wonder you've survived so many encounters with our commando squads."

"It's not a wonder at all. I just know what I would do if I was trying to assassinate Neada Tash, so far you and your people have been pretty predictable in their methods."

"Well I'm sure you won't expect what is coming next." Talisa said darkly as she looked down at her feet. "I can't even expect what is going to happen now."

The Mandalorians traded looks. "What do you mean?"

"We had a plot in place, we were in the recon phase, but now that I've been missing for almost an entire day, my team will have altered the operation, maybe even stepped up to the next phase. My desertion placed Aenica in charge of the team and I doubt even the Jedi Grand Master could predict what kind of scheme that woman will concoct."

"I'm sure you're overstating things." Dyir said with a dismissive wave. "You're just trying to unnerve us."

Talisa looked up at him with a grim look of truthfulness. "Aenica Voren was ready to storm a school full of children to complete our objective, believe me when I tell you there are no lengths that woman and the others on the team will go to in order to get the job done this time."

Tyran stopped dead in his tracks and turned to face Talisa. "Why would she attack a school?"

"Well every attempt by previous commando squads were targeted directly at Neada Tash and each one ended in failure because of two factors." Talisa indicated the two Mandalorians standing before her. "Well this time Battle Mistress Thel Sahn made us swear an oath to complete the mission and we decided to try something different. Of the three Mandalorians Neada hired to protect her, one of them wasn't a full on soldier. Aru Numeck is more of a starpilot than a Supercommando like the two of you, even though I'm certain she is a great fighter.

"You figured you'd have a better chance going after Vyndra." Tyran said. "You were going to use her to draw out Neada and then kill them both, weren't you?"

Talisa gave a reluctant nod. "Yes, that was our plan but like I said I have no way of knowing if that is still the plan."

Tyran growled darkly, suddenly not as worried about whether or not he would be able to torture the woman and live with himself afterward. An attack on Vyndra was essentially an attack on Ijaat and Tyran wasn't going to stand for that. He turned to Dyir. "Get Aru on comms and tell her to get the kids to the office, tell her to keep her eyes peeled and that she may be under an imminent attack. Do it now!"

Dyir dawned his helmet and dis as instructed and Tyran turned to face Kest. The medic nodded his head at the unsaid question.

"The blood test confirms her story, she's almost four weeks pregnant." the young medic said.

Talisa looked at him. "You mean that little box can pinpoint exactly how far along I am? The doctor at the medcenter gave me a tentative guess."

"Like I said we've got better gadgets than the medcenter." Tyran growled as he walked over to Talisa and grabbed her by the arm and pulled her to her feet. "You're going to give me the name of every single Hapan on this planet, either by your own free will or as a result of a really unpleasant interrogation."

"You mean torture." Talisa said flatly. "Come on do you expect that I would believe that you would actually torture me?"

Tyran leaned down so they were both eye to eye. "I will do anything and everything I have to do in order to make sure my son is safe. If the Hapans are going to try and attack Vyndra then that puts my son in the crosshairs as well. The only way to stop that is to get the names of everyone in the Hapan network, even if I have to use excessive force." His eyes narrowed to ice colored slits. "Ask me again if you think I'm bluffing."

Talisa knew he wasn't. She could see the look in his eyes: cold, detached fury barely reigned in by years of discipline. The eyes of a machine capable of unspeakable horrors. She knew he was ready to kill everything in his path to protect his child because she had already killed once to protect her unborn child. No he wasn't lying about hurting her to get the information he needed. Her skin erupted into small bumps of foreboding and Talisa nodded her head slowly.

"I will give you the names of every agent I am aware of." She said softly. "If you promise that me and my unborn child will go unharmed."

Tyran nodded his head and stood up and turned to Dyir. "Did you get through to Aru?"

"She's moving the kids from the school back to the headquarters, I alerted Neada and she's mobilizing the Threat Reduction Teams." Dyir said. "Two armored troop carriers are headed to meet them."

"Good," Tyran said and he looked back at Talisa. "If my wife, son and Vyndra get to the headquarters unharmed I promise that you will be unharmed. But if things go bad for them, things go bad for you. Understood?"

"I understand." Talisa accepted. The likelihood of getting a better deal from Tyran was next to non-existant.

"Then get your things together, we're leaving."

CENTER OF HIGHER LEARNING, WESTERN KUAT CITY, 40 ABY

EIGHT DAYS AFTER THE BOMBING OF THE ELITE HOTEL

Aru rushed the two children down the steps of the school's main entrance as she glanced around at the rows of speeders parked on the permacrete plain. Both Vyndra and Ijaat were pelting her with panicked questions about why they were leaving in the middle of a debate practice. Aru cursed at the number of speeders littered across the large landing zone, too many for her to scope out accurately, and kept one hand between Vyndra's shoulder blades and her right hand as close to her blaster as possible without scaring the children.

The landing zone hadn't been this packed when she had brought the children to the school for their practice, several parents had done the same but still there shouldn't have been as many speeders as there were. It was the weekend after all. Despite all the time that Ijaat and Vyndra spent together, Aru had somehow never factored in her own son's presence into a potential abduction attempt by Hapan commandos.

She had drilled Vyndra to the point where the girl had a series of verbal safety codes memorized, and several defensive moves she could execute if she had to. Ijaat on the other hand only had the few wrestling moves his father had taught him in the previous week. He wouldn't know how to react if she had to yell one of the safety codes to Vyndra and that was a horrible oversight on her part. Now her son had become a hindrance in a potentially dangerous situation.

As they began to enter the labyrinth of airspeeders Aru decided that she was going to start giving Ijaat the same lessons she had given Vyndra and maybe even possibly have Tyran show him a few more defensive skills that had a little more force to them. She was still worried by the prospect of her son trying to beat up some of the other kids who were constantly harassing him for being as smart as he was. It was petty jealousy that Ijaat shouldn't have taken to heart, and even though he said it didn't bother him Aru knew that it really did.

He had no friends outside of Vyndra because no else was able to keep up with him intellectually. He was always correcting the mistakes that other kids made or commenting when they misquoted a date or phrase from their history lessons, including Vyndra. Vyndra was a little more popular despite that she was just as smart as Ijaat and had no problem speaking up when someone got something wrong, in fact she saw it as a personal challenge to spot mistakes before Ijaat could.

The only reason no one made fun of her was simply because she wouldn't stand for it. Aru had had to intervene in more than one altercation that Vyndra had started, she had a very short temper and lashed out at anyone who got on her bad side, child and adult alike. There was a private joke amongst the other bodyguards in the school that Vyndra was Ijaat's bodyguard. Which was true in a sense, Vyndra had bloodied more than one child's nose because they had said something mean about her friend. Of course Aru had had to punish the girl for doing it, but she would also make sure that the punishment wasn't too severe.

Ultimately Ijaat's personal security took precedence over her fears about him meeting violence with violence to deal with his bullying problem. The reached the armored airspeeder unmolested and Aru practically tossed both kids into the back seat. Ijaat looked over his shoulder at his mother with a panicked expression.

"What is going on?" He pleaded.

"Just get in the speeder and buckle up." Aru said as calmly and evenly as she could. "We're heading to the office to meet with your father, that's all."

Ijaat didn't look convinced by the explanation but he did what he was told. Aru made her way to the drivers side in a controlled jog and took a few calming breaths before she started the speeder and proceeded to maneuver her way out of the labyrinth of parked speeders and away from the school's landing zone.

"That's them!" Aenica said frantically as she gestured at the gray airspeeder as it lifted off from the permacrete landing zone.

"Are you sure?" Dalrial asked as she started up their own air speeder.

"I spent weeks tailing that speeder with Talisa, of course I'm sure that was them." Aenica spat as Dalrial brought their speeder out behind the one being piloted by Aru Numeck. She pulled out her commlink and punched in a code. "Bruenor, the target is leaving the school in a gray KDY armored civilian airspeeder. I'm going to mark it with a thermal tag for you to get a positive ID on. Remember take the girl alive, what you do with the Mandalorian and her kid I don't really care."

Aenica ended the call and pulled out a small silver stylus-like object and lowered the viewscreen on her door. Dalrial brought their speeder so it was parallel with Aru's, coming to a stop with the rest of the traffic. As subtly as humanly possible, Aenica kept the stylus flush against her wrist and forearm but rotated it just enough so that it was pointing at the side of Aru's speeder. She squeezed the object and a light came to life on her datapad confirming that it had a lock on the thermal tag. Aenica dropped the stylus and let it free fall through the speederlanes and gave a short nod to Dalrial who veered away from Aru's speeder once traffic began moving again. Aenica activated her commlink again.

"Thermal tag is up and running. Be back at the safehouse in ten minutes, no later than that."

She ended the call again and hoped that everything would go as planned. Bruenor wasn't a Hapan, no Aenica had hired out to some highly recommended mercs based out of Balmorra. They specialized in this kind of work, kidnapping and ransoms and such, which wasn't exactly something Aenica and her team were really trained for. Counter-terrorism and hostage rescue were more her thing, but she did as the Battle Mistress ordered. How she went about executing those orders were really up to her. It felt good to finally be on the offensive for once. All of that recon and tailing had begun to wear away at Aenica's nerves. But now that Talisa had disappeared, which was still something her team was looking into and one of the reason that Bruenor had been contracted, real progress in the operation to kill Neada Tash could be made.

She let a satisfied smile curl the corners of her mouth. Soon it would be all be over and Aenica Voren, not Talisa Raldi, would be the hero.

Aru couldn't help but feel that hairs on the back of her neck stand on edge as she glanced at her wrist chrono. Ten minutes until they rendezvoused with the TRU troop carriers that Neada had dispatched. The TRU troop carriers were reminiscent of the design of the gunships used by the Grand Army of the Old Republic during the Clone Wars. They were only similar in shape though, the outer durasteel hull was painted the signature charcoal gray of the Threat Reduction Unit. The ship itself was all together smaller than it's ancient counterpart and packed less weaponry and less armor and carried no more than ten Threat Reduction Unit operators at once.

She couldn't help but let out a nervous breath as the navigated the speederlanes like she would as if it were any other day. It was a camouflage tactic to make her hard to track by anyone who could possibly be tailing her, unless they had been tailing her since the school in which case there would be a real problem. But her rear sensors didn't pick up anyone who appeared to be tailing her and none of the speeders around her had been there for more than a few minutes. She was still on edge though, just because there had been an operation in place to kidnap Vyndra before the Hapan that Tyran had collected didn't mean that very same plan was still in place after her defection.

Aru couldn't think like that though. Until the threat was pacified she had to assume that the Hapans were going to follow through on that plan. She had to get Vyndra and Ijaat to the ODS headquarters as quick as possible, only once they were there would they be totally safe from the Hapans. Vyndra would be placed in lockdown deep within the building until Tyran, Dyir and the TRU rounded up every name on the list of people who made up the Hapan network on the planet.

That was another thing Aru was worried about. How many people at the school were on that list? How many people had Vyndra had constant contact with that had bad intentions when it came to her and her mother? She tried to think about teachers who tried to spend too much time with Vyndra, but then again Vyndra was the perfect student, when her temper wasn't flaring up anyways, and teachers always wanted to see her after class and laud her with praise. Vyndra rather enjoyed it and Aru suspected it was her half-Hapan side that reveled in the attention.

She began to wonder if-

Her airspeeder jolted cutting the thought off before it could ever formulate completely. The two children cried out as the speeder began a steady drop down through the speederlanes of Kuat City.

Ion cannon! Her mind screamed at her as she tried to return power to the airspeeder but nothing seemed to be working. It did look like she had indeed been shot down by an ion cannon, all the circuits in the speeder were fried and she had no hope of restoring power to the speeder. She looked over her shoulder and at the two kids in the back.

"Put on your restraints and make sure they're tight." She paused and swallowed hard both children were smart enough to figure out what was happening and so she didn't see the point in even trying to lie. "We're going to crash."

Before she turned around, outside the rear viewport she saw four speeders dropping down with her own airspeeder, and it wasn't because they had lost power.

They were pacing her.

Aru slid back the partition that separated her from the back compartment where Vyndra and Ijaat were and forced her way through the gap. If they were going to crash the safest place to be was in the back compartment with them. That was how the speeder had been designed by KDY anyway. It was her best bet at not being knocked out during the crash.

She settled herself into a set of restraints opposite Vyndra and tried to give the small girl a reassuring look. Vyndra shut her eyes and kept them shut as she gripped her restraints in a white-knuckle grip. Ijaat was doing very much the same thing next to her as Aru pulled her blaster from the holster on her hip and made sure the safety was disengaged and that it wasn't set to stun. She made a quick glance out of the side viewport just in time to see the ground come up and embrace them.

"Activate the tractor beam." Bruenor rumbled.

The Nikto next to him flipped the recently installed switch on the console in front of him and the new construction grade tractor beam they had installed earlier hummed to life. The targeted airspeeder came to a sluggish halt less than twenty meters from the ground and Bruenor smiled widely and nodded to the Nikto pilot.

"Alright lets get moving before KSF shows up. We'll meet up with the others in the Off-Worlder sector and crack that speeder open to get the girl."

"Then we get paid." The Nikto hissed.

Bruenor nodded and flipped another switch on the console between him and the pilot. "We'd better jam their commlinks, don't want any unexpected visitors to ruin our little party."

The Nikto laughed harshly and pulled the airspeeder away with it's captive prize in tow. "Not many people would have thought to use an ion cannon on an airspeeder and then grab it with a tractor beam. What a stroke of genius."

"The Hapans said they wanted their prize alive and I wasn't about to storm into a school full of highly trained bodyguards that would cut the marginally useless rabble I've had the misfortune of surrounding myself with." The Nikto didn't catch the insult and his leader continued on. "The ODS building itself was definitely out of the question, no way would we ever be able to go toe-to-toe with those government troops, no the only way to get this little girl was while she was in transit and the logical way to disable a airspeeder is by frying it's electrical circuits."

Even though the Nikto had been in on the planning he listened to his boss for the next ten minutes as the burly human repeated every step of the planning process. First the not so complicated heist of a construction grade tractor beam and then the somewhat more difficult procurement of the small girl's weekly routine, which had been handled by the Hapans and their resources, and the time it took to locate the best place to hit the target from.

The Hapans had gotten someone inside which ever public works department that handled the traffic in Kuat City and managed to reroute all the traffic along the route the Mandalorian woman was taking, keeping her pushed to certain skylanes that weren't too high as to cause a crash with other speeders during it's descent, but also managing to keep it from going to low and preventing the speeder from hitting the ground and allowing the Mandalorian and her two charges to escape into the pedestrian traffic along the many pedwalks. Bruenor wasn't used to the type of cohesive and fluid ease that the Hapans worked with and was surprised the job had, thus far, gone off without a single hitch.

Yes it wouldn't be long now before he had twenty-eight thousand credits in his bank account and could finally get himself some decent crew members who were busy chasing woman or downing more than five bottles of alcohol each night. Maybe he'd take a trip to Hapes and enjoy some of their famed hospitality, a planet where men where only wanted for breeding stock sounding like the perfect place for an extended vacation. He smiled at the thought and sat back in his seat after giving a final glance down at the suspended airspeeder a ten meters or so below him.

Aru couldn't believe what she was seeing as she looked at the viewport. They were being hauled away by an ancient looking airspeeder with nothing more than a small tractor beam holding them in place. Her commlink wasn't working either which suggested to her that it was being jammed.

"What's happening?" Vyndra said as she looked around at the interior of the airspeeder. "Did we crash?"

Aru shook her head as she pulled out her datapad. "No, but someone has us in a tractor beam and I don't think they're friendly."

Vyndra was smart and had no trouble answering her own question just as it formed in the back of her mind.

"They're after me."

Aru reached across and patted her on the knee, it was all she could do while she was still restrained in her seat across from the girl. "I'm not going to let anything happen to you, and more importantly Tyran isn't going to let anything happen to Ijaat."

"Dad's coming?!" Ijaat said, his voice was underscored with a slight measure of relief.

Aru pressed an icon on her datapad's display and sighed. The jammers that the hostiles were using to disable her commlink shouldn't have had any effect on the emergency tracking beacon, it didn't work the same way as the commlink. The small red light began beeping silently on her datapad.

"You're father has a knack for showing up at the most opportune times," she said as she pocketed her datapad and smiled at her son. "But either way I'd keep your fingers crossed."