Chapter 20

Everyone makes mistakes, thought Bli Aeocc as he sat alone at his table sipping on his glass of water and rationalizing over his most recent bout of bad luck. He stared out the tapcaf window, watching as random shapes of various beings walked past. When he first sat down, the fog was very thick, which made it easy for Bli to ignore any details of the beings outside, allowing himself to sink into memories, sifting through choices and alternative outcomes that would never come to pass now. He needed to pull out of his rut and find work, another bounty of some sort to draw some credit flow, since he was running short of food and supplies for his space transport.

Now he was on the other side of the galaxy, Ryloth of all places, far enough away from his blunders anyways. He was supposed to meet a rep for a bounty hunting team that claimed to specialize in hunting Jedi Knights. Recent years had seen a Jedi or two pop up at scattered points outside the Core allegedly on scouting missions. While it was also no secret that some were beginning to defect from the Republic to join the Sith armies, the Sith did not seem to want to take chances these days as they had posted bounties for Jedi, dead with their lightsaber weapon or alive. Dead Jedi paid more, but either posed a significant challenge to anyone up to the task. The reputation of Jedi spread quickly, even without the HoloNet from the Core. While everyone knew the Sith were ruthless, the Jedi could be just as deadly.

Bli wasn't new to bounty hunting, but he only recently tried delving into hunting force-sensitives. His very first attempt, which he now sat contemplating, ended badly. Some renegade Sith were loose around Mandalore. You'd think the Sith could take care of their own, he thought, always killing each other for power, a bit unusual.

Following tips, he picked up on a trail, unsure of how reliable the tips were. He remembered hearing for himself all the evidence he needed – lightsabers clashing just around the corner from where he was, in some sort of obvious struggle, bodies strewn around the alleyway once he finally made it to the scene, the only survivor in sight was a woman, beautiful, though I'm not sure why I cared to notice, crying, sitting on the ground. He was still unsure at first – that was my first mistake... – until out of nowhere, it felt that way anyways, she put up an amazingly strong fight... even for a female, she was well trained...

He checked his chrono ...rep's gonna be here in a few minutes... and shook his head inhaling deeply, weary with reliving that whole encounter in his head again...

Something banged into his table real hard. He sprung to his feet, his holdout weapon drawn and aimed at whatever had just disturbed him. He was startled, but he wasn't about to let on that he wasn't aware of his surroundings to anyone for an instant.

Standing nonchalant at his reaction next to him was a figure wearing dull, green armor with orange trim over a loose, brown colored bodysuit, wearing a helmet with a bluish, opaque visor. He guessed the figure was female by the slender form standing with feet apart, weight shifted to one side, sidearm barely visible as it was held it so that it hung behind the support leg. When the figure didn't flinch at his reaction, he noted further the features of the armor were shaped fairly to accommodate a female form. Where her neck would be was bare, so he could tell she was Human, or at least near-Human, as she had brown hair that barely strayed from her helmet.

He held his blaster trained on her and charged up his auxiliary systems of his own battle armor with his finger-switch on his empty hand, not daring to drop his guard until she moved.

After a few seconds, she finally spoke, "You Bli?" She seemed to favor functionality as her helmet's vocabulator didn't mask her voice's feminine features.

"I don't answer to that," he said curtly keeping his aim. It wasn't true, but that was his part of the identification protocol he was given.

No one else in the tapcaf stirred at their exchange. That didn't bother him, but he made a mental note for future reference.

"Check your weapon," she said, nodding at his blaster, "grab your gear, and follow me."

She didn't wait for him to respond, but turned to leave, almost as if she didn't care if he complied. As she walked away, he sized up her sidearm as he grabbed his gear. She carried a stockless sniper rifle with an extended barrel and some type of high tech scope he had never seen before. It looked custom built overall, but he couldn't place the original model with the manufacturers he knew.

As she approached the exit, she paused and swung her rifle around to her front, then disappeared. He caught himself entranced with the weapon once she was gone, still seated at his table. Gotta focus! As he got up to follow her, a man in battered, solid dark blue battle armor from a nearby table also stood to leave. The man waved to him, but he tried to ignore him. The man persisted and called out to him.

"Hey, man! I think that girl that just left likes you!" He sounded like he might have been trying to whisper, except that he wasn't

"Yeah, sure," he said, trying to slough off the random comment, "just save it!" He continued toward the door without even looking at the man.

"No wait! She was walking all provocative-like; she sure caught my attention!" the man continued.

Don't feed the flames that you want to die... Bli continued walking past the man without even a glance. Just as he was almost out the door...

"Hey, man! You dropped this!"

Bli paused, took a mental note, the guy's bluffing; my gear's weighted correctly; He's really starting to bug me, I may have to kill him, he thought, glancing up at the top of the entryway, still avoiding eye contact.

"Keep it," he said and marched out of the tapcaf.

"Wait!" he heard the man call out. Bli stepped away from the tapcaf wading through a crowd of beings that seemed to come out of nowhere. He scanned quickly looking for the girl's armor. That man in the tapcaf was blundering after him, and really beginning to get on his nerves. He had to find her quick so he could lose the nuisance behind him. There she is! He spotted her less than a click away, quick stride, strutting..., the guy was right about how she was walking... Time to lose him! The man was nearly caught up to him, reaching for his arm...

"Where are you going in such a..."

Bli dodged the man, then somersaulted toward the girl and rolled up onto his feet, trying to blend in with the throng of beings but still trying to rush to catch up to his contact. She didn't seem to care that he wasn't following her very well, never seem to check or notice he wasn't with her. Odd. As she disappeared into another oncoming throng of beings, he dashed to catch up to her finally. After penetrating the same throng only moments behind her, he found that she had disappeared entirely. The only beings around him now were the throng leaving him, and a few Twi'lek peddlers near a noisy saloon on one side of the common walk. On the other side stood a mechanic shop and some tall buildings, probably some sort of short-stay dwellings and a shopping establishment of some sort.v

"Name's Twizz," came a familiarly irritating voice behind him.

Turning to face the man in blue, he held his blaster at the ready, not sure if he could trust the man or if he was even going to like him.

"Relax!" he said casually, as he approached holding out his hand in a friendly sort of gesture. Bli didn't relax his weapon, but charged up his jets. He wasn't really planning to use them just yet, but there was something about the small whine of the generator charging up whenever he threatened with his weapon that seemed to heighten the intimidation factor to his whole posture. It worked on Twizz, who stopped his pace and held out both his hands now.

"Hey! This isn't what you think!" Twizz spouted in quick, low tones.

"You slowed me down, so I couldn't keep up!" said Bli, sternly.

"Let's not get hasty..."

"I don't like you," he said raising his weapon to aim straight for his face fully intent to shoot.

"She's in there!" Twizz said, pointing at the noisy saloon.

They stood motionless for a few moments.

"She's second in charge of the crew," added Twizz. "Name's Kym."

Bli lowered his weapon with a sigh, eyes still locked with Twizz. He sighed again and lowered his head, stowing his blaster as he turned toward the saloon.

"Well, then let's go get her," he said suppressing the immense feeling of relief seeping into him.

"Now that's more like it," said Twizz with a laugh, putting his arm around Bli to accompany him.

Twizz stopped the two of them at the entrance turning Bli to face him.

"We've been watching you," he began calmly.

Bli met his eye evenly.

"You're demeanor will work for our outfit, but you're rough in some areas, sloppy in others. We'll train you up, but you'd better learn fast, and it will be extremely unconventional at times. Now's your only safe chance to change your mind and back out of the whole thing, we'll forget we ever had contact with you."

Bli squelched his sense of hopelessness he was harboring back at the tapcaf. "I'm ready for anything," he said, turning to look for Kym. He walked into the saloon and looked around, absorbing the cacophony of music, lights, dancing and drinking. To him, some of the dancing looked simple, but a few of the dancers seemed to exhibit true artistic mobility.

"The setting is deliberate," said Twizz behind him. "Don't get too distracted. That's our booth," he pointed. Bli followed his aim to a corner strategically located in a corner allowing some seclusion without compromising its vantage point to the rest of the saloon. Kym sat with a glass she seemed to ignore as she worked diligently at a datapad. Across from her sat a Devaronian with knobbed horns and a single scar stretched diagonally from his right eye brow, across his nose, to the left corner of his mouth, sporting a tall, clear glass of something yellow colored with some sort of cream on top.

"Mingle for awhile if you want; I'll introduce you to the rest of the group when Chum'lee gets back. He's our number one. He should be back in about an hour. I'll be back." Twizz turned to leave.

"Where are you going?" asked Bli.

"Oh, I'm not into this sort of setting. See you later," he added, and left abruptly.

Lord Subtyr stood brooding as he waited in the hanger for the boarding ramp of the Imperial assault craft to lower. Lord Syriu'us had to be waiting on purpose, just to offset Subtyr's emotional equilibrium. Anger wasn't his passion of choice, though his encounters with Syriu'us always seemed to warrant a healthy dose of it. This time, though, there were serious problems afoot that might potentially inhibit their usual clash.

Finally, the hydraulic servos began to vent mists that obscured the boarding ramp as it lowered. Syriu'us walked down nonchalant and greeted Subtyr with a nod. He was clearly aware of the tension currently stirring through the Force and was ready to get to work.

"Lord Durus is waiting for us," said Subtyr.

"How bad is it?" asked Syriu'us.

"We had an explosion yesterday in one of the crew galleys, and another today in an officer galley."

"I assume it's not bad cooks? Or problems with flammable liquid storage?"

"Preliminary reports don't support any problems of those sorts."

"I feel it, now..."

"The disturbance in the Force?"

"Not in the usual sense..."

"We've sensed the mind of a saboteur, but we're waiting for further information that should be available by the time we meet with Lord Durus."

"I'm anxious to experience this mind you've sensed, to be so brilliant as to elude Sith Lords, having no adeptness with the Force."

Subtyr absorbed the insult with a sigh, only because Syriu'us still didn't know about the catalyst. He looked at him with an angry look to silently let him see the contempt he knew Syriu'us could feel from him.

"There's a greater matter as well."

"I've anticipated as much."

Smug.

"I'll let Lord Durus describe it to you."