Chapter 7: Gavin Azi'skar

Thellus Asteroid, Dressel System

Azi'skar's fur swirled with embarrassment as he sipped a caf. In the background, on the holoprojector, a clip from his interview yesterday was being replayed.

"Clahra, Clahra," Azi'skar's holopresence sighed, looking at the floor as he sat in front of a middle-aged dark-skinned human female. "Bothans are angry. Furious even. I mean—"

"—Grum Azi'skar," Clahra Fair interrupted in a concerned tone. "That isn't—"

"—I know you're a sophisticated gal," Azi'skar's holopresence snarled, flashing his shiny white teeth as he leaned forward towards Clahra's holopresence menacingly. "The Galaxy is a mess."

Clahra Fair's holopresence gasped, raising a clipboard up in front of her face as if expecting the Grum of Clan Askar to pounce on her like a rabid slicehound.

"The Galaxy is as angry as it gets," Azi'skar's holopresence continued, pointy ears folding back. "The Republic and Separatist—Every week, millions of new deaths. What? Do you think I am going to make Bothans any angrier? Are you so naïve as to think my words actually make a difference?"

Sighing despondently, Azi'skar buried his snout under his arms, hiding his eyes from the holoprojector. Kriff that was stupid. I cannot believe I said that! What am—

—A loud laughtrack erupted from the holoprojector breaking Azi'skar's train of thoughts. Ears perking up, Azi'skar lifted his head. On the holoprojector, a spoof image of him was playing, reciting his angry tirade while dressed in a polka dot yellow, red, and green clown outfit.

The Grum had half a mind to sue the studio for defamation. Even suspend their journalistic privileges. With the debate just four days away however, he knew that would do far more harm than good.

o.o.o.o.o

"Kor militarisk dradraft?" ["A draft?"] Azi'skar asked incredulously, scrolling hurriedly through the proposal on his datapad.

["Only into the Coalition Navy,"] Secretary General Agnor Fit'nel's holopresence reassured. ["Your Clan possesses a vast resource of pilots, mechanics, ship Captains, right here in the Dressel Belt. At the moment, most of them are drifters, floating aimlessly between menial jobs. We have a chance to break this cycle. Lift the Askars from poverty once and for all."]

Azi'skar's fur swirled nervously as he looked the heterochromatic Onel in the eyes, one blue and one amber. His eyes focused on her patchy black and white swirly fur. The contrasting shapes looked almost like frost on a black metal surface. The shapes began to twitch—

[—"Grum Azi'skar,"] she growled impatiently.

["Oh I—sorry Secretary General,"] Azi'skar stammered, fur swirling with embarrassment. ["It's been a long day."] He closed his eyes, trying to focus on the matter at hand.

["I'll give you a few days to think it over. We would be very grateful for your Clan's contribution."]

Sighing, Azi'skar looked back up, more focused this time. He spoke sternly, with deliberation. ["You can increase your recruitment efforts here, but I won't tolerate a draft. You will find we do not respond well to force. I am not about to sacrifice our freedoms just because we joined your alliance."]

Agnor looked flustered, as if she did not expect that answer from Azi'skar. Standing more stiffly, her holopresence responded in a note of caution. ["Very well, I only hope we can meet our recruitment goals. The Galaxy is becoming a far more dangerous place every single day."]

o.o.o.o.o

Cad Bane

Praesitlyn

"Halt!" a robotic voice yelled.

In the dim smoky war-torn air, Cad Bane stopped on the sidewalk, standing at the entrance to the Intergalactic Communications Center. The once marble white exterior was now pocked with blackened craters. Emergency sirens blared, signifying the obvious: the communications center had been breached. In fact, most of the planet was now occupied.

Three BX droid commandoes approached the Duros. While two levelled blasters at him, the third scanned his pure red eyes with a handheld retinal scanner. Bane lowered his wide brimmed hat politely, showing off his bald bright blue head.

"Separatist organic operative registered… Cad Bane. Does not compute. Your assistance was not requested by Admiral Tonith or the InterGalactic Banking Clan."

"I'm here at the request of Zuro Pax," Bane drawled, holding out a datapad. He turned his head in the direction of screaming somewhere up the street in the distance.

The lead droid grabbed the datapad forcefully then inserted a probe-like appendage from his finger into one of its ports. Bane stood by, growing less patient as the droid continued occupying his time. "If you don't mind—"

"—Authorisation verified. Operative Cad Bane, while the city has been 88% pacified, we have been unable to breach the facilities main entrance. It would be best if Operative Cad Bane remained here until combat operations have ceased."

Wondering what 88% pacified could possibly mean, Bane snorted, shaking his head derisively."Perhaps operative Cad Bane has the passcodes to every door in that facility." Pulling another datapad from his brown trenchcoat, the Duros shook it in front of the droid commando mockingly, then pocketed it again.

"What is the source of this information?" the lead droid enquired.

"Optimism," Bane said dryly. "We're finished here. Let me pass."

The droids stepped to the side, allowing the Duros by. As Bane approached the smashed transparisteel doors to the main entrance, he could hear more robotic drones from inside.

"Encryption level 9, bypassed," a droid voice said.

"You know, it isn't very wise to tell your opponents what you are doing and how far along you are doing it," a female voice scoffed.

Glass and transparisteel crunching under his boots, Cad Bane stumbled upon an amusing scene. Twenty or thirty droids, including B-1 Battle Droids, Super Battle Droids, Droideka, and a few BX series Commando Battle Droids. In front of them, was a two- or three-meter thick blastproof glass wall. Behind that, several blue and grey uniformed human security guards frantically digging through drawers and grabbing stacks of flimsiplast, no doubt to burn confidential documents. One of the humans, a curly brown-haired female, stood in front of the door mocking the droids.

"Encryption level 10, bypassed," the droid, a B-1 droid technician, said again.

"Do you know how many layers of encryption there are?" the human female jeered.

"103,943," the droid answered matter of factly.

"Stop fraternising with the enemy," his comrade droned, slapping his back with a metallic thud.

Blast this is fun to watch, Bane thought, lurking in the doorway, wearing a wicked grin on his face.

One of the hulking silver, B2s stood straighter, machine whirrs emitting from his body. A moment later, a holopresence of a Muun was projected onto the floor from the droid's chest.

"This is the commander of the Separatist forces, Admiral Tonith," the holopresence said. "Am I speaking to the highest-ranking official in this facility?"

"Encryption level 11—"

"—STOP THAT!" the Muun bellowed.

"The highest-ranking official is General Khamar," she said stiffly. "When he gets to this city, your forces will be overwhelmed. There is no way you can breach our security in time. You might as well just pack up."

"General Khamar is dead," the Muun said smugly. "No relief is coming. But we do have many captured personnel from the Praesitlyn Defense Force."

As the security guard began stammering, something behind Bane shoved him sideways. Startled, the Duros whipped out his blaster, turning to face whomever it was and saw a wall of battle droids. Bane lowered his blaster, stepping out of the way to avoid being trampled.

Once the first line of battle droids passed, a multispecies gaggle of prisoners was pushed forward into the center of the room.

The security guard's stammers turned to screams. "I AM NOT GOING TO TURN THIS FACILITY OVER WHILE WE STILL HAVE THE MEANS TO RESIST!"

"No," Tonith retorted in a bored voice, "you don't have the means to resist. You just have the means to stall. If you open the doors, I promise you will all be spared, and so will defense force personnel who surrendered."

Cad Bane was amused but completely unsurprised by the Muun's predictable tactics. Let's see if this actually works.

One of the prisoners, an Aqualish female wearing a charred uniform, began yelling immediately. "DON'T TELL—"

—A battle droid executed her mercilessly.

The security guard swore and sobbed angrily, banging on the glass wall. "YOU KRIFFING PSYCHOPATH!"

Admiral Tonith's holopresence nodded. The battle droid shot the next prisoner, a human male.

"LET HIM THROUGH! JUST LET HIM THROUGH!" a Bothan prisoner yelped loudly from the middle of the crowd, sobbing.

Without so much as a nod from Admiral Tonith, the battle droid executed another human prisoner.

Cad Bane's attention though shifted towards Tonith's holopresence. A battle droid was standing nearby, pointing at Cad Bane.

All of the executions ceased. For a moment, the only audible sound in the room were sobs, prayers, and angry muttering. Then Tonith's holopresence spun to the Duros.

"WHO ARE YOU?!"

"Oh," Bane chuckled, stepping out of the shadows holding his hat to his chest. He bowed politely. "Cad Bane. I was sent here from Murkhana. There is something I need—A server disc."

"The Cad Bane?" Tonith asked interestedly. "Your terror and asymmetric warfare skills are legendary. You can take a native force and turn them into competent killing machines, and your skills as a warrior surpass even those. How many Jedi is it you have killed in less than six months?"

"Seven," Bane answered with a smirk.

"Seven," Tonith gasped in awe. "How are your skills in psychological warfare? Do you think, you would be able to get the imbecile in there to let us in?"

Bane regarded Tonith, now thinking the Muun was every bit as stupid as his droids. Like his droids, he was boldly and arrogantly announcing his strategy loudly to the whole universe.

The security guard was now on her knees, holding a blaster, crying and trembling. "I'll never… I'll never let you through."

"Sure," Bane answered with a leer.

The Muun's holopresence bowed, stepping out of the way between Cad Bane and the prisoners.

Bane walked up to the bodies and made a tsk tsk tsk noise.

"What—What are you going to do to us?" the Bothan prisoner stammered nervously, fur flat in fear.

"Don't talk to him!" a human prisoner hissed loudly.

Cad Bane reached his spiderlike blue fingers into the Bothan's beard, pulling his face up, forcing him to look into his dead red eyes.

The Bothan yelped in terror, sending spittle the Duros way. Bane scoffed, chuckling to himself amusedly. Then he walked up the chain, stopping in front of a Twi'lek male.

"If I knew—Don't hurt me!" the Twi'lek screamed, recoiling.

Bane walked back to the stubborn human who had dared to tell the Bothan not to talk. The human stared into Cad Bane's red eyes defiantly. For five seconds.

"Holy hell!" he gasped pupils dilated in fear. "I am going to—Sergeant Theen Cavinto! PAF number CC25672." Then he began repeating himself, stammering the re-identifiable information he was trained to divulge if captured. "Sergeant Theen Cavinto! PAF number CC25672."

Standing in a multispecies puddle of blood, Bane was now beside himself with laughter. "I got it Admiral," he said in as serious a tone as he could muster.
Tonith folded his arms, narrowing his eyes suspiciously.

Bane spun around and walked up to the security terminal. In the event of an emergency, all facilities critical to the Republic's infrastructure were required to give access to Federal law enforcement—Jedi and Judicials. Methodically, Bane entered in the Judicial passcode for the InterGalactic Communications Center: Z1204654#.

The metallic blast doors in the middle of the blastproof glass slid open automatically with a dramatic hiss. The first wave of droid commandos rushed in, stepping over the sobbing security guard. Two B1s picked her up and dragged her out into the entrance hall with the other prisoners.

Sobbing, the security guard mumbled "I don't understand. What happened?"

"I—I don't understand. You used the force?" the Muun gasped, echoing the stunned sentiment the security guard had. Then he screamed angrily "HOW DID THE SOLDIERS KNOW THE PASSCODE?! HOW COULD YOU HAVE GOTTEN THAT INFORMATION FROM THEM!"

Bane flashed a spacer handshrug, smiling deviously. "Republic security protocols are an enigma, as you know. You never know who knows what. It's why you don't just start executing everyone willy nilly." The Duros gestured to the bodies on the ground.

"An enigma?! This makes no sense! I demand—"

"—If you'll excuse me Admiral," Bane interrupted in mock apology, "I have a piece of hardware, or perhaps software, to retrieve. I am really not so up to date on the technicals. I imagine you'll be hearin' a lot more about it soon though."

At that, the Duros followed the squads of droids into the facility, leaving dozens of very confused and defeated beings behind. As Bane slipped out of view, Tonith's holopresence yelled loudly "I WILL BE DOWN MOMENTARILY! DO NOT TOUCH ANYTHING WITHOUT MY PERMISSION!"

"Kriffing moron," Bane muttered bitterly under his breath.