Chapter One
The Star Destroyer Invidious looked every bit like the weapon of the Empire it had been engineered to be. Sixteen hundred meters of gleaming white hull armor narrowed to a point in space, a declaration to all who would challenge the Empire that their challenge would soon come to an end.
Of course, looks could be deceiving. Invidious was Imperial built, with a crew that wore Imperial uniforms. Many of them had been trained by the Empire. But no person familiar with the Imperial Starfleet at its height would mistake Invidious for an Imperial warship after a quick glimpse inside. Their uniforms were not strictly Imperial regulation, the crew's gait lacked the standard Imperial clip, and they were not the universally human personnel that would be found in Imperial service. The ship's fighters were not standard TIEs, but had been heavily modified for added survivability and pilot comfort.
Nor was the ship's captain, Leonia Tavira, a typical Imperial. A striking woman with black hair and violet eyes, she was possessed of a winsome demeanor and an impressively innocent and attractive smile. Or, alternatively, she was possessed of a ruthless ambition that had seen the death of many would-be rivals. She dressed to match both personas, with a casual red bandanna holding back her longish hair and twin blaster pistols on her hips. She paired this with a trim Imperial Moff's uniform, a rank she technically held but was now long defunct. Neither her home planet Eiattu, nor the rest of the Ado sector, was any longer interested in catering to their Moff's orders.
But the uniform was still useful.
She appeared to be what she was: An Imperial who had turned pirate and who, like so many others, found herself quite enjoying the change.
The man standing behind her watched the bridge with cold detachment, an alert bodyguard who regretted his assignment but was dedicated to it nonetheless. Dressed like a warrior from the old spacetales, an antique bronzium carapace armored his muscular build, transitioning into greaves and heavy boots that rang distinctively against the Star Destroyer's floor plating with every step. The armor alone didn't make the man frightening. It was the implacable mystery he seemed to exude wherever he walked. But after years of service, they knew Admiral Tavira had his unwavering loyalty, and for the gang of thugs, killers and Imperial deserters that, and the lightsaber hanging from his belt, were enough.
None of Tavira's bridge crew had ever seen his face, hidden as it was behind the lifelike, roaring visage of a d'oemir bear: purest white but for the brown eyes, uncannily intelligent, and utterly ruthless.
They were also nearly extinct.
He knew Tavira liked the mask. There was much she had learned from her time in the Empire, but first and foremost she had learned the value of intimidation. When she had acquired Invidious from one of the loosely-independent warlords who had grown like fungal colonies after the Emperor's death, it had not been for the vessel's raw power, though that was certainly useful. Nor had it been because the ship was the finest possible pirate vessel. Nothing was further than the truth given the innumerable design flaws and constant maintenance demands characteristic of Star Destroyers, both serious hindrances for a pirate.
No, it was because even the boldest Rebel pilots became filled with dread at the sight of a Star Destroyer.
And the planet below them was not filled with the boldest Rebel pilots.
They stood together in silence as the crew in the port and starboard crew-pits rustled with anticipation, the Invidious now nearing bombardment range of the desolate planet below.
"Admiral, the Administrator is calling again," said the man at the Communications station, using Tavira's preferred title despite the woman never seeing an Admiralty board in her spotty career. "He's beginning to sound desperate."
Tavira leaned toward the masked figure. "Isn't this thrilling, my Tevas-kaar?" she asked quietly, the warmth of her hand on his shoulder utterly wasted on his armor. He remained still as a shiver of excitement went down her spine. "I suppose you can feel the anticipation and dread even better than I can," she said after a moment, sounding jealous.
The Tevas-kaar, who had once had a name, maintained his posture unflinchingly. If she was disappointed at his lack of response, she didn't show it.
"Admiral, Flight Control reports that all fighters are ready for launch," said the last man on the elevated command deck.
"Thank you, Commander," Tavira replied briskly, turning her attention away from him. "Communications, tell the fighters to launch and assume standard escort formation. Then go wideband to the Kessel Defense Force. Tell them that if they attempt to engage, they will be destroyed. And tell them I am not interested in prisoners, but I will accept defectors."
"Yes, Admiral."
The pirate admiral watched as the shattered, lopsided rock of Kessel and it's far more typical moon loomed closer through the port bridge windows. "Not just yet," Tavira mused softly to herself, too quiet for anyone but the Tevas-kaar to overhear. "Helm, put us in a geosynchronous orbit above the old Imperial base on the Garrison Moon. Guns, train all weapons on the facility but do not," her voice dropped to a low growl, "do not fire until I tell you to."
Invidious completed its maneuver with far less speed than it could have, allowing the minutes to stretch out and the impending threat of the vessel to linger. The communications from the Administrator grew desperate. The Tevas-kaar watched as Tavira stepped back into the middle of the bridge platform, examining one of the displays with a keen tactical eye.
"Has Doole offered his surrender?" Tavira asked, her hands folded behind her.
"No, Admiral. Should I demand it?"
"I'll have our turbolasers do the demanding," Tavira replied breezily. "Guns, pick a target fifty meters outside the perimeter of the base and slag it for me. Make it spectacular."
An Imperial-II class Star Destroyer carried fifteen heavy turbolaser batteries and ten individual heavy turbolaser cannons in its port broadside. Not all of Invidious' turbolasers were as reliable as they ought to be, given the ship's lack of opportunity for real maintenance, but there were more than enough. Each of the weapons trained on the prison, pinging it with targeting scanners. Then thirty-eight bursts of coherent green light lanced from their barrels, drilling deep into the stone as excess energy bled into shattering explosions. A second burst of fire slammed in after them, widening the crack as the stone glowshot in the aftermath of scattered explosions.
"Beautiful!" Tavira said approvingly. She offered her man at Communications a cocky smile. "Comms?"
The man held his hand over his ear, listening intently. "Administrator Doole offers his unconditional surrender, Admiral," he announced triumphantly. His own lips slipped into a grin that would be quite unacceptable in a proper Imperial environment. "At least, from all the desperate begging, I believe that is what he has offered."
"Very good," Tavira said, her thin smile growing broader. "Tell him to await my envoy. And tell him," her teeth gleamed with wolfish hunger, "that if he does anything I do not like I will shatter the moon and rain large pieces of it down on his head."
"With pleasure, Admiral," the young man said, his own smile matching hers.
Tavira turned back to her armored bodyguard. "Well, my Tevas-kaar? Are you ready to embark on the next stage of your," her violet eyes glowed with amusement and temptation, "loyal service?"
"I live and serve, Admiral," he replied, his already resonant voice echoing behind the d'oemir bear mask.
"Very good." There was no mistaking the satisfaction in her voice. "You may begin."
The depths of Kessel were kept in perpetual darkness. This was purposeful, as the only reason the world—if the barely-habitable rock that was Kessel could be called a world, it was really more of a gigantic asteroid with an almost-but-not-quite-atmosphere—was settled at all was its native Spice spiders. The creatures wiled away their existence underground in complete darkness, spinning their lucrative webs of pure glitterstim, and consuming the Spice miners sent in to collect it.
Fliry Vorru had spent far too many years in that bitter darkness. It had not been all bad: the camaraderie with other prisoners, especially other Corellians, had offered some recompense on those long, treacherous days. He and his fellow inmates had even found the spice hunts preferable to other far less dangerous duties simply because of the change of pace.
The other recompense on those long days of miserable boredom had been the knowledge—the surety—that he would eventually return to civilization and resume his rise. He never doubted it, despite the hurdles that seemed to be constantly placed in his way.
Vorru had been serving a life sentence, a "gift" of the Emperor earned with the sale of far too many of Vorru's secrets. Before that, Vorru had been the Moff of the Corellia sector, a post he had held since Palpatine had been just a Senator. The two men had understood each other's ambitions, but Palpatine would brook no rivals and had, inevitably, come to see Vorru's charisma, competence, and ties to the galaxy's fringes as a threat. Vorru took pride in that, even if it had led to his imprisonment. Being deemed a threat by the Emperor himself was no small feat.
Vorru's memory of Palpatine's cackling self-congratulation as he stripped the Moff's rank bars from Vorru's chest, handed him off dismissively into the hands of a pair of red armored Royal Guardsman, and then turned his back, was bitter and vivid to this day. Force or no Force, Vorru had always known Palpatine's ego and overconfidence would doom the man in the end, and it was with that knowledge that he rode himself hard, determined never to grow as complacent as his old rival. But even after Palpatine's fall it had taken some years for Vorru to make his first escape from Kessel.
His unwilling return to Kessel after that first escape was another memory that plagued him. The Lambda-class shuttle descending through Kessel's constantly escaping air, wings arching to landing configuration as they swept down to the landing pad with the smooth settling that told of extensive experience at the pilot's yoke. Antilles had been flying of course, with Iella Wessiri seated across from him in the passenger compartment, hand riding her blaster and eyes on the base of his throat the whole way. The two had made his return to Kessel a personal project of theirs after the Rogues had taken Thyferra, settling him in the now-familiar darkened corridors, away from the prying eyes of New Republic sludgenews and extensive blackmail opportunities. Much as he despised his time here, the memory of their determined opposition brought a smile to his face. At least I was beaten by proper Corellians, who showed me the respect my reputation deserved.
"You know I will get out of here again," he had told them. "I know too many people and own too many debts. Kessel could not hold me before, and it cannot hold me now."
Wessiri's keenly intelligent brown eyes were her most defining feature, he remembered. She was a true Corellian; a dedicated investigator, she was meticulous and detail oriented. If she had been in CorSec while he had been Corellia's Moff; she would have been a prized asset. The thought of setting her dogged determination on his adversaries… but in his absence Corellia had deteriorated, ending up in turn puppet of the Empire, a plaything of the Diktat, or both. Wessiri, not particularly fond of either, had joined the Rebellion and that—and his rather shortsighted decision to hitch his future to the even-more-unstable-than-he-had-realized Ysanne Isard—had made them enemies.
Isard had been the head of Imperial Intelligence, the Empress of the Empire in all but name after Palpatine's death. She had seemed like a sure enough bet, until one saw her up close. All her intelligence, ruthlessness, and cunning couldn't save her from her own mental instabilities.
And the first thing he had done on release was to contact her with an offer of service. It pained him only a little to admit that his own mistakes had put him back here.
"You may," she had conceded, releasing his arm with the exquisitely painful twist of a forensic investigator who had perp-walked the wealthy and corrupt, as he stepped down the ramp of the Lambda and into the hands of the waiting Kessel guards for processing. To his surprise, she hadn't said anything more without prompting.
"And then?"
She had arched an eyebrow at him as the guards took his arms. "I suggest that you run, very far away and live somewhere in peaceful obscurity. I don't like reopening old cases." And then she had turned away and strode up the ramp of the Lambda. The ramp had risen behind her, closing as a gesture of finality. As he had watched, pulled away by the guards, an X-wing painted in CorSec green-on-black took up an escort position as the shuttle headed for space. Horn, no doubt. Another proper Corellian, he thought with rue that almost turned into pride.
His mistakes were legion, yes… but his fall was also a testament to the quality of his adversaries. What Corellia under his rule, with these magnificently capable people at his command, could have been…
Wessiri had given him good advice—for a man without ambition. He intended to ignore every bit of it.
Though he was not yet decrepit, Vorru was a hair too slow now to go traipsing around in utter darkness, braving Spice spiders with a pick or shovel. To avoid it he had negotiated with Moruth Doole, Kessel's administrator, and exchanged some small credit accounts for a less strenuous confinement, doling out a new one each year of roughly equivalent wealth. The library he had been given access to was barely deserving of the name, to be sure, but it did have a number of things to recommend it besides its reading list. Most importantly, access to the Kessel computer mainframe.
There was a heavy knock on the door. Vorru looked up and over, then peered upwards, as if he could see through the ceiling and to Kessel's orbit above. Being disturbed in the library was uncommon and it usually meant that Doole wanted something. Today, however, there was a good chance it meant something else… "Come," he called.
The door slid open and a tall, gangly blonde figure stepped through, holding a double-barreled blaster pistol. Like everything else Arb Skynxnex owned, the blaster spoke volumes about the man; an illegal custom model, one that sacrificed accuracy, rate-of-fire, and reliability for raw power. It was not a trade-off Vorru would have made. "Vorru," the man said in a gravelly voice. He wore an Imperial's uniform, but without any insignia; when the prisoners had seized control of the Kessel spice facilities from the Empire, they had kept some of the paraphernalia in an attempt to maintain an official façade. Vorru would have recognized him just from his voice, but he would cut a distinctive figure even mute, with his long arms and spindly neck.
Of all the inhabitants of Kessel, Skynxnex was the most distasteful—or at least in the top-five, Vorru thought. There were uses for psychopathic sadists, but only a few and then only transiently. If it had been up to Vorru, Skynxnex would have been dead years ago.
"Can I help you?" Vorru asked calmly, adopting his best Imperial Court intonations and an air of quiet, regal confidence. It was like settling into a well-tailored suit, he thought, with the momentary concern that it might not fit after so long in the closet, followed by the relief that it still fit perfectly.
Skynxnex wasn't impressed. "There's an Impstar Deuce in orbit, and its envoy wants to speak with you." He scowled at him, looming forward to take full advantage of the height difference between them. Skynxnex was built like an enormous, skeletal scarecrow; Vorru was short and lean, in part thanks to Kessel's scanty prisoner rations.
He nodded, unimpressed by Skynxnex's attempt at intimidation. "Then we should not keep them waiting. Star Destroyers are nothing to be trifled with," he replied. Doole doesn't have the Rogues and he's an easy target, stationary on the ground. Kessel's defense forces can't hope to compete with even a poorly maintained Impstar Deuce.
Skynxnex watched Vorru, his eyes dark and suspicious. For a moment, Vorru thought the taller man might shoot him just for the pleasure of it. Vorru hoped not—that would be an unsatisfactory end to such a promising beginning. Their gazes met and this time his lingered before the tall man glanced away.
Skynxnex wasn't the only one of them who had a killer's gaze.
The scarecrow jerked his head towards the door, then turned and stalked out of the library, ducking his head on exit. Vorru followed, spirits raised. He took a breath, reminding himself not to seem too ebullient; there were any number of ways the next few minutes could go horribly wrong. Still, he couldn't keep a momentary smirk from his face.
The Imperial Correctional Facility—or simply the Spice Mines of Kessel to most of the galaxy—was an enormous, sprawling facility originally built by the Old Republic and perfected as a great prison of the Empire. In its heyday hundreds of thousands—some said perhaps even millions—of prisoners, mostly political dissidents, had been sent to the Spice Mines of Kessel to live out terms ranging from a few months to the rest of their natural lives (usually closer to the latter, especially given the many dangers of Spice mining).
Vorru and Skynxnex walked the rough-hewn metal corridor from the library to the lift. The decades-old equipment creaked in protest, but like so much of the Old Republic's technology it had been built to last and obeyed despite its complaints. In moments the lift was rocketing through the long tube over the grey surface of Kessel towards the prison's central hub. Through the scorched transparisteel window of the lift they got an excellent view of the facility, a tan-and-grey plasteel edifice that seemed to stretch endlessly in every direction, hardly more appealing than Kessel's harsh surface itself.
The central structure loomed above everything around it, looking vaguely reminiscent of the Imperial Palace on Coruscant. Four flat faces rose up out of the ground, sloped backwards at about forty-five-degree angles before coming together in a large flat top that could serve as a shuttle landing pad. Unlike the rest of the facility it gleamed, glassed and mirrored, housing the facility's administrative offices and prison personnel.
As the elevator raced towards the center of the prison, Skynxnex watched Vorru like a hawk, his expression flickering with suspicion. Vorru also occasionally caught him glancing upwards towards the sky and trying not to look nervous, which made sense. From here, with the transparent windows of the lift that carried them offering a clear view of the sky, they could both see the gleaming white dagger shape of the Star Destroyer now in orbit above the prison.
Skynxnex pointed his double-barreled blaster through the transparisteel at the white arrowhead shape of the Star Destroyer above. "Friends of yours?"
Vorru made a show of looking up and frowning. "I don't have any friends with Star Destroyers. Not anymore."
"If they're not friends of yours," the scarecrow grunted, "then they're enemies, and you've finally outlived your usefulness," he said. "I wonder what they'll give us for you," the man mused darkly, looking at Vorru with an expression of thinly veiled contempt. The expression was a lie; Vorru had enough experience with sadists to recognize murderous impulses disguised as contempt. If it were up to Skynxnex, Vorru would already be dead or dying in the most painful way Skynxnex could imagine, and for no reason other than witnessing that pain would mildly amuse him.
The lift came to a stop and the doors opened. Skynxnex gestured at the door with his blaster. "After you." Reluctantly, Vorru led the way, feeling those barrels pointed at his back with every step. The corridors had been better maintained than those in the computer records facility he had inhabited these last months, but the days of regular maintenance were long gone. Far from housing a well-run Imperial administration, this corridor was still testament to the harsh fighting that had taken place when the inmates rose up. Scorch marks from stray blaster bolts pocked the walls. The offices on either side had been ransacked for anything of use before being therapeutically melted, likely the work of an E-web repeating blaster.
They passed a broad anteroom to what had been the Imperial prefect's office. It faced huge windows displaying Kessel's desolate flats and the atmosphere factories beyond, which pumped a barely-adequate supply of air into Kessel's barely-adequate gravity. Above the air, Vorru should see the telltale shimmer of the planetary shields, which prevented the entire prison population from getting fried by the intense gamma radiation produced by the nearby Maw, a cosmically unique collection of dozens of black holes that made this region of space one of the most treacherous in the galaxy. Kessel was, in short, one of the least hospitable places in the entire galaxy for human and alien life. It certainly was no Coronet City, a sleek metropolis with verdant greenery around it. The fleeting thought which sent a pang of homesickness through Vorru. How long had it been since he'd last been on Corellia? Fifteen years? Twenty? However long it had been, it had been much too long.
But now he didn't have time for Old Home Week at Coronet. He was on. The Imperial prefect's desk had been originally sized for a human, but someone had shortened the legs—haphazardly, Vorru noted—to be sized for a much shorter, squatter creature. In this case, the venal and perpetually planning Moruth Doole.
Doole was a Rybet; bright green, with tan spots on his skull that seemed to glow in the dim light from the glowpanels and large windows behind him. His reptilian, naturally amphibious skin was disgustingly cracked, which probably explained his proximity to a ramshackle humidifier just behind his chair which hummed and crackled seemingly at random, coughing out a watery mist. Vorru could already feel the sharp creases of his prison uniform collapsing.
Unlike Skynxnex, Doole wore nothing even remotely Imperial—not that there were any Imperial-style uniforms for Rybets anyway—instead donning a long, lizardskin waistcoat. It was an attempt to add a rakish appeal to his diminutive frame. The attempt was spoiled by his eyes, Vorru thought. They were overlarge with vertical slits and not the least bit intimidating; one was a milky, sightless white, while the other was enhanced by a mechanic's loupe, forever hiding him from meeting the eyes of others. That was a real detriment for one who dreamed himself a leader.
But Vorru's attention wasn't on Doole for more than a moment. He knew the Rybet and dismissed him almost instantly. He was powerful only because despite his venality, he could manage the mines like no other, and even condescended to give the prisoners enough rations and equipment for a fighting chance in the mines. Really, a better alternative had not yet presented itself; the moment a more capable thinker, a more charismatic leader, came along Doole would be pushed aside or rendered an underling. While Doole fiddled with his mechanical eye to get a good look at Vorru, Vorru watched the room's final occupant.
The man was tall, almost two meters in height, and loomed over even Skynxnex's lanky frame. His height was augmented by the armored boots he wore; his entire armored form gleamed bronze as the sunlight from Doole's massive windows cascaded over him, reflecting and giving him an almost otherworldly glow. His head was covered by a coiled helm, also bronze, and his face by a vivid white mask of some kind of alien bear. The visage was intricately and masterfully painted—or perhaps carved, it was hard to tell exactly how the effect was produced from a distance—to give it the impression of fur, dark eyes, and a snarl with just a hint of teeth around the mouth. The impression it left on the viewer was potent, to say the least; Skynxnex's gaze hadn't left the armored man since they had entered the office, his blaster pointing half in his direction.
"Fliry Vorru," Doole said finally, hopping down off his chair and moving around the shortened desk in his direction.
Vorru ignored him; walked right past him, leaving the Rybet standing behind him in stunned disbelief. Doole's head swiveled after him in an expression of growing rage, stammering, but he wasn't important. Not if the armored man was what Vorru thought him to be, was what Tavira told him he was. And if he wasn't, well, then Vorru was about to die anyway. He might as well do so with panache.
"You are the Tevas-kaar," he asked, stopping in front of the taller, armored man. Vorru, who was quite short, was forced to look up, and up some more to meet the man's shadowed gaze. The eyes were dark and utterly unemotive, though whether that was because of their natural color or because of the effect of the mask he couldn't tell.
"Yes," the man replied, his voice resonantly rumbling from behind the mask, with no discernible accent. "You are Moff Fliry Vorru of Corellia?"
Vorru smiled. It had been a long time since someone had referred to him as such. It was a good omen that Tavira would be pliable, or at least polite if she had instructed the Tevas-kaar to greet him with his old title. "I am," he agreed readily, letting his voice hover confidently in the air, still ignoring Doole's now quite annoyed babble behind him. He was Moff Fliry Vorru of Corellia, could feel the old prestige draped around his shoulders, could feel himself settling back into the fondly remembered routines of one of the most powerful men of the Empire. The former Moff offered the Tevas-kaar—and he really had to learn the man's name, thinking of him by title would grow annoying and quickly—a thin smile. "You have your orders?" he asked the armored man.
The masked figure's face was motionless, but Vorru saw the man's large hands flex. "Yes."
Vorru smiled thinly. "Then by all means," he said, enjoying Doole's perturbation and continuing to ignore it, "carry them out."
This was the moment of truth, the moment where Vorru himself would discover if Tavira's boasting had been genuine or overstated. His life hung in the balance of the next few moments—
The Tevas-kaar lifted his hand. Vorru heard Skynxnex gasp in surprise and anger, as his double-barreled blaster soared through the air over Vorru's shoulder to landin the armored man's hand. He pointed it at the ceiling and pulled the trigger. The two barrels fired as one, the twinned bolts fusing into a larger, overloaded blast that slammed into the ceiling, sending a shower of insulation down from above, dust intermingling with mist from Doole's humidifier and the newly-introduced scent of ozone. The Tevas-kaar lowered the blaster and examined it with a faint distaste, then ejected the gas cartridge before tossing it aside.
Skynxnex recovered quickly. Doole's enforcer hauled a shock stick from his belt and started to charge, but it availed him nothing. Before he took more than a step, he stumbled, both hands moving to hold his swanlike throat, gagging. His right hand pointed towards Skynxnex, forefinger and thumb curled into a steadily tightening circle. Skynxnex gurgled, clinging to his throat, his eyes bulging in disbelief as he tried to speak but was unable to. Vorru turned to look at Doole and his grey eyes were hard. "Kessel is mine now, Doole," Vorru's voice was chipped flint, grating over the sound of Skynxnex's gagging. "You may continue to manage it if you cooperate. If you do not…" he pointed at Skynxnex, who fell to his knees, flailing.
Doole stared at Skynxnex, at the Tevas-kaar, and most of all at the gasping Skynxnex. "I… I understand," he said, his expression horrified.
Vorru offered him a calm, victorious smile. "Release him," he said, remembering how Grand Moff Tarkin had managed Vader. How often had he wished for a Vader of his own…?
Skynxnex suddenly took a gasping breath, falling forward onto his hands and knees, panting for breath, color returning to his face. Wisely, he didn't look up.
"The Invidious will remain here until my agents arrive to ensure that Kessel remains under my control," Vorru continued conversationally, turning so that he stood in front of and beside the Tevas-kaar. "You've treated me with the dignity you could Doole. As such, do not think my generosity wanting. You will continue to sell Spice, but only to smugglers of my choosing. You will continue to receive a cut, but a reduced cut. You will continue to oversee prisoners, but you will release the prisoners I want released and hold the people I want held. Serve me well, and in time, you will be richly rewarded beyond any dream of avarice. But fail me, and your end will be slow and painful. Do we understand one another?"
The Rybet stared at him with terrified eyes, his gaze pulling towards the taller Tevas-kaar yet constantly drawn back to Vorru's hard gaze.
"Don't make me ask twice," Vorru said, with a touch of impatience.
"I… yes. Of course," Doole replied, bowing his head subserviently. Vorru had seen that expression on him before, years ago, when he'd been a petty administrator in the Spice Mines, before his very bloody coup. It was gratifying to see it once again, but Vorru would be sure not to forget what had come of the last man Doole had bowed to. The massive public executions of the Imperial guards and administrators who had once occupied these offices, everyone even suspected of being a trustie, were hard to forget.
(It had taken some quick talking to spare Vorru himself one of those executions, but being a personal enemy of the Emperor had been an effective defense.)
"Excellent," Vorru replied with a smile that could almost be mistaken for friendly. "May our partnership be long and fruitful."
The Sentinel-class landing shuttle that carried Vorru and his escort hummed softly as it made its way towards the looming Invidious. Vorru leaned forward to peer upwards out the window at the Star Destroyer, wishing he was in the pilot's seat but glad for the opportunity to view the big ship. He could see an EVA crew working on one of the starboard shield generators as the shuttle moved under the Star Destroyer and towards its huge docking bay.
"Trouble with the starboard shields?" he asked the pilot quizzically.
The pilot grunted softly as he moved the ship's wings into landing position. "The generators have been fussy ever since we got into a scrape with some Diamala out near Sullust," he replied absently.
Definitely not a regular Imperial pilot, Vorru thought, his lips shifting into a frown. The regular navy would never talk so freely to newcomers, especially about sensitive information. He nodded, watching as the pilot skillfully maneuvered the shuttle up into the docking bay. Still, he mused to himself, it's not unexpected that Invidious has maintenance issues. Star Destroyers were designed for them.
The shuttle settled between marked lines in Invidious' docking bay, which was filled with other ships—squadrons of what seemed to be modified TIE designs with three triangular wings arranged symmetrically around their cockpits. The pilot in him—the one who had been grounded in Kessel for two years since Cracken had finished "debriefing" him and the Rogues had dropped him on that miserable rock—craved the opportunity to take one out for a spin and see what it could do, but the Moff knew that opportunity would not be soon in coming, if ever.
He patted the pilot on the shoulder approvingly. "Smooth landing," then turned on his heels and walked down the still-descending flight ramp. He had never met Leonia Tavira before now, but he recognized her instantly from the combination of her Moff's uniform, her short stature, and her brilliant, piercing violet eyes. The flamboyant red bandanna was merely an accent. Do not underestimate her just because of her youth, he reminded himself. Or her beauty. This is a woman who at sixteen was taken against her will to be the concubine of a Moff, and by twenty she was the Moff. If Dlarit taught you nothing, keep it professional. Always.
"Moff Vorru of Corellia," the young woman greeted him cheerfully, her arms folded behind her back as she adopted a formal posture.
"Moff Tavira of Ado," he replied with her own defunct Moff title, wishing that he'd had the opportunity to put on a Moff uniform before greeting her. His Kessel prison clothes felt decidedly inadequate for this meeting. "Thank you for the ride. And for the assistance securing the revenues of Kessel."
Her smile was positively predatory. "You're most welcome. I have some of my assets arriving to garrison the world as we speak, so that it stays secured after we depart," she replied, her tones airily dismissive, as if bringing a Star Destroyer to Kessel and providing a Force-adept bodyguard were the least of her concerns. The Force-adept bodyguard in question stepped down the shuttle's ramp behind him and moved to stand near Tavira, taking a watchful pose just behind her and to her right, his bronze armor gleaming in the artificial light of the docking bay. "I have a room prepared for you, and a wardrobe," Tavira said, her airy tone continuing to treat her courtesy as almost an afterthought. "Then perhaps you would consent to join me to discuss the next phase of your plan."
Vorru felt his lips move into a confident, almost cocky smile. Yes, he was older now. Yes, he was without almost all of the resources he had once had. Yes, the moment the New Republic discovered he had escaped Kessel they would no doubt come after him. And none of that mattered a whit. Tavira wasn't the only one who had started with nothing, after all; he'd no more been born into Moffdom than she had. He'd done it before, he could do it again. "Yes of course," he said, careful not to offer any intonation or words that suggested he accepted her as his superior. He'd made that mistake with Isard; not again. "I reached out to you considering your discerning eye and keen tactical mind. Rest assured both traits will see use before the week is out."