THE FORSAN SYSTEM: It was nighttime when the Silent Fang landed on the planet of their destination, in a remote area free of prying eyes.
Forsen was a lush planet, with green hills and forest as far as the eye could see, visible despite the low light of the night. As the four descended down the ramp from their clocked ship, the aroma of colorful flowers filled the air, as a calm breeze gently blew past them.
For Tikala, this was as wonderful an environment as she could have ever wished for, this far from Tython. So calm and soft was the atmosphere, that she would have found it a great place for a long meditation session... did they not have a mission to look into..!
Even though the rest of them were less impressed than their little Zabrak counterpart, who just seemed to be in awe at the scenery, the word 'majestic' was still the first thing that came to mind.
"How far is the Imperial intelligence secret hideout?" Briza asked her little brother, as her eyes surveyed the terrain.
"Not far from here lies a city. The hideout is located in the basement of one of the largest skyscrapers." Terrow answered, while showing the map on a datapad and pointing to a nearby mountain. "Past that mountain peak and we should see the city."
"Very well, let's head out," Briza ordered quickly. She and her siblings sprinted out in the dark.
After only a half an hour of running, they reached the peak of the mountain, gazing down upon the citylights that illuminated the night's sky.
The city was as idyllic as possible in a city that spread far and wide over many hills. Only a few skyscrapers appeared distracting from the overall green nature that lived in the city itself. With vines growing rapidly around the buildings, the plants were gardened by the inhabitants who made it into the architecture of their civilization, with every road's pavement consisting of flat trimmed grass. Besides the more steel looking houses and buildings, everything was made of wood, or some other kind of plants that appeared unique to the newcomers.
Swiftly but stealthy, moving from shadow to shadow through the city, avoiding lights from buildings in the botanic inspired houses, they reached the skyscraper secretly used by Imperial Intelligence.
Tikala used the force to deactivate the security cameras pointing in their direction. After entering the durasteel made building, they found that all it's interior was made with wooden materials, it had an ancient look to it, yet modern in its finish. "Nice place," Mathorn whistled in a low voice, which was replied with a 'keep quiet' stare from the remaining team.
Using a dataspike, Terrow unlocked a concealed door that made a direct passage to the hidden Intelligence hideout. To their fears, yet no surprise, they found the imperial officers in the same or even more pitiful state than the personnel on Ord Canfre.
They were first encountered by the most drowsy looking intelligence operator in the history of the empire, he barely seemed to even look at the newcomers, like moving his head was a lifetime achievement.
"This... Is a problem." Briza uttered the obvious, as she looked around on a dozen useless individuals.
"When I look at that person... I suddenly miss Urr'tah, at least he was fun while drowsy." Mathorn muttered mostly to himself in remembrance.
Terrow and Tikala immediately began to check up upon the poor humans, who were in a complete state of drowsiness. Unlike last time, some of them would at least comment on what those zabraks were doing to them or just slightly resist. But no, they were hopeless without meaningful energy.
As Briza and later Terrow began searching the archives. Mathorn as always, located the refrigerator. As he had just opened the fridge, an oozing smell attacked his nostrils, "Yec-ch!" He hastily closed the fridge again, and instead took a closer look around the kitchen, he noticed all the ingredients used in kitchen machines had expired sometime ago. Returning with the only eatable thing he could find from an old military ration pack, Mathorn informed the rest of his observation. "I think they have been in this weird state, for a very long time, all their food has gone bad!"
As she was studying the barely awoke agents on the floor, Tikala looked at her bread chewing brother and nodded. "That explains their poor state, they must have been under this mind washing sith spell for much longer."
"The last reports they sent, was about twelve days ago, containing more or less useless information." Terrow added from behind a desk in a room nearby, searching their private datacore.
Tikala had a sad expression on her face, this seemed a bit too hopeless for these poor people. "We need to evacuate these agents, we don't know how long they can survive on their own."
"No. Once we have completed our objective, then we can help them. Our stealth advantage should be kept for as long as possible," Briza firmly overruled. "Terrow, how long until you have established a connection to imperial intelligence?"
"No more than five minutes." Terrow replied quickly.
Briza smiled in satisfaction. "Good, we will leave as soon as you are finished."
Tikala really didn't like to just leave them like this, so frail they seemed. Even if she could easily imagine the difficulties in getting these imperials out of the building, while remaining unknown to the rest of the city.
After setting up a data up-link to Dromund Kaas, the siblings ventured back outside the building to conduct further surveillance.
Sensing someone watching them, Tikala spread out her awareness with the force. On top of a nearby building, she identified the being as human, possibly in an armor of sorts. Without making any gesture or hint of being surveyed, she informed them. "Make no sudden movements, we are being watched from eight Coruscant time."
As it was mentioned, Briza too got the feeling that something was looking at them, something armed.
Mathorn was just about to check his chrono... until he realized what his sister was talking about and resisted the urge to look around.
Terrow checked his scanner and searched the city map. "Come this way, I know where we can borrow a few speeder bikes."
Hiding in one of the many botanical inspired houses, a man clad in a red colored body armor had just spotted a group of strange looking Zabraks. As he zoomed in with his electrobinoculars, he noticed they looked imperial, except for the short person in the group, who wore a dark brown robe that resembled that of a jedi most of all. He watched them enter one of the other buildings."Darn, out of sight! I have to relocate."
As he was about to get on the move again, he spotted four speeder bikes flying towards him, with just one look at the bike's handlers he froze for a split second. "Dammit!" He jumped on his own speeder bike and slammed the pedal with his foot as hard as possible, the engine roared to life and accelerated with so much force that he nearly lost his grip on the handle.
With a quick glance over the shoulder, he saw them gaining on him. Assuming that lightsabers could be an issue, he aimed his blaster at the pursuers bikes, instead of the one piloting them. But the four bikes evaded the blaster bolts, without much loss in speed.
In response, Terrow pulled his blaster pistol, set it to stun and returned fire. However piloting a speeder bike, at half the speed of sound, made aiming a challenge to be sure, not to mention the air pressure while holding a blaster. He also tried using his wrist to fire darts, but with no further luck.
Briza used the force to break the air pressure ahead of her speeder bike, giving her even more speed as a result, she overtook Terrow, who had otherwise been taking the lead.
Tikala had trouble with the controls of this type bike, down was up and up was down compared to what she was used to. More than once, she grazed the top of bushes on the wild lush green landscape below them.
Despite being unfamiliar with this model, Mathorn had tried similar controls back on his home planet of Dantooine. No matter the seriousness of the situation, this was fun. "KEEP UP SIS," he shouted, ignorant of the fact that the noise from the engines and air pressure drowned anything he shouted.
As the pursuers were gaining on him, the Man clad in red quickly made the decision to fly right for the nearest forest, hoping to lose them in the vegetation.
The siblings raced after him rapidly approaching the huge forest right ahead, they pursued him into the deep and dark woods, with only the rising morning sun to give some illumination to the otherwise dark green surroundings.
Terrow quickly realized that the person in red must know the forest well, otherwise he would have crashed in the narrow trails with dangerous swift turns appearing out of nowhere.
Without slowing down, Briza followed into the forest. She could make out a silhouette in red right in front throwing something at her. Seeing an explosion just a fraction before it actually happened, she used their family made force link to signal the imminent danger.
Several sonic grenades detonated in front of her, dozens of trees were shredded by the blast, wigs and branches fell upon the siblings in an avalanche of green and brown.
Using the force, they repelled the avalanche from hitting them and their speeders with relative ease.
Lacking in the force department, Terrow tried a maneuver in which he pointed the nose of the bike in the air, pressing the bike to hover up though the avalanche itself. However, this bike was not military grade, nor was it's repulser strong enough to handle such a sudden shift in gravity, "DARN IT!" The bike crashed right into the avalanche and Terrow was knocked off the bike. He would have been buried alive, had Tikala not used the force to grab him and throw him onto the back of her bike, "Are you okay?" Tikala asked as she looked worriedly at him.
Though his left leg had been injured and he had taken a slight hit to the head, luckily none of it was serious. "I'm alright, all thanks to your quick rescue."
"Anytime." Tikala replied with a smile and pressed the throttle to accelerate, following their older siblings in front.
Briza made a quick glance over her shoulder to make sure everything was alright. When she saw Tikala had saved Terrow, she eased a little and returned her focus on her prey, whom she was slowly gaining on.
Still seeing two pursuers behind him, he cursed his luck, he had precious little time before the red skinned sith would catch up to him. "I hope I can make it!" he thought in desperation.
Just as she was in range to attack with force powers, Briza once again sensed a danger coming, from below this time. She quickly steered upwards with assistance of the force to remain in control, as not to tilt over to either side.
Mathorn found it puzzling why his sister steered upwards all of a sudden... Then he too felt a sudden danger. KABOOM! He only had time to cocoon himself in the force, as he was sent flying up into the air with the pieces of his ride flying with him over the massive treetops. As he looked down, he could see that the ground exploded all over the forest in a miles radius by concussion mines. "What a bad day." He uttered his displeasure, as he crashed into the nearest tree, breaking branch after branch as he tumbled to the ground landing on his back, accompanied by the sound of bones breaking. "Ouch! That wasn't fun." he snarled to himself.
Both Tikala and Terrow clearly saw and heard the detonating concussion mines just ahead. "Terrow, I sense Mathorn is badly hurt. Can I entrust his survival to you?"
"Always, you have my word." Terrow replied sincerely.
Tikala had no doubt he would help their brother, still, it felt good to hear it said out loud. "I will try to catch up to our sister and assist if need be."
As soon as Tikala spotted Mathorn lying in a field of craters, where trees used to be. She immediately stopped the bike for Terrow to jump off. With Terrow running to her brother's aid, she felt reassured enough to head after their sister, now far out of sight. Only by sensing through the force, could she follow the trail.
Terrow looked down upon Mathorn, a sorry sight, laying in an awkward position, cowered with leaves and pieces of shrapnel burrowed through his armor and into his skin.
As he noticed someone standing over him, Mathorn asked. "Did you also come to take a picture?"
"No, but I do have some kolto injections I could give you." Terrow replied, as he produced an injector and some liquid kolto fill in.
"As long as it's my favorite flavor." Mathorn muttered in relief, as he was injected with kolto. "This feels weird, you know you look like dad... hi dad."
Terrow could only shrug and smile, kolto had the tendency to make people say things outright with very little thought put into it... but this seemed to be a special case.
The forest was becoming so thick that flying at top speed was no longer an option, but to his surprise, his pursuer didn't seem to be slowing down, nor seemed to care that her bike more than often graced the branches around. He could only hope that she would crash at any moment.
As she was only a dozen meters from her prey, Briza used the force to rip out a large cable off the speeder in front. She watched as fuel was gushing out of the tank and the bike started to slow down.
When the Man in red noticed that his bike was leaking fuel and his speed fading drastically, he instinctively reached for his blaster as last resort, but as he was about to aim at the pursuer behind him, a large painful burst of lightning struck him in the chest. The pain was so fierce, that he could no longer keep seated on his bike. The next second he found himself collapsed on the soft grassy ground, with his speeder colliding with the trees and breaking in half.
Briza stopped her bike nearby where the person in red lay motionless, except for the sudden spasms brought on by her force lightning. She used the force to disarm her prey for weapons and other equipment.
Despite the pain, the man in red looked over at the Zabrak who was removing his items without physical contact. "My my! You look lovely," he uttered in delight, when he got a better look at his capturer.
Using the force, Briza clenched her fist to choke him slightly. "Shut up, You will now tell me your name and why you are spying on us!"
Realizing he was beaten, the truth seemed the wiser option. "The name is Qaton Hanson, and your people seemed very suspicious."
"Very good, now tell me who you are working for and what is your assignment?" Briza firmly demanded.
"I'm contracted by Tenken syndicate to assist in keeping an eye on the locals and possible rivals." Qaton revealed plainly.
Briza studied him as she spoke. "I was under the impression that your guild had a hideout on this very planet."
Qaton thought for a second. "Well we used to have one a few months ago, but it was abandoned and relocated to some secret location outside this system. I am the only one remaining."
Briza tried to read his mind if his story held any truth, but his mind was very cloudy and twisted. "And where is this secret location? Cooperate and your life will be spared." she offered in typical sith fashion.
As Qaton tried to remember the name of the place... "Ahm..." He suddenly felt... very cold. Like a dark cloud descended on him depriving him of all his warmth.
Briza could feel disturbing tremors in the force, it felt like an ominous present was appearing in the force itself.
As she was trying to navigate the forest's many patches, Tikala too felt a disturbance in the force, something new had appeared in the forest, something strong in the dark side. She could sense it was summoning at the location… where her sister is. "I am coming Briza!" She doubled her effort and accelerated in that direction, hoping she would get there in time.
