3 BTC

Ever onward stretched the plateau of the silent planet, till shadow faded into shadow and only the dull, distant veil of stars, which had long since given up their flame and died, cast a glow upon the silhouette of the dark temple.

It was utterly, inhumanly cold.

A hundred thousand years of ice lay thick upon the world, smothering all but the uppermost limits of the burned city. Ancient, titanic blocks of smooth, unmarked black stone cast out forever in darkness, their sole purpose to show that something had once been and was now no longer. The Sith stood upon the snow and the ice and the ruin of the planet and felt the absence of the pervading Force. The soul of the universe did not dwell here, but, rather, like the roar of water toppling off a precipice into some great, bottomless chasm, it rushed ever towards the temple, pulling the Sith along in its rush to be consumed.

The maw of the galaxy had eyes, and they watched the Sith. A figure stood upon the steps of the dark temple, a wraith clad in wisps of writhing smoke. Pale eyes rose to meet the darkness that lingered under the cowl.

The Sith's eyes closed.

Opened again.

There was a dead man on the ground. His hyoid bone was broken, as were several of his cervical vertebrae. Cracked and rent like sticks of cheap wood. Several sharp pop pop popping sounds. Not so much screaming by that point.

The Sith was already tired of being on this station.


The boy was beginning to really regret his life choices. No. Scratch that. He was beginning to get really fed up with his so called 'Master'.

"I mean, what does she expect is going to happen? Leaving a child unsupervised? When my father hears about this..." he grumbled irritably under his breath.

He trailed off.

He didn't want to think about Dad right now. He'd gotten accustomed to not thinking about his parents at all over the eighteen months at the Academy. It was easier that way.

Now wasn't a great time to lose that bit of wisdom.

The air duct had gotten a lot smaller unexpectedly, and he'd been forced to army crawl his way through the rusting metal shaft. Judging by the not inconsiderable amount of rust trying to rip through the calluses on his hands (thank the Force for Sith Overseers and their sadistic manual labor punishments), he'd entered a much older part of the station. It was damper in here, the air thick with dust that made it hard to breathe. Sweat beaded on his forehead and he scowled at crude bit of graffiti that had been etched into the surface of the duct in decades past. Something vulgar in Kaleesh that he could barely make out due to the author's rather poor handwriting.

Twenty minutes of searching and still no sign of whatever that idiot lizard had been shooting at. Initial curiosity at the mystery had quickly dissolved into ruminations on his discontent with a certain Sith Lord. "This is nerf shit," he declared, striking his fist down in frustration. The soft part of the side of his hand made contact with a sharp bit of metal and he yelped.

"Fuck!" he hissed softly. He winced as he placed the bleeding part of his hand in his mouth automatically, tasting a tang of copper on his tongue. Neither his ears nor the Force sent any alerts in his direction so, after a moment, he allowed himself to relax a fraction of an inch.

But only a fraction.

"Urgh," careful not to impale his eye, as he wasn't really keen on the idea of having to get a replacement this early in life, he let his head droop. His knuckles pressed against his closed eyelids as he sighed.

"So ends the tale of Essian the Apprentice," he grumbled under his breath. "Running and hiding like a rat from a bunch of two credit thugs because his master sucks...I mean," he continued irritably to himself as his hands moved to massage his temples. "How long has it been? Two, three months now? And what exactly has she taught me that I didn't already know? Bloody useless. Holding me back, that's what she's doing. I won't stand for it. I...oh, hello. Were you listening to me this whole time?" the boy, Essian, faltered. He'd lifted his head and opened his eyes all at once to be met with...an odd sight.

A rodent like creature with a protruding snout and comically small, beady black eyes on the sides of its skull appeared to be studying him quizzically, tilting its cone shaped head back and forth. Its long, cylindrical body was a couple inches longer than the length of his elbow to the tips of his fingers and coated in soft looking, dark gray fur. Wanting to get a better look, the boy shifted his body into a sitting position. This turned out to be a mistake.

Startled, the large rodent reared back, its upper and lower jaw opening to reveal a set of enormous, glittering, pincer like incisors. Translucent fluid dripped from its slavering maw, matting the hair around the thing's mouth. Hairless, grasping feet tipped with surprisingly sharp looking claws skittered nervously backwards and forwards and side to side as the beast's head and body continued to twist and turn in its agitation.

"Woah, easy," the boy held his body very still, keeping his voice low and soothing. Belatedly, he realized the thing wasn't really looking at him, so much as turning its head to show the place where its ears should be. Though, if it had any, they were indistinguishable against its hairy skull. He could feel the little being's heart pounding through the Force like a tiny drum.

It was...sort of cute, he supposed, its hairless feet and short tail outweighed by its overall...fluffiness.

Sort of boring, too. It almost looked like something a noble lady would carry around in her satchel.

Minus the snarling and spitting and giant incisors that looked like they could pierce bone, of course. He guessed that was kind of cool.

Not nearly as exciting as the womp rats he'd read about on Tatooine, though.

"Er...I meant no offense...about the rat comparison..." Essian rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly, careful to keep his movements slow and quiet so as not to further upset the little pest. "Rats are cool and all. Sneaking around like you do. It's just...I prefer something a little more...straightforward, you know? Seeing as I'm not a rat..."

The little rodent showed no signs of being appeased at his lackluster apology. Rather, its hair was now standing on end and a strange hissing noise was emanating from its small mouth as it continued to move anxiously back and forth in the cramped airshaft, baring its fangs at him.

"Right..."

He wondered idly if this thing was going to try to attack him. The thought suddenly made him giggle. And giggle some more.

The creature froze, nose tilted towards him, and the boy had to cover his mouth with both hands to stifle his laughter at its reaction. He couldn't help himself though, and the laughter continued to bubble up out of his chest for a solid twenty seconds before, finally, he managed to catch his breath. The whole situation was just so completely ridiculous.

"Here," reaching into a pocket and pulling out a pack of rations. "Stuff is nasty, but you might like it." Opening the bag and squirting some of the gray paste out into his hand, he moved to deposit the lump of clay like material on the floor of the air duct. He didn't expect the creature to dart forward suddenly, sniffing at his outstretched palm.

Resisting the urge to jerk back or hurt the animal in self defense, the boy waited to see if an attack would actually come.

Slowly, uncertainly, the little rodent sniffed the edge of his palm and the sides of his wrist, moving up and down a few times before cautiously going after the offered rations still held by the boy.

The boy decided then and there he was keeping him.

"And I'll name you after one of the Overseers, of course. I doubt anyone would notice one rat getting swapped out with another. Probably do a better job too." Against all expectations, the little rodent had proved keenly intelligent. Almost eerily so.

Food seemed to be the key to its heart, and now, its fear put wholly aside, it trotted after him like a faithful Kath Hound. It was kind of weird, but Essian was willing to overlook the unusualness of its behavior for the benefit of having something to chat with as he wandered through the air ducts. A couple of close calls with the mercs had derailed his initial plans of heading back towards the hangar level by the main route. Instead, he'd returned the way he'd been heading when he found the rodent, hoping to locate a side passage through an older section of the station. A worthy feat in and of itself. The entire structure appeared to have been cobbled together at random, though he thought he was beginning to detect a bit of a pattern in some of he earlier segments.

"Tarlon?"

A series of soft chirruping squeaks in protest.

"I don't like him either. He's a bit of a prick."

That's putting it mildly. I'm going to kill him someday.

"Hmm...Elmenr? Verisr? Hanaste?"

More squeaking.

"You've got to pick something." Essian eyed the diminutive creature warily. "You're not a girl are you?"

A loud series of chittering noises caused the boy to laugh. "Good. It's bad enough I have to put up with her."

Inquisitive squeaks.

"It's complicated," he deflected. "The point is she's useless. I swear we spend more time going around danger than through it. And look where that's got me. I could have taken five or six of them fine. The Academy taught me something, after all. Could have snapped that useless barkeep's neck like this," Essian snapped his fingers then glanced down at his little friend. "But how was I supposed to know the alien bastard employed half the goons on this stupid station? I swear, it's like she's trying to kill me."

He paused.

"You don't think this was some kind of...test, do you?" The thought irritated him. How could he be tested when she hadn't actually taught him anything useful?

"Well, the joke's on her. If she wants to waste my time sifting through alien rubbish no one cares about instead of teaching me how to fight, then fine. I'm getting off this station. I may even take her ship! See how she likes that."

A burst of high pitched squeaking echoed from the little animal. Essian at first mistook it for emphatic agreement with his statement until, quite suddenly, the beast darted ahead of him into the passageway, skinny tail whipping around a corner as it disappeared from sight.

Dumbfounded for only an instant, he scrambled to follow, hissing softly, "Hey! Where are you going? Come back."

The creature, whom he'd temporarily dubbed Rat, of course did not listen to him. Instead, the boy was forced to continue following the pitter patter of its tiny, scrabbling feet and the faint pulse of its essence through the Force as it scampered down increasingly twisted air ducts. Right, left, down, up, down, down, down, right, right, diagonally, the boy quickly lost track of the many twists and turns, more than once crawling into tunnels that looked like they had been cobbled on piecemeal to the original rotting frame of the station's skeleton. But even these slightly newer additions were by now shivering under the weight of rust and decay that held them together better than their original fittings.

The boy was slightly concerned for his safety.

"Put the little vermin o'er there wit the other ones. Gettin' a new shipment out today," a rough, raspy voice plucked him from his musings on structural integrity and he paused, before carefully, quietly crawling forward to peak through the slats of a tiny grate into what appeared to be a storage room below. Three people hustled and bustled about, moving silver crates of varying sizes to and fro under the watchful supervision of a fourth individual. This last person, a short, burly man with long, thick, greasy black hair cascading across his shoulders like a crown nodded imperiously to the Rodian male he'd addressed, the latter of whom, with no small amount of grumbling, proceeded to go about the task of rearranging what looked like a carefully organized stack of crates in order to suit his boss's demands.

Faint, oddly familiar squeaking reached the boy's sharp ears. Curiously, he probed out with the Force while simultaneously pressing his nose closer to the grate to try to get a closer look. There was something about those crates...

"Hey! Watch it!"

One of the other workers had turned without warning, stumbling into the Rodian as he attempted to haul three of the boxes across the room at a time. He tripped, stumbling forward, and the crates went flying. They hit the ground with sharp clatters and two of the lids popped open, releasing a horde of rodents that resembled Rat.

"Gross!"

"Catch them, you idiots! That's credits you're losin'!"

"No way, boss! Not getting near those things!"

"You'd better! If you want to keep your limbs!"

Amidst the shouting and frantic squeaking and stomping of feet, the burly, wild haired man rushed and darted about, grabbing at the little animals and shoving them back into crates. It was only as several of them tried to sink their glittering fangs into the flesh of his hands and wrists that Essian registered the reason for the thick gloves the man sported.

"And stay put, you nasty beasts!" With a final brutal shove and a pitiful squeak of fear (or pain) from a light brown rodent slightly smaller than Rat, the boss managed to wrangle the last of the cargo back into its hold. "And no thanks to the lot of ye! What am I payin' you useless wastes of space for?" he raved and ranted as he shoved the crate into the arms of a woman, who stumbled back slightly at the force of the movement before regaining her footing and hurrying out of arm's reach.

"Useless sons of Hutts! No! Worse! A son of a Hutt at least has an eye for cargo value!" he slammed his fist down on one of the smaller stacks as he roared, eliciting a series of frightened squeals from inside. The three workers gathered before him also looked appropriately cowed. Essian noticed the other two shift subtly away from the Rodian as though wishing to shove off blame for the incident, not that they'd been much help in its aftermath.

"You! Twitz!"

"Twig, Boss..."

"I don't care what your name is. You're on cleaning duty down in the labs for the next week!"

A look of disgust crossed the Rodian's face, but he kept his mouth shut, ducking his head.

"Now, all of you, get back to work!"

A sad, solemn chirrup near his shoulder drew the boy's attention.

"There you are, Rat," he breathed softly. He'd sensed the beast's approach, but it had waited till the conclusion of the altercation to draw near him once more. Again, he was surprised by the thing's intelligence. Now it crept up to the grate, using his shoulder to boost itself into a better view as it sniffed the stale air pouring in through the slats. It seemed distressed, its little heart racing. Reaching up, the boy firmly grasped the little beast about its middle and made to move further down the tunnel.

A pair of security droids and several more armed guards were making their entrance, and he didn't want to risk Rat's frantic squeaks drawing their attention.

"Ouch! Hey!" he hissed, jerking his hand back and flinging the creature from him as Rat sank its teeth into his hand. Below him, he both heard and felt movement stutter.

Chittering angrily Rat sped off into the darkness, leaving the boy glaring after him.

What was that about? And what are those goons up to, I wonder?

It looked like pissing off his master by stealing her ship would have to wait. Essian had a mystery to solve.


Meep Hedaal was a man of refined tastes. Back home he might have been sitting in his armchair in the company of his wards, perhaps with a nice fire crackling in the background, more for their comfort then his own, though he'd grown fond, over the years, of the sound of a log crackling and spitting as it was consumed by flame.

He would have been sipping fine wine, and feasting from a table piled high with all of his favorite foods. Colo Clawfish, and Meiloorun Fruits, and Fried paddy frog among many other exotic treats he'd collected a taste for in his extensive travels of the galaxy. Maybe his children (though they were not so young anymore) would bicker over a high-strategy game of holo chess, or Sabaac while he watched in contentment, happy with his lot in life and the empire he'd painstakingly built for himself.

An empire he'd built on sacrifice and hard work, and unfortunately that meant that sometimes he had to leave those comforts and luxuries behind to do some uncomfortable legwork.

In this case, scoping out the competition on some dusty old space station. Far from the comforts from home... and yet, unfortunately not so far that their little operation wasn't noticeably cutting into Meep's bottom-line.

Meep liked to think of himself as the reasonable sort, first and foremost, but infringing on his territory was the kind of affront that demanded to be met with swift and decisive action. To allow it would be a sign of weakness, a broadcast to all the others in the galaxy who wanted a slice of what he had, that he wasn't prepared to go to any lengths to protect it.

The operation had to be dismantled, that much was clear... even still, Meep had long since found ways to keep that task from becoming too distasteful. He wasn't above a bit of dirty work, but historically, given his size and larger than life personality, he'd often found that attracting flies to honey worked far better then bursting in, guns-a-blazing.

There was no question in his mind that the whole operation had to be shut down by the time he left this godsforsaken heap of floating metal, but if he wanted to know the depth of it and really get to the source of the problem, some diplomacy was going to be required...

... Even if it pained him. There were few people that Meep couldn't find common ground with, but his Human contact was quickly getting on his nerves.

"...Im surprised you finally showed your face here, little man." The man taunted with a sneer from across his desk. The pair were flanked at the only door in and out of the room by a pair of disinterested looking Trandoshan guards who were surely armed to the teeth. "Business is hurting, and now you've come begging for a piece of the action?" The man cast his cobalt eyes toward Meep with mocking expectation dancing within them, as though trying to get a rise out of the smaller Ortolan male.

As much as he might have liked to wipe that mocking smile off that man's lips, Meep, as ever, was the picture of gentlemanly and dignified restraint. Instead of rising to the barb, offering a charming smile as he placed his briefcase down beside his chair.

"Not at all, Old Boy, not at all. Station Sygmar was merely a stop off in my travels, and when I heard you were here, I knew I simply had to come and see your fine operation for myself. I can... admire the ingenuity you must have, to have gotten this off the ground and established so very quickly."

"I'll bet you do, little man, I'll be you do. In just a few short months we've taken business it took you years to acquire, I imagine, by the end of the year we'll have doubled what you make, and all because we claimed this station first."

It took everything in Meep's power not to laugh, and to his his credit, his face didn't so much as twitch in response to the man's words. The disaffected smile ever present and unshaken. While the risk of having these hacks cut into even a slice of his business was not to be taken lightly, it was... laughable to think that they thought they might outpace, much less sustain his lifetime of hard work on dumb luck alone.

Much smarter men then these opportunistic thugs had tried, and all of them had failed.

"Ah yes, it's all been very humbling to witness..." Meep agreed easily enough, more then happy to play along and gather what information he could from the situation. "I am in admiration of your skills, and of your good fortune. Who knew this forgotten old Station was such a gold mine of opportunity? I hadn't considered there was anything inherently valuable about it at all, aside from the spectacular view, of course.."

"And that's why your little drug empire will fail. You lack vision little man, you've gotten old, and you've gotten soft. And while you were busy napping, we got our hands on premium grade supply, and its all thanks to the infestation right here on Invaluable Station Sygmar." The man was just gloating at this point, attempting to get the rise out of Meep that he clearly wanted, but he would be sorely disappointed with the results, the smile on Meep's face was unshakable, and deep down in his heart he sincerely hoped that was infuriating for the man.

"No doubt you're right, and as they say, a wise man always knows when to fold his cards, I cannot deny I'm not as spry as I used to be. An infestation you say? That is remarkable, so you're harvesting this new wonder drug of yours from a living species? That must be quite a process, do you do the manufacturing right here on Sygmar or do you ship these pests off world?"

"Do you really think I'd just show you how it's made?" The man answered with a baffled laugh. "You're lucky I even let you sit across from me alive right now, Meep Hedaal. Why should I give up my secrets to you?

"Well..." Meep responded with that same disaffected expression ever present on his rubbery blue face. "I'm not much of a threat am I? You've made that pretty clear. I'm old, I'm soft. I'm a man on his way out of the business... call it a passing interest before I fade into obscurity.."

Those words seemed to appease the man, and Meep had known they would. He'd already judged him for harmless or he would have been greeted with blaster fire. It was a dangerous assumption but one Meep would happily exploit for his own gain.

The human male seemed to chew on those words for a moment before finally nodded. You know what, old man? If you want to bask in the enormity of your failure then I don't see why not. Dresst, please take out guests to view the rats." He ordered of one of the Trandoshan guards. The pair shared a glance, just slightly longer then the order required, a wordless moment of communication between the men that seemed to seal Meep Hedaal's fate in their minds.

Meep slipped out of his chair with eagerness that suggested he'd not noticed the interaction between man and guard.. or perhaps that he was no concerned by it. Leaving his briefcase at the base of his chair he moved to the door with enthusiasm. "Wonderful, Old Chap, Thank you again for you time and your generosity." With that he stepped out of the office with the guard following closely behind. The whoosh of the door and the soft padding of footsteps were the only sounds the filled the empty hallways as the pair made their way further down the hall.

It was, in some ways, quite easy to tell the Station was infested with something. There was a distinct stale smell, the kind that came with the occasional well rotted carcass in the wall, and no doubt excrement tucked away in hidden places. This was a dirty business in more ways then one, he supposed, but he'd also seen worse. "You been stationed here long, chap?" He asked conversationally, though the effort to break the silence went unappreciated and met with stony silence.

"Its a nice place, probably a good job, do you get good benefits? Is it union?" Meep jabbered on as though he was unbothered by the one sided conversation as they came to a door at the end of a hall, which snapped open to reveal a cargo space of some kind, filled to the brim with caged animals... the rats the man had spoken of, and to Meep they were not entirely unfamiliar. Beady black eyes narrowed as he, calculatingly took in everything as quickly as possible.

It was just as he expected, there were a lot of captive creatures here but it wasn't the entirety of it, the source of the problem was elsewhere.

Meep stepped in, and the guard stepped in after him. "Wow, this is quite an operation you boys have going here, you wrangle them all yourselves?" He asked as his hand slipped into his vest, to press the hidden button within, and just in the nick of time as the guard rose his gun.

Like clockwork, and explosion rocked the station on its very framework, nothing large enough to cause any real exterior damage and yet, strong enough to make a point, most especially to the man they'd just left behind in the office along with Meep's explosive lined briefcase.

The sound though, was deafening. The rat-creatures swarmed in their cages, and the guards, guns drawn made their way out the door and into the hall, obviously expecting an assault of some kind, or perhaps to find their shipping supervisor's likely crispy body. It was a shame to resort to such tactics, but one did what had to be done, and he'd have been lying to say he wasn't a little pleased his plans had played out so perfectly.

With no particular urgency since they'd be distracted for a good few minutes, he'd cast his glance towards the walls, looking for his exit and finding it in a vent. An access to the air ducting, and a pair of eyes looking back at him through it.

That came as a surprise, definitely not in the plan, and yet, Meep was accustomed to fluidly changing plans as needed. "Be a gem, dear boy and clear space, hopefully there's room enough in there for the both of us."


Author's Note:

The closing section and Meep Hedaal were generously provided by author StrangeDisease. I, for one, am looking forward to seeing what mischief the little blue man gets up to this time.