Spoilers for the Trooper, Bounty Hunter, Agent, Smuggler, Sith warrior, and Jedi Consular storyline.
Rated T - Language, violence.
Port Nowhere was exactly that. Its coordinates were hazy because the former mining station now floated freely among the stars of the galaxy. It was a perfect base of operations for an admiral of an immense pirate fleet. Ellyx Mirode hated it. The band played the same uninspired music every night in the club.
Another evening was beginning and the privateer was nowhere to be seen. Risha, a business partner of Ellyx's walked the old halls of Port Nowhere with a resting expression of anger. She had put the Port on alert hours ago in the hopes of finding the interstellar thief. Her efforts, while unfruitful, had thoroughly excited the permanent residents of the ancient station. She rounded a corner quickly to only collide with Ellyx's beau, Corso Riggs.
"Have you seen the captain?" Risha asked, her irritation palpable. The always amicable Corso smiled at her.
"Can't say I have." His grin made Risha groan aloud.
"Whenever you come across her tell I need her. Because if I don't find her within the hour, I'm going to beat her so hard she'll wish she never met me." Risha stomped away with a laughing Corso watching after her.
The captain was only feet away from Risha and Corso during their conversation. However she stood in a room with a thick steel wall separating her from them. The room was excessively ornate with fluffy carpets and pricey furniture. The place smelled of a nasty mix of overwhelming perfumes and the spicy scent of an exotic dish. The dim lighting offered by the muted candles flickering in the corners of the space illuminated the hideous face of Vonga the Humiliator. The stumpy Toydarian hovered above the seat designated for him on his painfully thin wings. Ellyx sat across from him on the enveloping couch.
"Captain, are you even listening?" Vonga snapped. His beady eyes focused on the smuggler.
"Of course I am, Vonga. I'm just thinking over your proposal. It seems like a bit of a stretch. I give you twenty tons of Spice and in return you give me 5 measly ships." Ellyx said with a raised eyebrow. Despite her undeniable control over the pirate fleet, some of her subordinates still thought they had the right to question her. Vonga the Humiliator claimed to have earned his name after slaughtering a village of Rodians on their home world of Rodia. A smug bounty hunter had bet his ship and wife that Vonga could not get to the planet's surface and kill a certain number of innocents. Ellyx did not trust a word that came out of that slimy Toydarian's mouth.
"This filthy human doesn't know what good a deal I'm giving her." Vonga grumbled in Toydarian to his Gamorrean bodyguards. Ellyx rolled her eyes before standing.
"Listen up, Vonga," She placed her hands on her hips. "Here's the deal. I give you 2 tons of the best Giggledust this sector has to offer and you give me six ships with full crews, mind you." Ellyx said with a pleasant but firm tone of voice. The Toydarian was soon overtaken by raucous laughter. His head shook, jiggling his fleshy snout as he did so. Ellyx looked to her left to see her Wookie companion, Bowdaar growling angrily at Vonga. She shot him a small smile before looking back to the piece of dirt across the room.
"Giggledust is for small time dealers on the upper levels of Coruscant, Captain." Vonga explained in a condescending tenor. "Glitterstim is what I want, girl." Vonga puffed out his chest to display control. Now it was Ellyx's turn to laugh. Vonga smiled at her, believing he had convinced the captain. Before the Toydarian realized it was happening, Ellyx pulled her blaster from her hip and released two well-placed shots into the heads of his bodyguards. The Gamorreans fell to the ground with a heavy thud. "H-How could you do that, you son of a Hutt!" Ellyx walked toward the gang lord who was fluttering closer to the wall behind him. With a blaster raised to his face, Ellyx smiled at Vonga.
"Again, let's discuss these terms."
Vonga the Humiliator was on his ship zooming out of Port Nowhere only minutes later with Ellyx waving a cheerful goodbye.
"Will he deliver, Captain?" Bowdaar asked in his native tongue of Shyriiwook. Ellyx shrugged.
"I sure hope so. He's a slick lurdo that one." Ellyx groaned. Bowdaar laughed at her childish insult. She turned and issued a small scream realizing Risha was standing directly behind her.
"Was that Vonga the Humiliator?" She asked her voice just on the edge of falling into complete anger. Ellyx nodded in response. Risha really did scare her sometimes. This made sense, considering Risha was the daughter of the notorious crime lord, Nok Drayen. Now that he was deceased, Risha had inherited the rule of Dubrillion, something Ellyx could still not wrap her mind around. "Do the two dead Gammoreans in the treaty room have anything to do with Vonga?" She asked pointedly after a now mobile Ellyx.
"I could use a drink," Ellyx dodged before stepping into the lively club. The smuggler disappeared into the crowd of dancing sentients before Risha could stop her. Risha groaned loudly, pulling at her hair as she did so.
"I don't know why I stay and work with that idiot." She hissed under her breath before stalking away. Bowdaar watched after her like a silent protector.
Hours later, as the drunken partiers stumbled toward their ships or quarters, a lustrous craft slipped into the open hanger. The transport sported no identification of any kind. Three people emerged from the ship and moved quietly toward the club. Two females and a male.
Adoko Gale lead the other two the rusted passageways from memory. Since agreeing to allow the agent bring her to the smuggler, Nona had not taken her eyes off her. Adoko was still wearing the dull clothing meant for SIS prisoners. On the flight to Port Nowhere, Jonas told Nona everything about the brainwashing he knew. It was worse than she had realized.
During the height of the Cold War, the Republic extracted SIS moles from the Empire. The information they conveyed was dark and appalling. The Imperial Military implemented heavy use of mind control in order to maintain complete domination over its soldiers. With this knowledge the Republic set about getting ahold of an Imperial defector. Adoko Gale was perfectly timed. The SIS team tasked with Adoko's case was led by a Jedi who had fallen from grace. The specific skills Adoko possessed were then used by the SIS to conduct some of the most difficult undercover assaults known to the organization with the brainwashing as the control.
Nona could not understand why Adoko had come back to the Republic with her vital information. Leaving the Empire was a no-brainer but to return to the people who had used the very tool that debilitated against her was confusing. Becoming a freelancer or joining up with the Hutt Cartel made more sense.
"She should be in here." Adoko said, pulling Nona out of her contemplation. The club was pretty dead, with only a handful of patrons left.
"She'd better be, Imp." Jonas said gruffly as he walked past Adoko. Nona watched the Imperial roll her eyes. Nona stepped up into the club, immediately regretting it. The same headache she had on Corellia had returned with the help of the atrocious noises she could only assume was music overhead. Adoko surprised both Nona and Jonas with a sharp laugh.
"If it isn't the Outlaw Ellyx Mirode!" She cried out. She sounded like a different person to Nona. Gone was her Imperial accent and dull tone of a condemned woman. She was excited and bright now. Adoko skipped toward a long Sabacc table. There were only two players left in the game now. An angry Trandoshan hung over his cards while on the opposite side of the table Ellyx had her legs up leisurely upon the table with an expression of ease.
"Draw," The dealer ordered in a bored voice. He was a skinny human man with white hair and a deathly pale complexion. Ellyx leaned forward to pull out a card. The Trandoshan snatched a card from the table and immediately threw his hand down. He stood suddenly and pointed a scaled finger at Ellyx.
"This sleemo cheats!" He unholstered his weapon to only be pinned to the ground by a huge Wookie. Nona walked past the flailing Trandoshan to meet the smuggler. Ellyx was getting to her feet as the three converged on her.
"Sorry, I'm done playing Sabacc for the evening." She said with a nonchalant wave of her hand. Adoko embraced the smuggler in a tight hug.
"Ellyx, this is Jonas Balkar of the Republic Diplomatic Service," Adoko lied easily and then gestured to Nona. "And this is Major Nonalo Alsorran. We are here about the Replicator." Ellyx's smile fell.
"You've got to be kriffing kidding me!" Ellyx cried.