Six Months Later
Zeltros was a world of temperate weather, vivid colors, and immeasurable pleasures. Golden grass, pink and violet trees, warm seas and rivers, and a people as vibrant as their world. It's people, the Zeltrons had skin that ranged in shades from soft pinks to passionate red, while their hair tended to run between jet black to dark blue. Throw in being in peak physical condition, a natural tendency to be attractive, their bodies producing pheromones that only heightened their attractiveness to non-natives, and a telepathic nature that forced them to sympathetically feel the emotions and sensations of those around them, and the end result only to be expected.
Zeltros was basically the party planet of the Core Worlds.
The Zeltron's dedication to feeling pleasure rather than pain meant things like chastity, monogamy, or fidelity, were nearly foreign concepts to them. It was an attitude that spread, by cultural acceptance or the native's telepathic natures no one was entirely sure, to those who visited their world and lead to almost every kind of hedonistic revelry one could think of. Even if you remained true to the partner you came with, people often found themselves doing things they never would have imagined before. So long as you didn't hurt anyone, you could get away with almost anything pleasure related.
Which meant it was hardly the place one would expect to find a far, far more conservatively and military minded group, such as the Mandalorians.
Adenn Skira supposed that might be why the natives were giving him such a wide berth. He sat out on a reclining beach chair by an artificially created pool surrounded by tropical plants dressed in a pair of black swimming shorts and a white shirt. It left him remarkably overdressed for the location, but he still felt naked and exposed without his beskar'gam. A pair of sunshades covered his eyes, for all the world appearing normal, though tiny electronic readouts played across them. In his hand was a frozen, fruity alcoholic beverage whose name he refused to learn. One might have thought it too, out of place in the hands of a Mando'ad, were they ignorant of that people's taste for overly spicy, or overly sweet, foods.
Beside him, reclining on the ground, was a sylphlike woman who fit the surroundings far better. Ryn Li was a Rutian Twi'lek, her soft, cerulean skin exposed by the barely existent white swimsuit she wore. It clung to her most intimate parts and left the delicious lines and curves of her body completely exposed. A white collar and matching leash of Nerf-hide leather wrapped around her neck and ran to his wrist, completing her outfit. If she was uncomfortable being exposed and leashed, she hid it well.
Skira knew for a fact, however, it was quit the opposite. Ryn had been broken and trained by a dark jedi to be the perfect slave when they'd met. He had rescued her, taken her in, and accepted her services. Even now, when she was technically free and a fellow Manda'ad, she still only felt comfortable being what she had been forged into.
He didn't like it, but he accepted it for what it was.
"You're looking way too comfortable down there," a husky, feminine voice purred into his ear. "Keep it up and I might think you're actually having fun, riduur."
Above them, from the balcony of their hotel room, Skira knew his wife was watching over them. A Togruta, Raana Ti Skira was a vision to match the Twi'lek beside him, if for different reasons. Where Ryn was a willowy, Raana was striking, built with a tigress's grace and power in her tone muscles and voluptuous curves, a comparison made all the more poignant by her orange skin and the white markings that decorated it, along with her white and black montrals and lekku.
"I'd be having more fun if it was you down here in a swimsuit and me up there," he grumbled in his throat, taking a sip of his cocktail.
"But then you would spend all your time looking at me and Ryn," Raana teased, her voice a silken caress on his nerves. "Rather than focusing on the job at hand."
Skira grumbled meaningless sounds into his drink and scowled.
"You're doing fine, riduur," Raana said, amusement still flavoring her affectionate words. "Though you are standing out like a sore thumb."
"I can't help that," Skira said, testily.
Built with the lean economy of the vornskr, and often with much the same predatory temperament, he certainly stood out among the much softer, and far skimpier dressed clientele of the hotel's other guests.
Like the rather fat Qiraash male walked by, his oversized cranium's lack of hair more than made up for the prodigious amount of follicles that covered the rest of his rotund form, something made all the worse by the obnoxiously small swimsuit that barely contained his tumescent growth. His roving eye gazed with approving lasciviousness at Ryn, not that the two Zeltron females currently clinging to his arms seemed to care.
"More like you won't help that," a highly amused Raana said.
"I have someone," he said. "Three meters to my front. If you can stop staring at me, riduur."
"Three meters to the..." Raana said. A horrified, choking gag filled the commlink as she got a full view of the fat Qiraash through the powerful micro-binoculars. Skira hid his vicious smirk behind is beverage as his wife continued to gag.
"That wasn't very nice," Ryn chastised softly, "Master."
"Mind your place," Skira said, "or I'll make you strip completely."
Ryn gave him a look, one that partially dared him to do it, and partially looked like she actually wanted the command. Thanks to her training, Ryn practically lived to obey his orders, no matter how humiliating, because she'd been broken to believe her only use was in obedience. He'd spent years trying to teach her otherwise, but how well he had succeeded was highly, highly questionable. At least she'd developed a personality, of sorts, rather than being the broken, blank slate he'd first met.
"I'd still fit in better than you," the Twi'lek said.
Skira was disappointed how right she was. The poolside was filled with people who were practically nude, and in a few cases, might well have been for all the lack of clothing he could see. Several couples, of various species and sexes, were actively engaged in lovemaking. Some had left that behind for pure, carnal sex. He wasn't sure if the Zeltrons he saw engaged were hotel staff or just locals, it was hard to say.
Prostitution wasn't really a thing on Zeltros. That would imply you needed to pay to get laid. Most of the time, all one needed was a horny attitude, a willingness to party, and maybe a few drugs or some Spice, and you could find at least one local willing to give you the time of your life. He'd worked with one for around half a year on Swedlan, though not closely. Casseta Noy had been a kind, empathetic woman with many lovers on the Kiro Expedition. Killing her had been an act of mercy, but still a shame.
She had given him something precious, knowledge. The truth about how Raana and Ryn had felt about him. Something he'd been lying to himself about for months, years in the latter's case. It had allowed him to finally open up and give them a chance. His repayment had been a swift, painless death in the face of being devoured alive by a monster.
His dark thoughts and emotions had kept the local service as far away from him as they could get away with, which in turn kept the guests far away from him as well as they chased after Zeltronian lovers. Skira knew he should work to suppress his emotions, because the result left him standing out starkly among the party goers, but after two weeks of doing that he just wanted to relax by the pool and stop controlling himself.
Well, to be honest, he wanted to shoot something with egregious amounts of violence, but of all the relaxation opportunities on the planet, the best they could provide was mild target shooting, generally involving clay disks. After breaking all the local records, and being chastised for showing off, he'd given that up.
"I hate you so much right now," Raana's voice came over the commlink.
Skira grunted and picked up a datapad, pretending to read it as he scanned the hotel's guests through his shades.
"Maybe it's a good thing I don't fit in, then," he replied under his breath.
Galactic news reports splayed over the datapad, the official party lines of New Republic and Galactic Imperial governments, as put forth by their so called 'Grand Alliance.' Even though it had formed of the various galactic governments to handle the invasion of the Yuzzan Vong over a decade ago, he still found it to be a joke. His ba'buir had battled in the Clone Wars, and told them stories. How the Confederacy had rebelled against the Republic and fallen, how the Republic had been replaced by the Empire, and how the Confederacy's remnants had joined with the disenchanted and disenfranchised of the Old Republic to form the Rebel Alliance that would go on to overthrow the Empire and replace it with a New Republic. Now, the empire faltered as a memory, forced to tolerate the rebels who had destroyed everything they'd built, and the Republic had to bow its head and accept the help of the Empire they were born to destroy. And through it all, the people in the mud and in the spacelanes barely noticed a positive difference in their lives.
The only lucky ones in the galaxy at this point, were the ones who had never had to face the Vong, as far as he was concerned. It was a mercy Zeltros had not been given, though it had been spared large scale attention at the hands of the Vong thanks to being invaded by their allies, the Ailon Nova Guard.
To learn the truth, however, one did not look to official reports. He brought up a new tab on the datapad's screen, one dedicated to anonymous speakers. Here, if one was cunning and wise, one could find things the governments might rather keep secret. He'd had a program crawling through it for days, searching for various keywords related to their great hunt.
His mood soured further as he looked at the results, and read the related discussions.
Swedlan had gone dark.
The last reported transmission from the world had been over a month ago. The Karsk Mining Corporation, responsible for shipping the minerals mined on Swedlan to offworld processing plants, as well as bringing in the needed supplies to keep it running, had sent several vessels to investigate. According to someone claiming to be a crewman on one of those ships, the entire planet's population was missing, presumed dead. Several members of the away teams had reportedly been killed by violent creatures with vicious tails and black, chitinous skin. One of these creatures had some how managed to stow away on one of the ships and reportedly killed half the crew before being taken out.
"Fierfek," he muttered under his breath. They'd failed to contain the creatures. Now a world was dead. He polished off his drink in one go, the icy cold burning his chest painfully. He embraced the agony.
"What is it, Master?" Ryn asked.
"Swedlan is dead," Skira said softly. "Meld'an's work completed itself anyways."
The Twi'lek's lekku went limp with sorrow and her hand went unconsciously to her heart. She'd been infected by one of Meld'an's beasts and nearly died. The Mando'ad who had saved her had died to one of them shortly after adopting the Twi'lek into the Mandolorians. Shada Du'kal had been a good friend, a great wife, and a noble warrior.
"Oh," was all the Twi'lek said.
"Shab," Raana said over the comm, all merriment or disgust having left her voice.
The sounds of merriment, lovemaking, passionate sex, tropical birds, or the running waters of the pools meant nothing to them. Only the memories of dead companions mattered in that moment. Too many innocent people had died, and not enough of the guilty.
"I'll let Mrssk know," Raana said after a long moment.
Mrssk and Ordo of clan Du'Kal had been Shada's brother and huband, respectively. Her death had broken the latter, driving their group to hunt down Professor Meld'an, the geneticist responsible for the real reason they'd been sent to Swedlan. Finding an ancient creature capable of genetically absorbing the special traits of creatures it hatched from. An especially dangerous, violent creature.
It was Skira's family was on Zeltros. During their raid on the Republic Cruiser Dauntless, they'd uncovered that Captain Nub had received his orders from an NR Intelligence agent by the name of Carskov. He was reported to be a Mirialan, a near human species with yellowish green skin and a penchant for geometric tattoos on their faces and bodies. He was also a frequent guest at the hotel they were staying at, and was supposed to have shown up yesterday. However, there had been no sign of him yet.
Part of Skira was starting to worry they'd blown their cover. While they'd left his ship, the Bes'bev, back on Mandalor with his clan, they weren't exactly an inconspicuous trio. Sure, a human male traveling around with a female Twi'lek slave wasn't unheard of. But Togruta weren't exactly known for leaving their homeworld very often, and certainly not outside the company of their species. So a human male with a Togruta wife and Twi'lek slave was notable, even under false identities. The fact that NRI would know about them and their involvement in the Swedlan Dig could easily have tipped off Tarl Carskov if he was paying attention.
And one didn't live long in the intelligence game by not paying attention.
About the only thing going for them is the fact no one knew they'd been involved with the destruction of the Dauntless and the entire annihilation of its crew. The pirates hadn't been against taking prisoners, but Skira knew that not only was the only thing waiting for the survivors a lifetime of slavery and rape, they could let the Republic know of his little family's part in what happened. So he'd made sure they were all dead. They'd been good sailors and it was the small mercy he could give them. They'd deserved a warrior's death after all. Every record on the ship had been destroyed, along with the ship itself, once anything of value had been stripped off it.
There was one other thing that made Skira think their cover hadn't been blown yet, as well. The reason Carskov came to this hotel at least once a year, every year, around this time. His wife, Luminia Carskov, and the Galactic Jeweler's Conference.
Luminia Carskov was currently an artisan and trader based on Commenor, specializing in jewelry made from the world's famous chrysopaz gemstones. Given Zeltros's opulent nature, being one of the wealthiest planets in the galaxy and its sensuous pleasures, as well as its proximity to the Core Worlds, it was often home to such "conferences" from many businesses looking to expense vacations onto their customers. The fact that its uber-wealthy clientele was always ripe to pick up the latest and rarest designs from said merchants certainly didn't hurt anyone's incentive to come.
It provided the perfect cover for Skira's party as well. While their conservative nature clashed with the libertine excesses of the Zeltrons, Mando'ad tended to be rather well off, especially in terms of their clans as a whole. Being the best soldiers in the Galaxy paid well, and nearly every Mando'ad sent home a portion of their earnings to help upkeep their clan's holdings as part of the Resol'nare. Credits, however, could not always be trusted. Between instability in galactic governments, galactic markets, or even simple ploys by galactic banks to increase their own wealth, the ages had taught Mando'ad that the best way to store wealth was not in the electronic chips or the currency of transitory powers, but in physical things. Land, weapons, armor, and things such as precious metals and gems.
So they were there to buy just that for their clan, the Kad'Aran. His buir had even loaned him her personal ship, the Black Bird, a customized VCX-700 Heavy Courier. He doubted they'd be needing all five tons of the available cargo space, but his instructions were to make sure he invested heavily. Hence the heavily armed ship.
"Master," Ryn said softly, "four o'clock."
Skira sat up and waved his empty glass at one of the waitresses, a lovely thing with pink skin and navy blue hair. Pretending to stretch, he gradually looked in the direction Ryn indicated. There, sure enough, was a Miralian woman who fit the holos of Luminia Carskov. On her arm was a male Zeltron with an impressive set of rippling abdominal muscles who was clearly not her husband. Still, it confirmed she was here, if late. That meant her husband was likely to show up as well, then.
"I have contact," Skira said under his breath as his shades scanned the woman. "Requesting confirmation."
"Contact confirmed," Raana said. "It's her. We are go, cyar'ika."