"Wear your beskar'gam, for it is the pride of the Mando'ade.
Speak Mando'a, for it is the word of the Mando'ade.
Defend your people, for they are the foundation of the Mando'ade.
Raise your children as Mandalorians, for they are the future of the Mando'ade.
Aid in the Clan's welfare, for that is the privilege of the Mando'ade.
Answer the call of the Manda'lor, for they are the heart of the Mando'ade."
The Resol'nare, or "Six Actions"
Gogurath Vast, Velstrac
Cazur knelt across from Kavala in the lower hold of the Kath Hound. They were situated between a four-seater landspeeder and a swoop bike. Around them, the hold was tidy and clean, but dark. The ship vibrated as it burned at speed through atmo. The objective was drawing near.
Cazur was a big man, broad in the shoulders and thick through the middle with muscle. Had he been standing up, he would have been prodigiously tall. One could easily mark him as a zabrak by the crown of vestigial horns that poked up through his long, black hair. From neck to toes, he was clad in stout armor that was painted a deep orange and detailed in white.
Kavala, though she was not the same species as Cazur, was clearly significantly younger. She was a zygerrian, a humanoid with distinctly feline with prominent, triangular ears and a fine coat of charcoal grey fur covering her face and head. Her own armor was a muted maroon, the chestplate swatched with black stripes. She was short and stocky of build.
Cazur and Kavala had their weapons laid out on the floor within arm's reach. The equipment formed rough circles around each warrior's helmet. They had been kneeling in silence for several minutes. It was Cazur who broke it.
"What are these weapons before you?" Cazur queried.
"They are the tools of my calling." Kavala said.
"What is the calling before you?" Cazur asked.
"To do my duty to kin, Clan, and comrades." Kavala replied.
"What is the duty before you?" Cazur asked.
"To fight so kin need not. To bleed so Clan need not. To die so comrades need not." Kavala answered. She had beskar in her voice. Cazur felt pride welling in his chest.
They began stowing their weapons about themselves, holstering blasters, sheathing blades. When both were fully armed, Cazur picked up his helmet and stood. Kavala did the same.
"Skin of steel. Heart of iron." Cazur prompted.
"Mharal, Our Mother." Kavala completed.
They put their helmets on. Cazur heard the telltale hiss of the airtight seal being closed as his helm slid into place. It had been painstakingly crafted to accommodate the spikes on top of his head, which had the unfortunate side effect of making it appear that he was trying very hard to make his armor intimidating to anyone who didn't know he was a zabrak.
"No backing out now, ika'vod." Cazur said, all formality dropped as he started walking towards the read loading ramp of the Kath Hound. "Though, I can always tell Jod'buir you didn't speak the oath…"
"Don't even joke about that, ori'vod!" Kavala hissed, clearly horrified at the idea that Cazur might not let her take part.
Cazur chuckled, raising a placating hand. "Relax. Now, get over here and let me make sure your jetpack is secure."
"Again?" The rolling of her eyes was audible in Kavala's question, but she approached and turned around all the same, letting Cazur inspect the straps and clamps holding the young zygerrian's jetpack on.
"You've proven you're ready for this time and again. But you're not going to stop me from worrying about you. Besides, it's just good practice to perform one last check on the thing keeping you from hitting the ground hard enough to become soup in a can of beskar'gam." Cazur said, tapping her on the helmet to confirm he was done. He turned around, allowing Kavala to do the same for him. "Besides. You're my little sister. I'm just doing my job."
"I guess that's fair." Kavala said. "I'd probably end up being a better soup than whatever Stro'vod was going to make for dinner, though."
Cazur snorted. "He tries. It's better than eating boot leather."
"Barely." Kavala said.
Cazur felt the double tap on his helmet. He turned around to look at Kavala. She had just recently turned sixteen, making her an adult by Mandalorian reckoning. Cazur was twelve years older than her, not old enough to be her father, which was why he referred to her with "Kav'vod" rather than "Kav'ika." "Vod" could mean "brother, sister, sibling, or comrade", while "ika" meant "daughter, son, or child." When used together, however, "ika'vod" became "younger sibling."
A new voice crackled in over the helmet comms of both Cazur and Kavala.
"Got the confirmation from Hylt. We are go in sixty seconds. I'd say be careful, but…well, you know." Came the high, soft voice of Stroyh.
"No room for 'careful' in the life of a Mandalorian, Stro'vod; especially a Mharin." Cazur said. He felt a thrill rising up inside of him as he shook out his limbs and shifted his weight back and forth with nervous energy.
"Yeah, well it's a certain Mharin's turn on dish duty tonight and I don't want to pick up the extra slack." Stroyh grumped. "You hear that, Kav'vod? Not letting him worm his way out so don't let him bite it."
"I wouldn't dream of it, Stro'vod." Kavala laughed.
"Good, good. Now best of luck, you two. Ramp going down."
The ramp started to lower. Cazur's visor polarized as a blinding landscape of sun bleached salt flats stretched endlessly towards the horizon in every direction. Wind whipped into the hold, but everything within was secured against that. Cazur and Kavala stood at the top of the ramp, waiting for the signal. There was no last minute advice, no insistence on going over the plan again. Cazur knew Kavala was ready.
The Kath Hound got above its target. The mag train was almost two miles in length, a series of interconnected cars of matte metal. Some were open-topped, others enclosed. Every so often, one of the train cars had a weapon emplacement on its roof, either a quad-barreled anti-air blaster cannon or a rack of surface-to-air missiles. Making an attempt at disabling all the emplacements for long enough to pull this maneuver off would have been a fool's errand. Even if they could be knocked out, the issue would be noticed by the train's on-board security personnel. Inputting one of the Kath Hound's false ID signatures into the train's databanks and marking it as a friendly craft, on the other hand? Much simpler.
Even with its impressive speed, it would take several days of travel for the mag train to cross the salt flats known as the Gogurath Vast. It was the only way the average citizen of one of Velstrac's shielded dome-cities could make the crossing over the parched and scorched surface.
"Twenty seconds." Stroyh warned.
The two Mandos went down to the halfway point of the ramp, each clutching a hydraulic piston on either side of the ramp before turning around to face the way they'd just come from. Cazur looked over at his sister, who was already looking at him. The zabrak nodded, hoping it was reassuring. Kavala nodded in return.
"Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Go!" Stroyh counted down.
Without hesitation, Cazur stepped sideways off the ramp, falling into open air. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Kavala do the same. The train was only about one-hundred feet below them; with such an open and featureless landscape, the Kath Hound was never going to manage an unseen approach, so they maximized the safety of the drop as much as such an act could be made safe.
The two Mandos laid out flat in the air, igniting their jetpacks. The packs held gyro stabilizers and counter-thrusters that helped balance them out, but powerful as they were, they could not match the blinding speed of the mag train. Luckily, that wasn't the point. Already jumping out of a ship that was matching the train's velocity, it seemed to Cazur and Kavala's relative view that the train below them was gaining ground on them at a steady, but leisurely, pace. The pair angled downward, both of them landing on the flat roof of an enclosed train car and shutting off their packs. They landed on their bellies, keeping low to prevent the drag of the wind from carrying them away.
Next came a short crawl towards as hatch in the center of the train car's roof. Cazur reached it first, then sent a signal to Hylt, keying the comms three times in rapid succession without saying anything. Over the howling wind and through his helmet, Cazur still managed to hear the clank of the hatch's magnetic lock unclamping. It opened for them moment's later. The last thing Cazur saw before he lowered himself into the train was the Kath Hound peeling away to minimum safe distance in case the train's weapon systems decided it was a target after all.
The interior of the train car was dark and cramped. Stacks of crates, barrels, and sacks were held fast under swathes of thick netting. There were security cameras, of course, but for the moment they didn't need to worry about them.
Cazur checked his left bracer. Over his beskar'gam there was a datapad display built into a bracer. It was one of Stroyh and Kavala's creations. Such things existed on the open market, of course, but this one had been custom built to fit his armor.
"Have confirmation from Hylt. She's moving out." Cazur said, drawing one of his pair of blaster pistols. Other than these, a pair of short sabers were sheathed on either side of his jetpack. Normally he'd carry more, but they were potentially needing to rely heavily on their jetpacks during this operation, and every bit of weight could make a difference.
Kavala nodded. She had a blaster carbine in hand.
Without another word, they shimmied between the piles of cargo, heading for the back of the train car. If Hylt's information had been correct, the target object would be held two cars back. Unfortunately, since it held high value cargo, it had no upper hatch like the one Cazur and Kavala had landed on, and as would be made plain shortly enough, there was a different reason they hadn't fallen upon train car immediately between their landing zone and the objective.
Cazur opened the reinforced door leading to the gap between train cars. The gaps were covered by flexible shells of treated rubber, cutting down on wind drag and also making it difficult for potential thieves to land atop the train and have an easy way in. Cazur drew one of his sabers. It was two feet of single-edged beskar, a traditional Mandalorian weapon known as a beskad. He nodded at Kavala, who put the stock of her carbine against her shoulder and nodded back. They put their backs against the wall on either side of the next door. Cazur then rapped on it several times with the hilt of his saber. He then reversed his grip on the beskad and waited.
The door slid open. A teal-scaled face that was flat and fish-like emerged. The Pyke wore dull grey armor and was pointing a blaster pistol straight ahead.
Cazur's blade slipped between the Pyke's ribs, prompting a spurt of green-yellow blood and a reflexive warble of shock and pain. He then rounded the corner and started pushing the Pyke back, firing past the struggling ganger at the small group of his fellows that had all been gathered around a table and playing Sabacc. The car was, essentially, a security outpost, one of several placed at regular intervals along the mag train's span. Alcoves containing bunks, a small kitchen, and other facilities were spread around a central, brightly lit living area.
The Pykes rose and tried to scatter, but were caught completely by surprise. Cazur shot one in the side of the neck, almost taking off their head. Another blaster bolt severed a third Pyke's right leg at the knee, sending them down with a wail of pain.
Return fire was hastily sprayed back at Cazur, searing across the back of Cazur's living shield. Cazur saw one Pyke dropped by a double-tap to the chest, another having their hand blown apart as a bolt of energy struck the fingers closed about the grip of their blaster. Kavala was moving in behind him, carbine's barrel snapping to the last of the half-dozen Pykes.
Cazur threw his shield away, sending the ganger sprawling into, and through, the cheaply made table in the middle of the room. A bolt from the final Pyke struck Cazur squarely in the chest. Though it burned away a patch of paint, the heat dissipated across the beskar plate with little effect to the wearer. Cazur and Kavala shot the ganger twice apiece, sending the Pyke down with a torso that was little more than melted plastoid armor and charred, smoking flesh.
Both Mandalorians scanned the room with their weapons. Wounded, dying, and dead Pykes littered the floor. Only the one with the missing hand appeared to be any form of coherent. The Pyke who had lost a leg was sightlessly staring at the ceiling, their body shaking as shock overwhelmed them.
Cazur finished both of the gangers off. The Pyke Syndicate were slavers and spice pushers. Anyone who carried a blaster for them didn't get the benefit of the doubt, as far as Cazur was concerned.
"Check the bodies. Look for a keycard." Cazur said to Kavala.
The two Mandos went about this work quickly. Within a short amount of time, Cazur found what they were looking for, taking the keycard and continuing their forward progress. Quickly enough, they reached the next transition between cars and another door, this one guarded by an electronic lock. Cazur scanned the keycard and the door lock released, allowing them into the secure car. They left the door open, unsure if the advanced lock would seal them inside if it closed.
The interior of the objective area was much like the first cargo car, except there was a row of secure lockers off to one side. Cazur and Kavala worked their way through cargo stacks. Most of the lockers had green light on their fronts, indicating they were unlocked and probably empty. Cazur searched for a red light and found it. But, all was not as it should have been.
"Someone's been here already." Cazur said. He knelt down before the target locker. There was a datapad laying on the ground, connected to the keypad that would normally be used to unlock the container. Hylt hadn't been able to get the code, but had been confident Kavala could slice through it with the help of an ICE Breaker program Hylt had whipped up.
Cazur couldn't make heads or tails of slicing, so he stepped back, scanning the room and covering Kavala while she inspected the datapad.
"Hm. Looks like a pre-loaded ICE Breaker. Like what Hylt gave me." Kavala said, holding the datapad in one hand. "Needs one final command to crack the locker."
"Do it." Cazur said.
Kavala nodded, letting her carbine hang on its bandoleer so she could hold the datapad and input the command.
Something clattered on the far end of the secure car, opposite the direction the two Mandos had entered from. Cazur swiveled his head and aimed in that direction, realizing all too late he had just made a rookie mistake.
Feet scraped on metal. Movement blurred. A hand obscured Cazur'a visor as a vibroknife was pressed to his throat between his gorget and helmet. The padded jumpsuit he wore beneath his armor would do nothing to blunt its edge. Cazur's assailant held the knife in a perfect grip, angled to plunge in and saw outward.
"Weapons on the floor. Now." A low, rasping voice commanded.
"Haar'chak." Cazur swore, letting blade and pistol clatter to the deck.
"Good. And you. Touch that carbine and I open his throat." The voice said.
Kavala put her hands up, letting the datapad fall to the floor with enough force to crack its screen. It didn't matter. The locker was open.
"twi'lek. A head shorter than you. Fiber mesh armor. Blaster rifle, wrist-mounted launcher of some kind, prosthetic left leg…" Kavala started listing off.
"TCH! Enough of that." The twi'lek warned. "Now. Hand me what's inside."
Kavala hesitated.
"Go ahead, ika'vod." Cazur told her.
Kavala did as she was told, pulling open the unlocked door open.
"Easy, now." The twi'lek said.
The zygerrian produced an unassuming durasteel box that was a couple feet in length and half as wide. It, too, had an electronic lock on it.
"I want you to know that if you hurt my father, the Galaxy won't be big enough for you to escape what I'll do to you." Kavala growled as she offered the twi'lek the box.
"I have no intention of hurting anyone if this goes smoothly." The twi'lek said as she took the box in one hand, keeping the knife at Cazur's throat with the other. "For what it's worth, this isn't personal. I don't know how badly you need this, but it's the only thing keeping me out of a shallow grave."
"Then let us cut you in on the offer we're chasing. What are they paying you?" Cazur asked, obviously with no idea which they was behind this thief.
The twi'lek laughed, bitter and mirthless. "I'm being paid in the aforementioned 'not being put in a shallow grave.' Now, we're backing towards that open door. Slowly."
"No we're not. We're dropping that gun." Said another new voice.
Cazur smiled. He knew the voice.
Hylt approached from the open door. She was a dark-skinned human in her mid-twenties, clad in the decent tunic and slacks one would expect to find on a mid-level desk worker. Her abundant, coiled hair had been dyed a deep, vivid red, and was gathered in a crest upon her scalp.
There was a heavy pause as the twi'lek tensed behind Cazur. Her discipline was impressive. The knife remained steady.
"Take another step closer and I bleed him." The twi'lek threatened.
"Psh, ok. One less share." Hylt scoffed, aiming a pistol at the thief. "You see any of that fancy armor on me? I couldn't care less if you opened him up and tossed the body to the salt flats. These two have done their part. I don't need either of them anymore, honestly."
Though Cazur knew Hylt well enough to know this was an act, she was convincing enough to even give him a moment of unease.
"You conniving bitch!" Kavala hissed at Hylt, her stance suggesting she was unsure of where to point her carbine.
"It's the nature of the game, sweetie. You'll learn it if you live long enough." Hylt quipped. She focused on the twi'lek. "So, one way or another, the only way you don't get a blaster bolt in the skull is if you put down the box and your weapons."
Cazur half expected the vibroknife to glide across his neck out of spite. A few moments later, the twi'lek spat a curse in Rylothi and the knife left Cazur's neck, falling to the ground. Cazur snatched up his weapons, wheeling around to immediately point his blaster at his assailant.
The twi'lek had indigo skin and was, as Kavala had said, clad in a nondescript black jumpsuit of woven fiber mesh. Like all twi'leks, she had no hair, instead sporting a pair of tentacle-like head tails called lekku that were currently draped down to her shoulder blades. A plain headdress of dark leather covered her forehead, scalp, and the base of both lekku. She had sharp facial features, with a prominent, aquiline nose.
And, to Cazur's surprise, her amber eyes were beginning to fill with tears. He expected her to start theatrically crying, telling a sob story to put them all off guard. But, no. She simply stood in place as unbuckled her bandoleer to drop her rifle, then unhooked her wrist launcher device, putting both down by her knife. The twi'lek's face was twisted in an expression that was somewhere between nihilistic acceptance and despairing frustration. Cazur couldn't claim to be particularly adept at reading people, but even he recognized bald-faced, raw emotion when he saw it.
Hylt picked up the box while Cazur and Kavala kept their aim on the twi'lek.
"Conniving bitch?" Hylt asked with a sidelong glance at Kavala.
"Sorry, Hy'vod. Just trying to be convincing." Kavala said, clearing her throat.
Hylt laughed. "I'm just surprised Caz let someone get the drop on him. Getting slow in your old age, vod?"
"Yeah. Absolutely ancient." Cazur said, though his heart wasn't in the joke.
"So you were a Mando after all. Even without the 'fancy armor.'" Zej uttered, closing her eyes.
"Verd ori'shya beskar'gam, my friend. 'A warrior is more than their armor.'" Hylt said proudly.
"We have what we came for. Let's get out of here." Cazur said, stopping Hylt before she could start gloating.
Movement out of the corner of Cazur's eye. They had taken too long.
"Down!" He cried, springing forward and firing at the Pykes that had just come through the door of the secure car. Cazur took the twi'lek to the ground as blaster fire filled the air where the two of them had been mere moments ago. Hylt had rolled behind a stack of crates, while Kavala had her back to the open locker door, a spot of rapidly cooling heat dimming on the thigh of her beskar'gam.
Several Pykes went down in a hail of fire as they tried to storm the door and paid for putting themselves through a bottleneck. Cazur rolled off the thief, flanking around the cargo pile that Hylt was hiding behind. Two Pykes had the same idea from the other direction. Cazur lifted a pistol in each hand and put them down, then dove out from the end of the stack, firing mid-dive. Between his own shots and those of his Clanmates, the ganger muscle was slaughtered in short order. Cazur knew there would be more, and quickly. They were out of time.
"Hy'vod, set the charge. Kav'vod, cover her." Cazur commanded, getting on his comm as he approached the others. "Stro'vod, get ready, and have Bucket at the back ramp. We might be coming in hot."
"Understood." Stroyh said.
While Hylt and Kavala did as Cazur said, the zabrak himself approached the twi'lek, who was pulled herself up to a sitting position with her back against a crate. She hadn't even bothered to pick up her weapons. Cazur couldn't blame her for her malaise. If she somehow managed to survive the wrath of the Pykes, the twi'lek still had the one who set her about this mission to worry about. She really was as good as dead as things stood.
"Going to finish me off?" The twi'lek asked in a monotone.
"If I wanted you dead I wouldn't have bothered trying to get you out of the line of fire." Cazur said. He holstered his guns, taking a knee before the thief and removing his helmet. The twi'lek seemed mildly surprised by this. There was no taboo against a Mandalorian removing their helmet, unless one happened to be one of those fundamentalists in the Children of the Watch, but it was still somewhat uncommon. "I'm Cazur."
The twi'lek blinked at him, uncertainty breaking through her depressed demeanor. "...Zej."
"Well, Zej, we can't give you the box. I'm sorry about that. There's no hard feelings, as far as I'm concerned. That being said, who's going to kill you if you don't deliver it?" The zabrak asked her.
"Why do you care?" Zej asked, her frown deepening.
"Because I'm not going to knowingly leave you in danger if I'm going to be the reason you're in it in the first place." Cazur said. "Look, we can go over the details when we're safe aboard my ship. For the moment, collect your things and come with us. This isn't really a good place for this discussion."
"You're…really going to trust me?" Zej asked. Her face said she thought Cazur was an idiot.
"Trust is a strong word, but yes." The Mando replied with a shrug.
Zej sighed. She opened her mouth to speak, but closed it, then started gathering up her belongings.
Out in the transition area, Hylt was setting an explosive charge directly atop the coupling that held the two rail cars together. Kavala tensed as she saw Zej walking behind Cazur, but the zabrak held up a calming hand.
"Change of plans. We're coming back plus one." Cazur said.
"You sure that's a good idea?" Kavala asked, warily eyeing Zej.
"Call it professional courtesy." Cazur said.
"In my old line of work, professional courtesy was a knife in the back and a bouquet of flowers for the funeral." Hylt commented as she pressed some buttons in the face of the oblong explosive. "As long as she behaves herself, I won't complain."
"Not like I have a choice." Zej grumbled. She peered over Hylt's shoulder. "Baradium charge?"
Hylt shook her head. "Plasticene Thermite. Don't want a big explosion, need a small one to burn hot as a rancor's rage. Even if it doesn't melt all the way through, it'll weaken the coupling enough that it will stress shear."
"I'm getting the feeling your old line of work wasn't waiting tables in a Nar Shaddaa diner." Zej said.
Another laugh from Hylt. "Depending on the job at hand? Maybe."
The door across the gap between cars slid open, revealing another squad of Pykes. Cazur and Kavala both had blasters up in an instant, but neither fired. They never got the chance.
Zej over over Hylt's crouched form, rolling and coming up to her feet with her vibroknife in hand. She drove the blade up through the chin of a Pyke, snatched the pistol from their hand and shot another in the face at point-blank range, which the ganger's helmet did little to guard against. The twi'lek pirouetted around her first victim, ripping her knife free and an arc of crimson and getting stuck in among the Pykes who were jammed up by the door.
Cazur felt his eyes go wide as he saw Zej's knife slash and stab. Her style was brutal, blunt, and efficient, wasting no movement and staying on the attack to keep her opponents from regaining their footing. The twi'lek's snarls were far more than the sounds of exertion. They were full of the singular catharsis of finally having an excuse to unchain fury that had been held in check.
The last Pyke fell, leaving bloody trails down Zej's front with their fingers as they vainly tried to hold themselves up. Zej looked up at the three Mandalorians, breathing hard, eyes wild in her blood spattered face. The entire struggle had lasted only about five seconds. The Mandos, for their part, were all staring in amazement.
"Are we getting out of here or aren't we?" Zej asked rhetorically.
Shouts from behind the twi'lek. A blaster bolt spanged off the wall beside Zej's head. She blasted the interior door control with her purloined weapon, then slammed the button to close it from the outside before breaking that panel as well.
"Charge is set. Everyone get back." Hylt advised.
The four infiltrators went back into the secure cargo car.
"Clear!" Hylt warned, held up the detonator, then pressed the trigger.
Rather than a resounding boom, there was sharp ffffsssshhh, and even around the corner and through his armor he could feel the wash of superheated air coming through the door. Metal whined, then clanked as whatever was left broke. This was followed shortly by a creaking, straining sound as the rubber wind sleeve began to stretch.
Cazur leaned out the door, putting several blaster bolts into the rubber. It started splitting around the impact points almost immediately, and before long ripped cleanly. The back half of the train that the four thieves stood on slowly but surely started to lag behind the front.
"Now, Stro'vod. And be advised we've got one more with us. Long story." Cazur informed the pilot.
"Uuuuh, understood, Caz. Coming in fast." Stroyh said.
All of them heard the door at the far end of the secure car open, followed by angry shouts and stomping feet.
"Shit. More Syndicate fodder." Hylt complained.
The quartet took cover and started shooting the moment the gangers came into view. A fierce firefight quickly erupted as, this time, the Pykes had brought far more than a single squad. They were also moving much more cautiously, no doubt having some idea of the fact that a score of their compatriots were already dead.
"Suppress them! We only need to hold out a little longer!" Cazur called out, keeping the Pykes pinned with a pistol in head hand. One of the gangers got bold and tried to draw a bead on him, receiving a bolt in the chest and one in the gut before crumpling to the floor.
The zabrak looked over his shoulder. The train was slowing more and more, getting close to a point where they could jump down to the ground safely. Cazur holstered one pistol, reaching for a thermal detonator on his belt.
"Kav! Hy! Grenades, then get ready to move!" Cazur said, pulling a thermal detonator from his belt, feeling Hylt take the other one he had brought. "Fire in the hole!"
The three Mandos hurled the detonator's down range. The powerful explosives filled the air with light, heat, and shrapnel, sending containers of valuable cargo tumbling and setting them alight. Pykes were vaporized, shredded, crushed under falling debris. It was the best chance they were going to get.
"Hah! Sooran, shab!" Kavala taunted as she saw the carnage.
"Get moving! " He commanded the others, backing towards the open door and once again firing with both pistols to pick off any Pykes that recovered too quickly. Kavala, Hylt, and Zej ran for it, with the former of the three giving Cazur a shout when they were all outside.
Cazur turned and ran after them. The train had almost stopped now, allowing them to jump down to the salt-encrusted earth below. Cazur couldn't help but get a sense of vertigo as the barren, utterly flat landscape stretched out around him. Luckily, he had something to focus on soon enough.
The craft was a little over one-hundred feet from prow to aft. It had the sleek shape of an arrowhead and the the swatched remnants of two or three paint jobs that were now being filled in with plain, unassuming grey wherever they wore away. A blister holding a twin-barreled blaster turret protruded from the ship's belly, with another on the top. This was the Kath Hound, Cazur's hand-me-down pride and joy. The ramp at the back of the ship was already coming down as Stroyh dropped the ship onto its landing struts. There was still quite a bit of open ground to cover, so Cazur sprinted after the others.
Something struck Cazur in the back. He stumbled, though his armor bore the brunt. More bolts flew overhead and around him. One of them tagged Hylt in the left leg and she roared in pain as she fell to the ground.
Cazur spun, firing with wild abandon at the Pykes that were spilling from the train. Most of them missed, but he managed to put down the nearest Pyke. Still, he wasn't going to stop them out there in the open. He needed to get Hylt before the others turned and got bogged down.
"Alert: this unit is designed to ruin your day." A mechanical voice crackled.
A veritable storm of azure blaster bolts sprayed across the salt flats, ripping into the Pykes and sending them scurrying. An anti-personnel rocket shrieked, exploding in the air above the gangers and reaving them with shrapnel.
A hulking figure of metal and weaponry had come stomping down the ramp of the Kath Hound. Once, it had been a B2 Battle Droid, but many years and countless modifications at the hands of Stroyh had seen the droid affectionately known as Bucket turn into a seven-foot tall killing machine bristling with weapons.
Bucket had no neck and no proper head, its visual receptors set into a bright blue lens that was formed into the same T-shape as the visor of a Mandalorian helmet. This lens, in turn, was inset into a socketed orb that was about a foot in diameter, and was currently rotating and roving about as the droid picked targets and gunned them down. The droid's durasteel chassis was painted in a quartered layout of cyan and black, the quartered panels alternating between checkered and striped patterns.
"This unit advises all organic comrades to flip on the hyperdrive and get moving." Bucket said as it stopped at the bottom of the ramp, the rotary blaster on its left shoulder firing in deadly bursts as a new rocket was loaded and put into place in the launcher on its right shoulder.
Cazur put his guns away and ran to Hylt, scooping her up and running for the Kath Hound.
"Mandalore's ashen skies, careful!" Hylt exclaimed through gritted teeth.
"You'll live." Cazur retorted.
Kavala was already part way up the ramp, adding her carbine's fire to that of Bucket.
"Inside, ika'vod, start getting the med bay prepped." Cazur told the zygerrian.
"On it!" Kavala confirmed, hurrying into the ship.
Cazur hit the ramp, saying, "nice save, tin can, now let's get going", as he passed the war droid.
"This unit accepts thanks in hardware upgrades and extra shutdown time." Bucket said, backing up the ramp with sure footing as it scattered the remaining Pykes.
"Duly noted." Cazur said as he reached the cargo hold where he had been preparing with Kavala earlier. That had been less than an hour ago, but it already felt like ages.
The med bay was at the other end of the lower hold, immediately next to the ladder that led up to the crew deck. It was a simple facility, kept sterile and clean. The Kath Hound's med bay was not equipped for things like surgery, for medical droids of that caliber were prohibitively expensive to purchase and maintain, but it was set up for first aid and diagnostic procedures.
Kavala had her helmet and gauntlets off and was currently washing her hands while Cazur laid Hylt, face down, on the med bay's single cot. He drew one of his beskads and sliced open Hylt's slacks around the wound. Cazur felt the Kath Hound shift under his feet as Stroyh lifted off. Hylt was sheened with sweat, her teeth clenched.
"I've got this. Maybe go take care of our guest?" Kavala suggested. Her tone made it clear she didn't like the twi'lek being on board. Which Cazur could understand. Zej had held a knife to his throat, after all.
"Right. Good thinking." Cazur said. "And good job down there, ika'vod. I mean it."
Kavala smiled, but the expression faded as she turned to administer aid to Hylt.
Cazur left the med bay. He found Zej standing near the ramp, arms folded across her herself as she looked around uncertainly. Cazur got a better look at her prosthetic leg, worthy of mention thanks to its obviously fine craftsmanship. It was a sleek, streamlined thing of dark metal and rubber. Bucket was standing beside her.
"This unit wonders what the twi'lek's purpose here is." The B2 said.
"Still figuring that out." Cazur said. He stopped in front of Zej.
"If you think you're going to ransom me to someone, I have bad news for you." She said.
"What? No." Cazur said.
"Then why did you really help me?" Zej demanded more than asked.
"I told you the truth down there. If us grabbing the objective is putting you in danger, we owe it to you to help you out. It's that simple. Besides, we've fought together, now. However briefly it might have been, that means something." Cazur told her.
Zej thoughtfully pursed her lips. She gave Cazur a hard, searching look. Maybe she thought it was a trap, or was wondering when the bill for this kindness was going to come due. Nothing Cazur could do would reassure her, the zabrak suspected. So, he just plowed on.
"Come on. We have a spare billet you can crash in. And a shower to get all the blood off; strict ten-minute limit on that, though. One of us should have some clothes that'll fit you. I'll get Stroyh making some food once we hit hyperspace. We'll talk about what comes next after that." Cazur waved for her to follow as he headed for the ladder to the crew deck.
After a few moments, Cazur heard footsteps following him. Reaching the ladder up, he looked into the med bay to see Kavala applying a numbing agent to Hylt's injury.
"Good in there, ika'vod?" Cazur asked.
Kavala nodded wordlessly, focused on the task at hand.
"Hy'vod, I'm stealing some of your clothes for our guest." Cazur said into the med bay.
"Bring me down a bottle of tihaar and we'll call it even." Hylt groaned.
Cazur ascended the ladder, waiting for Zej at the top. Beyond the ladder well at the very back of the ship was the engine room, which also held a lift that led down into the cargo hold directly below it. In the opposite direction was a hallway that ran the remaining length of the Kath Hound, all the way up to the cockpit. Four doors led off from the hallway, two on each side. As with the lower deck, everything up here was clean and orderly, but there were obvious signs of wear. The rubberized floor was discolored in places by countless steps. Edges of door frames were shiny and slightly rounded by the scraping of carried loads and passing bodies.
The walls of the hallway were two murals in styles that were distinct from one another. On the left was an abstract piece, a navy blue background covered by interlocking, almost serpentine shapes that roiled and twisted across the wall on seemingly random color gradients. On the right was a minimalist piece of figures standing in a row. Most of them were fully shrouded in cloaks, only the visors on their helmeted heads revealing them to be Mandalorians. The last figure in the line, nearest the cockpit, was clad in silver, one arm free from their cloak and holding up a black sword, the blade of which was limned in white.
"Impressive." Zej said, looking at one of the cloaked Mandalorians more closely. "Who made these?"
"The abstract there was made by the previous owner of the ship, my mother Jodihan. The other one was our pilot, Stroyh." Cazur answered with a smile.
Zej blinked. "Huh. Mandalorian artists. Didn't think there were any of those."
Cazur's answer arrived almost unbidden to his lips.
"Used to be a lot more of us." The zabrak muttered, realizing what he said a moment later. He shook his head as if to clear his thoughts. "Anyhow, room's over here." He headed to the first door on the left.
Zej's brow furrowed, but she walked after him after only a brief hesitation.
The door led to a short hallway. Six small billets, three on each side, lined the hallway, with the bathroom and shower at the far end. Cazur pressed the button to open the nearest door on the left. It whirred and only opened a few inches.
"Haar'chak." Cazur swore. "Will get on that later." He opened the room on the right instead. This one slid open as it was supposed to, revealing a cramped and somewhat musty room. There was a cot against one wall and some indents in the walls meant to be used as shelves. There was also a footlocker under the cot and some drawers set into the wall under the shelves. A single light bulb cast the room in wan, white-yellow light. "Yeah…sorry, haven't needed to use this room for quite a while."
"It's dry, warm, and somewhere close to clean." Zej said with a shrug. "Better than where I usually sleep."
"Right. Well, let me rummage through Hylt's stuff real quick." Cazur said.
He went and did so, quickly returning with an armful of folded clothes.
Zej accepted the clothes with a quiet word of thanks. She started to turn, but stopped to ask, "can I get, like, a camp stool or something? Anything to sit on, really. Need to take this off." She tapped her prosthetic with a knuckle.
"Sure." Cazur said. He hadn't even thought of that.
Once he got Zej what she needed, Cazur left the living quarters and made his way up to the cockpit. The man in the pilot seat, surrounded by a wrap-around console of buttons, switches, and readouts, was a volpai. He was a skinny, lanky sapient with four arms and skin the color of sandstone. Stroyh wore the breastplate and leg armor of his beskar'gam, but his arms were bare save for two pairs of fingerless gloves. Bright violet stripes banded his arms and neck. Stroyh looked over his shoulder as Cazur approached, revealing a face with two pairs of eyes.
"So, who's the stray your brought home?" The volpai asked.
Cazur shot him a look. Stroyh held up two hands as the other two kept dancing about the controls, initiating the hyperdrive.
"She was competition for the target." Cazur said at length, looking past his Clan-brother to the stars beyond the cockpit's viewport.
"Was?" Stroyh prompted.
"Was." Cazur confirmed. "For the moment she needs a bed and some food. We can drop her on Nar Shaddaa when we turn in the job."
Stroyh smirked.
"What?" Cazur asked.
"Only got so many rooms on the Hound, Caz'vod." Stroyh said quietly.
Cazur rolled his eyes. "I'd like to think I gave it more time before deciding on bringing people into the Clan."
"Of course, of course." Stroyh said.
With a frown, Cazur said, "well, we're one short at the moment because the door Ixi's old room won't open again." As always, the name made his frown become more pronounced. There was anger, too, at the other name, the hated name, that went with it.
"Seriously?" Stroyh sighed, his own anger and sorrow drowned by levering the petty frustration of a broken door. He punched in a few final commands. The stars outside suddenly blurred into bright lines, then the Kath Hound was leaping in the scintillating passage that was hyperspace.
"Yep." Cazur said.
"Well, that's going to have to go down to the bottom of the list. Still trying to figure out why the lights are flickering in the common room when we're in atmo, and if I have to sleep another night with the fan clicking in the vent of my billet I'm going to fly us into a star." Stroyh complained, spinning his chair around and standing up. He was almost as tall as Cazur, though with a much more spindly frame.
"I can look at the door. I've been working on this ship longer than you, remember." Cazur pointed out.
"Yeah, and you still don't know a spanner from a scanner or your ass from your elbow." Stroyh scoffed. "First thing's first, I'm starving. Guess I'll make sure there's enough dinner for plus one."
"Do that." Cazur said, looking back out to hyperspace. It was said that Hyperspace Madness could overtake those who stared out at it for too long. He'd never heard of it actually happening. It was always some story from someone who knew someone who said they'd heard about it happening. The Galaxy was a big place, though. It was foolish to write things off for not seeing them personally.
Blowing out a breath through his nostrils, Cazur turned away from the viewport and headed back into the ship. He could at least start the process of cleaning his armor before dinner.
The Kath Hound's common room was a rectangular, low-ceilinged space. A circular table with six seats bolted to the floor around it was in one corner, across from the bank of cabinets and coolers meant for the storage and preparation of food. There wasn't enough room for actually cooking things, and so a microwave oven and a rehydrator machine were mounted on the wall above a small dishwasher. There was also a horseshoe-shaped couch sat before a viewscreen mounted on the wall.
The lack of equipment, however, had not stopped Stroyh. He had concocted a contraption combining a hot plate and a wire frame that could be adjusted, raised, and lowered, allowing for pots of various sizes to be held secure upon the hot plate. It was in the largest of these pots that most of the evening meals were cooked. No one on the Kath Hound had a picky palate. It wasn't exactly an option when one lived on the move as they did. Cazur, as what passed for the patriarch and captain of the ship, made sure everyone stayed on a good regime of exercise and nutrient supplements to counteract all the preservatives, salt, and fat that tended to be in long-lasting rations. Fresh produce was a rare luxury, unfortunately.
Stroyh set a hefty, bubbling pot upon a pair of hot pads in the center of the circular table, joined by sleeves of ship crackers. At once, the three Mandos seated around the table began filling bowls with the concoction produced by their volpai Clanmate. Stroyh took a tray of food and drink down to Hylt in the med bay. When he returned he said, "haili cetare", which literally translated to "fill your boots", but was essentially saying "dig in."
"Vor entye", Cazur and Kavala thanked him.
Stroyh, Cazur, and Kavala all began to eat and drink with quiet gusto. Someone, clearly, had instilled table manners in all of them.
Zej sat rather awkwardly, eyes flicking back and forth, her bowl still empty. The only sound, other than people eating, was music playing from speakers in the ceiling. The genre was called Eataine Blues; a twangy genre that was a simultaneously melancholy and jaunty strain of music hailing from, appropriately, the Eataine Sector in the Outer Rim.
"Best fill up while there's still some left, Miss Zej." Cazur advised between bites.
Zej's attention shifted up to the zabrak and her eyes seemed to refocus on the present.
"How much am I allowed to eat?" The twi'lek asked.
The three Mandos shared looks with each other. It was an odd question to hear on this ship. A warrior didn't always know when their next meal was going to arrive, so one ate as much as they could while they could.
"Don't be afraid of going for seconds, if that's what you're asking." Cazur assured her.
Zej's eyes continued doing the flicking motion. Her posture, her general bearing, made Cazur think of a prey animal wondering if it was time to bolt.
"I know these ingrates love to crack jokes, but swear my cooking's not so bad." Stroyh said, waving his spoon about. "I think I make miracles, considering what I've got to work with."
"One man's miracle is another man's curse." Cazur commented.
"K'uur, mir'oisk." Stroyh snipped at Cazur. Quiet, dung for brains.
Kavala just chuckled and kept eating.
Zej appeared to be equal parts lost and uncertain, but she did finally take up the ladle hooked on the rim of the pot and dole out a single scoop into her bowl. The twi'lek's first couple bites were slow and cautious, but after that habit seemed to take over and she ate very quickly, making almost no noise. When her bowl was empty, she sat still, sipping tea from a plastic cup in front of her. Cazur had a hard time believing that was all she was going to eat.
"You know, we don't exactly have a lot of storage space, so the more you eat, the less goes to waste." Cazur hazarded saying.
Zej blinked at him, then glanced from her bowl to the pot. "I would hate to take any from all of you…"
"Caz'vod could do for eating less." Stroyh said.
"Copaani mirshmure'cye, vod?" Cazur threatened, asking if his dear Clan-brother was looking for a smack in the face.
Stroyh just laughed.
"Ignore them." Kavala assured Zej. The zygerrian stood up and filled Zej's bowl for her, setting it down before the twi'lek. "Here."
Zej gazed down at the food as if she wasn't quite sure she believed it was there.
"Sorry about the knife to your friend's throat." Zej said at random.
"He's my brother." Kavala amended her. "And…well, yeah, I don't like it, but if you're sitting here right now, that means we're past it. So it's fine. We treat guests right on the Kath Hound, that's what Jod'buir always says."
There were several long moments of silence. Cazur was familiar with the look he saw in Zej's eyes. He'd seen it on the faces of people who had been fighting for too long. It was a look that didn't want to accept the peace around them. Accepting it, letting their guard down, was just what the enemy wanted. And who exactly was the enemy? That particular question wasn't as relevant as one might think.
Zej finally picked up her spoon. She dumped several crackers into her bowl, crunching them all up and stirring it all together before eating some more. After an appropriate amount of time, Cazur finally got to business at hand.
"The plan is to drop you off on Nar Shaddaa, Zej. We'll turn in the objective and part ways. You helped us get the thing off-world, so I think you're due for a cut of the payout." Cazur said. "And Nar Shaddaa's a big place. Whoever's after you, they won't be finding you anytime soon on the Smuggler's Moon."
Zej went from guarded but neutral to the same hardened, closed off expression Cazur had seen down on the surface of Velstrac. He didn't think it was anger at him.
"It'll be as good a place as any." Zej said, essentially sealing the conversation as quickly as it had begun.
"You got any idea what's in the box?" Kavala asked her. "We weren't told."
"A Jedi holocron. An old one." Zej said.
Cazur felt his eyes widen. Jedi were about one step away from being looked at as nothing more than a myth by the average citizen of the Galaxy. Cazur had learned Mandalorian history far too well to ever fall into that line of thinking. Every great defeat or tragedy that ever fell upon the Mandalorian people across millennia of history had been perpetrated by the Jedi or the Sith, up until the Night of One Thousand Tears. Of course, while teaching Cazur, Jo'buir had never shied away from the fact that the Mandos of old, the Crusaders and NeoCrusaders, were slavers, pillagers, and conquerors. One didn't live like that forever without repercussion.
Stroyh let out a low whistle, then, "haar'chak, that explains the payout. Not exactly a shipment of smuggled blaster rifles, is it? Who sent you after it?"
"Someone that won't take the way things went well." Zej said. She pushed her empty bowl away from her. "A crime boss on Ryloth. Up and coming, but far from the biggest katarn in the pack. This holocron was supposed to be his shot at the big time, affiliation with the Hutts or Zygerrians…", she looked askance at Kavala, "...no offense."
The young Mando shrugged. "Not my fault Zygerria's leaders are slavers."
"And what sort of hold does he have over you that has you after this thing for free?" Cazur asked the question that had been foremost in his mind since the train.
A stony stare was his only response.
"Well, that's your business." Cazur relented. He started cleaning up the dishes. "It's a few days and some change to get to Nar Shaddaa. Until then, make yourself at home. Track one of us down if you need anything."
Zej nodded, standing up. She started to head for the door out into the hall, but stopped long enough to say, "thank you for the food."
"An empty belly on the Kath Hound is a slap in Clan Mharal's face. Don't worry about it." Stroyh said as he poured himself some tea.
Another slight nod from the twi'lek, then she left the common room.
"Mharal's muse, springs could learn a thing or two about tension from that one." Stroyh breathed.
This time Cazur really did smack Stroyh, cuffing the volpai on the side of the head.
"Hey!" Stroyh snapped, his free hands balling into fists.
"Extra arms come at the expense of your fucking empathy, di'kut?" Cazur growled at his Clan-brother.
"I'm just saying…", Stroyh began, looking to Kavala for backup.
"That's someone who's had to go hungry before, Stro'vod. Can't guess the circumstances, but that much is obvious." Kavala said disapprovingly. "So why don't you stick with being happy that there's no empty bellies on the Kath Hound?"
Stroyh made a wordless grumble into his tea as he took a drink, then muttered something about checking the hyperdrive as he also left the common room.
Cazur shook his head, loading the dishwasher. It didn't use water, instead using sonic pulses to scour things clean. He just hoped the second-hand emitters he'd helped Stroyh install the previous month would keep holding up.
"We're not really just going to drop her on Nar Shaddaa, are we?" Kavala asked Cazur.
Cazur didn't look up from loading the dishwasher. "As opposed to what?"
"C'mon, ori'vod." Kavala said. She stood from her chair and got a disinfectant wipe from one of the cabinets, continuing to speak as she wiped the table down. "She clearly has nowhere else to go. And you and I both know even Nar Shaddaa's not big enough to protect her from a good bounty hunter. Besides, let's be completely selfish for a second; she infiltrated that mag train by herself, and we saw her kill an entire squad of Pyke goons with nothing but a vibroknife. Those are skills we want. Are you seeing any downsides here?"
"Yeah. Those bounty hunters will target us if she's with us." Cazur said, closing the dishwasher. Even as he said it, Cazur knew it was a weak defense.
Kavala scoffed, saying what Cazur knew she would. "As if we haven't had to deal with that before. We had the Empire and now the Remnants. You always say that when you brought Hylt in, brought Storyh, me, even…", the name she had been about to say paused on the tip of her tongue.
"Ixi. It's alright, ika'vod." Cazur assured her. He turned around, leaning against the counter the dishwasher was installed beneath. Ixi was an old wound now. A deep one, yes, and somewhere between the scab and scar stages.
"Right. Regardless, you always said that you just 'knew' it was right to bring us onto the Kath Hound even before considering making us Mando'ade. Well, I think you'd be stupid to let Zej go. She needs us, and lets face it, ori'vod, another person will let us start taking bigger jobs. If we're going to keep this ship in space and still have credits to hand off to the Clan, bigger jobs are what we need." Kavala's gaze at Cazur was unflinching.
Cazur laughed lightly. He ran his fingers through his beard. "Haar'chak…someone made a mistake, raising you to think for yourself like this."
"Yeah, well, when I find out who did it, you'll be the first to know." Kavala joked.
Cazur walked past her, giving Kavala a one-armed hug as he went. He'd need to take a look at that busted door before settling in for the evening.
The journey to Nar Shaddaa was uneventful. The Mandalorians on the Kath Hound went about their daily routines of maintaining and tidying the ship, training and exercise, cleaning weapons and armor, and the like. Zej remained out of the way, bordering on elusive, rarely leaving her borrowed quarters and speaking less than fifty words for the three days of travel. Cazur wondered if he should make an effort to reach out, make Zej feel more welcome. If she was going to be gone on Nar Shaddaa, was there a point to that?
Kavala's words stuck with him, though. Would Zej be gone on Nar Shaddaa?
Kan'den District, Nar Shaddaa
"Ecumenopolis." It wasn't a word that applied to a lot of worlds in the Galaxy. An entire world being covered by urban sprawl was not an easy thing to accomplish, no matter how much time and how many credits were sunk into a place. It was because it was never deliberate. It was a the spread of a cancer choking out whatever life was once beneath plasteel and duracrete and glass. Yet even the most tumorous of celestial bodies could be kept alive through the intensive life support of commerce and crime. That was the story of Nar Shaddaa, the Smuggler's Moon; a body dead in all but technicality, a desecration of an open grave to be found in its orbit every around the green-yellow slime pit that was Nal Hutta.
Cazur didn't like Nar Shaddaa. A city overcoming an entire world, to state the obvious, just wasn't natural. People dying and being forgotten wasn't a matter of if or even when, for it was too commonplace to wonder when the next case might happen. The lucky thing, though, was a squad of four fully armed and armored Mandalorians weren't generally going to draw very much trouble.
The quartet of Mandos were clad in their full armor, including their helms. Hylt, who was walking with only a slight limp thanks to bacta treatments on her leg, was among them. Her armor was primarily silver, which was broken up by needle-thin chevrons of gold. Zej trailed at the back of the group, her imposing company not stopping her from constantly surveying her surroundings. Bucket was back on the ship, prepared for anyone that might want to fly off with it.
The group was walking through a tunnel, which was hardly descriptive, given that's what the vast majority of streets on Nar Shaddaa were. So many layers of buildings and sewer systems and power facilities and forgotten niches were stacked one upon the other, closed in, broken up and replaced, over and over across millenia, that to fall from the "top" of Nar Shaddaa to its lowest levels would take a good two minutes. Some districts were just lucky and had some sky to look up at without being in the rich areas. Not so for Kan'den.
The tunnel they walked through was awash with neon light and the smell of smoke. The light reflected off every available surface; standing water from an eternal drip through a crack in the ceiling, the glass of a shattered bottle swept against one wall by a half-caring boot, the thousand-yard eyes of residents as surely crushed by their circumstances as their home was being crushed by the city above. Illicit substances like spice were always within easy reach while hope was buried deep down with the ground far below. The small groups that clustered here and there eyed the Mandos as they went by, people moving to the other side of the passage as they walked past.
The five of them entered into an establishment that was awash with blacklight. It was cylindrical and appeared to have once been a cistern. Now it was home to thumping music, cheap drinks, and many flavors of desperation. A mass of dancing bodies occupied the center of the room, lit from below by flashing tiles. There was the uncanny look of a many-limbed creature thrashing in its death throes about them.
Cazur didn't do well in places like this. It probably said something less than charitable about him that he preferred the life or death struggle of the battlefield to the unfamiliar noise and claustrophobia of a dance club. They approached the bar, but the toydarian tending it pointed a thumb to her left, indicating an open staircase that hugged the cistern's wall, leading up to the sheet metal additions that made up the club's offices. Cazur went by himself while the toydarian poured drinks for everyone else; a courtesy of the establishments owner.
Cazur tucked the box containing the holocron under one arm. He passed some hired muscle, heading up the stairs and through a door. The call of the music was muted by soundproofing between the floor and the sheet metal exterior. More hired guns took the Mando's weapons and ushered him into a small office. The drab walls were covered in holo images of the office's owner crouched over large beasts that had been slain in hunts.
Most people didn't expect intimidation from sullustans. They were short, and their pudgy cheeks and layered jowls usually combined with their big ears for an overall cherubic look. Ollobei certainly had those features, but her lower jaw was made of metal, her face and neck a patchwork of old, ragged scars. No demure engineer or pilot was Ollobei Jice. She had hunted sapients and sentients alike, and the question of whether or not she was too tough to die was one often asked in the circles she ran in.
"Caz. You're back." Ollobei said, her solid black eyes watching him approach. Ollobei was smoking a cigarette in a long, wooden holder. Never one for outlandish dress, she wore a conservative grey suit with a high collar.
"You knew we were back the moment the Kath Hound touched down, Ollo. Let's not kid ourselves." Cazur said as he sat down across from Ollobei. A desk of pale, reddish-black wood sat between them. Cazur placed the box containing the holocron on the desk and slid it across the Ollobei. "Hylt sliced the lock in transit."
"You know, I'm not normally one to work direct like this. Glad I was right to choose you lot." Ollobei said, opening the box and peering inside. A smile slashed open her scarred visage, the expression of a predator who was about to sink their fangs into a fresh kill.
Cazur grunted wordlessly. By "working direct", Ollobei meant she had worked with no information broker or fixer between herself and the "contractors." Being such a fixer herself, the Kath Hound had gotten steady work from Ollobei for many years. That bond of trust, literally and figuratively, was paying off now.
"Who's the new dame, by the way? Not paying you more than what we agreed." Ollobei informed Cazur as she hopped off her chair and went to a safe in the corner of the room.
"Didn't expect you to." Cazur said.
"Ah, professionalism sure can be refreshing, wouldn't you agree?" Ollobei asked as the safe scanned her biosignature. It unlocked and she pulled the door open.
Another grunt. Cazur didn't particularly like Ollobei, but she was right, and professionalism was why he kept bringing the Kath Hound back when Ollobei had something for them. That sort of reliability could mean the difference between life and death in the Outer Rim.
Ollobei returned to the desk, setting a datapad upon it. She scanned her palm on its surface, then turned it and offered it to Cazur. The Mando removed his right gauntlet and scanned his own palm. His own datapad produced a soft beeping sound. The payment had gone through. He didn't need to look to know the amount was correct.
"You didn't answer my question, though." Ollobei pointed out as she stood to put the datapad back.
"She's the one who almost claimed the holocron for someone else. Don't know who." Cazur said.
Ollobei blinked. Cazur didn't elaborate, expecting, and hoping, she'd fill in the blanks in the obvious way.
"Well, that's the game, isn't it?" Ollobei said as the safe clanged shut and locked.
Cazur veiled his relief. Ollobei was assuming Zej had worked through a fixer, so wouldn't know who was actually hiring her, and therefore wouldn't start asking questions Cazur had no answer to.
"Yep." Cazur agreed.
"Well, sorry to say I probably won't have anything for you for a while. I've got my own plans for the holocron and then I'll probably be needing to take a vacation somewhere." Ollobei explained. She once again returned to the desk.
"We'll miss you like family." Cazur said with no conviction.
"I know. Hopefully you'll find a way to dry all your tears." Ollobei retorted with a dismissive wave. "Now, since I just like you all so much, I won't be leaving you with nothing." She reached into her desk, setting a holopuck down in front of Cazur.
The Zabrak looked down at the puck. It was a few inches across and about the same span in height, made of plasteel. Ollobei pressed a finger into the top and the holopuck activated. A white-blue image was projected from the puck, showing the image of a pale human man from the chest up. He appeared to be in his late fifties or early sixties, with patrician features and a balding pate, white hair still clinging to the sides and back of his head. The man's face was marked by an arrogant curl of one side of his mouth. But, most pressing about him, was the fact he wore the uniform of an Imperial officer. Judging by his rank markings, he was a Marshal of the Imperial Military.
"Say hello to Sadibar Lauk,, a Marshal of the late Empire." Ollobei said with relish, tapping her cigarette out in an ashtray. "The good Marshal was in charge of the campaign that left the Auric Sub-Sector as little more than a smoking crater, and ordered the Massacre of Ord Halliz IV, just to name a couple of his…credentials." The sullustan shook her head.
Cazur's eyes drifted to the number of credits under the Marshal's picture. As expected it was a big sum. Very big.
"Who's fronting the cred?" Cazur asked.
A scoff from Ollobei. "I know you're smarter than that, Caz. Who exactly has that kind of money, would know about Lauk, and also want him dead badly enough to put up the cash for it?"
"Right." Cazur said. The New Republic. In spite of their stated desires to deescalate the Imperial Remnants and try for peaceful reintegration, the fact was the New Republic didn't have the force to do anything other than ask nicely. The Galactic Civil War was over. The Rebel Alliance no longer existed, and the greater unifying theory of "fuck that guy" no longer held them together in peace time. Cazur hadn't been alive for the original Republic, but he knew enough of the past to see that, even if history wasn't quite repeating itself, it sure as hell was starting to rhyme.
"If you're interested, I'll send you the details. It'll be a hell of a job, Caz. Lauk's holed up in a good position and his troops are loyal dogs." Ollobei said.
"The only good Imp is a dead Imp, Ollo. Send them." Cazur said in a low tone.
"Will do. Take the puck. Go have a drink, eh? Loosen up a little. In the meantime, I've got other business that needs doing." Ollobei said, making a shooing motion.
"Pleasure doing business as always, Ollo." Cazur said as he stood up.
"I don't like liars, Caz." Ollobei snarked. "I'll be in touch eventually."
Cazur left the office, collecting his weapons and going back down to his companions. Without a word, he gestured that they should follow him out of the club. The gathered in the tunnel outside Ollobei's, the four Mandos turning their attention to Zej. They hadn't yet put their helmets back on after being in the club.
"Here." Cazur said. He plugged a credit chip into his datapad, transferring an equal share of the payout to the chip. He then unplugged it and handed it to Zej.
The twi'lek's hand closed around the chip.
"Thank you for…everything." Zej said slowly. She pocketed the credit chip.
"Are you going to be alright?" Cazur asked her.
"Yes. Definitely." Zej said in a voice that was anything but certain.
There was an awkward pause.
"Well…it…was nice meeting all of you. Good luck." Zej said, turning her back on them before anymore words could be exchanged. She started walking away.
Cazur frowned, reaching down to his belt to where his helmet was clipped. As he made to start walking in the other direction, Kavala caught his eye. One of the zygerrian's eyebrows was up, her triangular ears flicking for emphasis. Sure enough, a quick glance around revealed both Stroyh and Hylt were also staring at him.
"What?" Cazur asked.
"You're really going to make us say it?" Hylt asked.
Cazur blew out a breath through his nose. Then, a wry smile crossed his face.
"'Listen closely for the song among the stars, and you'll know when to step in time with it.'" Cazur quoted the wisdom of Mharal. He looked down the tunnel, seeing Zej's back, her lekku swaying back and forth as she walked away. "Zej!"
The twi'lek's head cocked to one side. Slowly, she turned around, her eyes meeting Cazur's.
"You know, that room you borrowed isn't going to be occupied anytime soon…", the zabrak said.
Zej blinked a couple times, registering what she heard.
Then, tentatively, she smiled.