Krath Apothos

Beep Beep Nok smiled. The mushrooms were here. Booster Rann might be a fat Corellian caricature with...questionable tastes in investments (why was Gunga-Glowtm so popular?), but the man delivered on time. He returned his attention to Blimp and the thugs moving around them. All of Blimp's men were marked with a sharp hunger in their movements. Greed. Ambition. Pride. The emotions that kept the criminal heart of the galaxy pumping. Nok's thugs, on the other hand, moved with more silent resignation. As he had made his initial fortune forcibly taking over small, successful businesses and gutting them when someone looked too closely or profits dropped, Nok had accumulated quite a few pilots and their debts. So many star-jockeys got their first set of wings on loan from manufacturers and shipping companies, hoping to earn a vessel of their very own. A few succeeded. The rest dropped into the grease heap at the bottom with the rest of the failures. These weathered pilots and workers were just the ones Nok had scooped up in his purchases. After that, he'd start them on minor things like smuggling on the side or passing info, and would eventually work them up to dumping the bodies and evidence that Nok's style of business inevitably generated. Now they were stoic, hopeless, tough-as-leather minions for the neimoidian mogul, exactly the sort of assets Nok preferred in biological employees. "Provide cover and run interference I think," Nok answered for his subordinate. "Jorus knows how to make noise, and has a particular knack for...how did you put it?" "Flying suspiciously sir." "That's right. And as for Black Sun," a smile crossed Nok's face, "I had the opportunity to take out some of their leadership on Kessel. I imagine they're a little disorganized at the moment." He turned to Jorus. "Three more years commander. It'd be a shame if that got messed up now." Jorus's tired old face tightened for a brief instant as Nok turned away, before relaxing into his jovial apathy. "Alright, let's steal some stuff. My boys will take off and clear the security check points around the planet to make sure your guys don't show up on some corporal's manifest. After that, we'll follow your lead to Ord Mantell." He turned to his men. "Load up! Atmo in 2 minutes!"

Several moments earlier "This is not what we agreed on!" Nok rubbed the sides of his head, the seed of a migraine coalescing behind his brow as the burbling voice of King Halargo filled the office. The comm device crackled for a split second as it struggled with the sudden volume change from the irate monarch's outrage. "We-" "You agreed to not interfere with my control of Mon Calamari Shipyards in exchange for allowing your government to continue even under Sith rule. It's because of me that this intergalactic salt puddle even has a king. And if you continue to shout, I'll knock that crown off your head and put it on a quarren!" The king was unintimidated. Nok made a mental note to have future meetings with the king be done in person. The blubbery, overweight fish had no spine for direct confrontation. "Yes! Exactly! I agreed to allow you to maintain your control over the Shipyards, not to dictate development on the surface!" "The construction I'm proposing is for the Shipyards." "Don't feed me that rot." Nok heard the sounds of plastic sheets rustling in the backround of the call. "Industrial humidifiers? Compost processors? Environmental controls? This is all biological development! I don't know what you're growing but I highly doubt it has anything to do with ship construction!" "I'm expanding-" "Stop lying! You may be in charge of the Shipyards, but I am king, and I will not be bullied by some upstart neimoidian slug cashing in on the Empire's-" "ENOUGH!" Nok shouted. Across the room, a priceless 3000 year old durosian sculpture shattered under the pressure wave of Nok's rage. "Wake up! Did you honestly think you were still in control here? That this world was 'yours'? Are you that much of an idiot?! You sold the strings that hold your world together to me so that you could lie to yourself and say nothing has changed. You want to keep that lie going, you give me everything and anything I ask for! And if you don't, the last thing you'll see will be a Sith armada unleashing death and poison on your oceans as I gut your wife and children in front of you and the entire planet!" Nok leaned forward, his migraine flaring into real pain. One breath. Two breaths. As quickly as it came, Nok's rage vanished, hiding away as he reasserted control. "Now," Nok said, cold and calm, "let me make something perfectly clear to you, your Highness. I own you. I own your world. Soon, I will own your people. You sold them all to me to keep what little you have. Are you really going to throw all that away out of childish ego? My men will be arriving tomorrow to begin construction on Hakawa Islands. If they see so much as a picket line in their way, I'll have them build on the Mkbuto Islands instead. You want to make this a fight? Try to stay neutral when a filthy outsider like me is tearing up the dirt of your sacred land." Nok's finger jabbed down onto the comm screen, ending the conversation. "...Far be it from me to question you..." Nok sighed. "And yet?" He waved his hand for the speaker leaning in a shadowed corner of his new office to continue. The man was an older human, weathered and wrinkled from far too many harsh years and dressed in a faded military uniform that hung off of him more than it fit him. A cybernetic arm crossed with its wiry, scarred counterpart. "Is it wise to antagonize him like that? You've just put him in a corner, and kings are usually proud men. Proud people who feel cornered tend to...do stuff." "I've seen his type before. Lifelong royal, afraid of messing up, too reliant on advisers. He's alone in that palace of his, his precious advisers either dead or hiding. He'll rage, but without them he won't be effective in trying to stop me. Soon enough his fear will return and he'll behave." "Still, in the short term..." Nok's sightless gaze did not shift, but his attention focused on the man. Commander Jaden Jorus. Nok's best military specialist. Otherwise known as a thug, but at least one with brains. "I'm hoping he will do something," Nok said, leaning back and extending his hand, channeling the ball of repressed anger to draw a pitcher of a milky substance across the room along with a glass. "A few days ago, when my people were drafting this proposal, I had them leak some info to one of Halargo's spies on a shipment of Tibanna gas set to arrive at the Shipyards in two weeks. It's fake, the ship is an old husk set for scrap, but if we're lucky King Halargo will pass that info on in retaliation to someone who can use it. Malcontents on the planet, or maybe even genuine rebels, will answer. When they take the bait, they'll get caught in the trap, and it'll all go public." Jorus smiled as he no doubt saw the shape of Nok's plan. "And when the King sees his 'allies' caught thanks to the info he gave them..." Nok returned his smile. "The King will be burned as an intelligence source to any insurgents. They'll abandon him or suspect he's a traitor. Plus, he'll be scared that I'll trace the leak back to him. He'll keep his head down. " The pitcher poured a generous glass of the substance without Nok touching it. He sipped it, licked his lips, then took a longer draw. "Powerless and compliant. Exactly what I need out of him." He smacked his lips. "What did you say this was again?" "Liquefied whaladon butter. Apparently drinking it straight is a delicacy in some places. Can't say I see the appeal, but it seemed appropriate given your new place." Nok knew his commander well enough to know he wasn't just talking about the office or the world Nok now effectively controlled. This sort of aggressive takeover was a change for Nok, a signal that he was ready to play high stakes in a galaxy full of cut throats and monsters. "I like it." Nok's comm buzzed. The neimoidian mogul frowned, and for a moment a flicker of uncertainty crossed his face. Then he smiled. "Excellent. Guards, let him in." "Marvelous. You are correct, the failure of Kessel has put me in a precarious position, but it sounds like you're exactly the kind of person I need on my side to pull us both out of it. You take your...hands on approach, and I'll be sure you have a safe haven to return to when you're done. Also, if you still need staff..." Nok gestured to Jorus, who was eyeing Blimp warily, the way a bantha eyes a krayt dragon sleeping in the sun. "...I'd like my Commander Jaden Jorus to go with you. He's a skilled enough smuggler and pirate that I imagine you can find use for him. Plus, he was access to many of my contacts and info brokers, so he should help you focus in on any targets you fancy..." Nok's smile was sanguine to the point of ridiculousness. It was doubtful anyone in the room could mistake Jorus for anything other than what he was. Insurance. A spy. And a hostage if it came to it, so as to keep both Blimp and Nok relaxed.

Note: Questions asked by Blimp and answered by Nok are previously agreed upon Nok stood passively by as the troig struggled through his own emotions. Then, something hardened, something Nok couldn't quite define. The troig opened his eye. A small smile tugged at Nok's mouth. "Indeed. I believe we can still be of use to each other." Nok motioned to one of the droids, and a cushioned stool was wheeled under him as he sat down. "Now, to business. Assuming those meds are working, I imagine you have some questions. First though, let me catch you up on Kessel." Nok launched into a step by step recap of the failed Kessel invasion. The unexpected presence of the rebels, the fierce fighting in space and on the ground, the routing of the Sovros troops, and Nok and Blimp's ultimate escape. "Unfortunately, another invasion is out of the question, at least for now." Nok's fingers twitched a hair as he said it. He had not given up on Kessel. It would be his. "House Sovros is unhappy with the loss of their troops and the lack of profit on their investment. I'm upping security in case of assassins." He rubbed his forehead. "Kessel would have been ideal for the plan's purposes, given its proximity, but there are alternatives, albeit more time consuming. Rest assured, the narcotics empire of Mon Cal is still very much the future." Blimp's next question made Nok smile. "Your armor is most impressive, and may have been what kept you alive. Once we finished stripping it off you for surgery, I had it sent to one of the Shipyard's repair centers. It should be ready for you soon. Any gear that can't be repaired will be replaced, at my expense." When Blimp asked what had happened to his head, Nok frowned. "Apologies, but we couldn't find your other head in the wreckage." Nok paused, unsure how to proceed. How did you talk to someone who'd lost a head? Thankfully the awkwardness didn't last long, as Blimp had a much more pressing concern. His attacker. "Ah," Nok said, breaking into a wide smile, "That I can help with." He pulled out his datapad and said "Command: Display Kessel Mandalorian investigation. Specify: HADES" A small, holographic image of a modified mandalorian Basilisk flickered to life. "One of the ships retreating from the fight noted the takeoff of this particular basilisk from the warehouse where I found you. As it turns out, this particular vessel has a bit of a history." He turned his eyeless, blindfolded gaze to look straight at the troig. "You were fighting Terra. Also known as 'Mandalore the Great', and the leader of the last Mandalorian Crusade." He frowned again. "At least, I think so. There's some confusion as to what happened to the last Mandalore. Supposedly she was killed on Coruscant, but there's no denying that that Basilisk is the one my reports call HADES. Also I can't find any reason for someone like that to be with the rebels." Nok put the datapad down. "Regardless, find that Basilisk and you'll find that mandalorian. As for her companions, you might not remember but you asked me to take their bodies before you fell unconscious. They're preserved in this clinic's morgue right now. Unfortunately their armor was stripped from them. As for the more immediate future, I'm working on setting up our own drug production centers here on the planet. Balo mushrooms and death sticks. Not as convenient or popular as spice, but sufficient for what I need. However, there is another option for quicker results... Command: Display Onoam Mine." Nok's datapad's display flickered and a blocky structure cut directly into the stone appeared. "Onoam Mine, one of the only successful spice mines outside of Kessel, is on one of Naboo's moons, and is a potential source of spice for our purposes. Unfortunately, it'll be more heavily defended and much further away then Kessel. If we're going to take it, we'll need to be much more careful and subtle." Nok put away his datapad. "But I think that's enough for now. Come to my office once you're back on your feet." Standing up and walking towards the door, Nok said to one of the droids in Pak-Pak "Get him functional again. Top priority."

Nok's mouth twisted down into a frown. Emotional damage. Mental trauma. "If he's going to live, he'll do it now. Wake him up." Either the spice jacker was strong enough to survive this, or not. A slow, costly rehabilitation to extricate a shell of the criminal from a medicated stupor wasn't something Nok was interested in. A jagged shard of a man, hard and brutal...that was something Nok could use. The droid, programmed to prioritize Nok's' orders over medical regulations, turned back to Blimp. With mechanical callousness, it injected a series of hypodermic needles into the chest of the troig, flooding him with the chemicals necessary to cancel out the medication and bring him to full wakefulness. One of Nok's vibroknives dropped into his palm, and he moved back, positioning one of the medical droids between him and the "patient"

After the failed invasion of Kessel... "Ziur Dvirat" The table in front of Nok, illuminated by his frustration and holding a comm device, remained unchanged. Nok's fists clenched as he reined in the impulse to sweep the comm off the table and smash it. Instead, he barked, "Computer! Reread page 27, lines 8 thru 11!" "Would you like me to-" "Yes! Translate!" The computer, unperturbed, began reading. "The initial stage of any prospective user of mechu-deru is developing a sense of technological systems and their place as symbolic entities of the conquest of sentient will over nature. A simple incantation can assist true beginners with this process, although most users with an innate talent for the art develop the sense as an instinctive capability. The learning process should not take-" "Enough! Cease reading." Nok paced. Days...days spent attempting to learn this basic art...and he was still no closer to unraveling its secrets. He could see the Dark Side shifting under the force of his will and the labyrinthine weave of what could only be loosely defined as "sorcery". But nothing came of it. It simply unraveled into the tumultuous aura of his growing irritation. What was worse was that he had no idea where to even begin looking for the flaws in his technique. No master, not even a holocron to give him guidance. All he had were old texts uploaded into his computer and read aloud to him. He couldn't even read the books himself, blind as he was and reliant on the Force to see even physical shapes. The calm, cold, calculating voice of his intellect reasserted itself over his emotions, an occurrence that was becoming concerningly more frequent. He would need to hone his control. In the meantime, he needed to try again. He needed to establish his control over this thing...and his life in general. The failure at Kessel had rattled him, and the silence from the scions of House Sovros only heightened his anxiety. "Ziur Dvirat" Again his will and power coalesced in the Dark Side, weaving into something... The comm activated, and for the briefest moment Nok felt a sense of elation. Then it crackled with the calm voice of a medical droid. "Master Nok, the subject is awake." Nok grimaced, and sighed. "Understood, I'll be right down."

The agony of Blimp echoed out from him with clarity as he regained consciousness. His pain was a harmony to Nok's senses, the Dark Side quivering to the pulses like the strings of a musical instrument. Physical pain, loss, rage...and hatred. Clear, cold, cutting hatred. It prickled like needles on Nok's skin. He sucked in a breath, half out of shock and half out of desire to taste the sensation. It was...galvanizing. Nok carefully floated the body of the mutilated troig to his borrowed ship, before reemerging to begin lifting and looting the battlefield for corpses and spice. It was quiet, tedious work. While Nok's "vision" using the eddies of dark emotion within the Dark Side allowed him to see objects and through them, sensing the physical world in a way the sighted couldn't fully imagine, it did nothing for color or light. The wording that was no doubt painted on the sides of containers were invisible to him, too shallow a difference in height for him to distinguish. Then something caught his attention. One of the containers nearby distorted the echoes of the Dark Side as they touched it. It was so minor Nok wouldn't have noticed had he not been paying close attention. It felt like...pain...and death. The container itself wasn't in pain, as ridiculous as that would have been in. It was as if Nok was sensing something from a great distance, something faint yet consistent. He sank deeper into the ripples and churning of the Force, the taint of that dark echo filling his thoughts. Pain...yes...the pain of muscles worked past exhaustion...the pain of blows and electroshocks...over and over... And death...a brief spike of fear, then despair, and then death, a final explosion of darkness that snuffed the life engulfed in it. This was spice, Nok was sure of it. What else could have such a lingering fingerprint on it? The man...men?...who had mined this spice had been overworked and tortured when they had. And then they'd died violently, terrified and hopeless. And Nok could sense it. As he expanded his awareness, he became aware of other, tiny echoes on other containers. None were as insistent as the first, but all were present. Suppressed rage...hope that turned to pain after years of darkness...despair...fear... It was all there. It was soaked into the very stone of the world, generations of agonies poisoning the ground and seeping into the air. The corpses were similar. Their pain and violent murders wafted around them like an afterthought. Had this one been scared when she'd died? No...furious. This other one had suffered, his body burning before giving up the fight. Nok focused his work on the containers that bore the greatest agony, and on the corpses. Soon enough, he was finished, and the stolen ship of Black Sun's lord rose into the sky and shot out towards the stars.

Both players did an excellent job of respecting the other. At no point did I feel that either side was frustrated, dismissive, or angry. This was a fun sparring match, and it felt like it. On the one hand, I would’ve liked to see some more emphasis on the difference in skill in this fight. Kahla never really acknowledges or struggles with the fact that she’s an apprentice fighting a lorded duelist skilled in enhancing his physical capabilities with the Force. On the other hand, Mordecai is an angry duelist, whose preferred fighting style is the tried-and-true Sith method of all out assault fueled by emotion. It never really feels like Mordecai is genuinely giving his all, which follows since this is an educational experience instead of a deathmatch. This is a positive that follows from the point above. Mordecai matches the intensity of his opponent and never lets loose in the fight, keeping the fight fun and interesting as a result. This was a very beat-for-beat fight, with each blow choreographed and countered with clarity. There was a bit of confusion over the positioning of Kahla’s saber in her third post. I got the general gist of where the attack was ending up though. She wound her saber up over her shoulder, but just as she reached Mordecai, circled it around to her other side, she twisted her body, her wide horizontal swing accelerated towards his chest. She carried the swing into a spin, by now the blade had met the far side of herself, but had still dragged towards her lord's head. One tip I want to give Zendrin is to double check her character sheet is updated before a duel, particularly for Force abilities, and to a lesser degree combat skills. I can infer from the duel that Zendrin has had experience fighting with her lightsaber, but not much beyond that, like style, form, etc. I noticed she empowered one of her thrusts, and I don’t really know if that’s a skill she knows. Just something small would help. I have to really compliment Kahla on part of her final post. When she took the kick, mitigating but not outright cancelling it, and dropped to the ground “like a sack of vegetables,” I grinned a bit. Then she got up, more resolved than ever to finish the fight. That was a fun beat. In a fight that had been fairly even in intensity and without many twists or turns, it made me wonder for a second how she was going to respond. How would she deal with this? The answer emphasized and developed her character, and made me feel like I knew her a little bit more. The highlight of the duel. That’s not to say that Mordecai was lackluster. The dialogue between the two of you was fun and established both characters. Plus Mordecai taking a step back to handle a phone call was pretty funny, and further established the tone of the duel. Plus plus he acknowledged how the distraction nearly ended him. Final ruling… MORDECAI WINS While both players did well, Mordecai’s skill and experience in this exact kind of fight nabs him the victory. The fight never really shifted from a saber-to-saber duel, and neither side improvised anything clever or unconventional enough to make me consider giving them the advantage. Excellent duel on both sides.

Across the asteroid, the blasters of Sovros soldiers spraying fire across the desolate landscape went silent. A single order crackled in their headsets. Retreat. _______________________________________________ A small freighter, the former property of the droid boss of Black Sun, cut through the dust-churned air. Inside, the autopilot mechanically gave repeated status updates to the lone neimoidian sitting at the helm. Nok barely paid attention. His focus was on the reports and orders being frantically relayed between the Sovros officers. A full rout. The rebels had managed a full rout. Nok's fingers twitched as the implications of his worst case scenario unfolded before him. House Sovros would be cutting him out at minimum. Darth Zayira would be after him personally for this disgrace to her burgeoning reputation. Contractually Nok owed them nothing, but that would hardly matter for insecure heiress's vendetta. Plus, Nok had no spice to guarantee his hold on Mon Cal, and if the reports were accurate his would-be drug lord had been in the vicinity of several large explosions and hadn't emerged. "Approaching warehouse. Setting down," the autopilots tinny voice rattled off emotionlessly. ______________________________________________ "You're still alive..." Nok stared down at what remained of Shimsinblimp. It was borderline miraculous that the tough spice jacker was still breathing. His pain, muted by his weakness and flickering consciousness, stood out to Nok as a deep, dull thrum. Staring down at him, Nok clenched his fists. His gray-green skin tightened and paled as pure wrath flooded his carefully controlled demeanor. Nok hated. He hated like he had never hated before. This failure...this catastrophe...how dare these idealistic, subservient, moronic...rebels ruin his plan? For what? To save a scummy asteroid like Kessel? They'd fought and died for this garbage scow of a world? This victory was worth the lives they'd tossed away to get it? It was irrational. It was ignorant. It was stupid. And that stupidity had cost Nok. Their suicidal, insecure need to believe in a fantasy and go out in a blaze of glory because they couldn't handle reality had put Nok's plan in jeopardy. The rubble rattled as Nok's pure bile poured out of him and churned the Dark Side. Then he was in control again. The hate did not leave or diminish, but his rationality took the controls back. It was the way of the universe that fools hindered the intelligent. It was childish to think otherwise. Nok channeled his hate, lightly touched the Force, and lifted the prostrate, mutilated troig. "You represent a significant investment. Survive if you can."

Force Blast AKA: Infinite Hatred Force Blast is one of the purest manifestations of the Dark Side a Sith has available to them. Commonly mistaken to be exclusive to sorcerers, this technique can be used by any Sith, though it bears risk when used by amateurs or the careless. The technique of Force Blast itself is deceptively simple. By distilling their intense hatred directly into the Force and out of their hands, the user creates a surge of visible, corrosive energy appx. 6 ft in diameter that burns through inanimate matter and flesh alike. This can either be released in a single, powerful burst or a sustained stream, usually extending 10 - 15 feet. While not usually lethal in quick bursts, the caustic power begins to break down any material subjected to it, leaving flesh painfully burned, armor deteriorated, and the mind assaulted by screams of pure hate. Wielders of this power are known to use it to burn through walls and even blast doors given enough time. However, despite being relatively simple to conjure, the power proves difficult to wield. An apprentice or amateur Force-user trying to wield this technique will almost certainly fail to contain the power and severely burn their hand(s) for a single, brief blast. A sustained surge can leave their arms black and useless, and if used for too long or too often can result in their flesh and bone crumbling to ash. A Sith Lord skilled in the technique would have better control, but sustained use would still see their hands and arms damaged more and more with each second. Only true masters of the Dark Side, cultivated vessels of hatred, have little to fear from using this ability. Since the ability requires the user to be deep within the Dark Side and overwhelmed by their own emotions, most don't feel this damage right away. Many who prefer lightsaber combat don’t see the handicap of damaged hands worth the inexorable destruction of the technique, and the power has a reputation among Sith duelists as being inferior to the more commonly used Force Lightning. Bolt of Hatred AKA: Sutta Chwituskak, Flung Spears Sorcerers, unsatisfied with the potential backlash of a Force Blast, developed this spell as a solution. By refining the destructive energy of their hatred with Sith magic, a sorcerer gathers the power into a small sphere which they can then fling at their enemies without fear of self injury. This also greatly extends the range. On the battlefield, sorcerers have been recorded projecting the deadly magic over 500 ft. into clusters of their enemies. The tradeoff to this control is that the energy, while just as corrosive and hateful, isn't nearly as widespread, each orb usually only the size of a fist. To make a comparison, if a Force Blast is a flamethrower, a Bolt of Hatred is a blaster. Focused, but limited. The spell itself is relatively straightforward for those with a gift for Dark Side magic, able to be cast with a hand gesture and an arcane word.

Two clones dropped immediately, the first with a sizzling hole in his neck and the second with a blaster bolt through his left eye. A third stumbled as the crimson energy pinged twice off his breastplate before punching through and leaving a smoking hole in his gut. The other two, to their credit, didn't panic. Flash-training and drills robbed them of their survival instinct, and they dropped to prone out of practice instead of fear. They returned fire, sending their own green blaster fire pocking into the wreck of the X-wing. Unfortunately, a rigid, ingrained compulsion to follow orders left the clones with a significant weakness. Their commander. With orders to take her alive at all costs, including their own lives, they didn't aim to kill but just to scare her back behind her cover. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Aboard the Hoat'te's Legacy, Captain Hoat'te watched three of his clones dropped. A twi'lek, his heavily pierced lekku wrapped around a muscled, tattooed neck, his yellow eyes focused on the brief, fuzzy image of his prize's face as she mowed down his men. "Just one rebel, and three die in seconds. Pathetic." He keyed into his comm. "Send out five of the shock troops. Flush her out of there." He paused as he stared at the screen, his own clones returning fire. "And ready my mount. I want to take her into custody personally." ____________________________________________________________________________________ Another five figures descended the ramp, the deeper thuds of their footfalls hinting at the tall, heavily armored humanoids that emerged. Decked out in the same green and gold gleaming plate as the zabrak troops, these tall figures might have gone unidentified had they not growled in anticipation of the violence. Wookiees, hairless by genetic design, and bred for equal parts obedience and ferocity. Each bore a heavy repeating blaster straight out of the clone wars, modified and gilded to match the opulent garb of the slave soldiers. The weight of the weapons didn't seem to register to them as they all broke into a sprint, moving to flank around the X-wing on each side and catch the rebel holdout in a pincer movement.

The lightsaber passed by R3-M0's head, missing by centimeters as the droid came rolling down the ramp...no, the wall! The wall... Nok's hand flicked again, and the lightsaber spun midair and came flying back down the hall. Except this time it wasn't aimed at Remo. With one more flourish, it twisted and buried itself into the wall...and the active plasma conduit behind it. Blue energy, hidden from Nok's blind eyes, exploded out in sparking, crackling force. The little droid was flung headfirst into the opposite wall, a single, high-pitched beep accompanying the sudden blast of power. Bolts of electricity played across its surface even as its metal frame blackened under the flood of raw plasma. The moment was over as quickly as it started, Naboo safety features kicking in to close off the leaking conduit, but the damage was done. The droid lay on the floor, lights off, smoke rising from between its joints. Nok got up, face still alight with pain, and shuffled over. He extended his hands, and the shotos flipped into his palms. He weighed them absentmindedly before clipping them onto his belt, adding his own stolen lightsaber after a moment's thought. His pain echoed in the Dark Side, and Nok focused and felt along those currents until he sensed the droid's inner workings. The power core, the fuel reserves...and the cognitive module. Nok gripped the little device with the Force. "Good fight...lord of Black Sun... I wonder, what would you have done to the universe had you lived?" Nok paused, for how long he couldn't have said. Eventually, he shook his head. "It doesn't matter." He crushed the module. ________________________________________________________________________________________________ "Sir! The shields just dropped!" Kelzin took his eyes off the fierce dogfight. "How many landing craft do we have left?" "We've lost one Sentinel, and one of the Gozanti dropped its Juggernaught!" Kelzin cursed. The rebels weren't even supposed to be here! "Wait, the Juggernaught...the troops..." "As far as we can tell, they're still alive inside. Do you want us to turn back for them?" "No, if we break formation these scum will take us apart!" Whoever these fighter pilots were, they were deadly. "Commence our landing run!" With a single command, the formation of House Sovros ships shot forward, weapons quieting even as their thrusters flung them towards the planet at top speed. Fire peppered their sides as they disengaged, and one of the Sentinels erupted in smoke, only to emerge trailing the black plume but still airborne. The Empire had built things tough back then. The ships only barely vibrated as they breached the atmosphere, the thin air providing little friction or obstacle. The fearless, brainwashed clone pilots pulled away to their designated landing zones, intent on the atmospheric factories and the key to victory over Kessel. "Sir! We've detected a flare! It's...two miles from atmosphere factory 2! Looks like a rebel ship crashed. That's Captain Hoat'te's target. Shall I redirect him?" "Negative. He is to proceed to his target." "...Sir, Captain Hoat'te just changed course. He's headed for the ship." Kelzin, teeth gritted but without a trace of surprise on his face, activated the comms. "Jol you son of a kriffing-" "Save it H'nabro! Glory to the Hoat'te line! Glory for the Sith!" The line cut. Kelzin pounded the dash. "Sir...what should we..." "Leave him to it. Hoat'te's wife will shoot him herself when she finds out about this stunt, unless that's an important rebel he captures." "And if it's an important rebel?" "Then she'll congratulate him in public and slit his throat when they're alone. Focus on our own factory. Bring us in for a landing." ________________________________________________________________________________________________ The Sentinel-class shuttle, garishly marked Hoat'te's Legacy, touched down 100 yards from the crashed rebel ship, it's rear facing its target. The ramp lowered, and 10 zabraks, clad in green and gold armor, marched off in near mindless unison into the dusty terrain. Blaster rifles pointed towards the enemy vessel, they slowly approached.

Nok's scream didn't stop. Fear, anger, pain, and hatred all blended as Nok surged to his feet and howled at the approaching droid, even as he scrambled backwards to give himself a few more seconds. Not fast enough though. R3-M0's blades came closer and closer, his speed outpacing Nok's agonizingly slow acceleration. In a fit of panic, Nok thrust out with the Force at the ground, the walls, and himself, flinging himself backwards in an awkward, stumbling lunge that banged him against one wall before sending him spinning and sliding down a ramp. The pain that was the price of such a graceless maneuver was an undertone to the blaring orchestra of agony in his face. And then he was past it, past the deafening roar of his emotions. Just like at Mon Cal, Nok was deep in the Force. He felt, but he didn't experience. He understood, but he didn't think. If his emotions were a raging sea, then he'd just forced underwater. The intricacies of the Dark Side, hidden truths far beyond his reach, teased and tempted. Nok's mind and spirit stretched, but that power was beyond him...for now. It was easier this time. Not by much, but a little. And that power, so far, was just a little closer. I will not die here droid. Following a plan that he couldn't remember devising, Nok unclipped the lightsaber at his belt. Stolen from the corpse of the Zeltron gunslinger on Mon Cal, Nok had barely held the weapon, much less learned how to wield it. If he tried to match the droid saber-to-saber, Nok was just as likely to decapitate himself as fall to the mechanical crime boss's weapons. Instead, he pointed the weapon away from himself, and activated the saber. A bright green blade hissed to life...and Nok let go. He wrapped the hilt in the grip of his desire and sent it flying up the ramp with an intuitive ripple in the Force. He lifted his hand, ready to angle the path of the saber towards the hopefully oncoming R3-M0. TLDR: To escape Remo's oncoming attack, Nok threw himself (unskillfully) down the hallway with the Force, banging himself up and sending himself tumbling down a ramp. He has activated his lightsaber and sent it telekinetically up the ramp, hoping to catch Remo. ((3))

Originating thousands of years before the Great Sith War, Sith sorcerers developed the art of Mechu-deru as a way to manipulate technology. Despite its wide variety of uses, the art saw less and less practice as time went on, though a small group of Jedi specialists managed to create their own form of the art after observing its use. Note: For PC droids and owned NPC droids, along with PC cybernetics and personal equipment, consider mechu-deru to be equivalent to the Jedi mind trick in restrictions. Your strong will protects your technology, and PC and strong-willed NPC droids can resist being directly manipulated. This doesn't extend to larger pieces of tech like ships or vehicles. Comprehension: The first and most basic art of mechu-deru, this ability allows a user to sense and comprehend mechanical systems. For most this ability only accounts for the purely physical, but true masters can perceive and interpret electronically stored data with intense concentration. This is usually a moot distinction as mechu-deru practitioners can often hack computer systems using the next level, Control, thereby forcing a computer to willingly reveal its secrets. Control: Once a student of mechu-deru can perceive mechanisms, they learn to control them. This ability only functions on sufficiently complex devices. A good rule of thumb is that a device is complex enough to be controlled if it is linked with a computer (or is a computer). A blast door or droid could be controlled, but a blaster or lightsaber couldn't. For most this functions as temporary, brute force commands overriding a mechanism's function, with the device either reverting to normal behavior or breaking down afterwards. Masters of mechu-deru can be more precise and thorough, intuitively adding or rewriting code to keep a device behaving as desired even after they've stopped influencing it. Droids or technicians who are aware of and/or experience mechu-deru can install specialized, unconventionally patterned circuitry to foil a user’s intuitive grasp on their tech. This does not render it/them immune to mechu-deru, but does make it/them more resistant to its effects. Assembly: Once a user of mechu-deru has a solid handle on Control, they can begin Assembly. This application of the art takes existing tech and recombines it into new, cobbled forms to suit the user. A collection of droid arms and a few power supplies might weave themselves into a multi-limbed arachnid, or the gutted remains of a starfighter and some freight lifters might be cobbled into the rough form of a quadruped that follows the user's mental commands. The most often used and basic form of this power is converting any handy mechanical parts and devices into tendrils of scrap that the user then controls. Any creation made with Assembly is inherently unstable and requires constant low-level concentration from the user to keep it functioning and held together. Transformation: A more complex and permanent version of Assembly, Transformation marks a user’s beginnings of true mastery of mechu-deru. This ability, which usually takes between several minutes to several hours depending on the complexity and scale of the project, takes existing tech and reshapes it to the preferences of the user. This is unlike Assembly which only cobbles together what’s already present. This can be used to make something created through Assembly stable and permanent, or to adapt something to a new purpose. A blaster rifle might be altered to a short range laser drill, or sabotaged to explode when used. A nav-computer might be redesigned into a droid brain or a targeting system. The rule of thumb is to evaluate how close the current tech is to what the user wants it to eventually do. While the function might be different, it should still be within the same “family” as the original function. It’s also important to keep in mind the limitations of what the user has to work with. The example of a blaster being converted into a laser drill is possible, but will likely draw far more power than what the blaster has available, and will need additional components to function for any useful amount of time. Repair: Repair is a refined version of Transformation, compelling a damaged mechanism to reassemble itself into its previous functional state, provided the parts (or suitable replacements) are present and not completely destroyed. Note: The following techniques, due to their immoral and warped nature, are exclusive to Dark Side users. Infection: The first of the Dark Side advancements of the art, Sith Sorcerers are able to use Infection to imbue a sufficiently complex device or computer system with an element of their malice. This corrupts the technology into a murderous, hateful creature that only desires to torment and kill anything outside of itself. More complex subjects show more signs of intelligent behavior but are also more difficult to infect. Even a master will be unable to infect anything greater than a droid, though a cabal of sorcerers working together could theoretically infect something greater. The entity will usually target the weakest and most vulnerable victims first, so a sign that something infected is on the loose might be the conspicuous absence of droids and maintenance workers. This behavior will continue as the evil creature works it's way up to more difficult targets, until it is either found out and eliminated/purged or it runs out of victims, at which point it enters a state of stasis. It should be noted that the creator of the entity has no control over it, and in fact it seems to have specific resistance to its creator's use of mechu-deru. Also, with all else being equal, it will prioritize its creator's destruction before other potential targets. Some of the most intelligent of these entities have gone so far as to create intricate plots to cause the suffering and demise of the sorcerer who created it. This makes the technique of Infection a risky move, and it is wise for a sorcerer to avoid infected systems once the spell has taken hold, especially droids with their innate potential for independence. Infection is a tool of sorcerers overconfident in their strength, ambitious enough to take the risk, or desperate enough to have no other choice. Replacement: While true healing is beyond the capacity of the Dark Side, the technique of Replacement can serve as a close substitute. A specialized combination of Transformation and basic elements of Infection, a Dark Side user can take technology and change it to replace lost flesh. Metal plating can serve as skin, tubing can double as veins, etc. The graft is unconsciously sustained by the user, and can be swapped out for better parts if they become available. Skilled users can even add functional augmentations like weapons from what they have available. There is a hidden downside to the technique however. Any flesh replaced in this way will never heal, even with the use of bacta. Cloned grafts and transplants will be numb, lifeless, and quickly rot. Even if a whole limb were replaced with a transplant where only a portion of the previous limb had been replaced with technology, that portion would inevitably turn lifeless and rot away on the new limb. The mind is incapable of comprehending the need for flesh in any part of the body where this dark magic is employed. Conversion: The darkest art of mechu-deru, this technique requires the sorcerer to craft a seed mechanism, a dust sized speck of metal that nevertheless requires days of precise rituals and meditation to create. If this seed is injected or ingested into a living creature, the sorcerer can awaken it, causing it to begin converting the victim into an amalgamation of technology and flesh over the course of several days, though legends speak of masters accomplishing the transformation in mere minutes. The resulting creature, a technobeast, has had its will broken by the process and is under the sorcerer's control. However, a potential victim can resist the transformation altogether and exhaust the seed through sheer force of will. Note: While willpower is the in-universe reason this power may not work on a PC or owned NPC, it should be emphasized that Conversion is only to be used with the consent of the other player.

Nok's jaw clenched as this hiss of those twin ancient weapons coupled with the buzz of an R-units electroshock probe. Of COURSE this kriffing thing has lightsabers! Why the **** not!? His spiking, brain-stem fear had painted a clear picture of the little death machine rocketing off the ground and its weapons coming out to bear. Nok had no room. He couldn't dodge in time. But he could fall. Nok dropped to his back and kicked off the console with his feet, sliding across the floor on a film of blood. There was no point in protecting the console. The program was ready to activate, and Nok could just do it from a different console if it came down to it. Gyroscopic law. A spinning object doesn't change orientation quickly. Neimoidian biology. A neimoidian's head is quite high off the ground. Nok grinned as he predicted he would pass right under the droid. Thermodynamics. Rocket exhaust burns. Nok fought to not open his mouth to scream as he passed under the murderous R-unit and got a scorching soak from the spinning mob boss's oxidizing fuel. His combat leather insulated his body from most of the burns and didn't catch fire, but his face was another matter. A landscape of pain erupted across his bare skin, and his elegant, silken red blindfold ignited and blackened. As he slid past one of the other burning bodies and came to a stop halfway through the hall, he tore it off and threw it aside, revealing what was underneath. Framed by blistering, raw flesh stripped back by fire, Nok's ruined eyes were the star attraction of a horror show. The skin around the skull-like empty sockets was black, scarred, and necrotic with Force corruption. Where the stiff flesh had cracked under the fire it oozed a faint, yellow fluid. The stench of old sickness and gangrene mixed with the meaty fragrance of burning meat. Nok did scream then. In pain, in rage, in hatred, there were no words in his mind, just raw emotion directed at this little trash can that had arrogantly dared to think Nok was beneath it. The Force roiled around him, the Dark Side pooling and unraveling invisibly into threads and waves. Nok extended his hands, pain and vitriol mixing into something primal, and grasped at those currents of power. No gentle, intuitive control this time. He wrapped his will in the Force around R3-M0's companion, the droid Nok had driven the knife into, and tried with all his power to throw it at the spinning master of Black Sun. TLDR: Nok dropped to the ground, slid across the blood-slick floor under Remo's lightsabers and electroprobe, and got a faceful of fire. Channeling the pain, he's trying to throw Zepex at his master. ((2))

Nok stopped moving. Very slowly, he turned his head and raised his hands. His blindfolded eyes stared into space as his own fear painted the room, that sudden rush of adrenaline when something surprises you followed by the electric chill that comes when you realize it's something dangerous. Nok took a breath, letting that emotion sink in as he moved past his physical senses and unraveled into the Dark Side. This world was strong in it. Centuries of suffering, fear, and death piled onto one another into something you could almost taste in the air, behind the stink of freshly dead bodies and burning plasma impurities. "Master R3...ah, Master Remo. I'm honored. I did not think I would ever meet the master of Black Sun. I'd bow, but I'm afraid you'd shoot me if I tried." The console behind Nok beeped, and he fought to keep a grimace of annoyance off his schooled expression. His program was done. The entire relay station was set to send an unprotected pulse to the shield generator, forcing an emergency shutdown. If Nok had done it right, and if he knew anything about the old shield generators they used on this rock, they'd be down for almost 20 minutes. Plenty of time for House Sovros' clones to take the atmosphere factories. The problem, appropriately enough, was the Naboo dedication to safety. A pulse like that would trigger a break and just cut power. The shield would be weaker, but not down. Unless, of course, someone pulled the manual override lever before the pulse got sent. The manual override lever on the wall directly behind the psychotic little droid and his henchman. Nok had heard of R3-M0. A dangerous criminal in control of more dangerous criminals, who regularly matched up against the darkest and most depraved elements in the galaxy. Black Sun didn't have the reach it once did, but every action of the mastermind in that durasteel dome that rippled through the underworld promised big things. "It seems you've caught me at a bad time Master Remo. And given your...independent affiliation I can only assume you're here to lay claim to this little rock same as us. Perhaps we can work something out? I might have something I can-" Nok's fingers barely twitched as he touched on the Force, the swirling eddies of energy around responding like the strings of a harp to second-year student. Not perfect, but passable. One of Nok's knives tore free of its sheath and launched itself through the air at the droid's henchman. ((1))

There were a lot of things that Nok might have guessed would be useful in getting inside the shield relay station. His weapons, his growing mastery of the Force, his experience in sabotage... His neimoidian sense of smell was not on that list. Nok had been jogging towards the shield relay station, relying on the spoken instructions of his comm device to compensate for his blindness. He had estimated he was less than a mile out when an acrid stench wafted past him. Nok's neimoidian scent glands, not covered by his respirator, got a full blast of the odor, and even as his eyes watered the smell triggered a memory. Nok had once owned a small ore refinery that had smelled just like this, and if he remembered right it had come from the building's old generator. A Naboo model, it had been built to run off of Naboo-mined plasma. When the whims of history ensured that the sparkling blue stuff was too expensive to import, people like Nok had turned to artificially grown plasma to keep their machines running. Problem was the impurities in the manufactured plasma burned up when it was used, and it stank like nothing Nok had ever known. And if they were using artificial plasma, then they were using a Naboo model generator, and Nok had crawled around in his own generator enough to know the usual layout. Granted, he'd been doing it to blow it up in an insurance scheme, but he figured the experience translated. Mentally chuckling at how uncreative he'd been in those early days, Nok had followed his "nose" to find the exhaust port, and as he predicted there had been a maintenance hatch. It was locked and sealed of course, but once again the Naboo obsession with safety measures got Nok what he wanted. A slight Force push on the right mechanisms inside the door and he tricked it into thinking there was a sudden pressure build-up inside and that someone was trying to work the inner latch. With a hiss and a squeal it popped open, and Nok crawled down into it and towards the relay station. Now, Nok was hooking up his datapad into the station's main computer. The bodies of two techs who'd had the misfortune to be doing maintenance lay a few feet behind him, bleeding out from the necks. The twitching body of an astromech lay a couple yards further back, the blast mark on its head smoking. So long as he wasn't interrupted, this wouldn't take long...

CLACK! The sound of plasteel body armor striking metal caught Nok's attention through the din of tumbling droid parts. It had come from...below. The Jedi must have fallen. Nok struggled to pin-point his fallen foe, his pain and fear slowly dissipating from fresh clarity to a muffled echo. He stalked as silently as he could, remembering his lessons from Mistress Rill. The old noghri had been vicious and had left him with more bruises and cracked knuckles then lessons, but she'd managed to instill the basics of stealth in the affluent neimoidian. It took several long, agonizingly slow moments, but Nok finally positioned himself above where the Jedi must have fallen. His fear and pain, still fading but not gone yet, rippled out from him. He focused beneath him, bringing the faded shapes into sharper clarity by will and desire. There. There was the armor. But...then where was...? ((3))

Silence. Pure, perfect, dead silence. Without his sight, the lifeless void was a great blank as the others spread out away from him in the descent. So, it jarred him when his comm crackled to life. Shimsinblimp knew those ships weren't set to arrive until after some of the ground defenses had been cleared and a landing zone was prepared, and there was no way they'd managed that. If Nok changed the plan, House Sovros could declare the contract invalid and leave them all with nothing. But the troig was also a capable commander and experienced raider. Nok grimaced, hesitated, then resolutely pressed the switch of the subspace transceiver. _____________________________________________________________________________ Kelzin H'nabro stared out the viewport of his ship at the roiling nebula. "Adjusting thrusters to compensate for drift," his first officer muttered from his console, voice bored and listless. "Kriffing Maw," Kelzin cussed, just as lifelessly. This was the worst part. Waiting. "Commander, there's still time..." Kelzin rubbed his forehead. "What are the odds right now?" "3 to 1 that we get sent home, no combat." Kelzin could understand the men's reasoning. Half of combat was positioning, advancing and retreating, fleets chasing tails. This was Kessel. Even under the thumbs of criminals, attacking it was...well it was something you just didn't do on a whim, and every crewman here (at least the nobles) could see a cobbled together attack when they were sitting at the helm of one. The commoners...well, they were brainwashed clones. They spoke when spoken to. They thought as they were directed. They didn't really have an opinion on the matter. But Kezlin knew something his fellow Force-less nobles didn't. He knew his wife. Darth Zayira, a woman with a vicious streak to match a nexu and an ambition that could out hunger a sarlacc. But more than anything else, she had an insecurity so deep it was swimming around the core of Onderon. No way would she just pull them back, not with her uncle watching. And if Kelzin failed her...well, she had two other husbands, and one of them actually was Force-sensitive. "Fine. Give me 800 crowns on the long shot. There's going to be a battle, and more than that we're going to be walking on that scummy asteroid in 24 hours." He saw his first officer shrug as he lazily keyed in his commander's bet. "It's your money...sir." As if the universe had a sense of humor, the light on Kelzin's console blinked to life. It was a small thing, but every set of shoulders on the bridge of the VT-49 Decimator tensed at the tiny click. Kelzin grinned. "We're on." _____________________________________________________________________________ The nebula parted, and a wedge of ships in tight formation raced out of it. Their sensors parsed the dogfight in front of them even as they became visible to others. At the head of the formation flew the blade of the tiny fleet. A VT-49 Decimator, the old imperial ship painted green with brilliant gold patterns lining the wings in opulent, overwrought designs. Etched in flowing script, the bow of The Eldest proudly proclaimed its name to the stars. Less extravagant but matching in green and gold, 4 Guardian-class corvettes spread out on each side of the lead ship, the 8 vessels forming the blades of the arrowhead. Hanging in the center, 5 Sentinel-class landing craft and 2 Gozanti-class carrier corvettes kept pace. The Gozantis each bore a HAVw A5 Juggernaut. The heavy wheeled vehicles bore blaster scars that poorly matched the polished fleet, but looking carefully one might see pilots waiting patiently for the land battle where they would demonstrate their real value. Completing the advancing force, 20 HH-87 Starhopper fighters screamed out of the concealing gases and fanned out, screening the tiny fleet. _____________________________________________________________________________ "Sir! Fighters ahead! Counting...X-wings...E-wings...My'tils...Javelins...Still working on the final count sir." "What? They're already-" "Sir! They're engaging the Kessel defense forces! And..." The first officer paused as he enlarged the still image of one of the Javelins on his screen, or more to the point, the image of the insignia emblazoned on it. Kelzin's teeth gritted. "Rebels. Of course." "Orders?" Kelzin's stance changed. His spine turned to iron. He pointed forward, the image of resolute and commanding. "Advance! Cover the transports to the landing zone! Anything gets close, you destroy it. Do not pursue. Fighters! Fan out another 100 meters and harry anything that tries to approach. Don't be brave, just keep them off us until we can get these troops on the ground." The fighter pilots, flash-trained sullustan clones, gave no affirmation, instead simply obeying. "Sir, we'll be in firing range in 10...9...8" Kelzin's eyes narrowed. Well...this may be a challenge. He smiled. _____________________________________________________________________________ Nok only had a moment as his own fear illuminated the ground to his peculiar sight before he struck it. He managed to turn it into a half-decent roll, and the clunky suit absorbed the rancor's share of the impact. Unfortunately, it left him bruised, stunned...and on his back. He struggled, flailing in an inelegant way for almost a minute as his faculties returned to him. He then realized two things. He wasn't alone. They weren't Shimsinblimps men. "Alright drunk spider," one of the men surrounding him, fear and anger pouring off him in equal measure, barked. The other two laughed nervously, and Nok could only assume it was a local joke. "Don't move, or we help you out of that armor with these." He hefted a serious looking blaster rifle in his hand and pointed it at Nok. The other two held their rifles at the ready, but were more focused on checking their surroundings than on Nok. "Of course, of course," Nok said, voice measured even as his rage, humiliation, and fear mixed inside him into some strange emotional bonfire of indeterminate quality. "I won't move a muscle." He reached out with the Force. He had one good trick, and while his knives were under the bulky suit, the scumbag guards (weequay he realized) had provided him with the tools he needed. The blaster rifle of the most distracted guard jerked to one side. With his nerves as thin as paper, he fired out of panicked instinct, and promptly dropped the guard who'd been hovering over Nok to the ground with a scorched hole in his shoulder and a string of Huttese curses. Dumbfounded, he only had a moment to consider as the third guard raised his own blaster at the supposed traitor's head, screaming "Drop your gun or I'll shoot!" "I...what?" stuttered the befuddled guard. Nok chuckled. "He asked you." Then he touched the Force again, and the trigger of the third guard's gun pulled back a few hair's breadth, and the second guard collapsed, lifeless and smelling of burnt grey matter. The third guard wheeled on Nok. "You're doing this!" "Too late." The first guard's gun, levitating into the air behind the third guard, went off at Nok's tiny gesture, and the third guard fell silent for good. "You...you...kriffing...magician!" The first guard, now disarmed and writhing, only managed the fractured sentence through a thick blanket of pain. "No need to be disrespectful." Nok turned the gun even as he lay, now relaxed, on the ground. It rotated, then fired once...twice...and the guard joined his friends in the Force's final embrace. A few clicks and Force-propelled pieces of armor later, Nok was free and standing. He grabbed his comm and spoke into it, collected and feeling rejuvenated by the bursts of dark power the violent deaths had released. "The fleet is on its way. We clear a landing site now. According to my comm's locator...I'm near one of the power relay stations. I should be able to disable one of their shield generators from there. Any assistance would be appreciated, but no matter what we need to clear the guns from this area...or at least blind them somehow." Nok started walking.

6 hours earlier. Aboard The Bleeding Edge "And finalized." The voice coming over the comm was deep, clipped, and refined. While Nok could not see the hologram, he was familiar enough with the current Darth Sovros' reputation to pay careful attention to every word said. "Thank you Uncle." This voice, coming from the comm on Nok's left, was feminine and radiated the naked ruthlessness of the privileged. Darth Zayira. Niece of Darth Sovros. Nok Morliss' newest business partner. "And the terms of the contract are understood by both sides?" Sovros asked, sounding almost bored. "We wouldn't want misunderstandings clouding up this deal, assuming success." His tone remained level, but Nok imagined Darth Zayira shivered with him at the implied meaning. As the witness to the contract, Darth Sovros would take it upon himself to hunt down and destroy any party who violated the agreement. Even his own family. Perhaps especially then. "Of course Uncle." Nok thought he caught a slight tremor in her voice. "You understand, neimoidian, that my ships won't jump until we have confirmation that the defenses are down?" Nok took a moment to collect himself before responding. "Yes. Just keep your forces in the nebula and wait for our signal." There was silence, and even over the hologram Nok imagined he could feel Darth Zayira's glare. "Don't waste my time...apprentice. House Sovros-" She stopped midsentence. Nok didn't know what Darth Sovros was doing, but it was apparently enough to make the haughty noble back down. There was a blip as Darth Zayira disconnected, leaving Nok alone with the infamous Darth Sovros. "...One chance neimoidian." Then another blip, and Nok was alone. Present, aboard The Tortuga Nok slipped the last latch shut, the hiss of the suit pressurizing distracting him from the resentment and nervousness of the men around him swirling through the enclosed space. This is it. As the void of space opened up, Nok sensed something was ending for him. This was the true end of his time hiding in the shadows, living off the margins. He jumped out. The small voice from Mon Cal, from the deepest, scarred parts of his mind, spoke up then. Dead in the cold and dark.

"Excellent. It'll be a few days at the least until I can set my end in motion. Besides, I have some of my own projects I'd like to work in the meantime. Leave a way for me to contact you, and I'll let you know when things are ready on my end and we can plan the operation." "Oh," Nok said standing and bowing his head to the Troig, "and it's Nok Morliss." He smiled. _________________________________________________________________________________________________ Nok shuffled through his office after the Troig had left, the cowering Pantoran slave emanating fear. He ignored the artifacts scattered across the tables. They were nothing but old relics as far as he could tell. Valuable, but not useful. He'd love to do more in-depth analysis on them though, in the hopes they might lead him to a better cache, but they weren't what occupied his attention. Moving past them, he focused his attention on the droid chassis, sprawled and deactivated.. The guardian droid that had been either protecting or imprisoning that...thing in the tunnels. There were no records anywhere that mentioned a model that even resembled this thing. Ichtyoid head...likely a Mon Cal native design. Nok began disassembling the plating over the chest, find latches and switches by instinct and the unusual "vision" provided by his slave's fear. As he worked and considered the machine, his body relaxed. A tension that hadn't left since the caves was easing away as he lost himself in the droid's innards. This move...this takeover of the Shipyards...It was a perfect opportunity, the kind of thing businessmen and criminals dreamed of falling into their laps. Nok had been in the right place at the right time and had managed to come out the other side with the prize in his hands, but now he was exposed. Nok had always survived by never being noticeable. His businesses were always small, and half of them were legitimate if not ethical. He'd avoided purchasing a pylat bird, a huge status symbol among neimoidians, to avoid being noticed by his peers. He scattered his funds in dozens of vaults and accounts and under almost a hundred identities. But now he was out in the open. Now he had to answer to his investors who'd put up money to purchase the Shipyards. They'd already started seeing a return on their investment, but Nok knew better than to assume they'd just stay in the background. Now Nok was in bed with a criminal like Shimsinblimp, someone who would just as soon shoot Nok if he thought his new "partner" was a hindrance or cheating. Heck, now Nok was working with a psychotic killer droid with an ego the size of a purrgil. People would take shots at him now. He couldn't hide. The exposed wiring of the droid suddenly stood out in stark relief, and Nok realized why. He was afraid. Nok started to tamp it down, but stopped. He took a deep breath, and took the fear in. He let it build. He fed it. He ran through mental holovids of getting gutted by the psychotic Xar, or gunned down by the cold Shimsinblimp. Each played out in cold, full sensory detail, as if the Force mirrored his fears directly back into his mind. The Dark Side around him responded to his emotion, and he stood at the center stirring it into a maelstrom. He barely noticed his slave's terror spiking, or the artifacts on the tables rattling before falling off onto the soft carpet. He couldn't see the lights flicker or see the door panel flash and go dark. He sank further into his fear, becoming a part of the Force, unraveling until it wasn't even fear anymore. It was some hidden, roiling, dark mass in his chest that spread through his limbs. It compelled him to act. It willed him to fight. It demanded he take. Then something caught his attention. It almost knocked him out of his trance, but as the Dark Side twisted about him in invisible currents, something in the droid chassis was...diverting the flow. It was slight, but it was there. Nok brought his focus to bear through the haze, and saw what it was. In the palm of each hand, a small tablet of metal and circuits lay buried under the durasteel. It resonated with the power of the Dark Side. So...that's why I couldn't figure out how you generated those fields... He grinned. Someone used alchemy on you to make it happen. He flicked his hand out, and the call button at his desk across the room pressed down. As deep as he was in the Dark Side, it required as much mental effort as blinking. "Secretary. Have one of my security droids retrieve an item for my ship and have it brought to my office. It'll be cataloged as Item 81. The Art of Mechu Deru."

"A excellent operative, but still just one bot." "Hmm...any method of taking over is going to draw attention eventually, no matter how we do it. Smart people will connect the dots if we try to keep the Sith name off of it, and I think what little image the Sith Empire has will survive a dip with the spice trade. I'd hoped to use the Sith armada to do our dirty work for us...but maybe we can still use their troops. Not the jackbooted Sith troopers," Nok mused, popping another egg into his mouth, "but a more profit-minded force. House Sovros has strong interests in expanding their slave operation. They're proud and ambitious, and enough competition has jumped into the market for them to feel threatened. They've also got an insane military, all clones, perfectly loyal and controllable. If we offer them a good portion of the spice on hand, a contract to purchase slaves from them at standing market rate for the next few years, and supply our own troops to back theirs up, I could see them throwing some of their forces our way."

Nok didn't look up as the infamous spicejacker entered. He didn't need to, his senses picking up the traces of his secretary's fear as the criminal had passed, and the waves of anxiety rippling off of his new Pantoran slave filled in the rest of the blanks. He did however pause in his meal, his fork and knife hovering for several long moments as Shimsinblimp spoke, his very presence a blatant show of power and authority. Time would tell if the troig would deliver, but his reputation was enough to convince Nok not to bet against him. Good, he thought. He needed someone ruthless and unwilling to settle. His Pantoran slave, a young woman in chains, cowered in the corner. A delightful find, the woman apparently suffered from a mental disorder that left her with constant, low-level paranoia. The cost of her medication had lessened her value, and Nok had picked her up cheap as a result, ordering her over the Holonet from the market on Onderon. Dropping the dosage of her medication and keeping the source of now steady fear in his office had been like setting up a desk lamp, and now Nok could "see" Shimsinblimp easily, along with the rest of the room. From the front door to Nok's desk, the place was sterile and clean, the smooth lines Mon Calamari favored in their architecture evident everywhere. In the far corners, the space grew more cluttered. Table's of newly acquired Sith and Jedi relics that Nok had only started to examine as part of his hobby mixed with the latest in Mon Calamari tech, disassembled and scattered. On one table in particular rested a single droid chassis. Red, worn, and very old, the droid looked much as it had in the strange entity's chamber below the surface, the entity that had brought Nok to this world in the first place. Deactivated now, the droid was otherwise fully assembled aside from a missing panel here and there. Nok resumed eating, stabbing his fork into a small bird's egg before lifting it to his mouth and biting into the fatty morsel. "Have you ever had pylat eggs Master Shimsinblimp? They're a delicacy on my homeworld, very hard to get. The bird's are even harder, though I hope to have one of my own soon." Nok wiped his mouth with a napkin, and looked up to face the troig head on. "I agree entirely. Jacking shipments is a short-term solution for the size of the undertaking I hope to encourage on this world. If you're going to have a constant source of spice readily available to stream into the Mon Calamari markets, then we'll need a source, preferably under your control or the control of a friendly party." Nok picked another egg out of the thick, yellow sauce and popped it into his mouth, chewing and swallowing before continuing. "I don't need to tell you that the best source is Kessel." He held up his hands in a placating gesture. "I know, going after Kessel sounds crazy, but I think that there's an opportunity here. Kessel has remained out of the galactic war for some time now. The Sith are too enamored with bringing order to their conquered worlds to want to mess it up with drugs, and the rebels want nothing to do with that sort of thing. Kessel is essentially a non-target. However, I have a few contacts in the Sphere of Production, and I have it on good authority that if something were to compromise Kessel's defenses a nearby Sith fleet would jump on the chance to invade the world and make a tidy profit off of its subjugation. And after that...well, they need to sell spice to someone." Nok sat back, and waited for a response.

Yes! Got you! Nok grinned as the ripple of pain blossomed from the Jedi, emanating out and illuminating him...briefly. Nok's smile turned to a grimace as the Jedi asserted his control, already fading back into obscurity. Trained then. But he won't know where- Nok stumbled back out of surprise as his faint sensation of the Jedi showed the figure moving towards him. Quickly. The sound of an ignited lightsaber echoed through the factory. Nok perceived...something in the air. Not the Dark Side... The split second he had to question the sensation was followed by the answer as telekinetic power, broad and imprecise but still forceful, caught his back and sent him reeling forward again. BANG! Nok clanged into the side of the industrial press that gave him cover against the rapidly approaching Jedi. His head throbbed and his knees buckled as he fought to regain his focus. He realized that he had never needed to sense manifestations of the Light Side before. Absent the emotions Nok relied on, he wouldn't see them coming. Is it any different for you? Nok regained control, and the approaching Jedi was the perfect motivator for Nok's rising fear. He sank deep within himself, touched the Force, and unraveled. The Force swirled around him, stirred into a vortex by Nok's intensifying emotions. He gave himself over to the fear and let the cold clarity of the needling sensation take control. He raised his hand, and one of the vibroknives strapped to his wrist detached, hovering before him. A flick of his fingers, and it darted up above the press and spun menacingly down towards the rapidly approaching Jedi. Nok would have one shot before his enemy closed. The knife wasn't the attack though. Nok barely kept enough focus on it to keep it in the air and moving. As it approached, his other hand shot out, still hidden by the press, and he sent a blast of telekinetic force at the Jedi to match the one that had struck him.

Nok nodded graciously, first to Vizier, then to Xar. "My associate is correct. As I understand it, you are currently between markets after the political shifts on Nar Shaddaa. By the way, I'm genuinely sorry to hear about that. Time was you could get anything on Nar Shaddaa, and now..." If Nok regretted one thing about his injury more than anything else, the far and away 1st place winner was the ability to roll his eyes for effect. "However, talent like yours doesn't just lay down and die. I'm here, but not as a buyer." Nok turned the case so that only the table's occupants could see, pressed his finger against the reader, and opened it. Inside a soft, green glint radiated out. "20 kilos of refined nova crystals. Set in 0.5 kilo bars. No markings. No tracking devices. No radiation treatments." Nok pushed the open case over to Shimsinblimp. "This is a down payment for the job I'm hoping to hire you for. I want to hire you," Nok said, leaning back, "to sell spice. To be clear, I want you to set up a spice market here on Mon Cal, and I'm willing to pay to see that happen. And I'm not talking about a rodian on a corner lot peddling to academy brats. I want big. Global. It's why I'm coming to you. I need someone with experience in the business and the drive to build something here on Mon Cal, to take advantage of the opportunities a newly conquered planet offers for such ventures. I think you're that man. Why else would you be here after all?" Nok leaned forward again, serious. "I understand there's issues to resolve. Steady supply lines for one. But if you are looking to build something here on Mon Cal..." Nok smiled. "Then you could do far worse than to have a Shipyard's executive as an investor."

Nok stood behind what he guessed was an industrial press for stamping out droid chestplates, a suspended conveyor line entering one side of the mammoth machine bearing sheets of metal and exiting the other side carrying rough approximations of flattened torsos. The whole thing creaked, but otherwise gave no signs of stirring. Nothing in this factory did. A soft shuffle made Nok hold his breath. It had been faint, and he couldn't tell exactly where it had come from. Blind, the neimoidian relied on his sight within the Force to "see", but he needed the darker emotions like anger and fear to act as beacons to illuminate his surroundings. Right now his own low fear, a tension in his gut, softly stirred and swirled around him, but it wasn't enough to see whoever was here. No fear...Definitely a Jedi. Nok measured his breathing and continued to wait. It seemed his contact had come through. A single Jedi, an apprentice, alone in a factory on Mechis III and far away from any allies. Perfect. Nok needed to move up the ranks. He needed notoriety. He needed clout. He needed a reputation if Mon Cal was going to go his way. And what better way than killing a Jedi? True, a half-trained Jedi in an ambush, but a trophy lightsaber was still a trophy. Nok wasn't dressed in his usual robes, but in combat leathers. He slowly, painstakingly drew one of his vibroknives, and leaving it off he drew it across one of his fingertips. He winced at the pain, but grinned as that same pain rippled out in the Dark Side, illuminating the next few rows of the factory for him. And...yes...a faint impression of a man moving between the machines. There you are...Now, let's see if we can't scare you a little... Squeezing his finger to intensify the pain while crouching behind his machine to make sure he stayed out of sight, Nok saw the impression of another suspended production line a few feet away from the Jedi, this one bearing dozens of identical, humanoid left legs. Nok reached out with the Force, the intricacies of the energy filling the factory like the keys of an instrument. Just press here and... Three of the droid legs wrenched themselves off of their hooks and half spun, half tumbled towards the Jedi at Nok's gesture. Not enough to kill, but enough to bruise. ((1))