Corellia

[Onderin Starlisk]

The logic of the situation was agonizing and Onderin found himself once again weighing lives against others. In a battle against Qaela it was certain that there would be deaths, even if they were not his or hers. Furthermore, she could easily revert to the person she had been when Kirlocca had encountered her on Bespin--destructive to herself and others. He could not guarantee that she would not return to the Sith if he failed to capture her here or if she escaped custody at some later date.

 

And yet to overlook her crime would be to side against the law and all that was decent. She needed to learn that murder was not acceptable, and there was a significant portion of Onderin that wanted to fight it out, put her into prison and let her rot for a while. He had given her plenty of chances to redeem herself but now she had committed a considerable crime that had furthermore damaged his investigation. It didn't seem worth trying to control or trust her.

 

The Onderin Starlisk that had served in the war would have decided that was enough, and his lightsaber would have thrummed to life in his hand. But now, this Onderin took a deep breath and released his anger and frustration, his features softening. He listened to the Force, the echoes of many possible futures for the galaxy. Qaela's future was clouded, but he could sense potential for both great good and great evil. He saw how his decisions could change her life. He saw that the Force desired mercy above sacrifice, as it had told him when he had gone to Ilum with his apprentice Aira Cadan.

 

"Stand down," he told the CoreSec officers. "Qaela, the Force tells me that you still have a role to play in all of this. The future is ever in motion, and Faust is a threat greater than these troubles. Eventually, you will be held accountable for your crimes... but this is not the time for it."

 

Onderin looked at the officers. "I am taking this woman into my custody."

 

"You know the Jedi don't have the authority to do that, Master Starlisk," one of the officers said. "She's in our jurisdiction, and we're witness to her crime."

 

The Jedi Master shook his head and made a subtle gesture with his hand. "This case is an exception to the rule."

 

The officer shrugged and glanced at the others. "This seems like a good time to make an exception," he said. The others simply nodded and turned to leave.

 

Onderin stared grimly but expectantly at Qaela as they left.

[Vladimir Faust]

The tense showdown between Qaela and Onderon was something Faust could have readily exploited with ease, and probably provided the Sith ample room to turn Qaela back towards the dark, or sow distrust and dissention amid the Jedi's ranks. Sadly, Faust was otherwise occupied, and any agents who could have acted in his stead were unconscious or dead, one murdered and one having bled out from having bitten off his own tongue.

 

The AI on the Bhelliom avoided transmitting its findings back to Faust, knowing he was in a dangerous phase of his master plan- too weak to fend off legions of troops and squads of Jedi, but also having made a Galactic target of himself. Its biocomponents, made with Faust's own DNA, could act as a vessel for the Hunter's spirit if worse came to worse, or at least it could before Faust crossed the singularity line on Kashyyyk, but it could follow the reasoning of the will behind it. No report, no word of capture was brought back by those agents dispersed. While arrogant, there was also paranoia as well.

 

The remaining agents at the warehouse, as well as the FALZ units summoned to aid his initial strike are given short orders to use the warehouse's arsenal and make chaos if no word was heard back in time. As for the ship, it knew its master, being his cybernetic half, and knew there was always a plan B for these circumstances.

 

And for Faust, his plan "B"s usually involved one B element in particular, followed by a loud bang, and few survivors left to whimper in the aftermath.

[Qaela]

Despite the the master Jedi's seeming to relax, Qaela didn't let her guard down while the officers left. For all she knew, Starlisk was simply getting them out of the way so he and Ads could deal with her with fewer liabilities. She kept her grip tight on her spear and made sure to watch even Arleigh, though the girl didn't seem much of a threat at this point.

 

When the officers had left, she glared at Starlisk. The anger at him being so quick to turn on her had not lessened, neither had the impending sense of betrayal and hopelessness that was encircling her heart. "So, what do we do now? If you think I will be your prisoner, you are sorely mistaken."

[Onderin Starlisk]

Onderin shook his head. "What happens next is that you're going to help me find Faust," he said. "You're no more my prisoner than you were when we left Ilum." Well, technically, he probably wouldn't let her just leave whenever she wanted now. But she had reacted rather vehemently to the idea of them turning on each other now, and he suspected that she would want to at least see this out. The Force was urging him to be patient with her, but every time she seemed to make progress she pulled some stunt like this and made him think that the galaxy would be better off with her put away.

 

"Since you discarded our last lead so quickly and so permanently, I suppose you have a good alternative to follow up on. One that can be enacted without any knowledge of Faust's whereabouts, hideouts, or associates. Even Black Sun is notoriously difficult to find." The Black Sun Citadel was gone and the crime syndicate had seemed to go underground recently. But as he had said before, whatever they could do with Black Sun seemed unlikely to provoke a response from Faust.

[Vladimir Faust]

In short order, plan B and the Bhelliom took flight. The FALZ units and remaining agents struck for their targets quickly, going after what was a rebuilt Coronet Capitol Tower and the city's main spaceport. As a precaution, a few traps were left at the warehouse to try and kill the evidence trail... and anyone foolish or daring enough to try tracing Faust's actions back to him.

 

If Faust's agents hadn't been killed and could have at least attempted to lure everyone back to the warehouse in a nasty and personally deadly trap, this scenario might have been avoidable, but Faust was vicious and paranoid, and plan Bs of his tended to settle everything.

 

Plan B, was not for the Bhelliom, though Faust's ship was critical for the plan. It didn't involve Black Sun, though Faust supposed there was a chance that Silas and his group would profit from this. The plan B, that element Faust always resorted to when cleaning up a messy problem was baradium, and the all cleansing thermonuclear fire was good for disrupting weddings, funerals, and nosey Jedi on his trail.

 

The missile armed itself and sped off at top speed over Coronet City, the coordinates hardlocked into the missile's system and its deflector shields up. It would speed in, get within a short distance of the roof of the building, and detonate. The Jedi would certainly die, as would Faust's men, and probably everybody within a half-kilometer. Immediately after launching the missile, the Bhelliom, already accelerating at near its considerable top speed, pulled up hard and fast, skyward- it was sure to have picked up some detection from Corellia's space traffic controllers that would delay escape offworld (hence the deploying of the FALZ units to the space port), but mostly it was putting safe distance between himse- itself, from the missile it just launched. There were three minutes before it reached the exchange.

 

Once that safe distance was reached and there was minimal danger of being intercepted by Corellia's air and space forces, there were now two minutes and fifteen seconds before optimal detonation (though given the size of the blast radius, it was more like a minute-forty-five to avoid death at ground zero at the CSE), a comm goes out to the assembled Jedi and Faust's agents all on their private lines, carrying Faust's voice. It was arrogant, tipping his hand, though with this level of danger, there was a certainty that the Jedi's sixth sense for danger would be going ballistic.

 

Dust to dust, ashes to ashes, Jedi, though when I'm done, not even that will be left. Enjoy my little present.

 

With a minute-and-forty-five seconds until detonation, the question was raised: How do four Jedi stop a speeding baradium missile? And can it be done without destroying a large part of a major metropolitan area like Coronet and ending hundreds of thousands of lives even if they could somehow save their own skins?

 

((Intentionally not calling a killshot- but... have fun ))

[Qaela]

So Starlisk wasn't going to fight, at least not now. She still wasn't going to lower her guard, not with those CoreSec minions hovering around. "Black Sun is easy to find," she said dourly. "Their headquarters are on Dubrillion and they now control Cloud City on Bespin." She thought such information was fairly widely known, but perhaps not. Kirlocca had been on Cloud City, but she wasn't sure how much the Jedi shared information. She knew about Dubrillion because of ties to Ca'Aran, so that might be more difficult to figure out. "As for Faust, I told you—"

 

She stopped mid-sentence as her already on alert senses felt a familiar, sinking feeling. On Dagobah, the Sith known as Slicer had tried to kill her and her allies by bombing them with a missile fired from a ship. That had failed due to their depth underground, but the feeling of rapidly moving doom was not one she would likely forget any time soon. Her lips curled into a snarl as her first thought was that Starlisk or CoreSec had indeed betrayed her, but then her brain caught up with her heart. There was no way that Starlisk would order a strike on himself, not with Ads and Arleigh here. Seeing how much CoreSec and the Corellians nearly worshiped Starlisk, she thought it unlikely that they would kill him and another Jedi just because she killed an enemy slave. That left only one other person, and she was furious at the thought of being ambushed yet again.

 

"Incoming missile!" she breathed angrily. Her anger at someone trying to kill her twice in one day began to swell. Anger would only drive her to fury right now, and that wasn't what she needed. She needed clarity and focus, so she kept her mind as free of emotions as possible. She closed her eyes briefly and sought out the source of the threat. As with most Nightsisters (and plenty of Sith), she had always had a heightened sense of danger and threats that bordered on paranoia. While Faust's voice mocked them, she stretched her senses upward and out. It didn't take but a few seconds to sense a throbbing, pulsing sphere of danger streaking rapidly toward her.

 

She spat out a quick spell, but she wasn't strong enough on her own to physically move the missile up and away from them or anyone else. She needed more power, and conveniently there were two other sources of such power standing right next to her. Nightsisters often linked together to perform spells of greater magnitude, so it would be quite simple for her to link up with the two Jedi. She opened her eyes and said quickly, "I cannot move it on my own, I need more strength! Open yourselves to me and lend me your strength so I can move this missile away from us."

 

She knew it would be difficult for Starlisk to trust her, but unless he had another idea, they had few choices. Perhaps this would help convince him that she was on his side.

[Ads-Gop Flif]

Ads could tell something was wrong but he wasn't sure what. Whatever it was, it was dangerous. A voice spoke out from the Jedi'...the commlinks on the Jedi'...the commlinks that belonged to the Jedi ((seriously, does anyone know the plural possessive of Jedi?)). The man speaking didn't sound very nice. But seriously, how was it that everyone could hack everything? Was there no such thing as cybersecurity? Regardless, Ads was used to this sort of thing and didn't think anything of a bad, bad man speaking over his commlink. It sounded rather harsh. It sounded rather--

 

"Incoming missile!"

 

Oh. Then the voice wasn't very nice. In fact, it was quite maleficent. But that was only marginally important for the time being. You know what? You can skip this paragraph without really missing anything. With an incoming missile, it was definitely important that the voice meant to do evil and therefore the missile would not be full of confetti or kittens (don't worry, the kittens, due to their low terminal velocity, would likely survive falling from such a great height as established here and here). It was almost certainly a missile filled with death. Metaphorically, of course. So the killing everyone thing was probably more important than whether the voice actually meant to do harm. Good thing Ads didn't actually think all of these words though, this way they have a slightly improved chance of survival and saving the city (or at least the planet).

 

Qaela called out for assistance from the Jedi and Ads simply did what she said because it seemed like they would all be dead if he didn't. So he reached out to her and followed her lead. He let the Force flow through him. He could feel it swirling around him; he could almost see the gradient of the Force energy surrounding him. Through the Force, he burned bright and luminous as a star. The power of the force expressed itself strongly through him, the Force flowed across the Distance within a certain amount of Time, creating the Power. Scientifically speaking, that is. Conveniently, the Force didn't necessarily follow the laws of physics so it was still to be seen if their defense would be effective against the missile and its devastating yield.

[Onderin Starlisk]

Ads did not hesitate to join Qaela's effort and neither did Onderin. His considerable strength with the Force suddenly flooded into her and up into the sky as he reached out for the incoming warhead. The Force rushed through his body like an electric current, his mind suddenly clear of thought and ruled by purpose. And his purpose was very clear--the missile would turn up toward the sky and detonate as far above Coronet City as he could direct it. The nature of a blast of this magnitude would make it difficult to control, but he firmly believed that they could do this without casualties via the Jedi's ((plural possessive )) and Nightsister's combined strengths.

 

They would worry about Faust later. Right now, there was focus.

[Vladimir Faust]

The Bhelliom vanishes into hyperspace with a final message, leaving the blasted debris of a trio of HLAF-500 fighters in Corellia's orbit as the missile goes off. The sphere of absolute destruction explodes atop Coronet City. No buildings are caught in the radius, but the effects of a kilometer wide vacuum after the baradium went off still had a detrimental effect. Besides civilian and military craft scrambling to put out the Hunter's attack caught in the blast, the vacuum rattles buildings and breaks even the plasteel windos and permacrete structures of some the city's tallest structures.

 

The remaining FALZ units and agents obey their orders and engage in a fight to the death, presenting an obvious target at Corellia's busiest spaceport. However, unbeknownst to everyone, even the authorities taken aback and grappling with this sudden terrorist attack, a self-destruction timer starts slowly counting down at the warehouse base, ready to incinerate its cargo.

 

Faust's final message is one he's left before, but apt given his departure, and with an additional taunt, leading the chase all the way across the galaxy.

 

I leave you now and dodge your sorrow.

I'll definitely kill you on the 'morrow.

 

Thyferra awaits, soon to be plundered.

The Galaxy's healing supply will be sundered.

[Qaela]

To her relief, the others did not hesitate to open themselves and lend her their power. Qaela's pulse quickened as she felt energy wash over her. She had been the center of spells before while training, but not while able to wield this much power and certainly not while being connected to two Jedi who had equal potential. The power of the three Sisters she had been linked up with were much paler than the two whom she was now connected. With this power, she could do all sorts of things that she had only dreamed of. There was danger with having so much power flowing through her. Power of this magnitude could easily begin burning out her cells if it wasn't directed somewhere else.

 

The first thing she did was to address the situation on hand. With the added power, her efforts to move the incoming missile's trajectory were far more successful than before. With a grunt of effort, she began pushing it up and away from the ground. She kept on directing her efforts against it until she felt a massive tremor that shook the building and shattered glass.

 

Now that the missile was no longer a threat, she was able to relax her efforts and think about something other than immediate survival. For the briefest moments, she realized that she had control over the power of two Jedi, the very same two Jedi who moments before were ready to attack her. Self preservation rose up and she briefly considered how easy it would be to simply turn their power back on them. If she could move a missile, how much easier would it be to apply enough torque to their bodies shatter their spines?

 

She pushed this instinct down. The Jedi had indeed been ready to turn on her, but they hadn't. Furthermore, they had trusted her enough to give her their strength. It would be so easy to betray them and end their threat to her, but she couldn't. She had chosen her lot and would stick with it until the situation made it untenable. Her loyalty to Starlisk had nothing to do with convenience at this point and everything to do with an irrational emotion that she neither understood or wanted.

 

With a sigh, she released the power that had been given to her. The sudden loss of that much power left her winded and panting so she leaned against her spear. There was a good deal of chaos going on around them, but she had no fear of that. Her attention was focused on the Jedi to see what they would do next.

[Onderin Starlisk]

Onderin opened his eyes and stood from where he found that he had been kneeling. The detonation hadn't been completely harmless to Coronet City, but thousands of lives had been saved by three Force users working in concert.

 

The Jedi Master took a deep breath and let it out. "Officer," he said to one of the CoreSec agents standing nearby, wide-eyed at the spectacle and the disaster that had just been averted, "We're going to leave it to local security to track the missile and make whatever arrests are appropriate. We must get to Thyferra."

 

He turned to face Qaela. "Unless you object? Faust is leading us on, drawing us to fight on his terms. But I'm not certain we have any choice but to go and hope that we can make some move he doesn't expect or that his pride has overcome his judgment," he said. "The stakes are too high to waste any time."

 

As a former fleet admiral, Onderin hated being outmaneuvered and fighting on someone else's terms. That's how battles were lost. Unfortunately, Faust held all the cards. They would either need to find a way to turn things around on him or charge right through what he had waiting regardless of the cost or casualties to secure the objective no matter what.

[Darex Trevelian]

Just then, a message comes in for Onderin on his secure Jedi Council communicator from the Jedi Grandmaster.

 

((Check your PMs))

[Onderin Starlisk]

Onderin returns Darex's comm after a brief pause. Ultimately, it didn't change his immediate plans. For now they had to keep chasing Faust's leads around.

 

Unless Qaela had a better idea?

 

((Still waiting on you.))

[Qaela]

((Was waiting on Ads, but will move on))

 

Qaela didn't like the idea of going to this Thyferra planet. Nobody with even a quarter the competence of Faust would alert their enemy where they were going to strike next unless it was a full on trap or a deception designed to mislead them. "Why would he tell us where he was attacking next?" she said. "Either it is a major trap or he is trying to mislead us from his real goal."

 

Even as she said it, she knew that they had to check. If he followed her advice and Faust did attack Thyferra—even if it was a trap—Starlisk would never forgive her for recommending going somewhere else. "By all means, send some of your Jedi there just in case, but I suggest we do something different. We can't win by playing his game and letting him choose our path. I still think the way to victory is to strike out at your enemy, not wait for them to come to you. We know he is working with Black Sun and we know where Black Sun is. We need to keep his allies busy so they have more to think about than attacking others. Gather some of your resources and allies then strike out against Dubrillion. Black Sun has already declared war here, so why not uproot them at their source? You are a battle commander, not a dog to be tugged at by a leash. Bring war to Black Sun instead of continuing to play on the defensive while your civilians die."

[Ads-Gop Flif]

Ads didn't know what to make of Faust announcing his next location to them. Who does that? Seriously, were they in a movie without realizing it? Faust was really doing a good job playing the part of the bad guy, being overly grandiose (not that that's technically possible, but still he was being evil to an insane degree. It was as if this were all a game to Faust; it didn't seem like he really had any specific intentions other than be crazy, mess stuff up, and perhaps have a bit of fun. This made Ads almost less wary of Faust but he was less sure of Faust's intentions.

 

"Are we sure that it's either a trap or a diversion though? Is Faust really such a stereotypical bad guy that he would do that? Also, sorry this is only tangentially relevant, but why doesn't Coronet have a missile defense system? Seriously, we should not have had to save them from that bomb. Anyway, what if Faust is just telling us where he's going? Isn't this all just a game to him?"

[Onderin Starlisk]

Onderin sent Ads an encouraging look. "That's exactly what the Council is starting to wonder," he said. "Master Trevelian informed me that they're beginning to suspect Faust is not simply seeking the destruction of everything around him. It's rather bizarre -- other than a half-baked pair of attempts on our lives, what has he actually done here in Coronet? If the missile was really the intended terrorist attack, why would he lure the people who could stop it here first?"

 

The Jedi Master knit his brow in thought. "So far Faust has done a lot of work to get our attention but hasn't really made good on his threats. He performed that dark side ritual which, although destructive, was done on a remote world where the amount of damage done was extremely limited compared to if he had picked a more heavily populated world. Plus whatever he did with the Senate, which isn't very clear. He has extensive resources, stockpiles of weapons and a network of loyal agents," he reasoned, "and yet there are no reports of mass terrorist attacks on major galactic cities. So far all he's done is call a lot of attention to himself and drop not-so-subtle hints about where he wants us to go next."

 

He grew even more thoughtful. "Faust's threats are credible due to his history, which means that CoreSec will be stepping up security everywhere, and the galaxy's leaders are not going to remain vulnerable. By announcing his intentions, he has made his plan significantly more difficult to pull off, even with his resources," he continued. "And let's face it. If he actually has a plan grand enough to seriously Thyferra's bacta output -- unlikely given the size, value, and resilience of its industry -- it's unlikely that a few Jedi are going to make a difference there. And yet why lure us there if he already knows where we are?"

 

Onderin shook his head. "I think we have to assume that there's something else going on here," he said. "I think we have to go to Thyferra and see what else we can learn. Maybe putting some pressure on Black Sun would help too, but attacking criminal installations isn't the job of a small team of Jedi, it's work for CoreSec. They've seemed willing enough to mobilize against Black Sun and the Sith in the past, so I think it seems reasonable to send intelligence to them like the specific locations of any installations you happen to know about." This last bit was aimed at Qaela. As far as Onderin was aware, CoreSec did not know any such details, with the exception perhaps of Cloud City's recent takeover.

[Qaela]

Despite it going against her instinct to strike out at her foes, Qaela was forced to admit that Starlisk's words made some sense. She still thought he underestimated the cunning and ruthlessness of Sith like Faust, but that was his mistake to make. In the most strictest of terms, she was not against the Sith nor was she with the Jedi. All she cared about was her survival and the accomplishment of a very small number of goals. One of those goals happened to be standing in front of her and it was her intent to keep him alive despite himself.

 

She nodded at Starlisk's words. "If you feel it is best, I will follow your direction."

 

While she might be able to consider herself friendly with the Sith, the same could not be said of her relationship with Black Sun, not after what happened on Bespin. "I will give CoreSec what information I have, but it is not much. I know for a fact that they were part of the attack on your temple at Gala. I know their headquarters is on Dubrillion and that they also destroyed Cloud City on Bespin before rebuilding it to their own desires and claiming it as their own. Their forces are not designed for frontal assault, but they can unleash a lot of damage if loose in a civilian population. Strike them hard and with might and you can destroy many of them before they can counter you."

[Ads-Gop Flif]

"Master, you asked if Faust had done anything truly big. Didn't he ruin the Corellian stock exchanges and economy? Or does that not count?" ((Ads didn't ask if they don't count to be rude or sarcastic but rather because it is something that only matters for NPCs and being force-sensitive, of course Ads can tell that what happens to them isn't really that big of a deal.))

[Onderin Starlisk]

Onderin raised his eyebrows at Ads. "I guess I missed that in all the excitement," he said. "Still, I would think the Corellian infrastructure sound enough to quickly recover from his disruption."

 

The Corellian Jedi, in his green Corellian Jedi robes, started to head back to the shuttle. "We must press on," he said. "Qaela, we can drop a comm to CoreSec en route to Thyferra." And if we're walking into a trap, then may the Force be with us.

 

Informing the local authorities that he was on his way out, Onderin reached the shuttle with the rest of the group and soon they were off.

 

((Someone else can post our arrival on Thyferra--in case you want to add anything before then.))

[Vladimir Faust]

Shortly after the Jedi make their plans to withdraw, and Faust's agents are either withdrawn or killed (none save the ones the Jedi disabled are taken prisoner), there is a smaller, concentrated, and rather thorough explosion within Coronet's boundaries. A shipment of arms and even Sith artifacts carefully excavated are incinerated, ensuring that as the Jedi rushed off on the lead that the Hunter was oh-so-thoughtfully-and-kindly able to provide, the evidence Faust and the Bhelliom left behind couldn't be traced further back to their origins even with the best efforts of Corellia's finest law enforcement officers.

[Moon Knight]

Moon Knight arrived out of hyperspace over Corellia, wondering just how far he would go to dig up the unwanted past. Last he'd heard, Goruba the Hutt was still a major player, having carved his niche out of the Corellian gambling industry and continued to amass wealth and power both legally and illegitimately. Unfortunately, he didn't have many remaining contacts on Corellia and he wasn't going to use his CoreSec status to get to the bottom of things. This was a personal matter.

 

It looked like he was going to have to do things the old fashioned way. He set his transponder to show that the Justice was actually named the Angelwing II and registered to Marc Spector, then checked in with Corellian authorities as a civilian. There had been a long time where he'd taken great pains to avoid being associated with that name, but it was time to come clean. He checked the usual channels he had used during his bounty hunting days, and confirmed what he had suspected -- the 1.4 million credit bounty stood.

 

This was promising to be an eventful visit to Corellia. He found a low-end hotel in city of Tyrena, which was a hub for the sort of activities in which Spector's father had gotten involved. The place was dangerously close to the Skids, a notoriously bad neighborhood, and it was dirt cheap. Although Fett had established a safehouse on planet where he could lay low, he had no intention of either jeopardizing it or staying hidden while he was here.

 

Before disembarking from the Angelwing II, he removed his beskar'gam and put it as well as a small arsenal into a large duffel bag, then donned dark civilian clothing with a hooded cloak. He took the mask that he had worn when he was moonlighting as Link agent Cyrus Knight and put it on to disguise his face, then exited, making sure the ship's security was fully enabled. Soon he had checked into the hotel using another fake name and bribed the employee at the desk to overlook the fact that he provided no identification and paid for his room with cash.

 

Once he entered his room he changed back into his Mandalorian armor and settled down to wait for Eris to catch up or someone else to come knocking.

[Emily]

The Shadow's Shine appeared out of hyperspace over Corellia, and its pilot was forcibly reminded of a previous time she had come here. Things could have been very different. She had met her uncle here, if she remembered correctly. He was long gone, however, like the rest of her family.

 

Shaking her head, she pinged Fett, and received info back that he was in the city of Tyrena. She followed the data and brought her ship into an open-topped docking bay. The city was mid-size, with a mostly human population, although there were a good number of Selonians and Drall as well, as was common on all of the Five Sisters. Once again, she made Roe'gall stay behind. Wrapping a cloak around her--it was a chilly day--she headed out into the city, sure that Fett would let her know his location soon, but determined to take a nice long walk around the city until then.

[Moon Knight]

The trail of breadcrumbs did its job just fine. 2277 had quickly tapped into the hotel's meager security system and let Moon Knight know right away when two clearly armed men entered the building and started speaking with the man at the desk. He knew the way these things worked -- his credits had bought the man overlooking his lack of an ID, but the bribe didn't cover his silence. He would tell them exactly what had happened, and they would be on their way to this room hoping to come away with 1.4 million credits.

 

While they were on their way, Moon Knight got a ping from Eris saying she'd arrived on world. He sent a quick ping back with the hotel's coordinates and studied the feed 2277 was streaming him. Two men, clearly bounty hunters. Blaster carbines, light body armor, backup sidearm, one of them had a vibroblade. One had a helmet, the other had goggles, not clear if they would be flash-tinting. Switching feeds; they were coming up on the door. Vibroblade merc drew his vibroblade, other started hacking the door, standing off to the side. Blade merc would be the first in, seemed fair given the close quarters.

 

Moon Knight stood on the other side of the door in plain site, the room's lights on, assault rifle in hands and trained on the door. The door opened, but instead of the bounty hunters he saw a grenade flying into the room. More clever than I gave them credit for, he decided. Hunters wouldn't be trying to kill Marc though, the bounty was for him alive, and even a concussion grenade could kill someone if they were unlucky. Unless they were betting 1.4 million on that, it was either a flashbang or a glop grenade. Moon Knight shifted to get a little cover from the corner, then vibroblade merc charged in as the grenade detonated. He'd been right -- flash bang, the safest option for taking someone in. He surged out from behind the corner, unimpeded by the flash due to his visor, put his shoulder down and flipped the hunter over onto his back, sweeping his assault rifle to cover the door and with his left hand drawing a pistol to point at the fallen man.

 

"Stop!" vibroblade merc yelled to his ally. "It's ShadowFett!"

 

The other hunter stepped inside, weapon lowering. "Fett? Sorry, we didn't know you were here!" He sounded a little nervous. Attacking another bounty hunter doing the job was against guild rules. He looked around. "I take it you already got Spector? Where is he?"

 

Moon Knight shook his head. "You don't understand. I am Marc Spector, and I've got some old scores to settle."

[Emily]

Corellia was nice. As Emily walked around, she felt the ebb and flow of life here. It was nice to be somewhere that was bustling, yet not as crowded and dense as Coruscant. She found herself browsing in a local open-air market, simply being another anonymous face in the crowd.

 

Soon enough, however, her comlink chimed. Fett was sending her the coordinates of a hotel. Clearly, he figured this trip was going to take a bit longer. Turning her feet towards the hotel, she pulled out a datapad and looked up Marc Spector. His file didn't have much, and many time periods were completely blank, but it was impossible to miss the clear announcement at the top of the index that stated in no uncertain terms that Marc Spector was a dangerous criminal and there was a 1.4 million credit bounty on his head. She raised an eyebrow. Spector was dead, but the bounty was still outstanding. Clearly, they hadn't heard. Whoever killed him missed his chance to become rich, she mused. She appreciated a good irony.

 

But overall, the entry wasn't that helpful. Oh well, she thought. I'll find out plenty from Fett's mind.

 

As she approached the hotel, she frowned. Ripples in the Force spoke of violence. Something wasn't right here. She entered the lobby cautiously, although displaying no outward signs of worry. She booked herself a room with the man at the front desk, who looked incredibly nervous. In fact, he was so distracted that he barely glanced at her ID and credit chit. Something definitely was going down, and he knew it. She didn't comment, however, but just pocketed her room key and headed up.

[Moon Knight]

Vibroblade merc managed to look both fascinated and horrified, and his friend entered the room with his carbine pointed at the ceiling.

 

"Look, we didn't know," blade merc said. "We don't got no fight with you, Fett. We just thought it was another job with a big payoff. You're not gonna shoot us, are you?"

 

"That depends," Moon Knight answered, gesturing for both of his would-be assailants to stand together in the room so he could cover them with one weapon. "You work for Goruba often?"

 

The merc shrugged, not sure which answer helped his chances. "Sometimes."

 

Marc gestured to a nearby table. "Leave your weapons here and have a seat. Tell me everything you know about his operation -- places, people, layout. I especially want to know about any illegal activities. I'll even make it worth your time."

 

The bounty hunters exchanged glances, then complied. Marc made sure 2277 was getting all of it through his helmet link, doing fact checking and analysis based on what was being shared. Hopefully it would be enough to put something together.

[Emily]

It was simple to find Fett's room. She had been in his mind so much recently that his presence was easy to identify, even in a crowded hotel. However, as she approached the door, she felt three people inside--two that she assumed were the cause of the disturbance she felt. Fett's mind too was colored in a different shade, and she instantly assumed that one of the other Knights had taken over. There didn't seem to be any issues anymore. The two other men felt afraid through the Force, with a mix of awe and intimidation.

 

She grinned. It was times like these when her outward appearance gave her an advantage. She was a fit, attractive woman--nothing to be afraid of or intimidated by, and certainly not one to be considered a threat. She raised her hand to knock, then decided against it. Arranging her face into a nice smile, she used the Force to flip the circuit on the door so that it slid open as she held out her key card. "Fett, I was think--" she said as she came in, her tone light and engaging. She broke off in mock astonishment at the sight of the two bounty hunters sitting at the table, a pile of weapons on it. "What? Who are you two?"

 

Then she acted as though she had caught sight of the weapons on the table. "Fett, how many times have I told you to keep the weapons off the table?" She frowned, then with a turn, vanished into the kitchenette that came with the hotel room. Once out of sight, she dropped her demeanor. From here she could listen and watch through the Force, ready to back Fett up if he needed it, but also another pair of discerning ears for the information that Fett appeared to be seeking.

[Moon Knight]

Moon Knight sighed theatrically when Eris chastised him, unable to emote the rolling of his eyes because of his helmet. "Can't you see I'm working?"

 

The two mercenaries exchanged glances, put somewhat at ease by the informality of the situation. Marc had gotten quite a lot of information together, and combining it with some of the expertise of the other Moon Knights, he had a pretty good idea of what he could make happen. The Mandalorian in particular knew how to put together an operation like this, and his droid 2277 was capable of providing excellent support both before and during a mission.

 

The bounty hunters' information, together with what the droid was able to pull down from the Holonet, gave Moon Knight the following:

- The public layout of the complex where Goruba spent most of his time, as well as descriptions of many of the more private areas where Goruba's employees and contractors might work.

- The names and positions of the important figures in Goruba's bounty office.

- Basic information on some of the security systems Goruba had in place that might not be obvious.

- Perhaps most importantly, reason to believe Goruba was rigging his games of "chance" to ruin patrons who displeased him. This would be necessarily difficult to prove, of course, but he had at least a starting place due to something blade merc had seen.

 

There were still a ton of unknowns, and taking on a Hutt's organization was no small task. But Marc knew that he had a better chance now of putting this all to rest than he had ever before. The time for hiding was rapidly coming to an end.

 

"You've both been helpful," he said when he'd run out of questions. He opened a belt pouch and pulled out two credit chips which could be loaded with a variable amount, useful for informal payment without directly wiring funds to an account. "The good news is, you get to live and there's ten thousand credits for each of you on these," he said, sliding the chips across the table. A large sum for a short talk, but not much to a man who had pulled in over 10 million credits in bounties and other work during the last few years.

 

"What's the bad news?" blade merc asked.

 

"The bad news is that it's very easy for you two to tip Goruba off that I'm coming, negotiate a big payout, then skip town and never see me again," he answered.

 

The two bounty hunters eyed their weapons, still on the table. Moon Knight looked passive through his mask. He had his back to the wall so that he could keep an eye on the door during their chat. With an utterance that didn't escape his helmet, he triggered his repulsor pack while simultaneously grabbing his assault rifle. He suddenly launched off the wall into the table, upending it right into the mercs, who staggered back, their vibroblade and blaster carbine clattering to the floor. A second later, they each caught a stun bolt and the room was still again.

 

Marc flipped the table back up, collected the credit chips and putting them into the pockets of the unconscious men. "Going to need your help moving them to my ship without drawing attention," he addressed Eris. "That or we move now and hope they don't wake up until they're too smart or too late to interfere with the mission."

[Emily]

The bounty hunters provided a lot of information once they got talking. Like most criminals, they didn't much care about loyalty to their employers, and it seemed that their fear of Fett was significant enough to wear away what little scruples they might have had. Eris approved. Fear was a useful tool.

 

Once he had finished interviewing them, Fett stunned them in one impressive motion, then gestured for her to help him. She nodded. "I assume this means you want to take out this Hutt's criminal gang." It wasn't really a question. "I'll help you, but I'd like to know why we're bothering."

 

She hoisted one merc onto her shoulders. Before Fett answered her previous question, she spoke again. "You'll need to stay close. I'll make sure no one notices us carrying them through the lobby." It would be a simple thing to fuzz the security cameras and make those who saw them forget they were every there. She had been doing that with the Noghri since she was a little girl on Raxus Prime.

 

They made it through the lobby with no difficulty. She wondered what the clerk would think when he realized that the mercs he let in never came back out, but it wasn't a big deal. Once in the street, she grabbed an enclosed skycar and dumped vibroblade merc in the backseat.

[Moon Knight]

Marc didn't have any concerns telling Eris his true purpose here. Once they were in the skycab on the way back to the hangar, he started his tale. "I come from what was once a wealthy Corellian family. While I was working as a pilot for the Corporate Sector Authority, my father started to gamble heavily. Too many losses brought the wrath of Goruba down upon the entire family, and he had all of them killed while I was gone. Since I was temporarily out of his reach, he placed a significant bounty on my head, intent on exterminating the Spector name," he explained, recalling the events as though they had just happened. "I immediately went into hiding, and during a stop on Tatooine I was attacked, robbed, and left for dead by Tusken Raiders. That's when the Temple first appeared to me."

 

He suspected Eris could put together the rest of the story. "I won't pretend that Goruba didn't have good reason for being angry with my father. But he murdered my family and holds me to a debt I had no part in earning," he continued. They were arriving at the hangar now, and the two of them hauled the bodies back out and to the Justice, where he had a couple of cells with stasis fields. He hadn't done any bounty hunting work since getting this ship, but his CoreSec job made just as good use of them. "All this time I have been avoiding Goruba and his agents, but the time for that is over. If I can bring Goruba's criminal dealings into the light, I should be able to damage or disband his organization. Not positive I can clear the bounty, but it's worth a shot."

 

As long as Goruba lived, Marc knew, there would be some channel through which he could maintain the bounty if he was sufficiently driven. Maybe he really just wanted revenge for his parents. The thing was, he couldn't afford the satisfaction of telling Goruba that it was him that was responsible for all of this, if it went down. He looked back at Eris as they locked the unconscious men away for the time being. "The best part is, because of this--" he gestured at the Mandalorian armor he was wearing "--I can do all of this officially."

 

It was a little bit slimy, using ShadowFett's CoreSec rank to enact vengeance on Goruba, but Marc felt like once the truth of the Hutt's dealings came out, especially if he could prove him responsible for the murder of his parents, he was serving the law in addition to himself. Returning to the speeder with Eris, he pointed them at Goruba's base of operations.

[Emily]

Emily gave a small grin. "So this is about revenge." She approved. A bounty surely wasn't an easy thing to live with. If this Hutt was foolish enough to call attention to a dead but not gone man by using a bounty, then he deserved what was coming. Reaching out with the Force, Emily called for Roe'gall. He would meet them once they arrived at Goruba's. She shared her eagerness for a fight with him, and was pleased at his immediate bloodlust in response. It had been too long since the tuk'ata had seen real action. Wiping out a Hutt ring would be good exercise.

 

In the meantime, she considered what Marc had said. It seemed to her that this was a man that was more extreme about justifying himself. He wanted revenge for what had happened to his family. Who wouldn't? But he didn't seem like he was willing to come out and say it, and he was pleased by the officialism his Mandalorian uniform lent him. Perhaps in life he had been the same, but something told Emily that death had increased his sense of having nothing to lose.

 

The fact that Marc was still speaking, and had been in control since Emily had arrived on planet, also spoke volumes. The Marc personality was clearly very strong. This would be an interesting ride.

 

As Fett piloted, Emily synced her datapad to his and downloaded Goruba's complex's schematics. There were always four approaches to a task like this: go in the front pretending to be patrons, try to bluff their way in acting as staff, sneak their way through the complex, or go in guns blazing. Eris favored the first and third herself, but she was content to let Marc decide their course of action. The more she learned about him, the better. As much fun as it would be taking out this criminal group, that was her first priority and the true reason she was here. It wouldn't do to forget it. "So, what's your plan? How do you want to play this? The base seems pretty straightforward. Public areas are the entrance, gambling arenas, pleasure lounges, and cantina. Then there is Goruba's private wing, plus the back rooms for security and servants--or slaves, more likely. Security is fairly straightforward, but it'd be difficult to hack without being noticed--or rather, without the proper gear. If we want to sneak in, I can blur the cameras and get us past any living guards, but it's going to be more difficult if he uses combat security droids."