Blue Phoenix Rising

[Cryax Bane]

Location: Bane Innovation, Little Coruscant District, Antecedent

The office interior was way too clean and shiny for Cryax Bane’s tastes, but Bane Innovation on Antecedent was his brand new company and the Chiss slicer was going to be karked if he worked in some trendy industrial space like so many other rival slicers-turned-CEOs. The President of the Red Ravens Criminal Syndicate was branching out into the role of Software Developer, and today was a huge day for the company bearing his name. Cryax had worked tirelessly on getting the code for the first release of his slicing software just right. The code that made up Bluebird, the software's working title, seemed to be fail safe to his knowledge, but there was no way to tell until the software was actually tested on real world networks.

In order to ensure the final version would run flawlessly, Cryax had amassed a team of his best hackers and computer experts, like his teenage Twi'lek slicing prodigy, Acid to perform extensive QA testing as they unleashed the malware into unsuspecting networks all over the galaxy. With him today to help oversee and troubleshoot was Cryax’s boyfriend Jalek Sathora, who was one of the best slicers he knew.

Cafs were brewing, Melanese takeout had been ordered, and bonuses had been dangled. Champagne was also in the fridge, just waiting for that triumphant moment when their software was deemed a success. While the slicers got ready to put Bluebird to the test, Cryax smiled proudly at his boyfriend as he gave him a tour of the new offices. The Chiss had put a great deal of work into the office decor. As he looked at the Morellian slicer expectantly, his hope was that Jalek wouldn't cut down his entire effort with one smart-assed comment, but let’s face it, he would probably do just that.

“What do you think, Red? It’s a far cry from those slicer bars on Taris, eh?”

[member="Jalek Sathora"]

 

[Jalek Sathora]

Despite his outward act that often caused others to view him as nothing more than another lucky street kid that happened to make it big in the slicing business, Jalek possessed a highly intelligent mind that was closely hidden behind his layers of sarcasm, shaggy red hair and tattoos. That same intellect was put to use when it came to slicing, particularly those projects that intrigued him on some deeper level than just acquiring another few hundred credits. This new software was precisely one of those. While he did trust Cryax's coding just as much as his own, that also meant it was subject to as much scrutiny as he afforded his own, and so he'd reviewed the sequences until the numbers and letters began to blur together. Contrary to what most liked to believe, he was, in fact, capable of taking some things seriously.

The side of things he hadn't been present for included, unsurprisingly, the actual design and building of the office that he now sat in. His interest was, rather strictly so, in those things that involved technology, as the digital world was largely his playground for all intents and purposes, however illegal they most often were. Sure, the architecture might have been interesting to some, but he couldn't speak the same for himself. As far as he was concerned, if it function properly and nothing important was missing, then there wasn't much more that could be asked for. That was the way things had been on Taris, and it was with that mentality he'd grown up. Sometimes he still found himself still in a slight state of awe about his surroundings on Antecedent, so clean cut compared to what he was used to.

Still somewhat absorbed in going over another few lines of code, this time of his own creation, he blinked his jade eyes, his ever-present crooked smile forming on his lips. "I can't complain, really. It hasn't collapsed on top of us yet, and nothing leaks as far as I know. Back on Taris, that'd be a luxury. Buildings like this would be rare." It wasn't an attempt to gain sympathy, instead merely a comment regarding the all too real reality of his life as it had been before he'd managed to make it off of that sprawling city-planet and onto Antecedent. Admittedly, it wasn't much of a change, but the presence of his boyfriend was enough for him to be satisfied with any scenario. "Besides, you're here, and there isn't much else I can ask for, Blue."

Turning his attention back to his own work for a moment, he saved where he'd left off, deeming that it was a endeavor to take up some other time. Being one that had manufactured his own malware, though on a much smaller scale, when he was still something of a small-time slicer, this wasn't much of a new experience. But he'd be lying if he said the thought of slicing into some of the top encrypted networks in the galaxy wasn't the least bit exciting. "So who's up first?"

[member="Cryax Bane"]

 

[Cryax Bane]

It was a surprise that Jalek didn’t have anything snarky to say, but Cryax wasn’t about to complain. He pondered the question of where to begin. If he were honest, he was so obsessively dogged about perfecting Bluebird’s language, the Chiss hadn’t quite planned it out. He planted a peck on his boyfriend’s cheek, and then turned to their slicing team. The group of mostly kids, watched him with slack-jawed expressions and gum smacking. Snatching away a Datapad from one of the more inattentive kids, Cryax paced before them, speaking with the tone of someone thinking aloud.

“It’s probably makes sense to start small and work our way up. Perhaps we test it on a rival gang’s network here on Antecedent?”

Stopping in his tracks, the Chiss frowned. Bluebird would chew through some glit-biting hooligan’s badly secured network. The software was meant to infiltrate bigger and more tightly safeguarded systems. Perhaps it was overconfidence, but Cryax knew Bluebird could go the distance.

“No, I think Bluebird is ready for prime time.”

Cryax’s blue-skinned fingers clicked the keys on his Datalogger. He quickly sent his slicers the name of their first target, along with some information about how to infiltrate his network so that once executed, Bluebird could install a backdoor into his system. When the slicers received the message, an audible gasp could be heard around the room, a sound that made the Chiss grin mischievously. He addressed the group again, his hands spread.

“Now, Team A, remember, you need to manually slice the network first before you run Bluebird. Any glitches must be immediately logged so that Team B can work on fixing them in the source code in real time. Now get to slicing.”

Oh, they were going to start big alright. They were going to test out Bluebird by slicing into the personal files of [member="Darth Vornskr"], the Emperor of Panatha.

[member="Jalek Sathora"]

 

[Jalek Sathora]

[member="Darth Vornskr"] was a name that resonated with Jalek for all of the wrong reasons. The fact that he was, for all intents and purposes, getting an excuse to slice into his network was something he didn't take lightly. It did strike him as odd, however, that Cryax seemed to be perfectly okay with the idea. When he'd suggested striking out against the man before, the reaction had been less than pleasant. Either this didn't seem to infringe in the boundaries of his willingness to serve the Sith, or something about that bond had changed that he wasn't aware of. There would be no complaint issued from him either way. A job was a job, though this one was a bit different.

The slicing team that Cryax had assembled seemed a bit questionable, in his eyes, but for the most part he trusted the Chiss' judgement. There was something about the group that had caught his boyfriend's eye, so he settled with working with them for now. Besides, he trusted both his own and Cryax's work enough that he was confident they'd be able to provide any extra support necessary. His work with a datapad was one of the few things he took pride in, and with good reason, as their most recent adversary was soon to discover.

Taking his datapad in hand he pulled up the information he'd been sent regarding the network, easily navigating his first step into things, which was simply accessing and entering the main interface. That was where the easy part ended, and consequently where the real fun began. It seemed that this time, it wouldn't be as simple as rewriting a few lines of code here and there in order to bypass this or that firewall. This time, things were better protected. They were facing the unmistakable work of another slicer, or someone who had affiliations among them. "Looks like our friend has had experience with this sort of thing. Not bad." He spoke out loud as he worked, fully intent on the task at hand.

His tattooed fingers danced across the screen of his datapad, this being a game he'd played countless times before, but never with an opponent like this. Well, he'd managed to work his way through a backdoor into a few of Cryax's networks when they'd first met through much of the same manner, but that was more of a way to test his own boundaries than anything. This was, if he dared to think of it that way, more of a personal endeavor. And it seemed to be one that wouldn't come easily or willingly either.

"It's going to take something else to get into this one. I like this guy already."

[member="Cryax Bane"]

 

[Cryax Bane]

Cryax furrowed his brow as his red alien eyes scanned Jalek's Datapad. The Chiss knew this was going to be a tough slice, but upon looking at the code, getting Bluebird into the system was going to be much harder than he thought. If even Jalek was having trouble, the kids weren't going to have any better luck. A mohawked Rodian muttered some Huttese curses as he was locked out of the network again. "Keep trying, love," he said, dropping a supportive hand on his boyfriend's shoulder.

Facing the slicing team again he raised his voice. "Let me show you kids how this is done," Cryax said, an edge of cockiness in his tone. Hopefully he wouldn't make a karking fool of himself in front of the other slicers. It was already nearly impossible to get their respect, merely because they were fickle teenagers. Clickity-click-click. Blue-skinned fingers moved over the keys at light speed, almost too fast to follow. "Ok, what you need to do here is install a rootkit, but we need the Admin password, as well. This is where you have to use basic psychology and a little bit of cracking. What would a man like Vornskr have as his password?" Cryax made a few dozen attempts until he finally got it. The password was "GOD." He had found that it was typical for people of Kaine Zambrano's status to feel untouchable enough to get a bit complacent about password creation, and Vornskr himself was no exception. "Ok, now that you're in, you use the rootkit, which resides in the kernel of network to create the backdoor, then you install the software through that backdoor. It's roundabout, but I think Bluebird can now be executed."

Cryax turned to the kids and gave them a triumphant smile, which was merely returned with eyerolls and sarcastic comments. Frowning he whipped his head back to his Datapad and went back to slicing. Soon the familiar crunching sound of Bluebird infiltrating the network could be heard. In a few moments the software would either fail miserably, or they would all get a peek inside the digital life of the Dark Lord of the Sith.

[member="Jalek Sathora"]

 

[Armand Temi]

With her feet up on her desk, Dakita inspected the new offices of Bane Innovation. Ugh so corporate, she thought. This was exactly the kind of hella boring stuff [member="Cryax Bane"] was always dragging her into. Slicing was fun when it was video games but regular old slicing just felt like work. Dak was not cut out for work. All of this hacking business was taking her away from her duties as Manager at Club Frenzee. She would rather be at the club, having a cocktail and overseeing, you know club stuff. Like dancing and flirting and drinking.

Anyhoo if she had to test out Blue Phoenix she was going to have some fun with it. She set her target on [member="Val Cardin"]'s datapad via the network they were all slicing into and ran the software. Of course Cardin's network was woefully unprotected. Dak pretty much had full range of the cute pilot's datapad contents. What kind of sexy Holomovies has he been watching, she thought looking at his entertainment selection? Like a heat-seeking missle, the Zeltron slicer honed in on anything that looked vaguely embarrassing or worthy of ridicule.

[member="Cryax Bane"] [member="Val Cardin"]

 

[Jalek Sathora]

Only half-listening as Cryax explained some of the finer points of slicing to the ragtag group, Jalek remained, for one rare time in his life, focused on his work. Besides, it wasn't as if he was really missing anything important or significant to his work. Being sixty-seven himself, he'd been slicing for a longer time than many of those in the room with him had been alive, the same going for his boyfriend. The tactics being elaborated on were nothing new to him, though he could appreciate Cryax's patience with the rest of them, to a degree. There were points where one had to realize that the only way to teach some people was to let them learn by trial and error. It was the way he'd learned, and as far as he was concerned it would do well for more in the same business to be self-taught. It made for more creative improvisation, among other things.

So intent in the lines of code was he that he blinked and looked up at Cryax with a quizzical expression that quickly faded into an almost lazy grin. Apparently it was a bit easier to navigate through those seemingly endless lines than he'd anticipated, but in the end he couldn't complain, especially considering the fact that the software seemed to be doing its job, and effectively at that. Thus far there were no errors in the coding that he could detect, which spoke greatly of the work that had been put in during the past few weeks. This was the first big breakthrough that the Raven slicers had had in a long time.

Still, he couldn't help a little friendly teasing. It was in his nature, after all. "You always take the fun parts for yourself. It wasn't like it was that hard." His expression remained serious for another microsecond before he smiled. "Relax, you know I'm just joking. You designed the software and spent all that time coding, so you deserve it, as far as I'm concerned. Not a bad piece of work. I might have to try and top it." Raising an eyebrow in challenge he returned to studying the screen of his datapad. Navigation was much easier now that any precautions had been shut down, something he simultaneously appreciated while having a certain disdain for as well.

Most, especially those that had been slicers in their past, wouldn't have kept security within their network so lax after it had been cracked into. At the very least there was always another firewall, even if it was marginally weaker than its predecessor. Then again, it was really the silver linings that made everything worth the effort. His smile widened, eyes looking to Cryax. "Let's see what he has hidden, huh?"

[member="Cryax Bane"], [member="Darth Vornskr"], [member="Dakita Calfur"]

 

[Cryax Bane]

Cryax leaned over and inspected his boyfriend’s handiwork. “Beautiful, just beautiful,” he pronounced the slicer’s code. He began to slice in on his own Datapad over their shared network. “Ok, Kaine, lets see what you’ve been up to,” he muttered to no one in particular. Cryax was technically enthralled to the Dark Lord of the Sith, so to search too deeply into Kaine Zambrano’s personal files would be pure suicide. Instead he judiciously browsed through a few files at the top of Vornskr’s directory, zeroing in on a folder labeled “Under Teh Cherry Blossom Tree.” (sic)

The Chiss's mouth spread into a wide grin as he found pages and pages of what looked like chapters of a huge work of fan fiction, starring none other than [member="Darth Vornskr"] and [member="Darth Isolda"]. Oh, this was good. The Darth Vornskr/Darth Isolda fan fiction was the most cliched, trope-laden prose he’d ever laid his glowing red eyes on. It was worse than the stuff on that Holosite dedicated entirely to Gammorean erotica. However, there was no accounting for tastes because the fan fiction seemed to be very highly rated on Darthfiction.Holonet. Most of the Holosite's users left five stars and the stories had millions of views. Cryax suspected that it had something to do with the fact that in almost every scene Isolda wore a Princess Leia bikini. Vornskr’s fiction was cheesy, the characters were one-dimensional, the dialogue was contrived, and, and, he couldn’t stop reading it! Cryax hit “download" and then turned to the glitch logs.

Some minor bugs had been reported, but overall Bluebird’s first test had gone well. In order to ensure quality control over the product, they still needed to test it on many other networks, especially those with complex alien technology, like the algorithmic networks of the Givin species. The Chiss turned back towards his raggedy group of teenage coders. “Ladies and gentlemen, it looks like the first test went better than expected.” The slicers looked around quizzically until they realized that by “ladies and gentlemen” that Cryax meant them, then they whooped and high-fived each other.
The blue glow of his Holopad glinting in his eyes, Cryax turned towards Jalek and arched a brow. “What do you think, babe? Who should we hit next?”

[member="Jalek Sathora"] [member="Dakita Calfur"]

 

[Sin1]

[member="Cryax Bane"] [member="Jalek Sathora"] [member="Dakita Calfur"]

Razer walked into the room where all the nerds were, searching for the great Bane. When he adjusted to what he was seeing, it was just a mess to him really. Razer stepped in more, "Hey Cryax, I was want to..." He stopped to look at the stuff they had on the screen. "What have you...Oh my hell, what in the actual force is this!?" He stepped back a few steps. "That stuff exists?! BURN IT!" He said with horror in his face. He shook his head, and cursed in Vahla. "Okay..so I going to just guess this is a hacking software thingy, and pretend like I know what's going on." He shrugged, and sat down on the floor.
"So I assume we can just start hacking whoever? Why would you want to get things that scar your mind forever, and want you to take seventy billion death sticks?" Razer was slowly becoming more of a criminal the more he stayed with the Ravens, and he was okay with that. "Why not hack like..police, and stuff like that?"
He scooted closer to the blue guy. "Or you could hack Republic Senate, or go after Mandos, you could go after..the Silver Jedi, or maybe even the One Sith. Just saying...with this stuff, you could do so much more then look at written rated R stuff man, no one wants that, you have uncovered something that puts a special place in hell for you man.."

 

[Armand Temi]

Dak glanced over briefly when Cryax Bane gave his little pep talk and listened to them all applaud and congratulate themselves. She rolled her eyes at one of the dorky teenage slicers who was suddenly ogling her and went back to her own test of Blue Phoenix. She hunted around [member="Val Cardin"]'s hard-drive but couldn't find anything incriminating. No steamy chat room messages. No X-rated Holomovies. No signs he was stalking ex-girlfriends. "You're keeping the good stuff somewhere else," mumbled Dakita aloud.

"It's nothing but tumbleweeds over here," Dak shouted to [member="Cryax Bane"]. "Give me another target, boss."

She wasn't sure he heard her because he was busy with his cute Morellian boyfriend. She wondered who was sitting on the floor next to Bane. What was his deal?
Didn't he know how to use a chair?

[member="Cryax Bane"] [member="Jalek Sathora"] [member="Razer Sin"]

 

[Jalek Sathora]

Okay, so maybe there was more to the life of a Sith Lord than Jalek had first thought. But never had he imagined that some of the supposed most powerful men and women of the galaxy would be doing things like this in their free time. It was a bit more than even he could have thought up, which, if one knew him at all, said a lot. This was something he wouldn't be soon forgetting, though whether that in and of itself was necessarily a good or a bad thing was still undecided. The guy had some interesting hobbies, he'd give him that. "Next time we go looking into the personal lives of the Sith, remind me to be careful with just what I look at." The statement was only half-joking, and he shook his head with a quiet chuckle.

Looking up when [member="Razer Sin"] walked into the room, he smiled at his reaction to what could only be called a very interesting piece of literature, though the man quickly composed himself. It was obvious he knew next to nothing about slicing, which begged the question as to why he'd even bothered coming in the first place, but he never bothered questioning most people if what they were doing didn't affect him. And he seemed to know Cryax, so it didn't appear to be that much of an issue. So he merely shrugged and didn't make any comment on his arrival.

At the question posed to him by Cryax he smiled crookedly. That was the inquiry of the day, seeing as how they had, quite literally, the entirety of the Holonet and all of its information at their fingertips. It was a privilege he'd never imagined getting, and now that he had, he wasn't quite sure what to do with it. "Who was the Jedi that cut off your leg again? Varus, or something?" The name was familiar to him for other reasons, namely the escapade he and Diego had made to the Jedi Temple on Ossus, before he'd met Cryax or even heard of the Red Ravens. That was a night he wouldn't soon forget.

Turning his attention back to his datapad, he navigated out of Vornskr's personal files and back to the main interface, running a quick search for the Jedi in question. Unsurprisingly, a number of results that connected him to the Republic showed up, but there were a few others that looked to be promising. Glancing to Cryax with a raised eyebrow, he deemed to leave the final decision up to him. "There's more where that came from, probably. I don't think we'll be finding anything that bad from a Jedi, of all people. They're always so boring."

[member="Dakita Calfur"], [member="Cryax Bane"]

 

[Armand Temi]

Ugh, her boss was totally ignoring her as karking usual. And that the teenage slicer was staring at her again, shamelessly checking out her chest, not even trying to pass it off like he wanted to talk to her. She picked up a marketing tchotchke, a round squishy blue ball with the words Blue Phoenix imprinted on it and threw it at the slicer. He yelped and scampered away. Well at least that's one use for it, she thought. Suddenly the Zeltron's attention was on her own giant handbag which was about the size of a womp rat. Something was moving inside her bag. She had completely forgotten about Wilhelm her ropo.

"Awww little buddy let's get you out of there," she said pulling the white fluffy ball out of her bag. Wilhelm coughed and sputtered as if his air supply had been limited for some time. As she held Wilhelm on her lap, the creature curled up and fell asleep, probably traumatized from being enclosed in her dark handbag for hours. Dak pressed a few more buttons, accessing another point in the network. If this software is so good, I wonder what it would do to Cryax Bane's own personal datapad, she thought. It took an enormous amount of time - well it was only really five minutes but it felt like an eternity of boring trial and error - but eventually Bluebird dutifully did what it was supposed to and before long she was perusing the contents of the Chiss's personal folders.

"Oh la, la!" shouted Dak loud enough for the entire room to hear. "Look what I found. It's someone named The Rancor!" If Cryax Bane looked over he would see Dak with the ropo on her lap showing the infamous Syvris spice lord's holopic on her screen for whoever wanted to look:

Spoiler

"Wonder who this big handsome guy is in your life, Cryax. Ohhh you sent him back a duckface selfie? Naughty, naughty." Dakita laughed and carried on as if she wasn't going to incur any of her boss's legendary wrath, no siree not her.

[member="Jalek Sathora"] [member="Cryax Bane"]

 

[Cryax Bane]

Cryax turned to Razer Sin, the Red Ravens agent with ties to the Shadow Dynasty, who had entered Bane Innovation’s "war room" and plopped himself on the floor. When he asked why they didn't hack the police or the Republic, Cryax shrugged. It wasn't like they were looking for slash fiction. In fact, Cryax was hoping that maybe there were some galactic domination plans lying around on Darth Vornskr’s hard drive, but apparently not. Plus, to fully explain why he didn’t go deeper into Kaine’s network would betray too many personal details that Cryax could not share, and even if he could, just recalling those details would possibly cause him some painful PSTD flashbacks.

"That test was only the beginning,” he explained to Razer. “Don’t you worry, Bluebird will get us much more than amateur prose. We will hit the Republic, the Mandos, you name it. No sector is going to be safe.” Cryax was all riled up with geeky enthusiasm over Project Bluebird. This was the stuff he lived for and as far as he was concerned, those who didn’t understand were mere Philistines.

Grinning widely, he turned his head to Jalek, who suggested letting Bluebird into the network of Varus Shatterstar, the man who had taken his cybernetic leg in the Battle of Kashyyyk. He looked over Jalek’s shoulder at his Datapad screen, and frowned. “Boring is right. This Jedi network is a snoozefest. Pages and pages of Jedi mantras.” He waved his hand dismissively and rolled his eyes. “There is no emotion, only peace. There is no passion, there’s only blah blah blah…give me a break."

Suddenly the sound of a woman’s squeal interrupted his complaints, and Cryax whipped his head around to see Dakita broadcasting that blasted Holopic of the Rancor to the entire room. The slicer kids giggled and made obscene gestures all around. With one little Holopic, what little respect the other coders had for him was completely shattered. Cryax marched over to Dakita and grabbed the Datapad right out of her pink little hands. He wanted to smack the little tramp, but it was unprofessional, so he counted backwards from ten. Reluctantly turning to Jalek, he gave his beautiful boyfriend an apologetic look and sheepishly awaited his response.

At least Bluebird was doing its job.

[member="Dakita Calfur"] [member="Jalek Sathora"] [member="Razer Sin"]

 

[Jalek Sathora]

Raising an eyebrow, Jalek grinned and shook his head, finding nothing more than a wry sort of amusement in the image that had been revealed. The pieces of the conversation that was revealed left enough for him to imagine just how the rest of that encounter had gone, a scenario he had little trouble piecing together. But where most others would have been upset about the incident, he was far from it. Almost the opposite, in fact. While he'd never imagined Cryax one for the apparently self-centered type of individual it seemed this Rancor was, there was a first time for everything. Perhaps he didn't know his boyfriend as well as he first thought, but still he was more entertained by it all than even a bit angered by any of it.

Finished skimming over what little back and forth the two had had, he finally looked to Cryax with that same crooked smile. "Not exactly my type, but I can appreciate it. You should give me a call the next time you decide to have fun. I thought we were closer than that, Blue." Compared to the Chiss' own reaction to the episode that had occurred with his half-brother, he was only calm, his attitude still nonchalant much as it had been beforehand. That was one of his more easily appreciated talents, his ability to let things like this roll of his back with little issue and nothing more than a sarcastic comment or three. It was simply how he functioned, with no other viable explanation to it.

"You might have to share a story or two later." Flashing an almost secretive smile he didn't dwell any more on the subject, instead diverting the conversation to another vein, as if none of it had ever happened in the first place. "And their code isn't even worth looking at. If I wanted to be put to sleep, I'd go spend two minutes in one of their temples." He didn't have any particular reason to dislike the Jedi, but with his upbringing and natural attitude, it seemed that his general enmity of the sect was inevitable.

"So, now that we've determined Cryax has an interesting love life and a few things to tell me later, let's get on to the real fun."

[member="Cryax Bane"], [member="Dakita Calfur"], [member="Razer Sin"]

 

[Sin1]

[member="Dakita Calfur"] [member="Jalek Sathora"] [member="Cryax Bane"]

Razer was horrified by the picture of The Rancor, and quickly threw his up over his face. "My god that is...what...why!?" Razer said in a half chuckle. He really had no clue what was going on, but apparently dwelling into the world of R-rated things was part of it. Razer didnt mind, it was just still new to him somewhat. "Welp, I was thinking...why not use it to watch the Ravens, and what they may, or may not be spilling their guts out on? Rats tend to be vermin, could this software be used to watch for traitors, and the like?" Razer felt it was a good question, it was certainly a question a noob would ask, but still, it held depth.
"Hmm, but would that be immoral?" He thought out loud, hood still over his face. "Oh, may I say, that white furry thing? Is the cutest thing ever." He commented on the white creature. "OH! What about droids? Could we hack a droid? Lets hack cameras!" Razer liked spying on people, it got him in a good mood.

 

[Armand Temi]

Dak just gave Cryax the side eye when he snatched the datapad away from her for she wasn't entirely surprised at his reaction. She'd been a first-hand witness to the Chiss's mercurial nature. But when she noticed had the attention of most of the teenage slicers in the room, she grinned at them. They now looked at her reverently and less like just another piece of Zeltron tail.

"Aw Cryax, you woke up Wilhelm," she said to him as she held up the ropo for him to see. The ropo blinked its eyes at Bane, its tongue dangling out of its tiny mouth. Dak set the ropo down on the floor where it immediately sniffed around for food scraps from the Melanese takeout. Then it went over to [member="Razer Sin"] and fell back asleep. Wilhelm was a docile critter.

Since Bane took her datapad away, she pushed one of the slicers off of his seat and sat down where he had been slicing. She keyed in a few commands and set her target on [member="Mistress Malkite"], the Syvris dominatrix that had kidnapped Cryax Bane's brother Sage. She knew that the Mistress had taken holopics of the whole kidnapping so maybe she would find similar scandalous pictures of other interesting figures - like galaxy celebrities or Holomovie stars - on Malkite's harddrive.

[member="Jalek Sathora"] [member="Cryax Bane"] [member="Razer Sin"]

 

[Tmoxin Temi]

As she exited the luxury speeder, Tmoxin looked up at the building which housed Bane Enterprises in Little Coruscant. The office building was modern, clean and high-tech, fitting for a software company. She entered the building and made her way to the main room where a test of some premiere slicing code was to be happening. Tmoxin thought she'd pay a visit as a show of support to her new boss.

"How goes it, Mr. Bane?" asked Tmoxin. "I brought you and your team a present for all of the hard work you're doing." On one of the desks she set down a large gift wrapped box. "It's imported podon and brandifert tarts. They are quite delicious."

The stately Hapan female walked around the room inspecting monitors and screens. Then made her way to the stimcaf machine and brewed a cup of Kopi tea.

"Has the software passed the beta testing?" she asked.

[member="Jalek Sathora"] [member="Cryax Bane"] [member="Razer Sin"] [member="Dakita Calfur"]

 

[Armand Temi]

Dak unleashed Blue Phoenix on Mistress Malkite's unsuspecting network. It took not nearly as long as hacking into Cryax's hard drive but close as the Mistress had a good security system installed. Eventually she broke in. It seemed the thing to do in the room to shout out one's successes, so Dak yelled out in Ryl and Basic picked up from her bodyguard: "Tae ji bea, I'm in!"

She went straight to what appeared to be holopic folders but was locked out of those. She urged Blue Phoenix on to try and crack the locked code for a few minutes but the software could not find a loophole in that specific protection. She knew there was valuable stuff in there but her ADHD kicked in and Dak quickly got bored of hack after hack with nothing to show. She turned her attention to other folders the Mistress had on her hard-drive. It weirdly felt a little like going through the woman's underwear drawer as she began to read extremely private chats of The Mistress's, mostly from male clients begging her to whip them, beat them or even love them. But Malkite's responses were either one-liners or a string of insults. It was truly entertaining to read, but not worthy of further investigation until one chat in particular caught her interest. In this chat it was the first time The Mistress seemed... well, desperate was the only word. Her words were markedly different from her typical verbal abuse. Dak wondered at first if Malkite was speaking to a lover but appeared she was talking to a doctor or scientist of some kind:

Mistress Malkite: Whatever you want, is yours. You know that, darling.

Armand Temi: Ms. Malkite you have been my best client to date...

Mistress Malkite: Your favorite client right?

Armand Temi: ...yes, my favorite client.

Mistress Malkite: So then you have to help me. I'm at my wit's end with this. I NEED to get this treatment started. And you are the only one who can help me.

Armand Temi: Ms. Malkite, I told you before that my clinic is not interested in a black-market patent. You know I don't deal in those types of things. Besides if I were to be arrested, the Maker forbid, you would not be able to get your next treatment of Trandoshan cells which we've found work much better with your skin tone and...

Mistress Malkite: ARMAND!!!

Armand Temi: ... yes?

Mistress Malkite: I'm coming to Hapes right away. I won't take no for an answer. This anti-aging treatment chamber is supposed to reverse the aging process. REVERSE IT ARMAND! Are you in the least bit interested in looking at the patent? You're always so fond of those sciency thingys.

Armand Temi: ... Ms. Malkite... even if I looked at the patent, I don't have the means to construct it...

Mistress Malkite: How does 100,000 credits sound? Just for looking at the patent.

Armand Temi: (typing and erasing, typing and erasing for a minute) ... I'm free on Saturday

What the bloody kark was going on here, thought Dak! 100,000 credits just for looking at a frelling patent?!?! Although it seemed like Dak only got her boss's attention when he was angry at her, she jumped up from her seat and waved her arms at him. "Cryax, I think you better see this." If the black-market patent was so valuable she knew that the Red Ravens would surely want a piece of it.

[member="Cryax Bane"] [member="Tmoxin Temi"] [member="Jalek Sathora"] [member="Razer Sin"]

 

[Sin1]

[member="Dakita Calfur"] [member="Tmoxin Temi"] [member="Cryax Bane"] [member="Jalek Sathora"]

Razer looked at the Ropo as it scurried the floor for crumbs, and then came at him, fell in his lap, and began to sleep. Wide eyed, Razer gently started to pet the Ropo, never actually seeing one before till now. "Awwwweeee." He said in a hush voice. Suddenly a Hapan women came in with a box of treats, but Razer was uninterested in that.
"Hey, would you make me a cup please?" He said in a louder whisper to the woman, like his brother, he enjoyed a good cup of caf. Going back to petting the Ropo contently, he watched the Zeltron rise in excitement about something dealing with..whatever. Razer felt that this was probably going to be a mission of his for the Ravens soon, and leaned back to enjoy the time of peace he had before it all came to real business.

 

[Tmoxin Temi]

At first, Tmoxin bristled when the young Raven asked her to make him a cup of stimcaf. But she nodded and pushed a button on the machine. The cup came out steamy and hot. Tmoxin didn't ask how he liked it and just dumped in cream and way too much sugar. She went over to the red-eyed, near-human and put the cup down on a table just out of reach. With her hands on her hip she stared down at him. "On my planet the men do ALL of the serving," she said. "I hope you like it sweet." The Hapan female grimaced at the ropo and gingerly stepped over it as she made her way around the room.

Just then she heard Dakita Calfur squawking about something and pointing to her monitor. Not waiting for Cryax, she went over to see what the Zeltron slicer had found. Looking like a hot mess as usual the Zeltron was calling for Bane but as Tmoxin drew closer she saw a familiar name on Dak's screen.

[member="Cryax Bane"] [member="Razer Sin"] [member="Jalek Sathora"] [member="Dakita Calfur"]