Public Dead Empires

[Nej Tane]

Subterrel
Sith Space

​

There was a distinct issue with what Nej did now and again-

It wasn't the legality of it. Laws came and went, and Nej couldn't keep up with who to pay fines or turn himself into for warrants- why bother with Republic Warrants from a long time ago, only for Alliance Warrants to pop up, then another Alliance, then the Silver Jedi on the same planet- It was just a revolving door of who's who, and what's what, and what it was, was annoying.

It wasn't the danger. All jobs were dangerous, if you asked Nej. Just the level of risk people were willing to take was different. Soldiers had a high level of risk at war, but a low risk back home in the barracks. Engineers fixing large engines had a low risk of being shot, but a high risk of being knocked into a giant stream of plasma and not even being able to be shipped home in a jar. Office workers risked papercuts and staple accidents.

It wasn't the money- on jobs like this, if you didn't have money paid up front, you didn't take it. Going into Sith Space was easy enough- Sith were usually too busy on more important worlds and more important places to notice a small operation or a snatch and grab like he was doing. That and the fact that while on the job, there was money to be made, if you were smart. From pockets, from side deals, to haggling on the price if anything went south or awry.

No, it was rather the boredom.

The holovids and the books and romance novels he picked up outside of the checkout aisle were quite snappy and adventurous when it came to smugglers. Enemies to lovers, pirates, scoundrels and honorable thieves. But in reality, smuggling, stealing, thievery, it was a rather boring profession.

If you were good at it.

If you were bad at it, that's when it was exciting.

But Nej didn't feel bored, in danger, or even had a fear of the looming threat of a Sith patrol passing him by. His scanners and his ship were top-notch stealth systems and jammers. That, and the ship blended in with the dozens of unregistered mining ships going to and fro supplying the Sith war effort. Or robe effort. Whatever they mined here. Nej checked his console one more time, blending in with the spaceport crowd. The message was brief, confusing, but his employer wanted whatever his agent had found.

FOUND IT BELOW
CANT AKE IT OU
MEETME HER
​

Cryptic, and not unlike a lot of smuggling messages to be misspelled or hurriedly typed under a watchful guise. It was hard to type or send messages clearly with one hand, pretending you were making caf or something. Nej and a few others were sent to retrieve whatever the agent had found. The agent in question, being someone named Sif. Sif had found something, and from a friend of a friend who Nej had a brief fling with, the agent said something about the Rakatan empire to the employer. Rakatan stuff was usually collectors- even things like shirts, pottery, computers or even just journals from other ancient archeologists about the Rakatan Empire.

But to risk this much? Had to be something good. Something great. He had only seen a few Rakatan pieces in museums and the like- this at least, while boring or potentially mundane, would be something somewhat neat to see.

Of course, this mission went to all the unsavory types, but few were willing to risk Sith Space, and even fewer were going to risk it for the pay. But Nej needed the money to finally square his debt with the remaining Hutts- he outlived four out of the five that wanted his money or his life. He bargained that he could've outlived the fifth, and just wanted to make things right with the Hutts. Not like there was another company of Antarian Rangers to slaughter the Hutt's armies and make them easy pickings for their rivals. From what he read and what he heard- it took a long time for the standing thugs of the Hutts to gain their strength back.

Silver Jedi, Jedi in general, were bad news.

For Nej, it meant a painful reminder of heartache. And the potential of death by laser-sword. Nej wasn't a fan of either.

Nej paced his way through the crowd, trying to locate the Speeder-rental area. He had to pay in credit chits, no units or Imperial currency. Not that anyone in this scummy spaceport would care- money was money, and could be exchanged for another kind. He kept a watchful eye, but found no trouble so far.

But there was something lingering in the back of his mind. Something sinister was on this planet. And maybe it was the Sith space he was in, all the aliens or maybe the stares. But something was wrong. And he, and the other poor bastards were heading right for it.

 

[Draazo Bamor]

Draazo had been busy transporting equipment for the Sith when the call for the job came in. The cryptic message and the odd circumstances had set off alarm bells in his head that were quickly silenced by the credits offered on completion. He had taken many risky missions on in his time and had never come out too worse for wear, a few scars here and there but he was still breathing.

Next, he had to make it believable that he was showing up late for his delivery. One bogus incident report and an altered flight path later, and to anyone interested in his whereabouts, it would seem that he had suffered an engine malfunction and had to detour to Subterrel to have it repaired.

As his ship lowered into Subterrel's atmosphere, Draazo contacted his employer and asked them to relay his commlink details to the others on this mission. It couldn't hurt to have some semblance of a plan, especially on an operation with such sparse intel. As his ship was taken through the standard docking procedures, he looked over the materials provided, as well as what he could find on the Rakatans.

He had always been fascinated by archeology but had never had the time to pursue it. So to explore an ancient civilization's history was a thrilling prospect to him, he just had to make sure he didn't become part of it.

Nej Tane

 

[Nej Tane]

Nej wasn't particularly fond of the feeling of the mission, team gathered or not. As far as he knew, it was a couple of scoundrels and people like him, mercs, and maybe a bounty hunter or two. A small team, and none of them had traveled together- at least, he hadn't been made aware of anyone traveling together. It was hard enough to get into Sith space slippery-like, harder to stay hidden. Sith Empires- the three that Nej had seen come and go since the Republic, replaced with every other kind of monstrosity and bad guy evil scourge of the galaxy-empire/governments... they tended to not look favorably on Nej and people like Nej.

The team was gathered several kilometers outside of the target zone, a settlement that had propped up thanks to the expedition and the discovery of Rakatan artifacts on the planet thanks to mining operations.

Nej checked his commlink, as the team trickled in, one by one, or together in some fashion.

He checked it again, then activated the scanning aspect on his helmet before his helmet folded back behind his head- scanning for lifeforms. At the moment, the only things left at the settlement that were giving off a bio-scan were the team, and the fauna and the few animals lying around, scurrying. Pets and livestock intermingled in the dingy streets that lined the pre-fabricated houses, with not a soul between them.

Nej looked at the droids wandering around, as many as there were.

Interestingly enough, the droids did not engage with them or acknowledge their presence. The doors that Nej tried were all locked. He thought about picking or kicking in a door to see if anyone was really home, but a run-in with the authorities, even this far out on a backwater Sith planet, meant larger problems down the line.

He walked near the Twi'lek soldier that had also been hired, rubbing his face, before speaking and looking around.

"We were supposed to get a speeder here. If you brought a speeder to the planet, don't use it. Somethings up. Look around for a speeder or a set of them that we can use, so we can all get this over with. This job is getting weird, so I don't feel like staying on it."

Draazo Bamor