Enforcer
The summons came the way true power speaks: without a reason. Called to Wheeta Palace immediately. A wafer thin thumbpass in a black sleeve, no crest beyond a faint, heat reactive sigil that only a Falleen would recognize. No schedule, nothing beyond a place and the certainty that when your summoned by the Underlord, you move. Xalazar Krev left Nar Shaddaa within the hour. There were no explanations owed to anyone, and none asked any questions either. In this business that's how it always was, the more questions you asked the worse off you'd wind up. If you screwed up it would be someone you know who walks you into a room you wouldn't ever walk out of. He'd met those who feared that truth and they never lasted long. He wasn't one of them. Whether it was a simple meeting or an execution he'd go with his head held high.
Nal Hutta greeted him with a breath like an open, seething wound of hot rot, metallic rain, and the green reek of marsh gases rising in slow bubbles into the sky. The skiff skimmed the Silted Causeway under a bog gray sky while willows dripped into the muck like they were tired banners. Half-sunken statues lined the approach, immortality for the shamed, all former rivals captured in the last moments of defiance, now collar-deep in slime and humility, all they were being buried into the muck so their replacements could come and assume the new positions on the path of embarassment. Ahead, Wheeta Palace shouldered up from the marsh like a crowned bunker, rotund and patient its outer walls blotched with old Hutt stucco and new syndicate teeth. Turbolaser emplacements panned with disinterested accuracy. Somewhere in the reed beds, a dragonsnake rolled and vanished. High above, groups of Z-95 Headhunters patrolled in lazy, predatory ellipses that said everything a welcome didn't about this place.
The skiff nosed into the docks among workboats and lacquered pleasure sleds, past stanchions furred with moss and the irritable whine of field generators. Black Sun Guard were everywhere: made men in sable armor cut to move like cloth, visorless helms with a hint of ornate flourish, each pauldron marked with the sigil that taught planets to whisper. They didn't challenge him; they watched him, which was more honest. A security scanner tasted his breath; a second straightened the tiny fluctuations in his body temp into a neat, green line. Fields shimmered all around with door-fields, blast doors, security thumbpasses, security layered so thick even the air felt laminated. He dialed his pheromones to a respectful warmth, something kin would read as deference rather than dominance. The Underlord's personal guard were all kinsmen; walking in with a chemical swagger would be an insult to them and the Underlord. He wasn't here to posture.
The marsh fell away behind the gates and with it the noise of Lowtown's Slag Market, hawkers and cheats, butcher-knives on durasteel blocks. Inside, the palace swallowed the world with polish and security. Pressure mines lay quiet under imported moss. Walker barriers gleamed like the bones of drowned giants. Droids moved ceaselessly: H-TFU battle models dormant at ease, gladiator frames slumbering behind latticework, autoturrets asleep in the ceiling's black seams. A handler led him down a long, curving corridor where the floor was reflective black stone and the light made a river out of it. He walked the center line, coat unbuttoned, armored weave whispering beneath, letting the place take his measure. The Jade Serpent wore his best for the occasion. Loyalty wasn't a word here. It was a posture and the very choice you made before the doors even opened.
They moved past a yawning arch glossy with chainwork into the Gallery of Worldly Delights, where smoke drifted in slow blue sheets and dancers turned like trade secrets. Music pulsed through the ribs of the walls; it was a deep, narcotic thrum that suggested luxury as a form of anesthesia, that this was a world of pleasure where you could leave the rest of the galaxy behind. He read the room without breaking stride from the spacing of the floor staff and the pattern of drink runners. Just how everything moved here as money changed hands. Farther on, heat and spice rolled up from the Palace Kitchens: the smell of cooked meats heavy in the air. A narrow stairwell breathed cold air from below. The sound here made a different kind of promise. Xalazar did his best to log routes as they moved, keeping the environment familiar and the path they took. He never lingered, this wasn't a tour it was a guided path forward to meet someone who would not be kept waiting.
Meanwhile his mind worked quickly breaking things down.
Razmir Tezhyn
would have been informed, right? An enforcer wasn't plucked from his duties without the Vigo's shadow being folded into the choice, right? Fine. He served Razmir's ledger and Velzari's will. The disk in his inner pocket held unpleasant truths about the Crimson Veil, names, logistical data, shipping lanes, those in their pocket and so much more he was able to accumulate. He considered which thread to pull first, not to impress, but to prove understanding and competency. The Underlord balanced brutality and treaty like a bladesmith balances edge and temper. To stand near that, you didn't grovel before him. You matched tempo. They passed niches where laser gates slept behind grilles, shallow alcoves perfumed by narcotic vapors and arches where security scanners whispered green approval. Guards were stationed in strateigic positions all along the dizzying route, impossible to catch them all even with the awareness of a force user, if you were forcing your way through you'd pay for it with blood eventually, there was no doubt. The security here was efficient and incredibly expensive. He felt the palace do what good palaces do: edit you. They curated you in this new environment like it was a world unto itself. Doors opened before them not because he was expected, but because he belonged here until the very moment he didn't.
More Falleen kinsmen stood the last approach to the heart, lacquer-black armor with a green undertone, helms sculpted to echo the ridges of their skulls. No pheromones from them; they were all professionals with their chemistry leashed. One met his eyes, read his scent, and inclined his head a precise fraction. Not welcome. Recognition. It landed in him like a key turning. Kinship wasn't a shortcut; it was a standard to meet. He adjusted his cuff, gold fastener, matte, no glare, and he let the gesture end on the Black Sun at his collar. Respect required small precise movements. Right at the Wheeta Throne Room threshold the temperature dropped a degree, enough to wake the skin. Chains hung from the vaults and made a soft, metallic rain of sounds when the air moved. The floor was a perfect black: a mirror that returned you to yourself with all the warmth pulled out.
He thought about death the same way he thought about business, briefly and without drama. If this was a room he didn't leave, his people would keep working because he'd built them for that. They were his crew because they bled this life, the best for their roles. If it wasn't, then he would leave with something heavier than he'd brought. Either way, the decision would be made cleanly. He let the handlers halt and he stepped ahead of them, a measured pace into the light that didn't flatter. His emerald skin took it without apology. He kept his pheromones at a low half-breath of deference, something any Falleen would read as both offering and restraint. Then he dropped to one knee, it was like the angle a craftsman finds once and keeps forever. The Jade Serpent knew better than to speak before being spoken to. So he remained bowed, his eyes fixed on the black floors that reflected his silhouette back at him, waiting.
