How To Find Very Old Things

[Janeth Farr]

"You will meet this Sith Lord and see what he has to offer."

Janeth stood in the bridge of her ship, listening to the demands of the Board yet again. "We trust this source?" She had to ask.

There was no reason for her to walk in blindly when motivations were obscure. Who this Sith Lord was and what they wanted continued to elude her.

"We see no evidence of intended betrayal. There are more efficient ways to flush us out." They assured.

If it weren't for the large sum of credits about to hit her bank account, she would've said no on the spot. Instead she bit her tongue and waited for the call to disconnect. Once it did she sat back down into the pilot's chair, and punched in the coordinates to the rendezvous point.

There she would meet the Sith Lord at a refueling station, and hear what he has to say.

 

[Darth Osano]

There was no Sith Lord waiting at the station.

Nobody anyone would recognize, anyway.

When [member="Janeth Farr"] landed at the remote refueling station, there was a short and grumpy little Ugnaught waiting for her. It was dressed like a mechanic but didn't bear the ceremonial Ugnaught grease stains and filth splattering its apron. It looked far too clean. More alarming than its unusually good hygiene was the uneasy feeling it seemed to project. There was something dark and mysterious at work here, either within or upon the Ugnaught. It was difficult to tell. More difficult to care. There would be no walking past or ignoring this Ugnaught, as often happened to others of the same species. She would be drawn to it by the subtle telepathic persuasions found in most Shi'ido.

If that wasn't enough,and Janeth had any doubts that this was her contact, they would be summarily squashed when the Ugnaught opened its mouth. "Oink," said Not-Maleagant, in a voice that was unmistakably one that could never belong to an Ugnaught. It was probably jarring to witness. Good thing there were no spectators here. This port was remote enough, but Darth Osano had swept the hangar for bugs anyway once he arrived.

They were clear.

"You are Janeth, aren't you?" Not-Maleagant continued, cocking his head. Then the piggy smiled - a hideous and lopsided gesture. "You're pretty tall."

 

[Janeth Farr]

Janeth walked down the drop ramp as her ship continued to cool down after a long flight, releasing a great deal of exhaust from its vents. That is when she was met by an unexpected sight. An Ugnaught...

Normally she had very little patience for things of little stature, but that all changed when it spoke her name. "Um..." She lost her words as many thoughts began to flood her mind. It took her several seconds to process that this in fact must have been a representative of her contact.

That's not a Sith Lord. She noted mentally.

"Right. How does this work?" She asked.

Quite frankly this happened to be her first interaction with a Sith Lord--or at least a Sith Lord's associate.

One of the actual mechanics came up and gave the two a long, hard stare before he went to refuel Janeth's ship.

 

[Darth Osano]

Not-Maleagant snorted at the nosy mechanic droid and reached into the pocket on the front of his apron. He appeared to shift around for a few moments (clearly he was carrying a lot) before finding the relevant datachip. It was a peculiar looking thing. It looked several centuries old at the least, though a tech-savvy person could tell it had been refurbished and repaired quite extensively. On one side was one of the many symbols of Xim's Empire. It looked quite old and chipped. On the other there was the symbol of a crimson spider, perched in the center of a white web.

This had been added recently.

"You will take this to Thule," said Not-Maleagant. "You will enter the hidden cache located at these coordinates. You put this in the computer. It turns on. The droids wake up. They kill some people. You help them. You keep the droids. You keep what's in the cache."

Originally the plan had been a protracted siege of Thule. Costly, but effective. But while searching for a suitable landing zone, Osano and his minions had uncovered something far, far greater: a cache of weapons, armor, battle droids, and valuables left over from Xim the Despot. Xim had been a fan of storing things on a "just in case" basis. At one point the Hutts had reactivated several such caches to massacre the Yuuzhan-Vong invaders by the hundreds of thousands. This one had been left untouched since its inception. Now there was a new opportunity to clear the Zambrano filth from Thule and reclaim his birthright with only marginal deployment of his own forces.

Recreating the code necessary to activate the droids had been a painstaking process. Hopefully it would work. If not, the deaths incurred by [member="Janeth Farr"] and company were no skin off his nose. Either Osano got what he wanted out of this or he simply tried something else at a later date. Nothing to lose. Everything to gain. Not-Maleagant licked his lips. Tasted like bacon.

"Then I pay you extra if you do it right. Deal?"

He did not know much about Farr and her Collective, save that they had something of an affinity for technology or something along those lines. Details were sketchy. If they didn't go for it, he'd find someone else. He usually did.

 

[Janeth Farr]

Overthrow the government? Droids?

She didn't know anything about Xim the Despot, so she had no idea what any of this meant other than there happened to be a cache filled with droids. Though she supposed it wasn't her place to ponder on these facts. She did what she came there to do; get information.

"Simple enough." She reached out to take datachip in hand, then stored it in a small satchel on her belt. Right next to a heavy blaster pistol. "It looks like we have ourselves a deal... Tell your employer to keep in touch, we'll reach out once we're ready to strike." Janeth wasn't too used to deals like this, and speaking from a position of authority on Collective matters was not her strongest point.

However, she wasn't given specifics on what she was supposed to say or do. So she relied on improvisation as usual.

With nothing left to say, she turned around and walked back to her ship. Marching up the ramp which lifted behind her as the engines roared back to life. The servant droid panicked as he was still fueling her ship. Struggling to shut off the line and remove the hose. Unfortunately the wake of her engines blew the poor thing off the ramp and out of the artificial atmosphere.