Pirates Don't Retire

[Sasha Santhe]

[member="Gerion Ardik"] hadn’t approved of her means of attaining the information. It was a move that would have made [member="Sirella Valkner"] smile and [member="Jorus Merrill"] blush. Men were foolish around pretty women though and a simple flash of skin and promise of quid pro quo quickly got her the answer she needed. The poor functionary quickly died of a heart attack soon after, nanodroids in the blood stream blocking arteries did have that effect. It was no shame, not really. Mechu-deru was a very useful tool in Sasha’s arsenal.

“It’s in there,” she said looking at the fortified manor. Large walls disrupted any visuals from the ground and anti air turrets prevented flights. But Sasha was prepared. A droid nearby turned on a holographic representation of the manor including schematics of the ground floor. “I pulled these schematics from the contractors computer, it was encrypted but a little technopathy and I had it.” A smile crossed her face. “This guy used to be a pirate, but retired with millions after taking a freighter filled with corsca gems. He collects sith artefacts and my broker told me that he has what we’re looking for.” Smiling she noted the layout. “If the defenses consisted of only droids I would have had no problem getting in myself but there is also guards and a lot of electronic counter measures. So I invited you my truest friend and ally.”

The mansion itself was constructed well enough, although calling it a mansion was something of a misnomer. IT was a fortress. Auto defense turrets and various intrusion devices lined the outer perimeter along with an electro fence about one hundred yards from the main complex which was rounded by a shorter marble wall. The electro fence wasn’t up yet, but anytime so much as an animal approached sensors picked it up and turned the fence on remotely.

Sasha wore a tight black suit made of spider shell silk. “I can’t get in. I’m not a professional thief and even after blacking out the sensors there are still too many organic guards. I could use the force to persuade them I’m not there but there is no telling if any of those pesky species who can’t be mind tricked are amongst them.” She stretched about in a way that would be provocative to most men, but doubted if Tyrin would even notice. He was strange that way. Probably why she liked him. [member="Jared Ovmar"] had started those rumors about her and him, but good old reliable Tyrin wouldn’t. She coudln't imagine him being sexual in any way....

“That’s where you come in. We landed with some droids that I borrowed from a group of bounty hunters who were after this man.” she shrugged, “they were all purchased through your company by the hunters, it only took a gentle judge to get them that to do that. I figured it would be better for you to be familiar with them.” Her tongue flicked out and wet her lip. “If you attack toward this side,” she indicated the area on the holoprojection, “I will be able to slip in from behind and slip in unnoticed.”

Her smile turned to a frown. “I wish we could just storm the place but this planet is very strict about the presence of outside military forces and besides we wouldn’t want to reveal ourselves. So you think you can manage that? Attack, draw out the guards to this side and then I slip in through the back?”

 

[Caulder Dune]

[member="Sasha Santhe"]

It wasn't so much that Gerion didn't notice as that he was far too professional to act on his animalistic urges. Really, that was the only difference: restraint , with a reverence for self control and professionalism. It would be these principles that set him apart from the primates like [member="Darth Carach"]. That insufferable, Padawan-molesting, swine.... He'd get what was coming to him some other time. For now, Adekos would have liked to focus on the thievery at hand. A pirate lord was in possession of something he and Sasha Santhe had infinitely more use for. It would do better in one of their personal collections than languishing on a shelf in some retired renegade's half-baked collection.

Figures that something so priceless would end up in the hands of someone so undeserving of it. Just like Darth Carach and all his ill-gotten gains. A thousand Sith curses upon him and his libido! Adekos had to take a moment to banish these recurring, spiteful thoughts from his head so that he could focus more on what Sasha was talking about. So far he hadn't been insulted, berated, or otherwise condescended to. She must have been ill, quite seriously so if she just labeled him her "truest friend and ally." This would be a point of consideration after they had the holocron. Until then, the task at hand required his full attention.

Darth Adekos nodded. "I believe so. Alert me when you've gotten into position."

Normally Adekos would have just cloaked himself in the Force, slipped past the degenerate guarding the manor, and snatched the holocron. But when someone like Sasha took the time to lay out a careful plan, you did not correct them. You just went with it, because it was probably going to work anyway and there was no sense chewing up the scenery by engaging in a verbal debate about it.

 

[Sasha Santhe]

“Alright, when I’m in position you’ll hear two keys over the communications channel. That will be the signal to start your attack.” And with that Sasha was off. The woodline protected them from visuals, although around the entire mansion there was a clear kill zone where trees had been sliced down by laser cutters. Sasha didn’t need to worry about that yet, although the stumps could provide good cover for her should she need it on her final approach. Right now she was more worried about the pitfalls, trip mines, and pressure plated traps the paranoid pirate had placed. He spared no expense in getting the latest high technology installed in and around his mansion. While normally this would make a thief's job harder Sasha has a special knack for technology. With the force she sensed the various devices and was able to disable those she couldn’t just avoid.

She let out a deep sigh as she stepped over another pressure plate hidden beneath a fill of sod. Reaching out she could feel the laser grid it was connected to and knew the deadly bolts would have meant doom to most interlopers. It was a long loop across rough ground to reach her position on the south side of the facility. Most of the ground was relatively clear but the south side possessed hills and rock broke out of earth like blisters. Because visuals were naturally obfuscated in this area it had more traps, but still Sasha deemed it best to move approach from this side.

Sasha hoisted herself up some rocks and started stealthily up the hill. The southern approach to the manner was too rough for an assault but the rocky knolls provided perfect cover for a more stealthy entry. Sasha slid into position at the base just beyond the electro fence. Like a snake she slithered across the ground and took up a position next to a large stump. She took her comlink and keyed it twice signalling [member="Darth Adekos"] to begin his attack.

 

[Caulder Dune]

[member="Sasha Santhe"]

There was his signal. Frankly, Adekos wasn't going to be getting anywhere near the walls of this place. He, too, could sense the traps of various types all scattered about. Fortunately he didn't need to get close to provide a distraction. What use was his growing skill in Mechu Deru if he could not turn the auto-turret defenses installed around the fortress on their keepers? Darth Adekos shut his eyes and concentrated. Normally it would have helped to be closer to the turrets, but his repeated training sessions had allowed him to influence objects greater distances away and with more pronounced results. Without warning, two auto-turrets mounting the walls suddenly turned right around, angling themselves to aim into the manor's protected courtyard.

Then they opened fire.

Panic erupted very quickly. As if anything else could have happened when defense turrets suddenly stopped being so defensive. Adekos couldn't be entirely precise with their aim or their movements, but he made it count. Once they were re-programmed, he gave the order for the droids milling about him to start their own assault. The fifteen TA1s and three TA2s present immediately opened fire on the wall. Blaster bolts, explosive ordnance, grenades, and even heavier blaster bolts began to smack into the wall. So far the damage was only superficial, but that would grow if they maintained concentrated fire. Not that it mattered to Adekos. Bringing down the wall wasn't the objective, distracting these scoundrels was. As long as they knew they were under attack from the direction Adekos and his droids were standing, they would focus their efforts in that direction. Sasha would be able to do her thing as the guards recovered from the initial shock.

 

[Sasha Santhe]

The chaos that ensued was beautiful. Borh droids and mercenaries on patrol were caught in a deadly crossfire. Few managed to jump under cover as reinforcements arrived. One man rolled a grenade toward the tower damaging a turrets sensors causing it to fire too far to the left of every target. That wasn’t optimal, but good enough. Blaster fire crisscrossed the courtyard before someone finally shut the turrets off in an effort to save their fellows lives. And that’s when the attack began.

Sasha was happy enough with the display and watched as the troopers moved from their position on her side to the other. Recording devices could be set to repeat by mechu-deru skills, and it was simple enough to shut down the electro fence. If she did that however there would be no trace of slicing. Granted the gun turrets had already glitched, but one unexplained phenomenon could easily be ignored. No slicer was good enough to do that multiple times, and she’d rather not have suspicion of sith enter into things. Instead there was another plan.

Reaching out with the force she concentrated hard and found a generator. It was a simple matter to interrupt the circuit and black out the complex for just long enough for her to run through the gates. She waited for an explosion and did so. To the outside it would appear the generator got jostled and went offline for a few seconds.

With the force one could run fast, and Sasha had to run quickly. She traversed the terrain of the killzone and burst through the downed fence slowing only as she approached the inner wall. It wasn’t so tall, two meters and she hurdled over it landing softly on the other side. She took a few deep breaths and concentrated again. Signals were being sent by the mansion. The encryption wasn’t great and Sasha focused on the source sensing the flow of data….

“Crap,” she said aloud. The pirate had the some of the local planetary defense force in his pocket. Even now two companies of soldiers were on their way. That wasn’t Sasha’s main concern however. In the skies on approach in a few short minutes would be a pair of starfighters…. “Professor Longhair,” she said into her comlink hoping [member="Darth Adekos"] understood, “incoming reinforcements, including starfighters.” That was all she risked over the comlinks. She knew they were being monitored.

 

[Caulder Dune]

[member="Sasha Santhe"]

Starfighters. It just had to be starfighters. It also just had to be a retired pirate who was so frustratingly paranoid that he purchased the local planetary defense force to respond to any attacks on his homestead. It took a special kind of unrepentant paranoia to literally go out of the way to pay people who were already paid to defend you. In a technical manner of speaking, obviously. Adekos wasn't unfamiliar with this kind of paranoia either. He had lost track of how much money he had funneled off to the United Cestian Defense Forces in order to ensure any attacks on his facilities were dealt with... Promptly. But that was totally different.

Because of the thick forest they had entrenched in, Adekos and the droids were difficult to get a bead on for the starfighter pilots. Blaster fire tore through the trees, ripping apart the canopy and igniting a fire. Yes, that was exactly what they needed right now. Fire and smoke. At least it would make it more difficult to detect their movements. For now Adekos held his position, not even daring to utilize his comlink for fear of... Something. Maybe he was just really busy with this whole messy debacle.

Sasha was going to have to make this quick, because neither Adekos nor the droids were equipped to deal with air support. He would have liked to shout obscenities or something he found equally comforting, but he was more focused on deflecting some blaster bolts that threatened to hit him. Darth Adekos didn't send them in any particular direction, seeing as the enemy were too far away and shielded behind a wall. Speaking of that wall, it was looking rather worse for wear by this point.

A final rocket fired by an opportunistic TA1 slammed into the wall, blowing a chunk of it to bits. People screamed, debris flew everywhere, smoke rose in thick plumes- not just from the forest this time. The interceptors that had been dispatched fluttered around uselessly, like blind, deaf, and dumb bees trying to find something to sting. What a depressing display. Laser fire from the interceptors scorched the ground near him a second time, igniting undergrowth and more of the canopy.

"We're going to have to move now." Adekos coughed to the droids. "You two, three- lay down some suppressing fire while we move."

Three droids, two TA1s and a TA2, did as instructed. Darth Adekos led the rest of the droid strike team away in the opposite direction Santhe had run off in. There wasn't any time to do a head count, but Adekos assumed there were casualties on his end. Once they were in a different thicket of forest, he'd tally up who was left.

 

[Sasha Santhe]

The internal intrusion countermeasures were easy enough to avoid. Sasha had a knack for this sort of thing. If she hadn’t been born rich she may have ended up a top notch thief. She came in through a window that had been blown open by a missile which was fired from one of [member="Darth Adekos"]’s droids. It was much more convenient this way. Before she would have had to walk around and enter in through a security door used by the help, but now…

Inside the mansion was exactly as she had imagined. There was plenty of red carpeting and the walls were an off white plaster with deep red trim. Thats how she imagined a pirate ship, very red.

She walked through the kitchen and into a grand hall. The pirate lord was short by all accounts. She could imagine the long haired over fair leaping gnome admiring his collection. Stopping for a minute she admired it herself. There was a lot of Sith Artifacts, mostly minor things. A tablet with the sith code, a Lanvarok pole arm and wrist mount… She took the wrist mounted slinger and put it on. It felt good. “Oh,” She aloud, “Is that the reinforcements arriving?” The rumble of walkers being dropped by gunships echoed in the distance and Sasha smiled to herself. Tyrin could handle it, she’d ensured he had enough droids, but still….

Moving across the trophy room she came to the vault. The lock was a simple enough design, electronic though which was just a shame. Sasha stared at it focusing on the force, sensing the electrical current. Feeling the previous paths of electricity and combining it with her knowledge of electronics she could could divine the code. Still she needed just a little more time....

 

[Caulder Dune]

[member="Sasha Santhe"]

The situation was under control now. Adekos had relocated and now the droids were spreading out to form a half-circle in the treeline. If they totally surrounded the estate, Sasha would have no escape route. As it stood now, a cursory sense could see that most security personnel in the estate were flocking towards the areas that were under fire. With all that attention on him, and now with interceptors sweeping random parts of the woods in an attempt to land a hit, she should have no trouble. Darth Adekos really prided himself on how considerate he was being to Sasha's needs as the infiltrator for this mission, because she clearly wasn't being very considerate towards him acting in the capacity of the distraction. As evidenced by how bloody long this was taking.

But it was all good in the end, really. Despite the interceptors, he wagered he could hold out as long as he needed. The smoke clogging the air was providing excellent cover, though it also reduced the visibility of his droids. Which was irrelevant, seeing as they didn't need to actually hit their targets- just shoot at them. Everything was going swell, all things considered.

THWUMP.

THWUMP.

Walkers. Of course they were deploying walkers. Why were they deploying walkers? Because the Force had damned Adekos to a lifestyle plagued by needless difficulty. It also might have had something to do with the fact that what seemed to be a batallion of battle droids were attacking the estate of a wealthy retired pirate with vast connections. It was a mystery lost to the ages. The walkers, which looked like AT-STs in style but were probably more modernized, clunked off in opposite directions after being dropped in the middle of the half-circle formation. Adekos could hear the distinct sounds of their main cannons firing and exploding Talos-Series Droids. This would need to be dealt with quickly.

For his first trick, the Umbaran vanished under a Force Cloak and began to make his way towards the first walker as it rampaged among his troops.

 

[Sasha Santhe]

Electricity ran through wires invisible but tangible force controlling the massive doors. The keypad itself was a simple and ancient device and it didn’t take too long And then Sasha was in. The vault opened before her and what was inside was… beautiful…

Pieces of Art, precious gems and history filled the walls of the vault. There was a portrait of Darth Janus painted on Raxus that Sasha found particularly amusing. In it he was depicted as a nascent god with two heads back to back. One was the Sith Sasha had known and the other a mysterious figure cloaked in shadow. It’s what [member="Darth Adekos"] was best at afterall, cloaking and running away. Velok had taught her to deal with that particular ilk. There was a mural further down the line. It was large and portrayed the battle of Roche. Instead of the marginal defeat the Sith Suffered it showed the bloated new Emperors victory over [member="Ashin Varanin"]. It was a farce, a not so clever fiction of an Emperors rise to power perhaps commissioned by [member="Fatty"] himself.

There was more Sith artwork, but thankfully nothing of Sasha Santhe save a single picture labeled the ‘the beauty and the beast’. The portrait was commissioned some time ago and Sasha had always hated it. It was an image of her as a girl flanked by both Ashin and Velok. With a heavy sigh Sasha stepped forward and lit the picture aflame. It was the only portrait ever made that linked her to the Sith.

She continued to scan the vault looking for evidence of the holocron. It was right where the man said it would be sitting completely undefended. No doubt there was systems in place to deter thieves, holocrons were very valuable. She examined the pyramid for a minute and frowned.

All she needed was time, but time she didn’t have. Behind her she heard the footfalls of the pirate himself came to check on his treasures. Sasha turned and faced him. Marco Paolo was an older man, grey coating the sides of his head. On the right side of his face there was a set of scars, claw marks from some beast. Sasha had heard he killed it with his bare hands, though what exactly the beast was changed with each telling of the story. There was a hitched in his step. Another wound upon his leg from a raid around Corellia, and then injured again while plundering his final prize of Corusca gems.

He wore a long coat with a pair of viciously large pistols. Sasha recognized them as Chiss in origin, masers. He had obtained them while raiding a convoy of the blue people. Sasha admired the lack of emotion displayed by Chiss. It was their most endearing trait in her eyes.

“The Holocron is a fake,” Sasha said striking up a defensive pose.

The pirate narrowed his eyes. “You were supposed to make it look like a robbery, so I could collect insurance. Not destroy my entire mansion!”

“And you were supposed to provide the real Holocron.” Sasha shrugged. “I paid good money for you to retrieve it.”

The pirate shifted a little before holstering his pistols. “I did retrieve it. But the Hutts got there first.”

“And you thought you’d get paid coming and going?” Sasha laughed.

“Pirate remember?”

“And you take my money?”

The Pirate smiled, “I thought this might happen.” He reached into his coat eliciting a defensive tensing of Sasha’s muscles. No weapon was forthcoming. Instead he threw a small datapad across the room. “The holocrons location and all the information I have on the Hutts defenses.”

“If this isn’t legitimate…”

“It is. Now take the fake holocron so I can collect my insurance.”

In a fit Sasha instead slashed through the fake holocron with her saber. “I will be back if this isn’t legit.”

“Of course Darth Acentia,” the man bowed as Sasha left the vault.

“Professor Longhair,” she said through her comlink, “We are leaving. The Item has changed hands. I’ll meet you back at the ship.”

 

[Caulder Dune]

[member="Sasha Santhe"]

Adekos' lightsaber slashed easily through the right leg of the first AT-ST, prompting the thing to fall on its side. A natural result of having such thin armor around the legs, really. Darth Adekos had managed to get over to the AT-ST in time to disable it, but not before it had taken out a score of his droids. And there was still another one running amok on the other side of his formation. Perhaps he could get over there if he hurried fast enough, but by then the second AT-ST would have scrapped a significant portion of the droids present. TA2s or not, AT-STs packed a little more heat and were more effective in delivering it. That was just how walkers worked, now, if an M2 Heavy Walker were here...

Sasha's voice cackled over his comlink, informing him that the item had changed hands. Of course it changed hands. Why wouldn't it have changed hands? Since when was anything regarding a holocron even remotely as simple as ransacking a pirate's mansion? No, these things always ended up being huge stories that no one ever read to justify the hoarding of artifacts no one even wanted. Except for the people who were telling the story, obviously. No one ever gets things right on the first try, so Adekos probably shouldn't have been annoyed as he was at this turn of events.

"I'll leave the droids to cover our escape." Adekos replied.

The sacrifice of the droids would be honored. Just like when Adekos honored his toaster oven for breaking while toasting something. Which was to say they would be no more honored than any other appliance that happened to break while doing what it was supposed to do. Vanishing again under the guise of a Force Cloak, Darth Adekos peeled off into the forest to make his way back to the shuttle they had arrived in. The sounds of fighting eventually died down the further he walked, although that was just as much because of the successful pirate counter-attack than it was his increasing distance from the battle. They probably- hopefully -would not know to look for anyone else other than droids.

 

[Sasha Santhe]

[member="Darth Adekos"] was a fairly competent man, although truth be told Sasha had never seen nor heard of him winning a fight. Still he had managed to amass a fair amount of wealth and in a pinch he did well under Sasha’s direction. “This place is a nightmare,” Sasha said looking at the details of the Hutt Manor, or rather fortress, only this time she didn’t have an arrangement with the guy inside. “Why are these things always so hard? Why can’t we just trip over artifacts and go ‘hey look this is an artifact’.”

Sasha set course on the ship for the Hutt world and frowned. “Perhaps we should try to purchase this artifact first? Then we can go in.”

 

[Caulder Dune]

[member="Sasha Santhe"]

"Because that kind of behavior is reserved for Ovmar and is largely beneath us." Tyrin explained, quickly, so he could say it all before sneezing into his elbow.

What Tyrin rarely discussed was that he had a severe allergy to the Hutt species. Most people's disdain for those disgusting slugs was due to their greedy demeanor and poor hygiene. In the case of Darth Adekos, it was also because of those things, with the added fact that they tended to make him violently ill. Even the mere mention of dealing with Hutts was enough to prompt sneezing on his end. It was for this reason he hoped whatever business they had here would be taken care of quickly. Then he could go back to his shuttle and shower for the next three years to get the Hutt stench off of him. He sniffed to make sure his nostrils were clear before meandering away from the cockpit to sit in the cabin.

"We certainly have enough money between us." He replied. "Get him to name a price and we can likely double it. It'll save us the trouble of... Exposure."

He sneezed again.

 

[Sasha Santhe]

Sasha quirked a brow at [member="Darth Adekos"]. He was acting a fool at the first mention of Hutts. It wasn’t possible to be allergic to Hutts having no hair, fur, or even dander... so it had to have been a mental reaction. It was really no wonder though, Sasha always suspected he was a headcase.
“[member="Jared Ovmar"] isn’t that bad,” she shrugged, “then again he didn’t sleep with my apprentice.” She stopped to muse for a moment. Should she? Yes she should. “Perhaps that reflects upon you that [member="Darth Carach"] was so easily able to achieve his goal with your apprentice. Not that he isn’t an attractive man in a thuggish sort of brutish way.” And then she flipped her hair, “Still he lacks in charm. Raw animal magnetism? Well he has that in spades.”
Then she turned to Darth Adekos. “I got the information. You can approach the Hutts while I monitor the conversation. If things go bad I have the data to sneak in and take what is ours. If you’re game?”

 

[Caulder Dune]

[member="Sasha Santhe"]

Adekos, as one should have reasonably expected, scowled at the mention of the unfortunate deflowering of his apprentice.

"Oh, I see you're in a charming mood. Why don't you go in and charm the Hutts instead?"

He had already lashed back at Carach by informing his apprentice of the technovirus she unwittingly carried. Whether or not that had resulted in due justice was unknown to Adekos. What he did know, however, was that inflicting (or attempting to inflict) wounds upon an enemy didn't necessarily speed up the healing of his. Even if they were probably even by this point, Adekos wasn't bound to forget this slight. Not that he would act upon it any more than he already had, because pushing the envelope too far with one's colleagues was never that much of a good idea. But after having narrowly survived airstrikes, walker attacks, and return fire from private militia forces, this latest task as distributed by Santhe had knocked the envelope off the table.

"I'm not discussing terms with those slugs." The Umbaran proclaimed, pinching his nose and repressing a violent sneeze. "You do it. Maybe you'll discover your own love for the 'thuggish sort of brutish way' while you're in there."

 

[Sasha Santhe]

“Ah Tyrin…” Sasha said sashaying forward. She put her arms up over his shoulder before leaning on him. “If they are busy with you… I can go in and steal some things. I know you have force cloak…. but I have the plans, and the technopathy to open vault doors and get wherever we need to be.” She looked at him and sent a hand through his hair winking. “I can see I upset you, and I’m sorry. So I tell you what…”

She leaned in and kissed the elderly man in the lips. “Now you have something else over the brutush [member="Darth Carach"]. Something he hasn’t had yet. Does this make you feel better?” And then she backed up and gave him an appraising look. “I know your taste lie more towards the… strange… but still…”

She shrugged. “Now what do you say you deal with these slimey hutts so a girl doesn’t have to?”

[member="Darth Adekos"]

 

[Caulder Dune]

[member="Sasha Santhe"]

As was usual when masquerading as Darth Adekos, Tyrin's hair was pulled back into a dour ponytail and concealed under cloak. So the Umbaran only stared in befuddled annoyance as the littlest Santhe who could fondled the back of his hood. She was, for lack of a better word, all up in his business. Neither Adekos, Tyrin, nor Gerion appreciated this kind of behavior. Not from his coworkers, anyway. If it had been the Queen of Kuat throwing her arms around him and asking for favors, he would have forded Black Holes to accomplish whatever it was she wanted. Sasha was about as far removed from the Queen of Kuat as possible, unfortunately, and so she would not get the same response. Legends tell of a level of discomfort so high that it transitioned directly into annoyance and agitation. Such was Tyrin's discomfort that he skipped right over awkward shuffling and avoidance of eye contact and went right into the most profound sort of irritation.

When Sasha peeled her mouth away from Adekos' she would find not his lips, but the palm of his hand. The Umbaran, adroit man that he was, had skillfully intercepted Sasha's mouth with his hand. It was good for everyone involved that he wasn't the violent type, otherwise it would have gone a bit further than that. Adekos pressed the hand he had used to block this unwanted display of persuasion to his chest and harshly wiped it off in one motion. He was considering a cybernetic replacement for that hand now. There were not enough advanced DNA tests that could be run to determine exactly where that mouth had been.

"It would be most appreciated if you saved this sort of behavior for Starchaser." He remarked bitterly. "Are you going to talk to the Hutts now, or should I call my shuttle and return to Coruscant?"

 

[Sasha Santhe]

Sasha sighed and rolled her eyes turning and walking away towards the cavern that was a Lucrehulks bay. There she got into a shuttle and left. Tyrin was an ass. Hyperspace circled around her briefly as she made the micro jump to the Hutts Palace. She landed, mask in hand and prepared for the greatest adventure of all… dealing with a Hutt.

The guard let her through without even needing a mind trick. A case full of hard currency credits got her through the door. She approached the Hutt and spoke calmly. “As I told your man at the door. I am here to purchase an item you have recently acquired.”

“Ho ho ho…” the Hutt laughed. He spoke in Huttese, a language which Sasha detested. She kept her comlink open for [member="Adekos"] to hear everything that was happening. There was a chance negotiations would break down and she’d require him to send out his droid fighters while she made her retreat from a slew of angry Hutt Mercenaries. “Why should I sell this item to you?”

Sasha purposely shrugged her shoulders, “You are a businessman,” she said, “You buy for a credit, and sell for two.” Tapping her case she added, “And I have a lot more than two credits.”

“So this sith holocron. You clearly value it…” the Hutt started with his preamble, “I think perhaps it is worth more than you can afford.”

“I can afford a great deal,” Sasha said in her Sith guise. She couldn't’ just offer an exorbitant sum or else the hutt may demand more. It was their way, and Sasha began to understand Gerion’s allergic reaction to the worms. “But why not just tell me what you want for it, and I shall tell you what I have.”

“Ho ho ho,” the Hutt replied again. “The Holocron of the legendary Qel-Dromo is near pricess.”

“But you bought it for two million credits,” Sasha quickly shot back. “Let’s arrange for a slight markup, two point five million.”

The Hutt recalled his hands throwing them into the air, “a steal for that price,” he declared. That of course, was the other option. A droid moved about around the Hutt. “Eight million.”

Sasha could of course pay for it, but the Hutt didn’t know that, if he did know about the immense fortune that both her and Gerion had at their disposal he would only inflate the price. “Three million.”

“We are far apart,” the Hutt said in his language. A low mumble followed.

Sasha shook her head and took a half step forward, “No,” she said, “We are both right here…” Sasha considered her next words carefully. “You don’t really want this artifact in your possession.”

“No?”

“No,” She replied firmer. “How much longer do you think it will be before a Sith finds out you have this?”

“Some sith can pay very large sums.” the Hutt replied quickly.

“Yes, and more Sith kill anyone who get in their way. Which will learn of this holocron first? And which will come for it? Who can say.” Sasha shrugged.

The hutt seemed to consider the words for a moment his eyes bobbing around in his head. “Four million,” he said. He made his money back plus one hundred percent, but it was still reasonable. “Yes, I could live with four million.”

Sasha laughed a little looking over the giant worm and getting her case od credits ready for the transfer, “You can live for four million credits you mean.” Anymore and she herself might have killed him.

The two showed their goods and cash in good faith and the exchange was made before Sasha left and headed back up to the ship. “And now Adekos, we have what we were after.”