The Prince's Court

[Zark San Tekka]

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Esfandia-class Carrier Corvette Beneath the Raptor's Wings
Deep Space, Several Lighthours from Point Nadir
Outer Rim

"He'sssss late," Hakar hissed, the Trandoshan's frustration with their present circumstances evident even upon his reptilian features.

"He'll be here," Ifan ben-Mezd, newly assigned representative of the Salvatrucha Economic Development Corporation to the Nuiri sector, answered calmly. His hands clasped behind his back, he continued to stare out the viewport with a serene expression on his face as he added, "Soon enough."

Inside, he was anything but certain. A raging sea of self-doubt and fear, the Prince knew that they next few minutes could make or break his career with the Exchange. And in his line of work, career prospects and life expectancy shared a causal link. The Board had given him a seemingly impossible task, which means that this was most likely a test. Another in a long line of tests. A most dangerous game, one that could cost him his life, but on the other hand...if he were to succeed, it meant the next step up on the ladder.

A step awfully close to the top.

His superiors had charged him with the task of establishing a base of operations for their enterprise on Point Nadir, but had given him practically no resources to go about accomplishing such a monumental task. To top it all off, they had given him a deadline. A quite literal deadline. Given a few months, maybe weeks the savvy human might be able to come up with something, albeit extremely bare bones.

Even though he simply didn't have the time, ben-Mezd had been wracking his brain for ways to do just that, when he realized he needed to completely rethink his approach. Instead of thinking small, he needed to think big, the biggest. And instead of relying on the same old tricks, he would borrow new ones, albeit with his own personal touch. The Exchange always did things soft, but the Prince did not have time for soft. He would need to go loud, but he would also need to keep it contained, otherwise the Board would have him killed anyway for making too much noise.

That was when he had begun to plan the assault on the Crown Court Casino.

All they were waiting on now was the arrival of this [member="Xian Valart"], and the last of the professional contractors would have arrived for the job. They had been waiting at the rendezvous for almost an hour already, where Valart was supposed to dock with the Raptor's Wings. Then he and the rest of the team would take a clean ship to Nadir. From there, Ifan could only hope that they would stick to the plan, or he could kiss his career in the underworld goodbye. And also probably his kneecaps.

Of course, all that assumed this pirate even showed up at all.

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="The Prince"]

Then... as all hope seemed to be lost, as well as his kneecaps, a ship reversed from hyperspace.

It was an unassuming ship.

Smaller than a frigate, but larger than a corvette.

A mutt that shared the speed of one and the power of the other, but the question was which way it would truly favor. 'Twas the true question and one that couldn't be answered until the time came that it would be put to an honest test. Which wouldn't be today, because today the job was of a different variety, one where a ship wouldn't do much good and it was all about a different sort of slaughter. So it was that a small transport detached itself from the freighter and would dock with the Prince's ship.

The presence of the pirate ship loomed in the distance.

Just outside of turbolaser-range, but that was more a matter of good manners than anything else. Soon enough the transport would dock with the Exchange ship, out would come a large Twi'lek armed and armored to the teeth and with him four companions.

 

[Zark San Tekka]

[member="Xian Valart"]

"Think of it like a hostile takeover."

The Prince's hand glided over the upper walkway's safety railing as he gingerly descended the steps that would take him down to the cramped landing bay. A few starfighters had been cleared out to make room for both the pirate's transport and the one with the brand new, untarnished telesponder registry next to it, but there was still even less room than usual down in the bowels of the corvette.

"Now, the current management didn't get to where they are now by not being prepared to handle this kind of thing," shining eyes made unflinching contact with the brute of a Twi'lek and his added muscle, "In addition to the not inconsiderable security, its practically impossible to find each major player under the same roof. Except for on fight nights, like the one coming up soon in Resh 9376's orbital cycle. All of Crown Court will be accounted for, or enough of them at least."

"If we can funnel their leadership out of the public eye, and into the office suites or the cages, say with some kind of security breach..." ben-Mezd trailed off, smiling viciously at Valart, "That's where you come on. My people can do something about the automated defenses, but when it comes to the hired guns a degree of 'brute force' is required. That's you, Captain."

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="The Prince"]

He decided he didn't like Ifan ben-Mezd.

Perfumed, thin and sickly, paint on his fingers and under his eyelids. Eyes bright like a fever touching them. The subtle involuntary twitch of muscles around the nose and cheeks, whenever a smell washed past his nostrils and suggested a hit. The Prince reminded him of his last owner, the one whose throat was slit and slaver gang was stolen by his own prized possession. It was a pleasant memory: the ashes seeping down as tears mixed and turned to dirt, blood crimson sticky, the last hitched word please and sense of power as life faded away from those eyes. Part of the Twi'lek wanted to turn this mission around and capture Ifan, turn him into a slave and watch him waste away in front of him.

But ben-Mezd had done nothing specifically to earn this ire from him, besides exist.

"Do you want any of 'em alive or do you want us to slaughter them all." The Prince would soon find that Xian didn't employ fancy language or skirt around the noise. This was a slaughter job and that was how Xian would call it.

It didn't seem like the Twi'lek had a preference one way or another though.

 

[Zark San Tekka]

[member="Xian Valart"]

If the Prince found the twi'lek's language disturbing, he showed no outward sign of it.

"There are one or two key personnel, mostly tech and financial types," Ifan mulled the question over, giving it serious weight despite the macabre nature of the conversation, "That would perhaps earn you some bonus pay if they were not...damaged beyond repair. It would make matters easier for us in replacing their infrastructure with our own, but it is not strictly speaking necessary. Our slicers and accountants can do things the hard way if it comes to it, with the amount of variables at play it is far more critical that you make sure none escape."

There was something in the alien mercenary's eyes that made Ifan rapidly reassess his threat index. It reminded him of a nature holodoc he had seen once before about predators driven feral from starvation. Still, he proceeded as if he didn't notice, or didn't care. Hakar was nearby, prepared to lead the pirates to the ship's armory in case they wished to make use of any military grade equipment in addition to what they had brought with them. The Trandoshan would intervene if Valart's crew decided to make a move, and ben-Mezd had a few tricks up his own silken sleeves.

"Most important of all, and I cannot stress that enough," shimmering eyes locked with the alien's to demonstrate he was serious, "Is that you do not alert the public. Above everything, my employers value their privacy. You wait until as many as possible are away from plain view, then you go. The rest, my men can handle discreetly before they cause too much trouble. I won't insult you by threatening you with the consequences of failure. Yours, and mine. I trust by your reputation that whatever else, you are a professional, and you will get the job done."

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="The Prince"]

"Give Lip their names and faces." He gestured with a thumb over his shoulder to the shorter ones of his companions. An Umbaran, thin, reedy, he didn't look like much, until you saw his eyes. There were constantly watching, looking, probing, that together with the set of daggers hanging from his belt would say enough about his expertise for now.

Lip didn't say anything while accepting a datapad.

"We will try and keep 'em alive." Xian didn't try to make any promises here. He didn't know what the lay of the land would be, what kind of complications would arise, best if the expectations were as low as possible.

Head tilted as the Twi'lek mulled over that particular request.

"If some get in the way, you want me to keep them alive too?"

 

[Zark San Tekka]

[member="Xian Valart"]

"There can be no room for error and circumstance," Ifan's eyes narrowed, "If there are any witnesses, exercise extreme prejudice."

"He meanssss we kill anyone who sseessss our fassesss," a Trandoshan voice interjected, its owner speaking for the first time since the mercenaries had boarded.

"Yes, thank you Hakar," the human genuflected in his wispy motions, "Anyone not where they are supposed to be is a contract. To that end, let us finalize the matter of your payment...."


Point Nadir
Later that evening...

"Are you reading, strike?" the disembodied voice of the cybernetically augmented human that had shared the transport with the rest of the crew crackled over the comms.

"Read you, Krypter," Hakar answered under his breath in response. From his vantage point a ways down the Arcade he was still technically visible to the casino's exterior community system.

"I've used our inside man's intel to breach their security protocols," the unnamed slicer's voice was eerily neutral despite the prospect of impending violence, "Monitoring their feeds and waiting for our window. Devlin will signal you when his distraction is ready."

"What'ssss the ssssignal, Krypter?" Ifan's right hand asked as he covered his mouth to yawn.

"He said you'll know it when you see it, strike," was the only response.

Devlin was the other addition to the team on the transport. The Devaronian had simply introduced himself as the expert in creating 'security breaches.'

"Ssssscorekeeper keep my tally," Hakar mumbled. Lighting a cigarette, he used it to disguise his next question, "Captain Valart, are your men in possssition?"

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="The Prince"]

As expected the perfumed man declined his invitation to join the assault.

Weakness.

One day the good Prince would learn that the only way to have true power in this business was through strength of resolve. Their Underlord, the one who had build the Exchange from the ground up, had spilled an ocean of blood with his own two hands before everyone finally fell in line.

Then another six oceans to keep them that way.

"Yes." The Twi'lek responded, but this time without the veiled disgust. Hakar was a Trandoshan, yes, not to be trusted.

But there was obvious strength and Xian could respect that.

"Waiting for the signal." His fingers curled around the veiled hilt of his blastsword. Skin turned white from the pressure. But his blood was pumping, adrenaline up, there would be a fight soon and Xian could feel the fury already bubbling up.

This would be a good one.

 

[Zark San Tekka]

[member="Xian Valart"]

The moments before a battle was always a spiritual time for the devout Hakar. To almost feel the veil between life and death in his blood as he closed in at last upon his prey, it was something sacrosanct. Finishing his cigarra not long after Valart's confirmation, he returned to the anonymously rented hotel suite a bloc over, where the high powered Trandoshan hunting rifle was set up just inside the balcony with a clear view on the casino's offices, as well as most of the exterior security. Most buildings on Nadir were covered with materials resistance to blaster weaponry, even the windows, but the ammunition the reptilian mercenary was using were specifically designed to pierce reinforced duraglass.

"I will cover your approach and disssspossse of asss many asss I can from here when it beginsss," he reminded the Twi'lek, "If Krypter earned hisss pay, the sssecurity doorsss to the cagesss sssshould open for you. The hallwaysss will likely be tight, clossse quarterssss work, but we don't have a precisssse layout. Fortune be with you, pirate. Do not fail."

Hakar had hardly finished his words when he felt a slight rumble even from his position. Inside the casino itself, the effect was dramatically more pronounced, enough to cause even the combatants currently in the fighting pits falter momentarily, before resuming their combat to the death to the still raging crowd. On each level, gamblers glanced up momentarily, just long enough to confirm that the staff did not seem to be stopping any of the games, although they were speaking intently among themselves and running back and forth.

"Huh. Looks like someone blew the casino's outer vault, strike," for the first time, a hint of mild surprise injected itself into the otherwise crisp and emotionless tone of the team's slicer, "There are about sixteen additional layers of security, but its sure got their attention. The ones not headed to the cages to secure their krayt dragon's hoard, are headed your way."

The Exchange fixer could already see bodies filtering into the offices through the scope on his rifle, gesticulating occasionally as they spoke and scanned data terminals, or shouted into a comm unit. Despite his ramping bloodlust, the cold blooded sniper kept from squeezing the trigger until no new bodies had arrived over the course of several dozen heartbeats.

Then the hunt began.

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="The Prince"]

Breathing in.

Out.

In.

Out.

In. Bang. The explosion in the lower levels caused the flooring tiles to shudder for a brief moment, a lamp flickered as one of the generators went out from the sudden eruption of force, then the controlled chaos began in earnest. People flooding out of the casino as they were forced out by emergency evacuation protocols. They would want to secure their position, entrench and make sure everything was safe, before they would even begin to think of allowing others in. It was for this reason presumably that one of the side-doors to the alley opened itself and out came two guards, smokes in hand, but rifles at a moment's ready. That moment would never come to them as Xian's blast-sword punctured straight through the first neck and then twisted, causing energetic discharge in the face of the second guard.

Both of them collapsed and Xian cleared his edge against the fabric of guard clothing.

"We are going in." The Twi'lek mumbled into the comms, before stepping over the bodies and followed by his men. The discharge hadn't been heard because of the alarms. But soon enough it didn't matter, because the goons of the casino had strict incapacitate-on-sight directive now.

It was a slaughterhouse.

Xian didn't stop to find shelter, he ran through the hallway like a mad man, taking full advantage of the cover fire provided by the Trandoshan and cutting a bloody path through the facility. Blood flowed richly, one or two faces hiding in adjacent rooms were knocked out and locked in for extraction by the Exchange, but no one else escaped their blades and blasters. Even a few stray civilians were cut down, when they saw their crimson-stained faces and sharp predatory teeth grinning.

It took all of twenty minutes, but felt like hours.

 

[Zark San Tekka]

[member="Xian Valart"]

Hakar exhaled after each shot, cocking the low tech bolt action design and lining up on his next target.

"Strike, I've locked down all egresses from the secure areas and scrambled their access codes," their slicer announced smoothly over the encrypted comm band, "Normally a quick workaround, but I imagine their support team is a little preoccupied at the moment."

The sniper could see through his scope that Krypter had come through. Several figures fled for the office doors, only to find them tightly secured and not recognizing their authentication. Not only did it keep his targets contained, it drew them into a lethal honeypot as the survivors converged on the first available exit. Lining up his shots with ruthless efficiency, so too did time seem to slow down for the Trandoshan fixer. His cold-blooded nature allowed him to process the heightened sensory input with greater ease, it was part of what made his species such naturally proficient hunters, and despite the tension leading up to such a critical operation the actual execution was almost a mundane exercise for an experienced marksman like Hakar.

The minutes ticked by on the chronometer he had set up to measure their rate of progress, until there was no longer any movement that the merc could see from the vantage of his improvised blind. But no movement did not mean no life, and Ifan needed him to be sure. Not even bothering to break down the hotel set up, he strapped the scattergun on the cot across his back, and hefted his tribe's chalon double-blade. Out the back of the hotel was a network of alleys that could take him around to the casino by a more circuitous path than walking through the front door, but to make up for the lost time he was required to do it in a sprint.

"Need an entranssssee, Krypter," he panted into the comm unit, fatigued by the time he reached the side door.

"On it, strike," the voice didn't even hesitate in its response, "Tracking your movements."

Just ahead of him as he ran, a light blinked green and an authorization tone sounded, and Hakar slowed just enough to swing open the door before pressing on into the bowels of the casino. With the more limited spacing around him, he was forced to utilize the traditional Trandoshan blade of his people more as a spear or in a whirling dervish on the few remaining staff he came across. The ones he didn't catch as he cleared the halls with his scattergun that was. When all began to come across was just more evidence of the pirate's savage work, he felt confident enough to signal for the clean up team.

Not long after he had spoken to Krypter, the bloody reptile could see bulky speeders pull up via the casino's own security monitors, out from which came a group of sentients ostensibly there to assess the damage and make repairs. Hakar knew better, they were Exchange to a man, part of the crew of the Raptor's Wings. Their job would be to intercept any members of Crown Court's former syndicate, and neutralize them at the first private opportunity. The casino was all but taken, which meant the Prince would not be far behind.