614. The Heist - Raezyr

"So you successfully managed to hijack the shuttle full of aurodium, and then have it hijacked from you and lived to tell about it," Trychon stated, summing up the Zabrak's tale. "The obvious conclusion is that you blew off the fact we saved your life, double-crossed us and dishonored the deal we had, took the aurodium and are now here lying to us, trying to convince us of your innocence."

"By all rights, I should cut you down where you stand," Raezyr added with a sneer.

Dagus went rigid, not with fear but anger. The Zabrak were a proud race, and one that held honor in high regard and Trychon had just accused this one of being completely without honor. "I came here to accept my punishment for failure. It is enough of a blow to my dignity to have failed in my mission after already owing my life to you, but I am here as honor prescribes, owning to my shortcoming and ready to accept whatever consequences you deem appropriate," the mercenary said through clenched teeth. It was all he could do to keep from reaching for a weapon.

"That, Mr. Kolant, is one of the reasons my brother won't be removing your head from your shoulders... at this time," Trychon informed him, relieving the mercenary of his stress yet keeping the threat ominous and looming.

"The other reason is that you may still be of some use to us. At the moment, we accept your explanation, but you're going to have to prove that we can trust you," the older Sith said. "How can we be sure that you won't betray us?"

"I failed you once, and that can never be forgiven," Dagus began, "but I swear it will never happen again. You saved my life once, and now you give it back to me a second time. I swear my allegiance to you."

"Not good enough," Raezyr snapped.

Trychon eyed him suspiciously and wondered if he should step in. The Zabrak had already sworn his allegiance. It was what they had been hoping for. Curiosity got the better of him and he decided to let his younger brother continue and see what happened.

Raezyr lowered his voice to barely above a whisper. "We want the Zabrak Blood Oath."

Dagus Kolant's eyes shot wide open and he nearly came out of his seat. "How do you know about that?" he said in a furious whisper.

Raezyr looked the Zabrak in the eye as well as one could wearing a helmet with a full face shield. "You are not the first Zabrak I've dealt with."

"Never. The Blood Oath has never been sworn to anyone not of Zabrak blood. I will not do it now."

"Then you have just broken another promise. We now have no use for you, and I will make sure that all who hear of the name Kolant will know he was an oath-breaker and lived without dignity or honor," Raezyr said matter of factly and began to stand up. "Our conversation is at an end."

"No!" the Zabrak said forcefully. "Fine. If that is what it takes, then that is what I will do, but on one condition: No one besides you can ever be told of the Blood Oath."

"Agreed," Trychon spoke up, giving his younger brother a look of appreciation.

"Put your hands out," the mercenary told them, indicating they should mimic his own hand stretched out before him, palm up. When they had done so, Kolant pulled a vibro-knife from it's scabbard on his belt and cut a deep laceration in each of their hands, then held his up and motioned for the two Sith to do the same. They did so, and the blood of the two humans and the Zabrak mingled together, dripping down their wrists, into their sleeves and onto the table. No one around them seemed to even care what they were doing.

Kolant then spoke. "Blood to blood. Honor to honor. Until the day the final sun sets, forever shall my life and loyalty be bound to those with whom my blood now mingles." He pulled his hand down and then wrapped it quickly and deftly with a strip of cloth he pulled from a pouch at his waist. "Satisfied?"

"Yes, that will do," Trychon said, grabbing a kolto patch from a pocket on his fatigues. Somewhere in the back of his head he wondered if he'd become ill from Zabrak blood getting into his system, and was sure there as a joke there to be made, but decided now wasn't the time for it.

"We have a mission for you," the older Sith continued. "As we told you before, we still may have a use for you, and it's the reason we had you meet us here on Tatooine." He nodded to Raezyr to continue.

"There is a Hutt who runs a small operation here on Tatooine. His base is located a hundred klicks north east of here in an old mining facility. His name is Jama'Ruckus Russ'El. He's a bust pretty much as Hutts go. Big, fat, and only concerned about himself, but he employs a lot of mercenaries. One in particular that we are concerned about: a Zeltron named Lexa Teal," Raezyr said, pausing at the look of recognition on Kolant's face. "So you've heard of her?"

"Yes, although I don't know much about her, other than she's quickly making a name for herself among bounty hunters and mercenaries around the Galaxy," Dagus informed them.

"Excellent," Trychon said, picking up where his brother left off. "We want you to join Jama's operation and keep tabs on both Lexa Teal and Jama. Send text reports using the encrypted frequency we gave you earlier. Jama rarely leaves Tatooine, but Lexa often goes on missions. Use your best judgment, but try to maintain tabs on both at all times."

"Questions?" Raezyr asked.

"No."

"Then get to it."

"Yes, my lords."

613. The Heist - Trychon

The three met up as planned shortly thereafter, and Falka confirmed for them what they'd already expected. Jama the Hutt had backed off his direct hostility for the Black Phoenix since they'd bombarded his base, but there were still the whispers and hints that you'd expect from a rival who had more than a passing interest in your business. In a normal business, it would not be much cause for concern. In the smuggling business though, and especially when dealing with Hutts, if it was so simple as merely keeping an eye on the competition, it wouldn't stay that way for long.

It took more effort for a scorned Hutt like Jama to hide their intentions of direct violence and general thuggery than it did to actually destroy an enemy using such blatant attacks. It was convenient that things had been peaceful so far since their last visit, but assuming such a volatile situation would stay calm was not a mistake they'd make. Remaining prepared for any eventuality and keeping a closer eye on the Hutt was the only option.

The Sith brothers thanked Falka for the briefing and kept to themselves until it was time to set on their way to Anchorhead to implement the last complicated part of their intricate plan. Trychon hadn't specified where the mercenary Kolant was to meet them, but there was only a certain number of places that meetings like this happened, and they'd only need to take their speeder by a couple of them to find him. Zabraks were rare enough in this part of the galaxy, and they also had a rather unique Force affinity.

Once they were on their way, Raezyr didn't need their unique Force-bond to tell his brother was pre-occupied. It was obvious enough to him, and he'd already known he likely would be as well as the reason why.

"How'd things go with the droid?" He asked as though it was a simple conversation starter.

"She's NOT a Dro..." Trychon blurted out before stopping himself. He realized fully that Raezyr did view her in such a light to an extent, but also continued to refer to her as such to get him to drop his guard. He ignored the chuckle that followed. Despite the underhanded jab, his brother did want him to talk about it.

"She acted as though we were business acquaintances at best, or strangers at worst. She left the room fairly quickly, too. I don't know what I wanted to happen... but that wasn't it."

"Would taking a few random alien women back to base with us help?"

"No... Maybe."

Raezyr wasn't expecting that response, glib or not. Still, he pushed forward. "I'm sure even a computer could interpret what it meant if you did that. Doesn't matter anyway though. We're here for business and the ability to pick up strange women, impressive or not, doesn't exactly strike fear into those beneath us. We'll let you unleash on unsuspecting loose women later if we must. I'm pretty sure this is the place."

Trychon nodded, feeling the same ripples of uncertainty. After finding a suitable parking spot, with easy access and a quick out if necessary, they headed inside. They headed straight to the booth that had a single occupant with an awkward looking hat, poorly hiding a set of Zabrak horns.

"Wondering why you're alive?" Raezyr grumbled as they stopped behind Kolant.

"Don't insult us." Trychon snapped as they felt the alien twitch towards a weapon.

"Force of habit." Dagus responded without turning around.

"We like stories." Raezyr answered his own rhetorical questions as he slid into the booth facing Dagus. "You didn't run, and this one promises to be good."

Dagus sighed and waited for the waitress Trychon had summoned to finish serving their drinks before he went on to explain exactly what had gone wrong on his portion of the mission. He began with the beginning, how the shuttle showed up at the coordinates he was given, and at exactly the time he was told to expect it. Everything had gone just as planned until he got pulled out of his route on his way to see the exchange, and immediately nailed with large amounts of ion charges. Blinded and immobile almost immediately, he explained that he wasn't sure as to why the pirates allowed him to live.

For their part, the Sith did manage to seem both interested and surprised at all the right times in the story.

612. The Heist - Raezyr

"Lord Trychon, Lord Raezyr, I trust you had a pleasant journey?" the Khommite leader of the Black Phoenix said, bowing to the two Sith as they walked down the loading ramp of the space craft.

"Skip the niceties for now, Falka. Save the sucking up for a time when you've screwed up," Raezyr informed him. Suddenly a thought struck him. "You didn't screw up, did you?"

The two brothers walked straight past the gray-skinned humanoid and he fell in walking alongside them. "No my lords. Everything went according to plan."

"Everything? There were no problems fencing that much aurodium with the Exchange contact?" Trychon asked.

"No Lord Trychon. Everything went as planned. The credits were deposited in the specified Den Var bank accounts."

"Excellent. Raez, if you wouldn't mind going to a secure terminal and checking the balance, then transferring all funds into the secondary accounts before closing that one. It wouldn't do for the Exchange to double cross us and wipe that account clean," Trychon said before turning back to Falka. "You, Captain, please accompany my brother. As soon as he has transferred the credits to the Black Phoenix account, you may begin using it to upgrade and pay off any debts you may have acquired up until this point.

"I have some other business to which I must attend right now. When we've all finished, meet me in my office and we'll discuss the 'Jama the Hutt' situation," the elder Sith instructed.

When the Raezyr and Falka had left, Trychon turned and headed toward the computer-room-slash-comm-center. He was anxious to see the Black Phoenix resident slicer, Haley Stargazer.

His reason for visiting was a professional one, although it was a thin disguise as the message he needed to send could have been done from any number of terminals throughout the base.

Since the two Sith had left here last time, he had thought about the blonde cyborg often. More than often, really, and although he'd tried to convince himself it was purely for professional reasons, he knew it was a bit more than that. They'd shared a pretty personal experience in those desert caves and he knew there was a connection there. At least for him there was.

But had she felt the connection as well? He thought she had, but had pondered that question nevertheless. It was hard to tell with some cyborgs. Many cyborgs only had a replacement appendage and were purely medical in nature, but others lacked any kind of real emotional displays due to the implanted circuitry replacing some of their neurological parts, and in her case, even controlling certain brain functions. He'd know soon enough though.

The Sith warrior rounded a corner and found himself pausing at the door to the main computer room. His heart was beating heavily as he punched in the access code and the door whooshed back into the wall. He stepped in and let it close behind him.

Haley was sitting in her 'command' chair, eyes closed. One might think she was asleep except for the wires running from her occipital and other cranial implants and the fact her cyberneticly augmented hand was moving swiftly across some sort of interface apparatus.

"Greetings, Trychon," she stated flatly. She opened her eyes and glanced over at her guest. "I... trust you are well?" she asked, seemingly not knowing what else to say.

"Uh, hey Haley," Trychon said. This first exchange wasn't really going the way he thought it would, although he hadn't had any real preconceived expectations. He just knew this didn't seem to be it. "What're you doing?" he asked. Stupid question, Trych, he berated himself inwardly. You can see she's programming or something like it.

"I am currently rewriting a section of code for our automated defense grid protocol. It will optimize the response time, increasing it by point oh one three milliseconds," she told him. "Is there something I can assist you with?"

"Uh, no... just need to send this encrypted text only message out," he said, not sure how to proceed.

"Oh," she said, pausing just long enough to wonder at the strange tone she said it in. "As I'm sure you are aware, you could have done that from most terminals in the base."

"Yeah, I just wanted to make sure I had some privacy, you know?"

"In that case, I can leave for a few minutes. The code is currently compiling."

"Oh, no. That's okay. I didn't mean..."

"No it is no problem. I will leave you to send your message," the blond cyborg said, getting up and swiftly exiting the room.

Trychon stood there for a moment looking after her. "That couldn't have gone any worse even if it had been a nightmare," the Sith grumbled to himself, sitting down at one of the other consoles.

He turned his mind to the task at hand, typing in the message to Dagus Kolant, the Zabrak mercenary from Talus, instructing him to proceed directly to Tatooine immediately upon receipt of the message and to land at Anchorhead.

611. The Heist - Raezyr

"What happened to your face?" Trychon asked when he stopped by to tell Mannix goodbye.

The youth related his encounter with Raezyr and hour earlier, recalling some of the anger he felt at the time.

"Wait. Raez punched you?" The Sith asked.

"Yeah."

"Then you talked?"

"Yeah."

Trychon chuckled. "You mean he tapped you. You'd most likely be in the med-bay right now if he'd really punched you."

Mannix turned his back on Trychon. "Whatever you want to call it, it wasn't necessary." It was clear the Taxl felt he was being laughed at and didn't appreciate it.

The warrior shrugged. "What he told you was good advice. I left some homework for you as well, some exercises to enhance your Force abilities." He waited for a moment, holding out a data card containing the holo-program, but Mannix stood busying himself with some component on his fighter.

"Well, I'll leave it here for you," Trychon said, setting the card down on a tool-tray. "See you when we get back," he called over his shoulder as he walked away.

"See ya," the monk said loud enough he knew the Sith would hear him. He was a bit confused by his own emotions. On one hand, he was so excited about his "home work" assignments he'd been given, yet he was angry at the way they had treated him. Then there was fact he was being left behind and the events that had recently taken place.

For so many years his life had been uneventful, and in the last several months his own personal universe had been turned upside down, destroyed, rebuilt. The one constant was the Force, and he had fallen in love with the power that surged through him when he accessed the Dark Side.

-----------------

Raezyr tapped the blinking light on the control console of the Jet Razor and grumbled.

"You keep doing that. What's the problem?" Trychon queried. They'd left Hoth several days ago and his brother kept worrying at that light every once in a while.

"The port hyper-chronotron flux stabilizer keeps acting up. Never had a problem with it before, but ever since those gorram techs on Corellia looked over the ship, it's been out of whack," The big warrior explained.

"'Out of whack?'" the older Sith questioned. "Is that a technical term?" he asked with a grin.

Raezyr ignored his half-sibling, punching the comm button instead. "Aitchkay, have Schyrt or Reed looke at that port flux stabilizer again."

"Response: Reed states he's looked at it three times on this trip already and is unable to locate the source of the malfunction, but says he'll look again," the robotic voice crackled back over the comm speaker.

"I better go look at it myself," the armored Sith said, standing up from the pilot's seat.

"Is it really that big of a deal?" Trychon asked.

"It could be if it goes out. Traveling through hyperspace bends the normal time and spatial laws. Time and space passes differently in hyperspace than it does in real space. That flux stabilizer helps ensure that the time-space ratios stay equalized other wise we could arrive at our destination before we ever even left, or worse," the big Sith explained.

"Doesn't sound all that bad, arriving early. What could be worse?" the older Sith asked jokingly.

"How about being in hyperspace for seventy days only to find that seven years has passed, or 70 years?" Raezyr suggested.

Trychon looked at his brother for a moment, suddenly sober. "Yeah, maybe you better go look at that."

"It's probably just a faulty sensor, or so I'm hoping since Reed can't find anything wrong with it."

"Yeah... me too."

--------------------

Two days later the Jet Razor exited hyperspace in the Tatooine System. They didn't bother wasting time getting permission to land at Anchorhead. Instead, they landed straight at the Black Phoenix base.

610. The Heist - Trychon and Raezyr

As Raezyr led his lover into the dining area, to find his brother sitting smugly already with a plate full of food. He shot a quick glare that way and grabbed himself and Dianna plates as well. Trychon didn't look up, but he certainly felt the intent behind the look from the younger Sith.

As the pair sat down across from him, Trychon spoke with his mouth still half full. "I'm serious though..." He paused to swallow before clarifying. "No... not about that part. Di, all due respect, I know that you prefer to keep your business and personal life separate, and that's great. It's smart."

Dianna crossed her arms. "Exactly. That's why..."

"That's why..." He stopped to swallow yet again. "You need to look at this from a strictly business standpoint and so do we."

Dianna's expression soured, but Trychon continued after shoveling even more food into his mouth. "Relax. We're not trying to take control of your operation or anything like that. Korriban knows we have enough on our plates to worry about as it is, and now with Tyr and Anya stealing one of our ships and leaving in the middle of the night..."

"What?!" Dianna blurted out, louder than she intended and gathering a few looks from around the room.

"Don't worry about it." Raezyr assured her. "They're just lucky that Trych and I have other things to attend to at the moment."

Trychon could tell she was about to get too curious about what was more important than a stolen ship, so he interrupted again. "In any case... from a purely business standpoint, it only makes sense for us to give you more than you're asking for. One of the largest reasons we went on a mission so risky was to get you ahead in the game again. If we give you enough to be barely standing, and quite frankly, worse off than before... well, you're going to have a harder time paying any of it back. It's just not good business for anyone involved."

"So you ran the numbers?" Raezyr said, playing along.

"I did, and our modest investments have produced more than we expected. Not only will we have enough to cover Di's losses, we'll be able to invest enough in the King's Lair for her to repair and upgrade her operations," Trychon explained.

"I'm not sure what to say," Diana started. "I'm in debt to you two."

"Oh you bet your sweet ass you are," Trychon said grinning. "We'll draw up the paperwork after breakfast, but we're going to expect a return on our investment."

"Excellent, because I'm not taking a hand out," Diana said, a prideful look in her eye. "You'll be paid in full, with interest."

------------

After breakfast, Trychon began drawing up the contracts while Diana duties to attend, chief among those was finding a new First Mate from a long list of candidates.

Raezyr left the two to their respective work and sought out young Mannix, who had become quite the recluse since their return from the mission. He found the youth working on his star fighter absent-mindedly.

"You should really pay closer attention to what you're doing. You're craft is all that is between you and death out there in the black," the big Sith scolded.

The former Taxl monk half jumped at the sound of the big man's voice directly behind him. "I'm sorry Raez. I know better. Taggart used to say the same thing."

"You should also be using the Force to be mindful of your surroundings. I shouldn't be able to slip up behind you like that. Is there something wrong?" Raezyr asked the young man, noticing the young man's empty eyes.

Mannix looked down at his feet. "I just can't help thinking about Jester. If it weren't for me, he'd be alive right now. I keep thinking it should be Jester standing here, not me," he said, then paused, looked up at the Sith warrior and continued. "But then again, maybe I need to let this go."

"Mannix," Raezyr said, shaking his head. "Listen closely." The youth's eyes met the warrior's for a moment.

Then Raezyr punched him in the nose. Mannix nose exploded in a gush of blood, his head rocked back and his knees began to buckle. Before the kid hit the floor, the Sith grabbed him by the tunic and shoved him back, slamming him against the snubfighter almost effortlessly.

Mannix opened his mouth to speak, his hands covering his face, but Raezyr interrupted. "I don't ever want to hear you talk like that again, got it?" He didn't wait for an answer but continued, his face twisted into a snarl. "You're gorram right Jester's dead because of you. If you hadn't screwed up he'd still be here, and don't you ever forget it. Remember it, because it won't be the last time you're responsible for someone dying.

"Then take that feeling, bury it deep and let it fester and simmer. Then let it rise again as hatred for failure and for those who fail you and purge it from them. Let that feeling fuel the Dark Side.

"You're mad at me right now. Good. I can feel it within you. Let go your forgiveness and embrace your hatred. It will make you powerful... more powerful than you can imagine," the big warrior finished, then backed away, letting the monk go.

Mannix pulled his hands away from his nose. The blood had slowed to a mere trickle. "Yes, Lord Raezyr," he said, half mocking yet half respectful. Deep down he could feel what the Sith was telling him was true, and he liked the power which had sprung to him while he was angry, and longed to taste more of it.

Raezyr ignored the half facetious tone. "Now, I came here to tell you Trychon and I will be leaving again, but I have training for you to do while we're gone." He un-clipped a training lightsaber from his belt and tossed it to the former monk. "I've uploaded a holo-trainer in the workout room computer. It'll teach you some of the basics."

"Is this mine?" Mannix asked in awe, staring at the metallic cylinder in his hands. He switched it on and listened to the snap-hiss and humming of the energy blade, his anger from before forgotten.

"Hell, no." Raezyr replied. "That's a loaner. One of these days you'll build your own."