November 14, 2010

625. Hoth: King's Lair - Raezyr


The Jet Razor dropped through the clouds and into the snow storm on Hoth. From that point on Raezyr was piloting purely by instruments, instincts and the guidance of the Force. It was dangerous, but they had been in a low orbit holding pattern for nearly eight hours and he was sick of waiting. They'd been on the go for what seemed like years and on the surface of this frozen rock, nestled into the snow and ice encrusted mountains which held the King's Lair base, was his long awaited down time.

And Dianna Kingsdoom. Since their pseudo-relationship had begun months before, there had been precious little time to spend with the fire-haired beauty who had a temperament to match. They'd constantly been on the go, with missions for their Dark Lord, for Dianna, for the Black Phoenix, and even for themselves. It was finally going to pay off.

They had no money in their pockets currently, but neither did they have anywhere to go, and the longer they waited to leave, the more their credit accounts were going to be padded as the payoff from their investments began to come in. It would be slow at first, but they could wait.

In the mean time they had lots of training to catch up on. Sure, they had done a bit of training while making hyperspace jumps, but you could only practice lightsaber forms so much in the cramped cargo hold of the Jet Razor, and you could meditate on new Force techniques, but it was dangerous to really test any new capabilities.

Just ahead through the swirling wind and snow lay a welcoming, albiet cold spacecraft hangar, and once the ship was parked, Delki, Dianna's little Chadra-Fan mechanic could give the ship a good once over. That pesky hyperdrive relay had been acting up again, and damned if he could find anything wrong with it. Hell, even the maintenance crews they had encountered at the last several spaceports had been unable to find anything wrong with the relay.

What he was missing most of all, more than testing his combat prowess against his brother and their apt pupil Mannix, more than studying at the phantasmic feet of his newly found weapons master's holocron, he was missing being in the arms of his lover, Dianna Kingsdoom.

More than anything else, the pirate queen seemed to bring the chaos swirling around Raezyr into focus, calming the storm and helping him see what was truly important. When on missions, the excitement and danger began to cloud the end goals and at times the bloodlust of battle tended to take precedence over common sense as witnessed by his actions recently on Den Var, both in his suite and out of it although he'd never admit as much to Trychon. Dianna tended to have a calming effect on him, clearing his mind and letting him get back on the path of achieving his goals.

His main goal was beginning to look like it might actually be achievable. After the Jedi had hunted him and his Master down and murdered her while he barely escaped with his life, he knew he wanted to bring the Order down, rip them from the lofty pedestal upon which they had placed themselves and handed down their orders, condemning all who did not conform to their ways and secretly directing the Republic to do their bidding.

Thanks to his brother's meticulous planning, things were working out nicely. He had gone from the life a mercenary to someone who would soon be someone not to be trifled with, and not just on a personal level. Trychon's struggle to achieve his own goals were nicely complementing Raezyr's own.

Trychon had begun with a simple thirst for knowledge, a desire to learn more, to piece together the puzzles of the artifacts that had been scattered about the planet on which he had grown up. The more he found out, the more he wanted to know, and somewhere along the way this desire to learn had gradually morphed into a need to attain power. Not just power over himself, but power over everything around him. Eventually one organization would attempt to put an end to that quest, and when it did, the brother's separate goals would merge into one.

One brother needing to attain power to eliminate the Order which had wronged him, and the other brother needing to eliminate the Order which would stand in his path to power. And together they would end the tyrannic stranglehold currently held by the Jedi and their puppet regime, and rule the Galaxy as brothers.

Up ahead loomed the shadow of the open hangar bay doors and Raezyr pushed back his thoughts and focused on the task of landing the star ship. The ship set down with a hiss of gasses and a slight clunk of the pads touching softly down upon the durasteel hangar deck, and Raezyr stared out of the cockpit viewports in confusion. Instead of things being repaired or upgraded, the exact opposite seemed to be happening.

Equipment was being packed into plasteel bins and crates and loaded into cargo holds. Little work seemed to be happening to damaged ships except to ensure they were spaceworthy. Nothing was being upgraded. If he didn't know better, Raezyr thought this looked like a thorough evacuation.

He met Trychon at the loading ramp and they walked down side by side as it was slowly lowering. Reed and Schyrt followed closely behind. "You two get our gear unloaded and to our quarters, we'll go find out what in the name of Korriban is going on," Raezyr told them.

Once they were beyond earshot of their two minions, Trychon spoke in a low voice, "I don't know what this is all about, but it can't be good."

"Indeed," Raezyr replied.

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