796. The Rough Exchange

"I can't tell if you're listening to me or not with your damn helmet on," Rhox Vegha said to the armor clad figure sitting next to her in the cockpit of the air speeder. At one time, the craft would have been considered the ultimate in luxury speeders, but that time was a couple centuries past. Now, it needed a paint job and an engine overhaul, not to mention a complete renovation of the interior. The last time that had happened was probably more than twenty years ago, by the looks of things. Still, it afforded the privacy that people of their passengers status was required without giving the appearance of opulence which was unbecoming of any monk, no matter which order they belonged to.

"I'm listening," Dianna Kingsdoom's muffled and distorted voice said through the vocabulator of the helmet. It was weird hearing her own voice sound like that, but Trychon and Raezyr had insisted on disguising her voice on the off chance it might be recognized.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but you told me you were going to avoid getting back together with that Sith, and take it slow if you did, didn't you? Or was I dreaming that conversation?" Rhox chided.

"Yes. That's what I said," Dianna said, turning away from Rhox and pretending to look out the window.

"Well, seeing you come out of Raez's sleeping quarters this morning kinda throws all that out the window, doesn't it?"

"First of all, we slept. That's it," Dianna said. "Second, he caught me off guard. I couldn't sleep, so I decided to try this armor on, make sure it fit. I wasn't expecting to see him in the middle of the night... at least..." she paused, remembering how Raezyr had looked; disheveled hair, shirt off, that wry smile off his. "At least not like that."

"Whatever," Rhox said curtly.

"I'm sorry, Rhox. I can't help it when I'm around him. You know that."

"I do know that," the dark haired woman responded in exasperation. "You know I only have your best interests at heart, and it's not just you I'm thinking of."

"I know... I know," she said, and even though a helmet and disguised voice, she could hear her friend's smile. "I promise I'm going to take things slow. I haven't forgotten about all the changes he's caused in my life... the good or the bad."

"I guess that'll have to do," Rhox said, turning her attention to the upcoming landing.

795. The Rough Exchange

"So tell me again who we're looking for," Trychon said after the issue of disguises were settled. It was usual for most monks of S'pann to travel with a body guard so it had been decided that Dianna Kingsdoom would don a suit of Eriadu armor and play that role, while Rhox Vegha would pretend to be hired aircar driver and wait outside. If things went badly she could either come in as reinforcement, rescue, or just play the role of get away driver. Hopefully it wouldn't come to that.

"The being our trail led us to was a Weequay named Que-do Ulvik, but other than the fact he belongs to the Exchange organization, we have no information about him," Dianna Kingsdoom informed them. "We suspect, although we've never been able to confirm, that Ulvik is on Orbital Station at Telos IV."

For the next few hours they hashed out some more details of their plan, then finally decided to turn in. Raezyr lay in his bunk, unable to sleep yet unable to pin point a particular reason why. After a couple of hours, he got up pulled on a pair of sleep trousers and went out to the main room to get something to drink.

As he entered the room, he noticed Di across the room, her back to him. She hadn't heard him. Instead, she continued to strap on the Eriadu armor she was supposed to wear the following day, adjusting various straps and ensuring a snug fit.

Raezyr grabbed a drink canister and walked across the room toward the fiery haired woman. "Something about a woman in armor," he commented quietly. She turned and looked him in the eyes.

"I wanted to make sure it fit properly," she said. "Help me adjust this strap, will you?" she asked, indicating a strap by her waist.

He walked over and connected the strap, making sure the fit was snug. He then put his hands on her hips and drew her to him, pressing his lips to hers. She tried to pull back. She put her hands against him to push away, but he held her tight. Slowly he felt her resolve melt as she gave herself to him, her hands beginning to run over his muscled chest.

Long moments passed as they drank each other in. Slowly Raezyr's hands began to disconnect her armor, and finally she pulled back. "Raez... no."

He wrapped his hands around her waist once more and pulled her close. She didn't try to fight. She didn't want to fight. She told him so even as she turned her head away. "Raez, you don't know how badly I want this... but I can't right now. There are things..."

"None of that matters," the big Sith interrupted, caressing her chin and turning her eyes back to his. "All that's happened is the past. Your past, my past, it's nothing. What matters is that you and I are here, together. I've become even more powerful than you can imagine, and I promise you this: Nothing will come between us. I won't let it. And I won't let you go again... Ever."

He looked into her eyes, and through the Force he felt her relief and... something else. Was that a flash of fear? He told himself he was mistaken as he lost himself in her.

794. The Rough Exchange

Within moments, the cargo speeder was safely secured in a nearby storage locker while the four humans and cyborg were safely inside as well, with their makeshift headquarters fully operational. Trychon sat in the 'command chair' at the main console, inspecting the data scrolling across the numerous screens while Darth Invictus scanned the security feeds, ensuring no one would pay them a surprise visit. Not that they really expected anyone to do so.

"And just how secure are we here?" Rhox Vegha asked Raezyr as they checked the racks of supplies to ensure whatever they might need was already on hand. "How do you know the owners of the building don't know about this place?"

Raezyr paused for a moment and gave Rhox a bored look. "The owners do know about this place."

The dark haired woman's jaw dropped. "How do you know they won't rat you out to the Exchange, or worse, the Hutts?"

The big Sith rolled his eyes in exasperation. "Because the owners are us," he replied as if talking to a small child and indicated Trychon and himself. "And now that we're finally done taking inventory, how about we all sit down and go over everything one more time? Unless of course you feel like raising more concerns that have been taken care of long before you waltzed back into our lives? No?"

Rhox glared at him and plopped down into a chair at the long table in the center of the room. "Oh how I missed your sunny disposition."

"And I, your trusting supportiveness," Raezyr retorted, sitting down opposite.

"Guys!" Dianna said, sitting down at the end of the table, between the two. "Let's focus on what we are here to do," she admonished. "Now, as we told you back on Den Var, someone made multiple in-roads on our private lives. At first, we thought it was an isolated incident, locally related, but then the next attempt was made, and we were unable to trace that one to it's source. We were never able to even find out who had been snooping around our home and businesses. The third attempt, however, was and attack on our lives. We got lucking in that we were able to trace the assassin, but the trail ran cold after it lead to Nar Shaddaa and The Exchange. After being out of the business for so long, our contacts were either dead, unable to be located, or out of the business themselves."

"At that point, we had a choice to make," Rhox said, picking up where Dianna had left off. "We could either go back home, hope whomever it is stops sending people, hope that next time the assassin didn't get lucky, or..." the dark haired woman trailed off, looking over at the red head to continue.

"Or we reach out for help," she said. "Raez, we knew you probably still had connections, at the very least. We couldn't live our lives in fear anymore."

For the next hour, Rhox Vegha and Dianna Kingsdoom laid out the trail they had followed to the point it had gone cold. Dead ended, rather. The Exchange was an intergalactic crime organization that had been insurmountable for many people, including planetary governments and the Galactic Republic itself, let alone two single individuals. It was no surprise they had reached out to the only help they had available.

“Norg,” Trychon finally said aloud, still working on the computer consoles.

Rhox and Dianna looked over at him for an explanation. When it became apparent that one wasn’t coming, they looked back to Raezyr.

“What is a Norg?” the red haired woman asked of the big Sith.

“Norg isn’t a ‘what’, it’s a ‘who,’” he said. “Norg is a Chiss we had some business dealings with a few years ago, but he’s not going to be receptive to just handing over information, even if we do pay him well.”

Trychon got up and grabbed a box from the shelf then walked to the table. “That’s why we use these,” he said, dumping the contents out in front of the other three.

Dianna picked up one of the two red robes which had fallen out. “What are these?”

Rhox grabbed the other one. “These look like the robes belonging to the Monks from the planet S’spann,” she said. “They’re sort of famous for taking knowledge gathering expeditions all across the galaxy. They usually travel in pairs, each with their own body guard. Mostly they’re harmless, but like to have protection anyway. I still don’t understand how these are going to help us.

Trychon looked at the rest of them. “Don’t you get it? Nobody expects the S’spannish Expedition.”