600. The Heist - Raezyr

"Captain, we'll be exiting hyperspace in a few minutes," an ensign from the navigation section on the bridge of the Unity said. Captain Wash Moklam acknowledged the notification with a nod and moved to the window of the bridge and looked out. The mottled blue of hyperspace was surreal and even after years of seeing it, it made him feel a bit like the young ensign on his first hyperspace jump that he had been so many years ago at the Academy.

"Keep sharp, folks," Moklam called to his bridge crew. "This is a brief stop. We'll reorient ourselves and make the next leg of the jump." This far outside the disc of the Galaxy, he really didn't expect any problems. No one in the Galaxy outside the four ships in the small task force and Republic Navy High Command knew their route and current location, and the chances of running into someone accidentally in extra-galactic space was astronomical.

The mottled blue melded into elongated starlines which coalesced into pinpoints of light. "-Day! May Day! We are under under attack!" The transmission on the emergency frequency filled the bridge and caused almost everyone to jump.

"Sensors: What's going on out there?" Moklam yelled as he ran for his command chair. He hit the comm button on his control panel still standing up. "Hangar Control: Launch all fighters NOW!" the captain ordered.

Moklam swung around the control panel and slid into his command chair, watching as the the data began streaming across the screens. This is impossible! he thought to himself. "Shields up! Fire Control: Identify targets and fire at will!"

He looked at the sensors readouts, one Corellian corvette, gun ships, light frieghters and ten, maybe a dozen fighters. They were in formation and already on the attack. This was too organized to be an accident, but it was also a fairly puny attack force for an ambush.

He noted the fighters were just beginning to launch from both the Unity and the other hammer-head, the Arcus Fire, while the attack frigate Bogan Charge began speeding toward the shuttle carrying the precious aurodium shipment.

Suddenly the lights on the bridge flickered, as did all the monitor screens. When they came back up, Moklam noted his was blank. "What just happened? Someone give me a report."

Everyone on the bridge was scrambling, but no one was speaking. Moklam stood to his feet. "WHAT JUST HAPPENED?" he demanded as technical jibberish began rolling down his screen.

"Sir," his first officer began then paused for a long moment. "Sir, it appears to be some sort of sytem reboot and diagnostic test."

Moklam was furious. His gaze drifted to the view port and he went white at what he say there. From what he could see, it appeared that his beloved ship had begun a lazy roll. To make matters worse, every gun on his ship was firing. Both the Arcus Fire and the Bogan Charge had broken off their attacks to take evasive maneuvers.

"Comm: Get me direct communication with the other ships in our fleet," the captain yelled. His mind was numb. Never in his experience had something like this ever happened to anyone in the Fleet. "And someone tell me what in Sith's name is happening!"

Suddenly his personal communicator on his belt began beeping. Moklam looked at who dared call him in the middle of this disaster, and after seeing who was on the other end, he had the urge to throw the piece of equipment at the bulkhead. Instead, he clicked it on. "Mr. Spickolly. Now is not the best time," Moklam said tersely, putting heavy emphasis on the 'not.'

"Heh, heh, heh," the civilian programmer laughed. "I can totally tell, your sir-ness, but if you'll just bear with me a millisec."

"I don't have time for nonsense," the captain spat. "What is it that you want?"

"We just got hit by a vibro-jack, Admiral," Geoffry Spickolly said, as if that should mean something to Moklam.

The starship captain was so furious with the slicer that the civilian's incorrect use of rank didn't even register. Moklam's words came out cold and slow. "What in the name of all that is holy is a 'vibro-jack?'"

"Huh, huh, huh, oh man," Spickolly said. "That's a little term I invented. There's choppers out there that will tell you they came up with it, but that's a straight up lie, dude. I'll tell you what..."

Moklam couldn't stand it anymore. Pirates were out there attacking his charge, his ship was going into total system reboot and diagnostics, and here was this idiot, rambling on about words he made up. "Damn you Spickolly! I don't give a frack about your technical linguistics! Can you fix it?" He screamed into the comm. A few of the officers looked up. They knew their commanding officer was fiery, but that was beyond anything they had seen from him.

Spickolly however, was un-phased. "Oh totally, bro. I need your password. Gimme that and I can get you manual control back in a few moments. It's gonna talk a bit longer to get things back to shiny and stuff, but with your password-"

Moklam interrupted the slicer once again, gave the man his password and clicked the comm off. When this is over, Moklam thought to himself, I'm going to stuff him in an airlock myself.

599. Sith Hunt Part Two - Raezyr

The foot and speeder traffic around them was business as usual in the Blue Sector of Coronet, capital city of Corellia. The building itself wasn't much to look at, but at the moment it was all they had to go on.

Two days ago, Jedi Knights Nal Talla and Ataraxiav'a'lajean, or Val to his his friends, had arrived on Corellia in their respective fighters. Normally, long hyperspace flights were not possible in small snub-fighters due to hours, sometimes days, spent in hyperspace. Jedi however, were able to put themselves into a coma like meditation for hours at a time and pull themselves out of it again at a pre-determined time.

Once they had reached the Corellian System, they had immediately contacted CorSec and identified themselves and their mission. It took several hours to reach anyone who seemed to have the authority to authorize them to look into the "training accident" which had occurred just days before. CorSec was notorious for being very independent and they loathed any interference from the outside, either by they Republic, or the Jedi Order.

By time they had landed, and made their way to the Corellian Security Force Headquarters, they had finally received permission and the begrudging cooperation to look into the matter, and they got the feeling that if lightsabers had not been involved, that it would have taken direct intervention from the Jedi Council on Coruscant to obtain the access to the reports and files.

The two Jedi scanned hours of surveillance tapes from various businesses and strategically placed CorSec cameras, starting from the incident which had garnered the attention of the Jedi, and eventually pieced together the Sith's travels throughout the city.

They had been excited to learn that all four of the Sith they were after had been here, but why they had come to one of the Core Planets and risked alerting the authorities remained a mystery. This stop didn't seem like their usual tactics where they purposely gained the attention of local authorities and then hung out just long enough to let the Jedi verify their presence. No, they had attempted to conceal their whereabouts and if security footage was to be believed, they would have maintained that secrecy if it had not been for that Zeltronian female, who had seemed to pick a fight with them.

They had also tracked the Sith back to one of the spaceports, but several ships arrivals and departures coincided with the appearance of the Sith and while it narrowed down the possibilities of which ship might be theirs, none of the ships matched the description of the one the Jedi were most familiar with.

In fact, after looking at all the evidence, the only place of interest seemed to be this apartment complex of which they now stood in front.

A murder had taken place in one of the apartments, and the time of death coincided with the time a passing CorSec air speeder had passed overhead, placing all four Sith in front of the building. While the local law enforcement officials had no reason to believe the incidents were related, both Nal and Val were sure they were connected.

They entered the building and went to the apartment. Things had been pretty much as they had been found. CorSec had chalked the mess up to a home invasion, but the strangling of the victim was something that was bothering Nal. "Strangling is too personal. No, da person who did dis knew da victim."

"I'm inclined to agree with you, Nal," her blue-skinned counterpart said. "I know you can feel the residual Dark Side energy as I can."

"Yes," the Nataulan female agreed. "But why? Who was dis middle-aged human woman, and why did dey want her dead?"

"That is the question, indeed." The Chiss Jedi paused while he pulled out his data pad and called up the case files that he had downloaded. "The only interesting thing to note about this woman was that she had done a short stretch of time in a prison colony for manslaughter." They both already had looked into the files and knew the general details. Apparently the woman had killed her husband. Her defense was that he had abused his oldest step-daughter and the girl had run away and disappeared.

After that, the woman had supposedly sent her younger daughter away to keep it from happening again, but when that girl had gone missing as well, the mother had assumed the worst and taken her vengeance upon the man in the form a blaster bolt between the eyes while he was sleeping.

"Wait, what were da ages of dose girls when dat happened," Nal asked, and Val showed her the data pad. On a hunch, she pulled out her own data pad and entered the names of the two girls. Within a few moments she found what she was looking for: "Anya Tachi. It says here dat years ago she was tested by da Jedi, but refused entry to da Order due to age and lack of ability."

"That's interesting, but it makes sense. The Sith numbers are so depleted they are probably accepting anyone who shows the slightest aptitude with the Force," Val surmised. "Now you have two of the four names though: Raezyr, and Anya Tachi."

"Yes, but I'd gladly trade der names if I could only bring dem to justice for what dey did to Nylan," Nal replied. She could still see her Twi'lekki friend lying on the ground, dying and she remembered her own feeling of helplessness as the blue-armored Sith stood above her, ready to take her life as well.

Val sensed where his counterparts feelings were going and brought her back to the present. "Nal, I don't think there's anything more we can learn here on Corellia," the big blue Jedi said, resting his hand on her forearm.

"We should probably share what we know about this Tachi girl with CorSec, report to Master Taisun, and then see about getting back to the Unity. They should be nearly finished with their mission," Val said. The female Nautolan nodded her head in agreement.

Something was eating at Val, though. A tugging in the Force telling him they were missing something. Not something here in Coronet or even on this planet, but something... elsewhere.

598. The Heist - Raezyr

"Control, Command One... what the hell just happened," Dianna asked over the comm. She watched as the republic capital ship began rolling in a lazy yaw and firing all guns in random directions. The second hammerhead and the attack frigate were both taking heavy friendly-fire. Not enough to seriously damage the other two Republic warships, but enough to cause them to take emergency evasive action, and temporarily removing all three ships from the battle.

"Just a little added insurance from long ago, but that's neither here nor there. Very shortly they'll recover. For the moment, all ships concentrate on those fighters. Let's even up the odds for our boys before the Unity can launch the remainder of their fighters," Trychon instructed.

Thirty fighters had launched from both capital ships before Trychon's diversionary tactic prevented more from launching, six more than originally expected. According to their original plan, all of their own freighters, gunships and the Stalker would have been tied up with the main capital ship, but for now they were free to fire on the Republic fighters for a few minutes, and the superior firepower of the pirate ships had an immediate impact. Without the support of the larger ships, Republic fighters were going down left and right.

Raezyr and his small fighter escort kept concentrating on their own portion of the misssion: subdue and board the cargo shuttle carrying the payload of aurodium.

"They're shields should have failed by now," Jester One called over the comm. "We've hit that sucker more times than I can count."

"Jester Leader, Mole One. That thing has highly upgraded shields for obvious reasons. Just keep firing those ion cannons. If we don't get it shut down soon, it'll make the jump to hyperspace," Raezyr replied to all the fighters with him.

"Taggart, divert some of our shield power to the ion cannons," Raezyr said, turning to his co-pilot. "Let's see if we can't increase our rate of fire."

"Divert our shield power?" Taggart asked. "Are you sure that's wise?"

"Just shut up and do what you're told," Raezyr growled. People questioning his orders was beginning to grate his nerves.

With another barrage of ion fire from themselves and the specially equipped fighters, their prey suddenly went dead. "Dengar, NOW!" Raezyr ordered, and the ex-Mandalorian turned on the small tractor-beam used for towing or retrieving small objects. It wasn't much, but it prevented the shuttle from tumbling.

With his target steadied, Raezyr took careful aim and fired the specially designed plasma-cutter round, striking the shuttle's hull just behind the spacecraft's cabin. They watched as all the gases were expelled explosively, along with anything that wasn't securely tied down inside... including the occupants. "Zanz, Taggart, Dengar, get your enviro-suits on while I dock, and hang on."

Normally, when hijacking a spacecraft, standard procedure was to dock and use a slicer to bypass the target's security systems and keep the shuttle in one piece, but that could take a while. This time they didn't have that luxury.

"Command One, Control, this is Mole One," Raezyr called into the comm. "We have acquired the target. Insertion team will be making entry in moments."

"That's a good thing," Trychon called, and Dianna then echoed his sentiments.

"Tell them to hurry, Mole," she said. "Our delay tactic is at an end."

Raezyr took a moment to study his sensors and sure enough, the Unity, while still seemingly rolling out of control, was no longer firing at all. In minutes, they would most likely regain nav-control, and at any moment they would be launching the remainder of their fighters. The other two Republic warships had already maneuvered safely into new attack positions. The hammerhead had already begun firing upon the Stalker and the rest of the pirate ships, while the frigate was beginning to bear down on Mole One itself. "Gentlemen! I suggest you hurry," Raezyr called as the insertion team got ready to open the hatch. The Sith reached for the comm switch. "Jester One, Mole. We're going to have company!"

"We copy you, Mole," the squadron leader replied. "Two, Five, Six, form up on me. Target their shield generators. They should be located..."

Raezyr didn't listen to the fighter's battle tactics. Instead, he looked for Mannix' transponder signal and was glad to see it was still present. He also noted that the Republic fighters had taken heavy losses which was a very good thing, as the Unity's hangars suddenly began to spew it's eighteen remaining fighters.

597. The Heist - Trychon

Trychon stared out into the stars and thought to himself It's a beautiful day. Granted, he realized that weather was pretty irrelevant when in deep space, let alone hyperspace. He looked around at his small command crew. The Stalker by her very nature, did not need a large crew. In fact, for most basic missions it could do without one at all, and that was what set it apart. For a mission such as this one though, having a few more sentient minds (and one assassin droid) to help run it would greatly increase efficiency and deadliness. He could run the ship himself if all it needed to do was shoot down fighters and knock heads with other capital ships, but this mission called for so much more from the The Stalker and Trychon. Delki and Bleetz joined Shyrt, Reed, and the droid in making the command deck as populated as it'd been since Trychon and Raezyr captured it so long ago.

He was confident they were going to achieve their objectives today. He had to be. His new mysterious holocron mentor had told him that a true Sith master was able to increase the effectiveness and loyalty of entire armies with a 'projection' of sorts of their own views and goals. He was no Sith Master yet, and he could feel the predominant unease in their own armada of sorts. He could not blame them or somehow cause their doubts to go away. It didn't matter though. What he and his brother had set in motion was about to come to pass, and he was excited.

"Reverting to realspace in 10 seconds" The computer's voice called out over the comm. The crew watched as the planetary system came into view just as it had in their simulations. Dianna's voice came in next over the speakers. "Command to all hands. I'm going to go ahead and head off all the questions. No, the target is not here. We're here to refuel and head back out. At that point, Control 1 will send out the real coordinates of the target. It's a necessary precaution that I'm sure you all understand. I know we usually handle things openly in my crew, but this was a condition from our mission partners."

Trychon smiled at that. He knew that it was imperative that her crew trust her implicitly... and their trust in the Sith was less important. They didn't mind being a lightning rod of sorts for any doubts or issues from her crew. Everyone had their parts to play. In fact, getting under Zanz's skin was sometimes downright enjoyable.

Everyone was given a chance to record messages to be sent out on a delay, and everyone knew the basics of their mission. The specifics of where exactly they were going were not important to preparations, and could have ruined everything if it had somehow been leaked. Only Trychon, Raezyr, and Dianna knew where they were heading next. Traveling outside the galactic plane was highly rare, and that's exactly what their quarry was counting on. There was fewer dangers outside the plane... there was nothing at all actually. It was viewed as too risky simply because if a ship were to somehow lose power, there was a literal zero chance of anyone finding them.

That was also about the chances of someone happening in on a job like this without stumbling across the information somehow, as they had. Hopefully they would get their timing just right as well. They had enough time to refuel and get on their way... but arriving too early or too late was not an option.

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

After their refueling was done, and some of the crew got through grumbling about the false alarm on the first jump, they were on their way with the real final jump. Raezyr steeled his nerves and prepared for what was going to be a hectic few minutes. At least, they were only planning on a few minutes. With the half dozen small freighters and gunships, the dozen fighters, plus the Wraith], The Razor, The Stalker and Di's own freighter... they should be able to take down the Hammerhead cruizer Unity. The one problem was that they were already likely to take on some heavy losses with the two full squadrons that the Unity had.

Taking down the cruizer was a secondary objective. They were going to hit the shuttle hard and quick and try to get in and out without much in the way of losses. If their fighters were able to sustain without taking heavy losses, taking out the larger ship would be a luxury in that it would increase their likelyhood of remaining anonymous in the loss of a very large amount of credits.

They reverted to realspace and the Sith checked his instruments. The rest of the group was coming out of hyperspace right behind him, but there were no other ships there. He began his mental countdown. If the shuttle didn't show up in the next two minutes, they may have come in too early and given them enough time to see them and change their exit point.

It was hard not to hold his breath as the first minute passed by. Zanz grumbled from behind him about 'not liking it.' Raezyr ignored him entirely. He wasn't going to allow his own nerves to overreact to the annoying former soldier.

He silently breathed a sigh of relief as the shuttle appeared just outside their weapons range. He gunned his engines to full and hit his comm. "Mole one to all attack group - Target is in sight. Heading to intercept. Form up behind me as quick as possible. We have to hit them fast."

Zanz was looking at the instruments. "How do we know it's them?"

"Look, sublight for brains..." Raezyr growled "I know you want to see Trychon and I fail so you can wallow in your shallow victory, but it's time to get on board. Who else is going to be showing up right here, right now? Get over your issues and fall in line. Do your job and keep your mouth shut."

All appearances were that Zanz was about to do just that, when the alarms started to sound off. "That'll be the hammerhead." Taggart noted. Then his voice went up several decibel levels. "No, make that two hammerheads! There's a third ship there! Looks to be a frigate! We're humped!"

Dianna seemed to agree. "Command to Control 1 and Mole 1. This mission is a scratch. We can't do this. Huttspit! Let's show them our hyperdrives and meet up elsewhere."

Raezyr didn't know what to say to her, but he wasn't about to back down now. The Shuttle was in range and he began to open fire.

Zanz grabbed his shoulder. "Are you insane?! Do you want everyone to be slaughtered? You heard the command!"

Raezyr motioned for Taggart to take over the controls as he turned around and grabbed Zanz by the neck and slammed him into the wall. He was about to tear the man apart and explain that they may as well try to wait until the enemy was on them before turning and tucking their tails between their legs and running when Trychon's voice made him pause. "Control 1 to Command - Sorry about the delay. This was certainly unexpected and less than optimal, but it was always a possibility. We have contingencies."

"WHAT contingencies? You have an extra fleet?"

One of the freighters chimed in. "The hammerheads are starting to launch fighters..."

"Just give me a second, Command. Hang on..." Raezyr could practically visualize his brother tapping away on his datapad "There!"

Dengar was staring at the controls, dumbfounded. Taggart was bringing the ship around for another pass. "What did he do, Raezyr? Wait! One of the Hammerheads stopped launching fighters! It seems to be having some sort of a malfunction... it's picking up a yaw and starting a lazy spin.... and now it's firing randomly?"

Raezyr pulled Zanz away from the bulkhead long enough to slam him into it again. "We're not backing out. I have a job to do and so do you. You have no say in this mission until you're on that boat and on your way. I'm not even sure you're needed for that, so it's only really Di that's keeping me from ripping out your throat. Stay out of my way." He threw the helpless man onto the floor and resumed his seat.

"What... just happened?" Dengar asked quietly, as though he was afraid to address the Sith directly.

"That spasming hammerhead is the Unity. I thought Trych might have an ace in the hole left for them." He was smiling again as he took over control of his ship, and prepared to unload another salvo at their target.

596. The Heist - Raezyr

Taggart and Mannix sat on a couch in the lounge. There was a holo net program playing, but they weren't paying attention. Using models, hands and whatever else they could find, the Ace was showing the young pilot different maneuvers and tricks that he'd learned over the years.

"See, if they come at you from this vector, you pull what I like to call the double X cross-over," Taggart explained and then demonstrated the move, which involved two barrel rolls and an inverted loop.

"Okay, that makes sense, but isn't it disorienting?" Mannix asked.

"It is, especially away from any planets to reorient yourself. It's why a dog-fight in space is so much more instrument-reliant, you know kid?" the older pilot instructed. "Really at this point, you just need more time in the cockpit. I can only teach you so much, and you've learned just about everything I can teach you. The rest is practice and experience."

Taggart looked over at the only other occupants of the room. Zanz and Dengar were going over their insertion and hijacking plans once again. "Alright, enviro suits on, we breach the portal. Any survivors removed, once that's be done, you begin checking payload while I check for system restart..." Dengar, the ex-Mandalorian was saying when he was interrupted.

"You know, if you guys don't have it down by now, you may never have it down," Taggart said jokingly, and his protege giggled quietly.

"You'd do well to get your ass over here and pay attention, Tag," Zanz, Dianna's first mate said. "You're going to be with us and have to do a cold start on that shuttle, and you need to be just as familiar with this plan."

"Don't worry, if it's got a hyper-drive, I can pilot it," Taggart retorted. "Hell, even if it doesn't have a hyper-drive, I can pilot it. Of course, why anyone would want to bother flying something without a hyper-drive is beyond me," he chuckled.

Just then, Zanz noticed two figures walking in the corridor past the open lounge doors, and he jumped up. "Den, go over this with Tag whether he likes it or not. The kid can sit in too. Maybe he'll learn more than barrel rolls and hyper-drives."

"Will do, boss," Dengar replied.

Zanz trotted out the door and caught up with Trychon and Raezyr in the hall. "I want to talk to you two," he said as the two Sith turned to look at him.

"Make it brief, old man. We're busy," Raezyr said, staring the ex-Sith commando in the eye. He knew it was a challenge, and he also knew that Zanz would not step up to it. Not after their last confrontation in the hangar several weeks prior.

Zanz broke eye contact first, and looked at Trychon. "I'm telling you right now that if this doesn't go as planned, if I think for a moment that this crew is in over it's head, I'm pulling the plug. I'm not letting you wipe this crew out because of Sith greed. These people depend on me and I won't let them down. I swear to you, if I catch a whiff of betrayal from you two, I'll order a retreat."

Trychon and Raezyr glanced at each other briefly before the older brother replied. "Alright, you do that, Zanz," Trychon said with a condescending note in his voice.

"How do you know your information is accurate, Sith?" Zanz demanded, not bothering to hide his scorn.

"Oh, we just know," Trychon said. They both turned and continued down the corridor, rolling their eyes.

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

"What's the big idea?" Tyr said testily.

The four Sith stood in Dianna's office, having requested it's use for a private meeting.

"What exactly are you talking about?" Trychon inquired.

"You're still mad about the command decision we made back on Corellia, aren't you?" Tyr asked. "That's why you didn't bother waiting for us to get here before starting that briefing. Maybe we had something to add. Did you stop and think about that?" Anya stood behind and to the side of Tyr, giving him an approving look.

Trychon thought for a moment, not about how he was going to respond, but about the inflection in Tyr's voice and the body language their two counter-parts were giving. Tyr was speaking as if he had rehearsed this, and while Trychon didn't doubt that his Sith brother had, Anya's demeanor was almost as if she were a conductor of an orchestra, or a director of a holo-drama, watching things unfold as she had coached.

"You made a decision in the heat of the moment. One you thought was for the best of us all," Trychon said, knowing full well it wasn't the truth, but he needed to knock the pedestal out from under them. "You can't be faulted for doing what you thought was right, no matter how bad the decision was."

Tyr started to interject, but Trychon continued. "As for the briefing, you may have had something to add, true, but timing is of the essence here, and we had no way of knowing when you would arrive. It's why we filled you in on the plan before we went to Corellia."

Trychon turned to leave, signifying the meeting was over. Raezyr began to follow, then turned back. "You two make sure your gear is ready and your ship is prepped. We leave at 0900 hours tomorrow morning."

The brothers walked out leaving Anya and Tyr standing there speechless. Tyr turned to her for council, but she could give none. For the first time in a long time, she felt like things were not going her way. She stormed out, wondering at what point she lost control of things.

Tyr stood there for a moment, then followed his lover out the door.

-----------

Raezyr's eyes snapped open and he almost called his lightsaber to his hand from the dresser across the room before he realized that the presence was a familiar one. The Sith could barely make out the silhouette of Dianna's lithe body in the darkness as she paced.

"Come back to bed, Di," Raezyr called sleepily.

"I can't sleep, baby," she replied quietly.

"What's the matter?"

"Raez, you know I trust you, right?" Dianna said, walking over and sitting down on the edge of the bed. Raezyr sat up, reached over and rubbed her back reassuringly, saying nothing and waiting for the red-headed woman to continue. "It's just that I don't think you know how much I have riding on this operation.

"Your instructions were so last minute, that I've had to buy, beg, or borrow parts and ships from anywhere I could get them. I've called in every favor, every marker, every chit that anyone has ever owed me. I've even had to beg for favors in my father's name, just to get everything ready in time," she told him.

"And I didn't have a choice," she continued. "Business has been so bad lately. No jobs are coming in. If we don't do this, we'd have been ruined in a year.

"But here's my dilemma," she said, turning to look into her lover's eyes. "I'm now in debt to so many people, that if we don't come home with this money, I'll have to sell this base. Even then I don't know if it'll be enough to cover what I now owe."

Raezyr pulled the beautiful woman into bed and into his arms. "Di, we won't fail. I promise you." He kissed her deeply.