Falleen Throne

Upon reaching the surface, the solitary stealthX fighter settled gently onto a private landing pad set aside for those on urgent government business, one pad in a small complex near the outskirts of the capital city. The occupant that climbed from the cockpit was clad head-to-toe in flat black armor, with a facemask that lacked any of the traditional features of a helmet, such as a visor or any way at all to see out of it. No, the faceplate was, for all intents and purposes, merely a single slab of black armor that closely matched the contours of the man's head, but he still moved with a grace and fluidity that betrayed no sense of hesitation. Clearly, he had another way to see beyond the usual perception of light.

He dropped to the deck of the hangar and moved quickly to his fighter's storage compartment, where he withdrew several armored cases and placed them smoothly on a nearby table that he'd had set up for the purpose. Disengaging the latches and opening the largest case, he withdrew the pieces of a disassembled verpine shatter gun and layed them out neatly on the table before him, then swiftly locked them all back together and activated the weapon. It would be immediately apparent to anyone with any particular knowledge of the variant that this model possessed a distinct lack of optics, leaving any observers to stand in befuddlement as to how he was going to achieve the multiple-kilometer kills that the rifle was famed for.

Having finished with the rifle, he set it gently aside and moved on to the smaller case, withdrawing a pair of pistols and their attendant holsters, which he promptly affixed to the thigh plating of his armor. The pistols themselves were similar in appearance to the DC-15s sidearm blasters used by clone commandos, but packing considerably more punch in comparison, thanks to their nature as chiss charrics rather than the much more prolific blasters used by the galaxy at large. It didn't take him long to clear those weapons as well, and he then moved on to the charrics implanted within the bracers of his armor, ensuring that those too were fully functional before he settled in to await the arrival of his teammate. Such a useless concept.

He nodded in acknowledgement of the new arrival. "I wish I could say the same." The quip was obviously directed at the first statement Yama had uttered, though whether it was a self-deprecating jab at his own lack of sight or an indication of distaste at the togorian's particular methods and reputation would be impossible to tell from the perfectly neutral tone Trask's speech seemed always to possess. "We start at an installation at grid coordinates alpha-six-six. Apparently our employers have the gift of foresight, as there was an alarm sounded from the facility less than an hour before I arrived." Apart from the aforementioned gift, he couldn't see any immediate way that would have allowed their employers to know about the "insurgency" preemptively, so it was obvious they were holding something back. "They have not divulged the specifics of the threat, except to say that it involves enhanced soldiers known as 'juicers'." A holonet search had revealed a plethora of battles fought and won by the super-human soldiers, as well as several accountings of their capabilities in battle, but a disproportionately small number of insubordinate behavior. Either they were very, very good at covering such things up, or they'd also introduced behavior modification therapy into the regimen of drugs and training they forced the soldiers to undergo.

He moved to the nearby table and placed a small holoprojector on its surface, then called up a low-resolution depiction of the facility. For whatever reason, their employers had refused to provide actual schematics for the operation, something that would normally have caused him to simply pass up the job. Unfortunately, the money this time was much too good and his curiosity had been piqued. Besides, he wasn't planning on going into the building anyway. "Your objective will be to enter the facility, locate the hostiles, and engage them only enough to draw their ire and compel them to follow you outside. Once there, you will take cover and engage at range while I provide support from here." His finger moved to point to a low ridge just to the north of the facility that overlooked the main entrance. "You will also refrain from practicing your rituals until the mission has ended." He withdrew the finger and turned back to face the enormous cat. "Will you be able to carry out those tasks as they have been dictated?"

"You will not engage civilians, or those that are not directly within the purview of your mission parameters." He really preferred to work alone, but a client's wishes were a client's wishes. "The last thing we need is to create more hostiles than there already are." He slung the rifle over his back and mounted the speeder-bike they had provided for him to use, priming the ignition and firing up the vehicle's repulsors as he finished speaking. "If you have no more questions, we need to be going." Then he was gone, boosting the bike out of the hangar and into the forested countryside that surrounded the city.

The employees were all nervous.  The fervor of their little operation - looking and functioning much like any other cubicle-based office space - was almost palpable, and what little communication went between people was frantic.  Fyyar did not need the Force to tell him something had gone terribly wrong not long ago.  Office drones ran to and fro, shouting a sentence or two before flying down the aisles to deliver another half-screamed message.  Gigabytes of data flew across the airwaves from datapad to datapad.  The ambient temperature was steadily rising as the act unfolded before him.  Every representative of their species in the office had their faces held in expressions of fear, anxiety, or anger.  Now, all of this contributed to the hypothesis that something in his little abandoned science project had gone askew.  But the biggest clue of them all?  Aherk Fyyar strode through the building - from the lobby right on up to the main floor - with two weapons strapped to his person and not one person batted an eyelash.  Fyyar had an idea as to what could cause a building full of people such distress as to ignore a heavily armed stranger right in front of them, but assumptions would get him nowhere.

Not breaking stride even as people practically collapsed in their mad rush to rectify whatever catastrophe had befallen them, Fyyar made his way to the far corner of the floor, where an office with glass windows holding a single occupant was situated.  Within, a middle-aged Devaronian female slowly paced back and forth, her hands wringing with every step she took.  He recognized her instantly; Faara Delasi, a fellow xenobiology aficionado (whose knowledge of the subject, Fyyar would have hated to admit, far surpassed his own) and think tank graduate, apparently now running the show on the business end of things.  She would be able to fill Fyyar in on the last ten years of the project...and where their fellow ne'er-do-wells had gone off to.  Without so much as a knock, Fyyar put on his smile and hunched himself slightly, waiting for Delasi to turn her back before making his entrance.

"Well," Formidonis started, "this looks like a party."

Delasi spun around, finger already pointed and lungs poised to shout when her eyes caught sight of the newcomer.  Were it possible, the color would have drained from her face as she struggled to find a set of words.

"...you look different." Delasi finally managed to get out.

"And you still look absolutely scrumptious."

Formidonis cracked his trademark grin and waltzed over to the unoccupied desk, never taking his deep blue eyes off of the Devaronian.

"You have some nerve," Delasi finally managed to spit out, regaining her composure, "coming back here after all this time, you know that?  Especially now."

"Now?  I mean, I know you missed me, but damn."

"Enough," she snapped back, wheeling on him, "if you're not going to make yourself useful, then get the hell out of my office before I throw you through the window."

Formidonis threw up his hands in mock fear, standing up and backing one step away before turning to face the window overlooking the chaos in the cubicles beyond.

"See, here's the thing.  I leave you kids to your own devices, and things go to complete and utter shit.  I get that we don-"

"WE?!?" Delasi exclaimed, grabbing Formidonis by his shirt and shoving him against the nearby wall with a forceful thud, "YOU had about as much to do with this as the tea-serving Togruta we keep in the back room!  YOU took what you wanted from us and gave us almost nothing in return!  YOU barely had a hand in this, and you have NO right to come back here and lecture ME!"

The Devaronian woman was far from wrong.  From the start, Formidonis had only ever been a part of the project to further his own research and goals.  With some of the galaxy's best, brightest, and morally bankrupt to tool around with, the mad Dark Jedi had managed to get a few experiments off the ground.  He would have disagreed that he contributed little to the party - after all, shutting down mental barriers and throwing midi-chlorians into overdrive probably made it to the final draft of their research project - but that was neither here nor there, and Fyyar did not have enough emotional investment to try and argue back.  Further, he still needed to find out where his other comrades were and what had happened here, and he would not get that when the head of this branch was half a step from having security throw him out.

The gesture would have no chance of stopping him, but Fyyar was still trying to keep a low profile, and several dozen dead bodies would cause even more alarm.

"You're right, Faara.  But I'm here to make things right."

The Devaronian almost laughed out loud.  "You?  Help?  A bunch of Juicers go ballistic, and you want to help?!  Last I saw of you, you were flying around on some jacked-up contraption on Coruscant, senator hanging by the hair, trying to outfly a legion of Jedi!  You couldn't hel-"

With one swift movement, Fyyar reached out and punched Delasi in the stomach.  A quick jerk hoisted the Devaronian into the air, and a similar motion downwards sent her to the floor.  Stepping over her bloodied body, a sudden tightening of his fist crushed the woman's recently removed, still-beating heart, sending a spattering of blood across his right leg.

With a glance, Fyyar set the office windows to darken themselves to near-total blackness, giving him some privacy as he moved to Delasi's personal terminal.  He did not bother to sit down; what he needed was already visible.  There had been an alert at one of the facilities in the wilderness, top priority.  Reading the message, Fyyar learned that it corroborated Delasi's story; some of the super-soliders he had helped to design - named "Juicers" now, for reasons unknown - had gone completely renegade.  Ten years ago, Fyyar guessed he would have been every bit as concerned as Delasi had been.  But that had been another man, in another life.  Fyyar had not been lying, however; he had indeed come to make things right.  Making things right just so happened to involve the termination of everyone involved with the project.  One was already down.  And at least one more could be found at this facility.  He just had to get there before the Juicers got to them.

Taking note of just where the facility would be, Fyyar swung out of the office and made for the turbolift on the other side of the cubicle farm, taking care to close and lock the door behind him.  Once more, the dozens of people made no notice of the armed man walking through the aisles like he owned them, never mind the guns on his body and their boss's blood on his right hand.

Despite being disciplined, the reaction that would come next was fairly typical of most species out there. A royal guard burst into the central chamber where they were convened.

"My liege, we are under attack! Enemy vessels have already engaged our defenses!"

Remaining seated, Zad motioned for the guard to leave and motioned for those gathered to quiet down.

"It seems we will have to convene again at a later date. We stand adjourned until this unfortunate development has been resolved. General, alert our ground forces and ensure they are prepared to deal with the invaders, should our fleet fail to stop them. The rest of you. Dismissed."

Waving the rest of the occupants of the room away, Zad rose from his throne. Purple and godl-trimmed robes flowing around him as he moved. Guards flanked him on either side. He had heard of several expansionist powers as of late, though none had dared stand against the Kingdom of Falleen. And now they would find out exactly why...