The Rebel Faction

Ridefort never would have admitted it to the man next to him, but hyperspace always gave him the creeps. He had gone through it a thousand times, and yet every single time he felt that pull of his flesh, the press of the seat, the gap in his stomach, no matter the inertial compensation, he had to fight off the chills. Once he had even needed to excuse himself and feign food poisoning to escape looking like a fool in front of the crew.

He assumed he would never get used to it - and why should he? It wasn't natural for humans to be flying through space at near light speeds. He never understood how Olan got the hang of it, or how any old star fighter or freighter pilots did for that matter. Perhaps, though, hiding it was half the trick.

That had to be it, he reasoned. The others were just good at hiding it.

Ridefort unstrapped himself and rose from his chair, cracking at his joints now that the ship had come to a complete stop. Nym had insisted that if they wanted to do their business on the planet, it had to be swift, and they had to maintain as much radio silence as possible during the flight to the surface. The old pirate had never shaken his insatiable paranoia, and Olan reasoned that was part of the reason he was still in business. Perhaps not at the top, but he was certainly the person to go to if one was in the back waters and needed parts, protection, or arms.

Olan had a few other propositions up his sleeve that he hoped to entice the aging Feeorin. Ridefort had not been overly eager to expose himself to the pirate, or help him in any way. Not that he was xenaphobic, he primarily disliked Feeorins, much less ones who had a host of guards and droidekas littering his self-claimed planet.

In fact for all intents and purposes he had planned to stay right where he was on Abregado, running shipments to and from nearby starports for a few extra credits here and there, perhaps selling his gun for hire from time to time. However Olan had, in Ridefort's mind, cheated him into coming.

"The kimogilas, some say, are the size of a Krayt Dragon," Olan had said, which immediately grabbed Ridefort's attention. "I've heard of one skeleton that was forty meters in length...the planet is almost entirely uninhabited...and their hides go for a considerable sum."

He had gone on about how rare it was to find kimogila hunters, and how some systems had even put a ban on them following environmentalist propaganda that kimogilas were on the verge of extinction.

"They aren't on the verge of extinction," Olan said, "just no one knows where they are."

The next day Ridefort had sold his speeder and his ship, and was en route to Lok to help set up the new business, under the promise that he could hunt kimogila. The man had to grin as he considered how easily he was tempted. Was excessive hunting a vice, he wondered?

As he looked out through the transparisteel viewport of the Wilma's Scorn at the expanse of dry, arid wasteland, he began to consider just how lucky he was that he sold his ship in favor of hunting supplies. Not that the ship was anything to be proud of...it was an old beat up Corellian model, the original intent of the ship buried under decades of modifications that turned it into some kind of bizzare hydra of a transport.

It certainly didn't fly very well - he had clocked it at 60 MGLT, or 90 if he really had to hussle, and it didn't care much. In fact, the Kindred Spirit probably did him more good sold to that Trandoshan than it did in its top condition for himself.

"Ready?" Olan asked as he finished his post-flight checks, stuffing the clip board back under his seat.

Ridefort sighed as he nodded - he was ready to hunt, not to play pseudo-politics.

***

Nym was as arrogant, egotistical, and self-righteous as all the holodramas had portrayed him. He sat on a kind of throne that was made out of what looked like some kind of ivory - Ridefort had to wonder if it had come from these fabled "kimogilas" he'd heard so much about.

So far he hadn't seen a single one between the starport and Nym's palace, and it was beginning to anger him. His finger trigger was sore with neglect - he needed to shoot something he reasoned.

The "throne room" of the palace was a collage of races and species. A cultural anthropologist would have had a field day analyzing each of the difference peoples in the room, and it seemed that Nym prided himself in such diversity.

He was legendary in his anti-Imperial antics, but had always been wise enough to lay low, so that scrying Imperial eyes would never really have anything to charge him with. Naturally, the odd officer would attempt to get his name noticed by taking the initiative against Nym - and that certainly explained his swiftly amassing starfleet.

At least that was what Olan called it, the ship types were as diverse as the people inhabitting the pirate's throne room.

Olan's people were still bringing in the gifts, enormous crates, each of which could have bought a three story estate. Nothing grand, but certainly not overly modest. Ridefort had had a chance to see the contents, spices of all sorts that had him scratching his head. How had Olan gotten his hands on all that?

Knowing the older man, he had probably slit quite a few throats for it, and was using it as a show of his own power and influence. In fact, Ridefort was certain that Olan had no intentions of actually giving all the spice to Nym, just to show him how much was at his disposal.

The green Feeorin certainly seemed impressed. When Ridefort had first seen him he assumed the pirate looked the part of a theater of indifference. Nym showed no intentions of letting his true emotions be expressed outwardly - or so he had thought. As Olan knocked more and more tops off of the spice containers, the pirate's visage had cracked, and now he was like an eager child watching the birthday gifts stacked before him.

His two advisers had mixed expressions. The taller, Quarren seemed slightly perturbed, eyeing the spice with a level of dismay that belied his boss's excitement. The shorter, bat-like figure however seemed even more excited than when Ridefort had first seen him - that seemed impossible to the man too. He didn't know the thing's real name, but Olan had called him "Fuse", he was allegedly Nym's demolitions expert, but he was apparently more of a pyromaniac.

Which was just what Ridefort wanted to deal with.

Nym adjusted himself in his throne, then looked upward at the two guests, letting the servants carry in the rest of the gifts while he spoke.

"You bring quite the generous offer," Nym said, his voice drawn out in a malevolent, and yet surprisingly melodic tone. "But that, I daresay, has me concerned."

Olan expected this, and simply nodded to the Feeorin.

"I hope you are not expecting a percentage of current income..." Nym prodded hesitantly.

"I want exactly what your first impression was from my package," Olan responded. "I want to set up a trading ring based off of Lok, I'll pay a 30% tax to you, and then when you become comfortable with the situation, I want an assimilation of the two groups."

Nym narrowed his eyes as he considered this. "You basically want to supercede basic recruitment policies."

Olan grinned. "Yeah."

The Quarren's brow scruffled irritably, Ridefort noticed, but almost immediately he took on an obviously feigned, passive gaze. Nym laughed at the boldness.

"I like you Olan," he said, "you've done well in the past...I tell you what...meet with me tomorrow, we'll talk it over a cup of juri juice, you must be exhausted from the trip."

Olan shrugged - in truth he wanted to get on with it today, and Ridefort certainly wanted to do whatever got him out looking for kimogilas fastest, but he was stuck with whatever Olan planned.

It would be rude to deny the host of course.

"Why not," Olan said at length, crossing his arms across his chest. "I'll be in my ship, you can-,"

"No, no," Nym cut him off with the wave of a hand, "I insist, use my guest chambers."

Ridefort wasn't as sure about that, but Olan sure seemed to be, as he accepted the offer with that tell-tale grin.

Ridefort mulled over the previous day's encounters in his head as he waited in the hangar bay for Olan to return, thinking back specifically on some of the stories Absashi had told him. He had actually been contemplating asking Olan if they would just make an out-sourced smuggling project and letting them go, the old pirate (or quasi-pirate as Ridefort used to call him) never had the guts for hardball criminal politics, and he wasn't confident that Olan would be able to stand to stand up to any scrutiny that Nym decided to hit him with.

But Absashi's stories about the kimogila had him absolutely fascinated, and he was determined that he wasn't leaving Lok until he had one's head...or if that was too difficult to carry, a tooth or a scale. Ridefort had been impressed by the Anzati's story of the lizard's ferocity, how it had taken an arm and an eye from his last comrade he had gone hunting with.

Not that Ridefort cared about stories about how some beast was so terrible it severed limbs. He had heard of, and seen, womp rats take out eyes and hands, but Absashi had gone into detail about the beast's frightening level of intelligence.

On the third day of tracking the beast, it had apparently caught onto the fact that something was following it, and had gone through great pains in an attempt to elude its trackers. Naturally, the kimogila wasn't worried at all about its own hide, rather, it was concerned that whatever was following it was one of the native scavengers, and intended to follow it back to its nest, wait for the kimogila to leave, and then devour its compiled food.

It was a common problem that kimogilas faced, Absashi had told him.

Deciding to use that to their advantage, Absashi and his companion had set up an ambush for the beast at its nest, but when it had returned it immediately pounced on the trap and routed both of them. After a long and hard fight, the two returned to Nym's stronghold empty handed - as well as empty eye socketed and stumped on the right arm for his companion - but Absashi swore the beast had to have succumbed to its wounds in the desert.

In an act of spite, the comrade had lodged a thermal detonator in the beast's nest, and with the wounds they left on it, there was no hope for it to collect more food later. Absashi had explained that it was his one greatest regret that he had never returned and confirmed the kill.

"And yet, I am glad I didn't," he explained, "for if I had, and confirmed that we had murdered, not slain, the beast then I would never be able to overcome the fact that even after I had lost, I spitefully stole the victory from that creature. So, although it is a frustrating ignorance, it is a blissful one."

Ridefort had already sworn to himself that only one of the two would return to their nest if he encountered a kimogila.

Absashi had recommended a number of droids and fellow hunters to join him in the hunt, but Ridefort was none too keen to share in his personal glory, nor was he willing to cheapen it with droids. He intended to do it the old fashioned way...give or take a few thermal detonators.

When Olan finally entered the hangar bay, Ridefort was at first taken aback by his appearance. A deep crease across his forehead indicated the level of stress the man felt, and the deep bags under his eyes told of the lack of sleep he'd had. Ridefort always knew the man tended to cave under pressure, but he had to wonder what exactly Nym had been doing to him the past two days.

"What's up?" Ridefort asked as Olan stalked towards his ship. The man did not even stop to look at him before he began keying in the numbers on the security panel for his ship.

"Nym has a task for us he'd like us to do," Olan finally said at length. "It's nothing major, just one of those 'I want to get to know you' types of things."

Ridefort was not so sure.

"Really? What kind of task is that?"

Olan swore as he failed to type in the security code the first time. "He wants us to go with a crew of his on a scavenging mission."

"Scavenging? Like old droids and the like?"

"Yeah, and weapons."

Ridefort nodded. "And what's the catch?"

Olan seemed to be having trouble with the key code, which set Ridefort back a bit. The old quasi-pirate had always been overly protective of his old ship, as much as any space junkie out there, so either he had been so deprived of sleep and comfort that he was forgetting something as basic as his security code, or Nym had sent in some goons to mess with his ship.

Neither prospect seemed to be very warming.

Finally Olan let out a confident sigh as the key pad beeped a confirmation back at him, and the boarding ramp lowered with a loud hiss followed by a thundering crash. He slapped his hands together as he turned to look at Ridefort.

"There's no catch per se," he explained hesitantly, gathering his words. Ridefort never liked per se's, they were like a Jedi with their "certain points of view" lies. Olan could easily read the unconfident expression on the man's face. "They're just kind of shy of Nym's territory."

"Shy of Nym's territory?" Ridefort balked. "How is something 'just shy of Nym's territory'? This damn planet is Nym's territory."

"Per se..." Olan muttered miserably. "Look sometimes marauders and swoopers and pirates like to come down and set up shop under Nym's nose. It's a big, inhospitable planet, and he's been here a long time, but the fact is he spends his money on things other than a planet-wide surveillance. There's no natural resources of note here except a few ore deposits here and there, so he doesn't need to really 'watch' everything, you know?

"As long as they stay away from his stronghold, the other guys are pretty much safe...or as long as they don't shoot at his scavengers."

"You mean as long as they don't shoot at us," Ridefort accused. Olan looked at the ground sheepishly.

"Look you know how these criminal types are...you bring 'em some spice, they'll love you for a day and offer you their first born, but they won't let you into the organization until you fulfill some menial task."

"I wouldn't call getting shot at by pirates a menial task Olan..."

Olan shrugged. "It's nothing you haven't done before."

Ridefort didn't like it. Sure he'd been in a scrap or two, he'd even killed a man once, but there was something about the way Olan was looking that he didn't like.

Olan turned suddenly towards the ramp, and gestured for Ridefort to follow him, so he shrugged and did so. Olan had always bragged that his ship was unbuggable, probably due in no small part to the idiocy with which he had attached some of the wires.

Ridefort wouldn't have been surprised if Isard herself would have been unable to find the right outlet to stick a tap on the ship. Of course, he had never admitted that to Olan.

He followed the older man to the cockpit, and he threw himself down into the torn and holed leather chair comfortably, as though it were the only place in the galaxy he could be comfortable right now. The chair was at least three times as old as the ship was, Olan had called it his lucky chair, and brought it with him from ship to ship.

He swore all of the holes were due to old age and moths, but Ridefort had spied him picking at it with a knife out of boredom, or even pulling at the torn edges. He had recommended a few times that he just go out and get it repaired, but Olan had scoffed and claimed that cleaning it would "kill the magic".

As if the tricky wiring weren't enough to deter him, Ridefort swore he never intended to pilot the ship if he had to sit in that damn unwashed chair.

Instead he took his seat in the co-pilot's chair, watching Olan as the man compiled his thoughts.

"What do you say we uh..." he started, drumming his fingers across his own jaw, an annoying habit he'd picked up on Carida, "well...what do you say we just carry out this task and maybe leave the planet?"

Although Ridefort had been thinking the very same thing, his eyes belied that inner desire as he shot a scrutinizing glare at Olan, who bowed away sheepishly. "Leave?" he asked angrily. "You just dropped enough spice to put a Mon Cal family through school for generations and you've been having private talks with Nym for the past two days, what in the name of hell would we leave for?"

Of course he had neglected to mention that he hadn't had his kimogila yet.

Olan bit his lower lip, clearly trying to find a way to put his fear to words, without seeming as though he were a coward.

"I don't think we're overly welcome here and I think...I think it would be best that we didn't stick around the stronghold...maybe we can outsource the project to Abregado or something..."

"Yeah?" Ridefort asked doubtfully. "What about all that spice?"

"What about it? It's my gift to Nym, maybe he'll let me set up off world or something."

"That's not what I mean Olan, what about the guy you got it from?"

Olan paled. "What do you mean?"

"Takrit is going to want it back," Ridefort reminded him, although Olan continued to play the part of an ignorant.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he denied unconvincingly.

Of course he would have known what Ridefort was talking about, Takrit had been the captain of a Corellian Corvette in the small flotilla of pirates Olan had served with. The two were never good friends, partially because Takrit was so successful, or rather, because his success was due in no small part to his brutality and ruthlessness.

Olan had become a pirate with the swasbuckling image in mind. He had even bought a vibro-cutlass custom made for the occasion. He wanted to jump onto rich merchant vessels, plunder from the rich, blow a kiss to the lady, watch her swoon, and make his daring escape.

Takrit, however, loved the thrill of the slaughter almost as much - or possibly even more - than the booty. Olan told stories of the man's ferocity, how even after plundering the vessels, he would order his ship to open fire. Takrit had sworn that one day he intended to take an entire world.

Ambitious he was.

One of the pirate's fatal flaws was that while he loved spice, he hated using it in excess. Naturally of course, some considered this to be a virtue, but what he did not use, he stockpiled, and his raids compiled a lot of spice. He considered it his own goods, goods that his crew weren't allowed access to, which had led to a mutiny once or twice.

Although Olan claimed to have won the cache he had given Nym in a card game, Ridefort was well aware that he had led quite the raid on Takrit's stockpile of spice.

It was quite the insurance policy that Olan had to stay on Lok too. There was no way he could hope to return to private life, much less leave the planet without the protection only Nym could offer. The kind of protection not afforded to outsourced industries.

"Don't lie to me Olan," Ridefort went on, "lying to me pisses me off. I'm trying to help you, the least you could do is be honest with me. I know you got the spice from Takrit, you can't leave the planet, you're marked."

"And Takrit can't come here..." Olan continued for Ridefort as he thought about the implications himself, "...but on the other hand, I can't stay here either."

Ridefort cocked an eyebrow.

"Bringing in that spice may have been a bad idea..."

"How? Nym was ready to bear your children..."

Olan had to stifle a laugh, despite the obvious concern. "It's not that easy...his aides aren't as pleased."

"That little bat looking thing people call Fuse?"

Olan shook his head. "Fuse is just a bomb lover, but a useful one. No it's that Quarren we need to lookout for. He's stayed in his position as long as he has because he's violent, he's protective, and to be 100% honest, he's a hindrance to Nym's cause. He does everything he can to keep Nym small time, because he doesn't care about the organization, he cares about the profit he's getting, and as the organization expands, he loses micro control. He fears I can either usurp him, or make the organization too big for him to control."

"And you know this...how?"

Olan sighed. "Nym told me."

"Nym told you?" Ridefort scoffed. "And how do you know Nym isn't just trying to turn you against him?"

Olan shrugged.

"Or, why hasn't he simply removed the fishy bastard outright?"

"There's a lot of people loyal to Quksish," Olan continued, "people who like the profit they're getting, and he's pretty ruthless. Nym knows he's got a fierce reputation, and he can beat just about anyone one on one...but...he really can't handle a coup right now."

As opposed to any other time? Ridefort thought distastefully. He gritted his teeth as he mulled over this new revelation in his head. He didn't like the idea of coming to Lok and triggering a criminal civil war...especially when there were kimogilas that needed killing.

"What makes now so special that he can't handle a coup?"

Olan drummed at his jaw once more.

"Well..." he started hesitantly, "you know those pirates whose territory we're going after I was telling you about?"

Ridefort nodded.

"They're a bit stronger than the normal marauders. They've got a sizeable force based out of the asteroid field in this system, and are of the belief that the time of Nym is over."

"Doesn't surprise me, that guy's been able to stick it out since before the Clone Wars..."

Olan nodded. "Precisely, and some think he's too conservative. In fact, a lot of his own men do...there's going to be a fight between those two pirates and..."

"And he wants to use us as the catalyst for that fight."

"That's about the jists of it," Olan said at length.


Quksish reached down and snatched another of the writhing, worm like figures and placed it hastily in his mouth, swollowing the thing down with a definitive gulp. The salty, slimy little creatures reminded him of the food back home on Mon Calamari, though perhaps not quite as tasty. Importing those types of delicacies were ridiculously difficult in this region of space, and there was no way he intended to try out some of the "sea life" that inhabitted Lok.

Although Nym had sworn that as a child he was orphaned on the planet, the Quarren saw no way how he could have survived as he claimed. Every foraging crew he had sent out had lost at least two members from poisoning, all the others usually struck with some terrible illness.

The wragskat slugs he was devouring had actually come from Ando, a domesticated version of the kind he would eat on Mon Calamari. They lost some of their sweetness, but they were cheaper and easier to get throughout the galaxy, and Quksish had contacts on Ando who often times did free lance runs for Nym.

It had been a few months since they had been back, he noticed, and he was getting rather low on his wragksat supplies...

He slipped another one into his mouth and slurped at it rudely, clearly disturbing his guest. Absashi was always considered to be the most well mannered in the palace, the etiqouette he showed at the table was the stuff of legends, and the way he squirmed in his seat made Quksish grin.

The Anzati looked unusually uncomfortable today, causing Quksish to cock an eyebrow as he watched him enter. He had never had a strong stomach for dirty work, he, like that fool Olan's body guard, Ridefort, liked to do apply himself more towards the hunt.

He had once said that he enjoyed hunting the creatures of Lok much more than the pirates, because the creatures, being non-sentient, didn't have to know what they were losing. Quksish could never understand how Absashi had found himself in Nym's employ, much less working in his own movement against the Feeorin.

He was, however, brilliant at applying himself at logistics, mathematics, and oddly enough, mechanical skills. Often times Gukran, the Gamorrean brute of a mechanic in the docking bay - a genius of a mechanic in his own right - could only sit scratching his head as Absashi fixed some kink in the chain of any of Nym's barely flyable ships and speeders.

Although he didn't like the man's weak constitution and lack of taste for betrayal, Quksish knew that Absashi was a valuable grab for his operations. He was capable of accessing just about anything in the palace, and was allowed to tamper with Nym's private vessel.

What's more, he was well trusted and well-liked in the palace for his stoicness, the way he rarely spoke unless necessary, and his lack of desire for confrontation. To get him in Quksish's employ, he had sealed the deal with at least half the men he had wanted.

Which still left him at a considerable disadvantage if he ever hoped to move against Nym. The last check he had done with Absashi showed at least four thousand guards in and about the stronghold, not counting maintenance crews and the like, as well as whatever droids he kept around.

The droids would be the deciding factor, Quksish knew.

They came about well before the Clone Wars, and therefore were still bound to a main computer. Nym had worked night and day to try to individualize them, but that either cut into their lifespan, or would simply kill the thing outright.

Naturally, the old pirate king had no intention of explaining where the main computer was, but Quksish had some ideas...ideas that he hoped Absashi would help with.

"What are you so quiet about?" Quksish asked rhetorically. It was kind of a dumb question, he knew, because the Anzati was always quiet, but he needed something other than his slurping to break the silence.

Absashi shrugged slightly. "That Ridefort is a huntsman," he said slowly, "I hope to bring him on a kimogila hunt some time soon...when the time permits."

"A kimogila hunt?" Quksish scoffed, waving a hand about. As he did so, an idea cropped into his head for future use. "When about?"

"Hopefully in a day or two," he said, looking down at the floor, not noticing the gleam in Quksish's eye. "When I was out scavenging last I came across a pair, and I think he would prove most adeptly at taking one down."

"Indeed..." Quksish said, engrossed in his plan.

It was a simple thing to just arrange that Ridefort never returned, men went out all the time to hunt kimogilas, and many had died before they ever reached the things. The carrion buzzards sometimes grew impatient waiting for one to die, or the simple lack of edible plant life often contributed to a shortage of returning hunters.

But what about Absashi? It could soon well be time to get rid of him as well, it could be blamed on Nym. Quksish and Absashi had been seen together on a number of occasions, many had whispered that they had become good friends, so there wasn't the slightest chance that the faithful Quarren would murder the Anzati.

On the other hand, the steadily growing rivalry between Quksish and Nym was well known. It could well serve as a perfect message that Nym would murder Absashi to get to Quksish, and the Anzati's popularity would result in a tumultuous uproar.

Quksish most liked the idea.

If Ridefort survived the next day's scavenging run, he would insist that Absashi would bring the man kimogila hunting - afterall, it was best to make the guest feel welcomed.