* A combination history thread and takeover of Smugglers Run, and several other shadowports that shall be titled Infinity base, Shadow Base, and Tomb Base. In addition, it will also be the taking/stealing/capture of 9 Victory Star Destroyers, several smaller ships, and the bringing of the Errant Venture under the Smugger Alliance's control. (All events will take place in the past).

~Time: Eight or Nine years before present.~

"Son of a Bitch!" Kach screamed, throwing down the hydrospanner. "This damned thing won't go on!"

"What is it?" Jesh shouted distantly from inside the ship.

"The Compensators for the Tractor Beam. I'm trying to set it so I can reverse the polarity, but the damn Compensators won't hook up to the generator anymore. We'd need an expert programmer to fix this, somebody too expensive for us to hire."

"That bad, huh?"

But of course Jesh knew how bad it was. They had both known the risks to adding an optional setting to reverse the Tractor Beams polarity and both had decided to go for it. It was just, that now, the damn thing wouldn't work. Sure, they still had the other one, but the rear Tractor Beam couldn't cover the front or flanks of the ship.

Kach pulled himself out from the cramped maitinence hatchway. He had been down their two hours with nothing to show, and on top of that while pulling himself up he pinched a nerve in his neck.

"Son of a Bitch!" he cried out, grimacing from the sudden pain.

"What now?" Jesh asked, emerging from his cramped "room" on the ships Starboard side. In his hand was a Plasma Torch, the source of an ozonish kind of smell that began circulating around the central hallway. "Well, what?"

"Ah, nothing. Just disappointed. All that time spent for nothing."

"Yeah, well, you know... Hey where you going?" he asked. Kach had begun walking down the ships access ramp.

"I don't really know where, but I do know what. I'm getting a drink."

Kach had visited three other, more upscale (at least as upscale got on a spacestation ran by Smugglers) before finally walking into a dark, grungy saloon called The Den of Thieves . It's dim lighting and secretive atmosphere made it the perfect place for Smugglers to conduct their "business" dealings or for one to simply go and sulk they wanted to be left alone.

The interior was roughly rectangular with a bar in front of the rear wall. Behind the counter was a Bumbling Nemodian cleaning glasses, and further back in the Kitchen he could see a large, green Verpine cooking something on a hot stove. Seated at the bar were a few patrons: An Aqualish, another Verpine, and a pair of blue Humanoids.

As opposed to sitting down at the bar, which was dangerous since his back would be facing the door and anyone could take an easy shot at him, he settled himself into a corner booth along the same wall as the entrance. A few moments after sitting down, a blue tinted minifugure from a hidden holoprojector appeared in front of him to get his order.

"What can I get you to drink sir?" It was the Nemodian.

"Umm, Can you get me some Corellian Fire Ale? A recent vintage, if possible," he asked politely.

"Yes sir."

A few moments later, a small door slid open in front of him in the table’s center and a shot glass of the spicy ale rose out in front of him. Already its noxious but sweet scent was beginning to permeate the air around him.

He drank it in a single gulp, the ale burning all the way down. Disgusting stuff, really. It was something you had to aquire a taste for. Apparently his taste for the stuff was wearing off...

"Hey, You!" someone shouted. The shout came from the entrance. A pair of Rodian Bounty Hunters were walking towards him, blasters in hand, when he looked up. "Yeah, you!"

"Yeah, what?"

"Put both your hands on the table, and they better come up clean. We don't want it to get messy, do we?"

"Alright, alright," he answered. He put his hands on the table just like the Rodian had told him to. They were empty.

"Now," he asked, "just what do you want?"

In response, the two bounty hunters lifted up their blaster rifles and changed their settings from "stun" to "kill."

"Uh-oh, I have a really bad feeling about this."

At the sight of the blaster pointed at him, Kach scrunched down further into his seat. The movement looked natural, like he was cowering from the deadly E-11s they were pointing at him, but it served a far more useful, far more skin saving purpose.

"Now gentlemen..." he replied, keeping his voice as calm as he possible. He really, really didn't like blasters being pointed at him. "I'm not sure what you're here for, but I'm sure we can work something out. I just happened to have come into a bit of money not too long ago, and I'm sure I could make you a cut."

The two of him just glared at him, and then one of them, the one on the right, took just a milisecond out of his stairing at Kach to glance at his partner.

That was when he struck.

His legs compressed like shock absorbers from when he scrunched down, he suddenly unleashed all the energy stored in his muscles, flipping the table. The Rodian's blaster's screeched, but buried themselves into the table as it flipped up (one of the cantina's finer offerings, for the protection of it's patrons, was blaster proof tables). It's momentum carried it further towards them, and ended up landing on the one who'd glanced at his comrad, contacting him with a sickening crunch, and probably breaking at least a few bones as it crushed him against the ground.

In the meantime, Kach was momentarily helpless, lying on his back, his ass sticking off the bench and his legs in the air, a nice, juicy target that would cause an exceedingly painful wound if he was hit there.

However, his moment of weakness was over almost before it began. Using his now-extended arms as fulcrums, he snapped his legs down and flipped himself onto his feet like a whip. His blaster was already in his hand by the time he was on his feet, and he unleashed two shots towards his foe, meant not to injure but to keep his (or her? He couldn't tell one Rodan from another) heads down.

In a jiffy he was behind the table. His assailent had moved several tables away and flipped one over, and was crouching behind it. On the other side of the casino someone else had flipped a table and was firing in his direction.

Damn, they had backup.

From behind the bar, the bumbling Nemodian that had been cleaning glasses came stumbling out from there. "Stop this... stop this..." he said, but a moment later he was silenced by a blaster bolt to the throat as yet another gunman entered the fray.

He'd been through worse odds before, but that didn't make him any less nervous. And it didn't keep his mind off the fact his luck would have to run out sooner or later.

Fortunitly for him, it wouldn't be today, but things would get a whole lot worse before they got better.

Exactly six minutes later he stepped out of the grungy cantina, his left bicep blistering where a blaster bolt had grazed him and his clothes soaked with sweat. His unidentified assailants were now laying on the Den of Thieve's floor, staining the tile with their blood. He had ruthlessly dispatched them after it was apparent they were out to kill, not capture, with a pair of hand grenades.

Now he was shuffling through the corridors of Asteroid 73c, his hands trembling and his skin pale. He had never experienced a reaction like this to a gun battle. Normally he welcomed some excitement, but now he was a wreck, at least physically.

Jesus. If he'd needed that drink before, now he really needed it.

He closed his eyes. He took a breath. Then another. And then a third, deeper one.

Then he opened them.

A cold, wicked smile came to his lips.

Softly lit in the dim candlelight before him, he slowly passed his eyes across the vast collection of treasures he had acquired over the years. Sculptures, moss paintings, and a thousand other types of riches adorned his splendid chamber wall to wall, floor to ceiling.

But, for all it's value, for all it's splendor, for all it's beauty, it was nothing compared to his greatest artwork of all: This ship.

She was magnificent. She was powerful. She was discreet.

She was his.

And she was about to have her first test.

The thought of that made the barely perceptible vibrations throughout the ship created by its passage though hyperspace as obvious as a mountain from orbit. He savored the sensation, then let it pass.

Black Sun was rising once again to it's place on top of the galaxy's criminal groups.

This move would only make it that much closer.