* 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).

Yes. I know the beginning's a repost of (*) (which I actually forgot to write the title for), which itself is a repost of A Tale of Two Smuggler's beginning. But I'm not happy with where the former is going, and so I'll redo it after the last two posts.


In a Mos Eisley Spaceport...
"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."

It was beyond Kach why all the individuals crowding this dirty Tatooine town chose to live here. It was filthy, hot, dry, and water was ten credits a glass - enough to buy a cheap, used blaster pistol.

If this place was the armpit of the galaxy, then it should probably find itself some deodorant.

Of course, there were some worse parts of the human anatomy it could be, no examples required.

Yet, at the same time, deep in the back of his mind, he knew exactly why they were here. Because they didn't want to be found (and who would look on a backwater place like Tatooine?), because they were looking for someone (you had to always watch your back while you were here; there might be a bounty hunter looking for you, or some commoner in the right place at the right time might think you were just the thing they needed to boost their finances a little bit). Or, more likely, they were trapped here and simply didn't have the money to get off.

Lately, this was even truer, as rival gangs and criminal groups battled for control of the world in the absence of the late Jabba the Hutt's rule.

But somebody had to supply them with blasters, and grenades and all the other things necessary to fight a war.

That's where he and his brothers in "Freelance Cargo Delivery" came into the picture.

On a good day, a shipment of fairly modern, high power blaster rifles in good condition could fetch nearly eight million credits (that would be for a total of 13,000 rifles, approximately how many he could load into his Delta-class shuttle). On a backwater planet like this one, that price was easily tripled when the most common heavy rifle was Clone Wars vintage DC-17s. And if you happened to come in at a good time when both sides were looking to equip their rapidly expanding forces, it could fetch twice that price, if you knew where to look. And if you could avoid forces put together to steal the weapons away from you in the mean time.

They got their guns, Kach got their money, and everybody was happy.

Unfortunately, his and Jesh's hold was empty, and their pocketbooks nearly so. They had less than 2,000 credits. A years wages for most decent, hard working citizens on this rock, But he wasn't exactly a decent, hard working citizen, nor were most of the people here. But this money was nearly all stored away in the Bank of Correllia, on Aargau. In cash, they had 77 credits.

They needed some work. They needed some money. And he needed a drink.

But haven't I always? he thought, reflecting upon his past. Recently, he had hit it big in the smuggling trade, but he had blown all their money on expensive upgrades to their ship, the Stormhawk, expecting more work to come their way. But it hadn't. And now they were in deep shit indeed. Like usual, really.

If sand was gold, then Tatooine would be loaded. But it wasn't, and the alchemy that it would take to do so hadn't been developed yet, and so the status quo stayed the same. The gangsters fought. The commoners went on like nothing was happening and tried to avoid the trouble. Those who stood to benefit from a war (such as the smugglers) fanned the flames by delivering weapons and anything else that could be sold at a reasonable mark up, and everybody off planet just tried to ignore the situation and pretend everything was alright.

So, all in all, everything was the exact same as it had always been on Tatooine since nobody remembers. Heck, even Chalmun’s Cantina was still there, right where it had always been since before he was born.

As he stepped into its dim confines, the first thing that reached him were the strong stenches of spice and alcohol and cigarras. Masked by it was the stink of the dozens of alien species who currently had members patronizing the bar, and the equally exotic odors of humans who hadn’t bathed in weeks or months due to the price of water.

Home to anyone who needed some dirty work done, was willing to do some dirty work, or simply wanted to drink his sorrows away.

After winding his way past the crowded bar, Kach sat himself down at an empty booth in the back that had traditionally been the location of smugglers looking for business or people looking for their services and waited. The bartender, a silver-backed Wookie, glared at him, probably attempting to intimidate him into buying a drink, but Kach stroked his blaster and glared back, and the Wookie broke eye contact first, turning to another customer who'd just sat down at the bar with a grunt.

Kach could see from all the way across the bar that the bond shared between the Devronian male and Twi'lek female was true love likely to last until they died; but of course, by true love he meant a one night stand, and by likely to last until they died, he meant until the alcohol wore off.

Honestly, he didn't understand why some people (or near people, or aliens) liked to sleep with members of other species. It was a disgusting though, but obviously it had to turn them on, and give them the satisfaction they desired, or they wouldn't do it.

Ugh. It should probably be banned. Diseases jumped between species all the time because of disgusting practices like that, and these diseases killed billions of sentients per year.

But then again, who was he to judge?

Presently, another patron of the bar, a short, stocky human with a face so scratched up it seemed like one big scab, and whipped out a vibroshiv. The Devaronian, either so inebriated or distracted by his new partner, didn't notice, and promptly received a knife to the back of the head.

The human was obviously too drunk to remember, or just plain didn't know, that Devaronian's hearts were in the lower back, not the standard human position the assailant had stabbed.

Howling with pain, the Devaronian spun around and whipped out his own shiv from his boot, a long, bloody, and deep gash now present in his back, probably causing some difficulty breathing, since the shot would have doubtlessly penetrated the alien's single large lung, but not immediately fatal. (Of course, the injury might be, however, to the human who had inflicted it and incited the creature's rage.

All eyes were now on them, all conversations postponed. Chalmun was running around the bar to come out and stop the fight, but that would take a handful of seconds, and a handful of seconds was all it would take to be over.

With another howl, this one of anger, the Devaronian struck, not with the shiv in his left hand, but lashing out with his fists, stupidly dropping his knife. Just as he was about to grab the poor human's neck, however, he stupidly tripped over himself and fell flat on his face.

Faster than a pack of Howlrunners onto a lone Kamarian, the human was onto him, stabbing and striking and even biting, anything to keep his foe down. That one gash became two, and the two, four. And in as many seconds as it took to read this line, the Devaronian, caught in a position he couldn't fight back in, was a bloody mess.

Without a seconds hesitation, before the brute Chalmun reached him and tore him limb from limb for the mess he'd caused and the likelihood one of the local gangs would come check out what had happened, the human grabbed the garb of the Twi'lek that just moments before was following out the Devaronian, and pulled her towards the door. She screamed and tried to pull back, but he was larger than her and, instead of bothering trying to pull her, he picked her up like a groom would his new bride and headed towards the exit.

Disgusted, Kach pulled out his blaster and moved towards the door.

And still disgusted he stepped away from the Cantina entrance and turned back to his seat. He had quickly moved to the door, but it had taken too long for him to weave his way through the crowd by the bar, giving the Human and his stolen, drunken one night stand adequate time to slip into the Mos Eisley crowd and disappear.

As he about-faced, he noticed that everyone was silent, and all eyes were on him.

Innocently, he slid his his heavily modified DC-15s Pistol back into it's holster and stepped back to his vacated seat.

One by one, each eye (or eyes, depending on how many each possessor had) left him and turned back two the previous holder of it's gaze, each occasional glance towards him slightly more suspicious than it was before he'd drawn attention to himself by drawing his blaster.

And as he weaved his way through the crowd and back to his seat, he noticed something.

His booth wasn't quite as vacant as it had been a few moments ago.

And there was something oddly familiar about the Red headed, bulky man in front of him who needed to shave pretty badly and smelled like Cigarra smoke.

"No, it couldn't be..."

As the pieces of his mental puzzle slowly came together, Kach's eyes widened at who, after so many years, he had stumbled across, whether by fate or by design.




Ten to twelve years before this...

Each man has his own pre-battle ritual. Some boast about their fears (their lack of them, really) to their buds, to their friends. Others pray, or finger certain lucky objects (or perhaps worry beads).

Kach Thorton was the silent type, unlike most who became or are smugglers. As he and his gang, the "Howlrunners," walked towards the turf disputed with their rivals, the Rancors, most of his thinking was directed within.

Am I ready for this?

Will I still be breathing tomorrow?

What justifies this conflict?

His comrades, by comparison, were brassily boasting among themselves. One, a bulky but rather unintelligent boy (to say the least) named simply Red swore that he would "Wring the necks of a dozen of them Rancors."

Another, the lanky but strong Kyp, said he'd "Beat them till they were sobbing and then 'finish the job'" from there.

Are the Rancor's members truly non-sentient nobody, like I am told, or are they beings too?

is this 'turf' worth the two or three friends of mine it will likely cost us to get it?

Why?

And there they were. Two or three blocks down the large street they were walking down was the rival gang, arrayed out in a line like their own from curb to curb.

Unlike the Howlrunners, which was primarily human (the exception being a single Verpine who's father had come on a short term contract to repair something, but then they had been robbed and couldn't afford to return home), the Rancors didn't have a human among their ranks. Instead, there were Rodans, Dugs, Duros - a general motley crue

Like most rumbles, the fight began with both lines stopping a couple of meters apart, and then their members began shouting insults and taunts at one another.

"Screw you, slime ball..."

"We shall grind you to dust, human..."

"Me and your mother had some kinky inter-specie sex last night..."

For the most part, nobody paid any attention to the content of the insults; their primary purpose was to raise the spirits of those about to go into battle. One Dug, however, let his temper get the best of him after hearing the last of the listed examples, and in one fluid motion, jumped forward and grabbed one of the Howlrunners by the throat.

And it was on. Men, driven by instinct and anger, became animals. Instantly, they all set upon the other, fists flying, weapons unveiled from hiding places, and screams of rage emerging from their mouths.

And with poor Kach Thorton in the middle of it all.

At this moment, he froze.

And at this moment came the lethal, strong legs of a truly pissed Dug, it's long toes (more like fingers, really), wrapping around his neck.

And he couldn't breath.

Instantly, he began struggling, bringing his hands up to pull the mighty, constricting grip off his neck.

He couldn't breath now.

But the foot was like rock. Immovable.

But he had to.

Adrenalin surged into his veins, and in a last effort, he tried again.

No dice.

He would die here today.

He wasn't ready for this.

He wouldn't be breathing tomorrow.

Kach blacked out.



Yet he was still here today, still breathing.

He woke up with a pounding headache, his skull feeling like it was about to explode from the throbbing.

Yet, somehow, he was alive.

"Kach," came the sweetest, most wonderful voice he had ever heard. The voice of a friend, of someone who cared. Their face was right above his, though his vision was blurred, either by tears from his first close brush with death, or from his body's lack of energy, making it too lazy to bother focusing on the face.

"Kach, can you hear me?"

A strong and hard, yet friendly hand came down and wiped off his eyes, and he could see again.

He didn't know where he was. Above him, he could see a stone ceiling, hinting they'd scrammed from the fight area before the city security forces could catch up with them. People were all around him, projecting a solemn mood throughout the room.

"Kach, we won," the person standing over him said. A built, red haired young man with what must have been a weeks worth of growth without shaving.

Then he took a deep breath, and grimaced from the pain that had suddenly rose up to consume him, and he fell asleep.



No, it couldn't be. Could it?

But it was.

Hand on his holstered blaster, Kach stepped to the booth after a short pause and sat down on the opposite side of the table.

"What can I do for you, Zak?"

At the sound of his name coming from this apparent stranger's lips, the man jumped back and shot very nearly to his feet and his eyes widened. For a moment he just stared at the man in front of him, his face pale and hand on the butt of his holstered blaster. For a moment he eyed Kach, who was now sitting across from him in the booth suspiciously before recognition kicked in.

"Thorton?" he asked, his voice becoming excited.

"Indeed it is I," Kach replied. He hadn't spent much time hanging out with Zak back in the day; his brief period in the Howlrunners had been just that- brief.

For a few moment Zak looked him over and sized Kach up, shifting positions to lean back more on the padded booth's seat.

"I had heard that there was an expert smuggler here, one of the best. But I never expected it to be you." His voice was calm and relaxed.

"We all surprise a few people in our lifetimes," Kach replied, leaning forward and letting through some of the smuggler brashness he'd picked up over the years.

Both men looked at each other tensly for a moment, and then a smile appeared on both their faces, glad to get the traditional smuggler-making-things-difficult-before-business out of the way so they could speak freely.

"Thorton, how you been?" he said, his voice now cheerful. "Why, I haven't seen you since that time you about got your head blown off."

"That was Rex who nearly lost his head. I was the one who froze and nearly got strangled."

Zak put on an expression as if he was deep in thought. "No, I think you were the one who about got your head shot off, and Rex was the one who frozen and nearly got strangled."

"I was the one it happened to, I would know, I'd think."

Zak smirked and shook his head slightly. "You haven't changed a bit since I last saw you.

"Perhaps. But perhaps not. But talk is cheap, it doesn't make me any money. What can I do for you?"

"Come now, is it really necessary that we rush things?"

"Yes," Kach said, "I believe it is. I don't like this rock one bit, and don't want to stay on it one second longer than I must."

That pried a laugh out of Zak. "Indeed. Well, if we must get on to business," he hesitated for a moment, "I am here on Tatooine representing a small Triffis crime lord. I need you to fly a shipload of cargo from here back to Triffis."

"What of?"

"Do smugglers normally pry into the contents of their cargo's?" Zak replied sharply.

"This one does," Kach retorted, "I don't carry anything hotter than regular glitterstim."

"If you must know, the cargo's made up of carvings, sculptures and jewelry found in the excavations of that ancient city in the dune sea that's been so hyped lately around the city."

"I've heard of it," Kach said, slipping back into his usual neutral tone.

"They were all, of course, illegally taken from the excavations, but since nobody off this world gives a damn about this place anyway, we expect nobody to bother you. Our main concern is avoiding tariffs at the boarder crossings- there's nearly four on the way and the cargo is rather valuable and they could add up to as much as 30%, a hefty chunk out of our profits."

"And that's where I come in," Kach said. "How much is this cargo worth?"

"Approximately..." Zak thought for a moment. "If we're careful to get only the best prices and take our time selling it, we could get perhaps two million credits off the lot."

Kach knew that this price was heavily reduced from even low figures for what they could get, and Kach didn't want to play that game. "It's probably valued at about three mil, so at my standard 15% rate..." he thought for a moment, "It comes out to about 450 grand, all up front"

Zak winced, that was a lot of money, but then again, they were saving approximately the same amount.

Besides, it wasn't his money he was dealing with, it was his bosses.

"Who's on your tail?" Kach asked. "You look nervous?"

Zak looked him over again. "Can I trust you, Kach?"

"Yeah," he replied, "but only as long as your pocketbooks holds out. I owe you nothing and you owe me nothing, and that's the way I like it."

"Have you ever heard of hunter saboteurs?"

"I might have," Kach replied suspiciously.

"They give hunted men passage between systems and protect them from bounty hunters, and in exchange they pay an exuberant amount of credits."

"I've been known to give friends with bounty hunters on their tail's a lift from time to time."

Kach leaned towards Zak. "What have you done that you need my help?" he asked.

Zak looked over his left shoulder to the mingling patrons in the center and at the bar. "I've got two bodyguards in the cantina, assigned to me for my protection. You mustn't speak too loud."

"I already picked them out a while ago. They're doing a good job mingling, but they keep shooting glances over here." His voice was softer but more tense.

"Yes, that would be them. But anyway, I've simply been skimming some credits off the top of all the deals I've been seeing through. But I think they're on to me now. As soon as I close this deal, and you've taken off, I'm sure they'll take me out to the desert and... dispose of me.

"Take me with you Kach. I don't have any money, but we can split the cargo between us. We'd be rich. It doesn't matter where you go, just get me away from them. The only important thing is that I don't get caught."

Kach looked at him, thinking about the deal. That was a hell of a lot of money.

"I want seventy-five percent, no less."

Zak nodded.

"And I want you to clean out whatever credit account you're drawing on before we go, too. We'll split that money even between us."

Zak nodded again.

"And another thing. I don't want any bounty hunters on my tail after this. I'm Captain Zek Thula of the Twilight Fury. I've got papers and codes to match that, if your guards want to see some ID. And that's how I'm registered for the hanger.

"Go tell your bosses about the deal. Then transfer the credits into this account," Kach said, sliding a credit chip that would allow deposits into one of his many dummy accounts, from which he would wire the money to his real one.

"Bring the cargo and your two goons there to bay 98 in one hour."

And with that, he stepped back to the cantina's rear entrance and let himself out, making sure that no one was following him.