It is time...

The place was far from lavish, by any means. Puddles of brown sludge met with the corridor leading out into the thick sand-filled air. The rampant smell of Corellian ale assaulted ones sences as they entered the cantina. Only creatures from abroad, scoundrels, murderers, and criminal warlords would feel welcome and at home in such a place. He felt right at home...

He sat behind a coarse brown table, a few flys and insects circling around him though not seeming to catch his attention. The figures focus remained on the open enterence hall, watching... waiting for his contact. He lifted his greasy mug to his lips, taking a long swig of the cheap alcohol before setting it down with a loud thud. He'd grown tired of waiting.... who wouldn't, after three days? His fist shook with anger and frusteration as he continued to stare at the entery corridor. He stood, tossing a few credits on the table, taking his eyes off of the door for merely a few seconds.

"Leaving so soon?"

He jumped, trembling out of sheer shock... or excitement. The figure that stood before him towered above him, his face hidden under the darkness of a cloak, flowing over what appeared to be some form of durasteel armor, complete with spikes.

"N..No sir." he studdered as he took his seat. The figure standing before him took one across from him, the crimson color of his eyes never once changing shape through the darkness of the cloak. He squinted his eyes for a moment, yet still he could see nothing. "You are my contact?"

The figure nodded.

"How can I be so sure?"

The figure sat silently for a moment, never once moving, never seeming to even take a breath of the foul air circulating around him. "Perhaps you'd care to wait another three days, mister Yenis?"

Yenis shook his head, sliding a small datapad across the table as he looked around in caution. The figure took the datapad. He looked over the information, made sure that everything was accounted for, and threw a small brown sack of credits on the table, stuffing the datapad into the recesses of his cloak. As he stood, the man cragged his credits greedily, muffled laughs escaping his obease lips. The cloaked figure that had been there second before, seemed to vanish once again.

The rain poured down on him as he walked down the narrow walkway, soaking into his dark cloak. It rained constantly on this damned world. And yet people still flocked here in hoards, eager to see its wide oceans, and huge floating cities. He wondered how they could stand the rain, and the darkness. Every day he had been here it had been dark. And raining. It never showed any sign of stopping, just falling down from the clouds above.

As he walked down the narrow passage, he wondered how the worlds’ inhabitants could stand to live here. Mon Calamari they called themselves. He called them fish. They took great pride in their world, and instead of finding refuge somewhere else, they constructed giant floating cities to live in. Into these cities they poured their very heart and soul, making each one different. He had to admit, as he looked about, that the city he was on was quite impressive. Foamwander City, they called it.

They should call it “Round.” There was not a straight line in the place, it was all smooth and round. They couldn’t even build hallways in a straight line, for god’s sake. He had to spend his time wandering around, trying to familiarize himself with the twisted maze of halls.

But he was Atsath’eri’nuruodo. He was a Chiss. It was not a problem. After several days he had located the Bar where he was to meet his human contact.

Human.

How his Lord could trust something as important as this to a human he did not know. But it was not his place to ask questions, only to follow orders. And so he was here.

He walked down yet another narrow hallway, and in the distance he could see a blinking sign. It swayed in the wind, rocking gently back and forth. As he approached the letters came into focus. It read Waterside Bar. It was clear that its ‘tender did not keep it well, as he could see several lights burnt out from the sign.

He pushed open the door, and peered into its darkened interior. He could see aliens of several species, and many of the strange fish that were the planet’s native inhabitants. In the corner, he could see a fat male human, and knew right away, by some instinct deep inside him, that this was his contact.

He approached the man, concealing himself in the shadows along the walls, a task made easy by the enfolding darkness of his cloak. When he was just behind the man, he spoke. “Do you have it?”

The man spun around, clearly startled. When he saw the Chiss behind him, he seemed to tense “You are my contact?”

“I am.”

“You’re late. You were supposed to be here yesterday. I’ve wasted valuable time waiting.”

Herin’s eyes flared but he said nothing.

The man regarded him for a moment, then turned away, withering under the powerful gaze of the Chiss. He reached under the table and pulled out a small datapad, then extended it to Herin.

Herin took it from the man and flipped it open, examining its contents. “It is all here?”

“Yes.”

Herin pulled a bag of credits from within his cloak and tossed in onto the table. “Don’t spend them all in one place.” And then he was gone.



The shuttle appeared out of hyperspace, above the massive planet. It was a routine trip, a frequent visitation from Calamari. A casual observer would dismiss it as nothing and continue along their business. These things were so frequent at Coruscant, that many would not notice it at all.

The shadowy figure on board knew that this was all the better. The fewer questions asked, the easier his mission would be. Many of the shuttles passengers had stared at him, but no one yet had ventured to ask of what he was doing. To many he was just another stranger, one of billions they would see every day.

One, however, knew that this was not so. He knew what the glowing red eyes meant. He had been told that this stranger would be here. The stranger had on him something more valuable than all the treasures of the world. When he had been told that the stranger would be here, he had scarcely believed his ears, the value of what he had. This would make him very rich indeed.



As the shuttle docked, Herin strode off, becoming invisible in the crowds of new arrivals on Coruscant. As he pushed his way through the crowd however, he knew that he was being followed. He could tell by the way that the human had looked at him, he could tell that the human knew.

Herin hurried through the crowd, muttering an apology to the elderly lady that he knocked over. He slipped into a turbolift nearby, and keyed it for one of the lower levels of Coruscant, where the scum of the galaxy resided. Just before the door closed, several others slipped in beside him, including his human follower.

When the lift came to a stop, Herin pushed his way out the door, and walked down the empty street. The human walked out behind him, dropping back to follow Herin from about fifty feet. Herin noted that if the human was trying to remain inconspicuous, he was doing a very poor job of it. Indeed, he was almost announcing himself to be there. Herin shook his head in disgust.

A short way down, the human called out to him. “Going somewhere, sonny?”

Herin ignored him and continued on his way. The human quickened his pace, and soon came only a few steps behind the Chiss’s back. “I asked you a question.”

“It doesn’t concern you.” Herin said gruffly.

The human drew out a blaster and pressed it into Herin’s back. “Make it concern me.”

Herin sighed and swung his arm around, cracking down on the human’s wrist. He cried out in pain and dropped the blaster, letting it clatter on the metal floor. Herin reached his arm into his cloak, and in a flash he had his favourite dagger in hand. “What do you want?”

The human smirked. “You know damn well what I want.”

Herin lashed out and stabbed the dagger into the human’s chest. Before the body hit the ground, it was dead. He wiped the blood off his dagger and placed it back in his cloak, this time closer to his grasp.

What the hell did he do now?

"Tsk tsk tsk..."

A soft, sultry voice came from the shadows, a glint of light reflected as the voice's hidden owner shifted in the darkness. Glasses, slim ones, a female's...

"I'm glad I hired that bum to be a decoy. You'd be in dire straights if you'd 've come at me with that pocketknife, Killa'."

The woman slipped out of her shadowy haven of safety and into the dim, flickering light pulling off her glasses. She was clothed in black: black workboots, black laces, black slacks, back tank top, black leather pilot's jacket. Her whole aura was black and dark and lethal. She glanced down at the body on the street. The heel of her boot was on the edge of the pool of blood that was around the body and she curled her crimson lip in disgust. With a liquid gesture, she lifted her foot and wiped the blood off on the corpses pants as she slipped her glasses into a inside pocket of her leather jacket.

"What dirty streets Coruscant has nowadays, eh, Blue-Skin?"

She spoke to him as her brandy brown gaze rose from the body to his glowing red eyes. His peculiar eye pigment neither scared nor interested her, obviously she was use to being stared down by Chiss.

"Don't even try, Sweetheart. And keep the pocketknife to yourself; I already know how pretty it looks, you don't have to go introducing it to my jugular vein."

The woman stepped over the body on the ground and pushed a lock of unruly brown hair behind her ear. She stood in front of the Chiss and smoothed down her form-flattering black tanktop, mainly trying to wipe the grime of the Coruscant underground off of her hand before extending to him.

"Jaina C. H. Solo...you don't know me probably, but I know you, Herin. Sorry about having that yahoo tail you, but I had to have time to give you a once-over, study you for a bit. Having you concentrate on him made my job much more easier. And before you jump to conclusions, I'm not stalking you, Emperor Xilen sent me to meet with you."

He ignored her comments. "Xilen sent you? What news from the Emperor?" He showed no sign of it, but he was extremely displeased at being tailed so effectively. She must have been good. He put himself immidiately on guard.

"And I'd appreciate if you would refrain from insulting our species in such a manner. We should not be referred to as 'Blue-skins', but rather as Chiss, as I'm sure you must know."

He gazed at her, bright crimson seeming to bore into her very soul, peeling back layers of skin to peer at secrets hidden beneath. "So what is a human.." he spat the word with disgust clearly evident in his voice, "...doing, running around in the bowels of Coruscant, delivering a message to me from Emperor Xilen?"

"They are....late sir."

"What did you say, commander?" the captain scolded as he stood from the black leather command chair within the confined office space of the massive shipyard hovering above the skys of Bilbringi.

"Agent Herin has yet to arrive, Captain." The enlisted officer stood in silence for a moment, his hands neatly folded behind his back. His voice hesitated, as did his body language, yet he continued to speak. "You cannot hold us accountable for the problem, sir."

"Hold you accountable?" the captain growled as he slammed his fist down against the hard metallic desk. "We are Chiss! Each of us is going to be held accountable, if the Emperor finds out about this." his eyes shifted back and fourth over the paperwork scattered across his desk. "If he isn't here in twelve hours, report to Central Command. That will be all."

The enlisted officer nodded his head respectfully, turned and walked through the hissing metallic airlock doors. The Captain stood, overlooking the vast blue green of the planet below him through the large transparent windows that stood behind the desk. Before him, the massive black plating of what had been deemed project Black Widow slowly glided forward through the construction zones of the shipyard, sparks shooting outward as the mechanical arms sculpted the imported mandalorian steel into a slender design. Droids hovered in place, hammering massive bolts into place, checking the potency, and strength of the steel plates. Each had been specially constructed out of the strongest steel within the known galaxy, painted pitch black with small white blotches here and there. In fact, the Captain could barely make it out against the blackness of space that rested benieth it.

"What am I going to do..." he whispered to himself, his forehead rested against the cold transparisteel windows before him.