[INDENT]StarForge Station... Sooner or Later... It had to happen.[/INDENT]



[INDENT]Aboard the StarForge, deep within the nebulae for which it was named, a man of indeterminate years gazed out across the breadth of the space-station and into the distant azure haze.[/INDENT]

His name; Beff Pike and he is President of the displaced Bounty Hunters Guild.

Behind him, to the left and to the right, are his two Generals.

Jorel Fett, clad in full Mandalorian battle-armor, is the slighter of the pair and representative of a sect devoted to their true leader, Mandalore Pike. He and his band of Deathwatch loyalists followed their liege when, driven from the homeworld by Sith invaders, Beff Pike had been forced to abandon his stronghold.

To his right stands Skurge, the Gen’Dai warrior who laid claim to the highest rank within the Guild itself. A truly massive being draped in thick armor, Skurge had become the voice of Pike within the lower annals of the faction. Unlike his counterpart, however, he retains the rank of General not only in posture, but in accomplishment and skill.

In contrast to his two foremost advisors Beff Pike is neither large of stature, nor doe he don warriors’ fatigues. Unlike them, these two souls with whom he most interacts, the President tends toward the unremarkable and mild of appearance.

“I do not like it,” spoke Skurge, first to break the looming silence. He cast a cursory look around the lounge in which they stood. “It is too exposed.”

“I must agree,” suggested Fett. From within the domed confines of his helm the Mandalorian managed a distant and tinny voice. “Too many trails lead back here. If the Sith want to root you out…”

With easy sidelong glances at each of his commanders, Pike silenced their concerns abruptly. “We shall not linger here too long,” he interjected. “Your concerns are valid and noted, but I cannot leave just yet.”

“The longer we wait…” Skurge left the near-threat looming, unfinished.

“The Sith may track us here.” Jorel Fett, shoulders wide, stepped forward. “We have less then a dozen ships and less then five thousand loyal souls.”

“What will we do?” Skurge asked.

“We will go underground,” stated Pike gravely.

For a long few moments the trio stood in silent contemplation.

“The underground,” Skurge repeated, his tone determined.

Fett agreed, albeit with a degree of reluctance, “the underground.”

President and Mandalore, Beff Pike went on to spend the next hours detailing the extent of his plans, laying out his plot like some grandmaster setting the stage for an unfolding tale of drama and intrigue. Though at first uncertain, the two Generals soon found themselves deeply devoted to the scheme, their concerns assuaged and pocket books lined with the promise of a new day.

Words and phrases such as; black market, extortion, bribery, murder and assassination maneuvered between the three men, flowing with a common ease known only to the career criminal or otherwise super-villain. Convoluted third party contacts were introduced, discussed, dismissed or accepted. Dummy corporations and illegitimate front operations could easily be reactivated to further the flow of information and assets… as was once their way.

Hours later, and alone within his chambers, Beff Pike would smile his first honest, sincere smile since the loss of Mandalore…

… things were looking up.

A Story of Skurge…

… a Hunt some weeks later.


Kubindi

The pounding hooves thundered across the open tundra and drove his heart to beating faster then any human organ should. Sweat did not bead, it poured from his flesh and streamed, like tears, along his mud stained cheeks. Matted with mud and feet heavy with dirt clods, the frail human male sprinted across the open grounds as though hunted by the devil himself.

High above, judging him from a million kilometers away, a cold-blue primary bombarded him with an inhuman cerulean glow. In the off-color illumination he made poor footfalls, often stumbling to his knees though even this slowed him naught. Somewhere along the way, likely a result of a bad step, he had picked up a bad limp which only seemed to get worse with each stride.

A cold wind, harsh in these northern climes, pushed against him as though searching to slow his progress. Dust and dirt blew up in his eyes obscuring the horizon and threatening to blind him all together. He raised a hand against the onslaught and pushed on.

The hooves, the creature chasing behind him, had slowed down and slowly, the man imagined, he had begun to pull away.

A spray of warm liquid splashed across his face. At first, confused by the sensation, he did not immediately feel the sharp pain that rung out at the end of his arm… where his hand had been only moments earlier.

He split his lips to scream, to shout in pain, but no sound broke forth. Only the wet gurgle of a man succumbing to shock and a look of bloodied, stunned surprise was he able to manage before toppling, spent, to the ground.

Overhead, dimly aware of his surroundings, the man thought he heard the heavy whop-whop sound of a rotary blade of some sort. Unable to properly rationalize his predicament, the man closed his eyes and slipped into a dream land where dark-skinned men chased giant rodents with bent, flying sticks.

In a world of swirling shadows, new voices came into play. Half conscious, the man struggled to distinguish them from the illusions that threatened to overwhelm him and the reality he knew, vaguely, was just beyond his pressed eyes.

“Quite a runner, you are. Gave me a bit of the loop back there in camp, didn’t you?”

A new sensation, something dully recognized as pain, echoed through his body. Neurons firing, but removed from the signals, the man wondered at his fate.

“You can only run so far before the people you owe track you down, boy.”

With those words, that simple statement, the man broke through the haze of his own shock. Eyes shot open, he stared up at his captor and beheld the monster that would see his life ended. Buried in his chest, obviously the source of his new pain, he stared at the massive hypodermic needle that looked to have been punched through his very ribcage.

And standing over him, a writing mass of shifting flesh was Skurge.

Nothing about the creature appeared human. Standing at over two meters tall the thing looked like some grotesque humanoid/equine/canine hybrid. Even this state, he assumed, was not permanent but rather some alien metamorphic adaptation. In its claw, stark contrast against the creatures hooves, was clutched a long wooden blade bent half in the middle.

Sure enough, a couple meters away, lay the mans severed hand.

“You won’t bleed to death. It’s cauterizing as we speak.”

For such a foreign looking alien, Skurge managed to sound incredibly human despite its bulky, elongated skull.

The man groaned something of amused thanks.

“If I’d been hired to kill you… you would be dead.”

Through the pain, the man managed a word; who.

“Your wife, asshole. Alimony is a bitch.”

Seething was not the right word. It was simply the first that leapt to mind.

But it fit.

The Fetts were no strangers to filth, to scum and villainy. All the same Jorel felt dirty for just looking at it.

This was Beff Pikes new vision, financed through a fury of contracts obtained, questionably, and dispensed throughout those loyal guildsmen capable enough to carry out the assigned tasks. Word was even Skurge and Pike themselves had taken a few jobs; using their names to push up the price.

It was too much heat, far as Fett could tell, but somehow their anzati President had managed to pull out all the stops without blowing too much in the process.

And this was what it amounted to.

They had started calling it New Undergound.

“What a stupid name.”

Jorel Fett shook his head, doffed his helmet and strode down the landing ramp. From here he could gaze from one side of the landing port to the far end of the cargo areas and to the outer edges of the lower bizarre.

Two similarly clad Mandalorian warriors, having waited while his vessel made dock, fell into step behind him. “Welcome back. Situation Normal,” reported one.

“How many new faces have we had?”

At first neither was inclined to answer Fetts question.

“That many,” inquired Jorel with a slight slant in his step.

“Just the opposite; there was an incident early on. Pike recinded the policy… we actually lost three.”

“Three?” Fett paused, mid-step.

“Pike shot Visk, Neelonix-Pa and K’lat.” The first warrior informed him. “They were not immediately inclined to adhere to his policy change.”

“If I may,” he added after a moments silence.

Fett nodded, “Go ahead.”

“I think that is why he called you back so soon. Things have been uneasy and we’ve already lost six of the construction teams. People have been saying that you, as Treasurer, should have been overseeing the cost of the project.”

“Did they think it would be cheap to build… this?” Fett threw an expansive, all encompassing wave at the place. “Regardless,” came the afterthought, “I am back now, my business with the Triads wrapped up early, coincidentally.”

They both shrugged.

“Well, I guess I’d better take a look around.”

At some thirty kilometers around, the planetoid Pike had chosen for terra-forming, such as it was, had once been a small planetoid, possibly a satellite, from a intra-systems orbit that, a thousand years ago, became unstable and sent the rock tumbling into the systems asteroid belt. Somehow it had penetrated deep into the cluster of rock and debris, loosing only small chunks of itself to asteroid impact. Once established within the belt the dense little rock and its insignificant mass shadow managed to shift the current of the belt. Celestial impacts had ceased, almost all together, over three hundred years ago leaving only the occasional stray to collide with the rock in these less turbulent times. However; surrounded as it was by asteroids ranging from five meters to five hundred meters, the Guilds engineers had faced some notable hazards in establishing safe access routes.

And, because there was no atmosphere to speak of, and because of the ultra-dense nature of the place, they had been forced to construct a warren of caves below the surface. Hence, New Underground became its name. In many ways it fit perfectly.

Much of the Guilds stores of Mandalorian metal went into the construction efforts; used as supports and pillars in some of the larger areas while solid plates were used to line whole corridors where required. This had been fortunate; a blessing in disguise as, shortly after arriving at StarForge station it became clear that, in order to protect their assets, the Guild would need to relocate its store houses.

The star-port had been particularly tricky. A gargantuan hollow, by far the largest single enclosure within New Underground, had to be excavated and equipped to handle capital scale starships, in particular; the last dozen or so large ships that had survived the evacuation of Mandalore. Numerous minor adjuncts were then incorporated to adapt for smaller vessels as well, making seem ever the more expansive a chasm.

It was nessescary, mind you, to construct such a monsterous ship-to-station interface, given the position of New Undergound, galactically speaking. Not far from the Ado Spine, a little used smugglers route that connected New Underground to the StarForge Nebula and the Induparan Crown Worlds. The near by shadow-port, StarForge Station; their alternate refuge and base of operations, lurked within few enough lightyears that they could easily be called neighbours.

Remote did not begin to describe it, but, with a plethora of hyperlanes within a couple hours navigation, given the correct assistance, the Guild would have easy acess to the rest of the galaxy from the Outer Rim to the Inner Core. Smaller ships, anything less then a standard freighter, could expect serious difficulties along such a perilous voyage and, to that end, the engineering comission had built a bay that could accommodate far larger starships.


Just taking it all in, Jorel Fett could not fathom the expense. Though, high above and held in place by sizable mooring slips, he did find a certain joy in being able to, so easily, behold the starships of their fleet.

Equally staggering were the bizarre, or market-place, and the residences. The latter carved from the rock itself along corridors, walls, ledges and even floors as each resident preferred. Though a plethora of species had sworn their oaths of loyalty over the long decades, with only some five thousand souls in tow Fett would have envisioned a more structured arrangement. Apparently Pike did not share that view.

“Our barracks are where?” Fett asked, shoving aside an impudent trandoshan youth barreling through a side cavern a little to fast.

“Red Sector, at the top… or bottom… of the place. Depending on how you want to look at it.” With a glance at the retreating youth, he added, “By the way, Pike is waiting.”

“I will not be staying long,” said President Pike off hand. “I have matters to attend on StarForge and I would appreciate your company on the voyage.”

The scene Jorel Fett and his men stumbled upon; their President delivering a fierce beating to an indistinguishable alien was not one that was immediately startling. Over the years, loyal in their service to Pike, Fett and the Mandalorians had bared witness to many similar occasions. The President was not a man averse to getting his hands dirty.

General Skurge and a troop of miscellaneous bounty hunters had gathered to watch the show and though they brandished their weapons, it was clear that the threat had long ago been absolved. Each mercenary in turn wore a look of grim amusement plastered across his or her features.

No signs of constraint nor restraint were immediately visible which seemed indicative of a fair throw down, however; as Fett could not recognize the alien it was neigh impossible to imagine that being the case. Only the highest ranked hunters could even earn the privilege to challenge the Guilds hierarchy.

“Of course,” spoke Fett bowing his helmet neatly. “I assume Skurge will be left in command to get things in order while we are away?”

“Yes and no.” Beff Pike confirmed while mopping the blue-green blood from his knuckles.

“I need you to make your presence known back on the station. Once your business is concluded, it should take no more the a couple days, you will return. The good General has a number of financial summaries to answer for and, I can only imagine, he would like those two or three days to properly organize his… story.”

Skurge, shocked to hear Pike question his service so openly, threw a nasty, cursory glare at Fett.

“But sir,” spat Skurge outraged. “You have already seen…”

“And I am not Treasury officer, am I?” Pike matched the general eye for eye. “You have a problem?”

“No,” Skurge conceded. “I have no problems with that.”

“Very good,” Beff Pike agreed. “Well then, I suppose we should be off. The Mandalore and Concord Dawn are standing by.”

The idea of taking two of the Guilds most potent starships struck both men as questionable, though neither made verbal their quandaries. Obviously this would not be the simple check up that Pike had perhaps implied.

Mere months prior Pike informed the Guild that they were not be long for StarForge Station. Now, with witness’s representative of all the facets of the faction in attendance, he was basically recanting that stance. His two commanders were not alone in their doubts. This could only mean a move against the station, that he planned for the Guild to establish a strong presence there.

Quick to avoid the scandalous, Fett approached the question; why StarForge? But from a different angle, he asked, “How many warriors should I prepare?”

Suppressing a chuckle, Pike replied, “All of them.”

And with that they knew that President Pike planned to retake the StarForge.

“Rotate for departure,” ordered Jorel Fett with an obligatory gesture to the ships captain. “Signal all hands; ready for stealth.”

From the bridge of the starship Mandalore, a Guild cloak-capable cruiser, he watched with rapt attentiveness while, projected in three dimensions and colored in grayscale, the much larger Concord Dawn made her way perilously out of the asteroid starship dock. Once maneuvered between the narrowest points of the man-made cave she would have to match speed and rotation with the asteroid field that surrounded New Underground. The tricky part, particularly with such a behemoth of a starship, would be to avoid colliding with the outer edges of the asteroid base itself.

Negotiating the dockyard was a risky business but the bounty hunters were adapting quickly. Smaller vessels, and some large freighters, could count on an easier trip in and out of the moorage. Given the narrow curves and bends, edged by jagged faces of open rock, the larger the starship in question the more dangerous and time consuming the transit from one to the other.

No starship, however; had a more difficult task of it then the large Concord Dawn super-carriers. The engineers responsible for blasting out the massive cavern had been made fully aware of the fact that they would somehow have come up with a method for the bulbous starship to make entry and exit. And innovate they did. The leviathan had to pass through the narrow passage while turned up on her port side, the whole trip leaving no more then fifty meters clearance on all sides of the ship; a voyage which had claimed more then one antennae array and been responsible for numerous scars carved in the hull of the Concord Dawn.

The crew of the Mandalore, their eyes locked on the digital rendering of the departing flagship, dared not look away for fear that, without their attention, the ship would somehow spiral into oblivion.

Though only a few Mandalore-class starships had survived the Guilds planetary exodus those that had managed to last out their sister ships remained in the hands of their loyal Mandalorian crews… for the most part.

Key personnel lost in the conflict had needed to be replaced, either from existing ranks or from supplemental reinforcements. A small number of non-Mandalorian guild members had accumulated on the starship Mandalore and, regardless of their differences, had mingled with the crew well enough and were already adapting to life aboard a stealth cruiser.

Of the various star craft currently in the Guild navy, some dozen or so capital craft, only the Mandalore-class had fared well enough to remain almost one hundred percent battle ready. The Concord Dawn, the single super-carrier to survive the escape of the four ships once functional, had not weathered the storm unscathed. Only twenty five to thirty percent of the ships Starfighter compliment were functional at any given time, its fighter racks sitting empty or unattended in the endless bays of the super-carrier. A skeleton crew, some fifteen hundred souls, fought the daily struggle to keep the Concord Dawn flying.

A handful of Guild-class cruisers, corvettes and gunships had also arrived shortly there-after. Though dated by modern standards, they were still potent stealth starships able to competently fill a number of necessary roles in the rebuilt merchant fleet. Though far less reliable then their larger cousins, the Mandalore and Concord Dawn class warships, they would doubtless be useful in the months to come. Their crews were, by and large, groups of individuals who served on the frontiers of Guild commerce and had thus been untouched by the chaos on the planet Mandalore. Though some of their numbers had abandoned the cause when news did reach them for the most part these starships retained most of their functionality.

After a series of painstakingly careful turns and pivots the Concord Dawn broke free of the asteroid dubbed New Underground. Once their communication confirmed they were free the crew of the Mandalore breathed a sigh of relief. It was their turn to make the run, and for these hardened warriors it was a matter of pride to it competitively; racing against the best time set by their brothers in arms. They spared no time watching as the Concord Dawn negotiated the asteroid field with the aid of defensive cannon and ray-shield alike. Their attention did not stray from their assigned duties.

With far less difficulty and in far fewer minutes the Mandalore shot out of the cavern like maw of New Undergrounds dockyard.

“Time,” requested Fett.

“One fourteen point six two, Sir.”

Jorel Fett snapped his fingers and uttered a silent curse. Only three hundredths of a second off of their counterpart, the Mercenary; another Mandalore-class stealth cruiser. Next time, he reminded himself, they would have to do better.

“Locate the Concord Dawn,” spoke the ships Captain.

Jorel Fett stepped to the wing of his command deck, peering over the shoulder of his senior sensor technician. “They are on course, mark two three and moving to jump point alpha at one quarter ahead.”

The Captain, a stalwart Mandalorian officer, nodded at Fett then turned towards his helm and navigators. “Plot an intercept at one half. Put us five hundred kilometers off of their port bow.”

“Rig for silent running and stand by cloak,” offered Fett. “Estimate time to point alpha.”

Beneath their feet, barely perceptible thanks to the gravity plating and inertial dampeners, the Mandalore jinked hard around an offending asteroid. Already within ten thousand kilometers of the super-carrier the Mandalore was moving quickly to overtake them.

“Two hours at three quarters,” the Captian chuckled. He put in, knowingly, “That’s just enough time to read a good book.”

Jorel Fett chuckled likewise and with a nod moved towards the lift. It seemed that everyone had heard about his conflict with General Skurge and the piles of data that Fett had been assigned to sort through. It was not a job he envied, it was a job he resented for any number of reasons… not the least of which was the notable temper of Skurge.

“It’s a dirty job.” Fett replied as he stepped into the lift. “But someone’s gotta do it.”

Blood pumping, his pulse high, Kaze McOnny, pressed his back against the cold rock wall of the corridor through which he had been sprinting. His .44 held against his chest, the young Togorian dropped to a low crouch and pushed his palm against the floor. Somewhere in the distance the pop of a blaster rifle echoed through the warren of tunnels and corridors.

Kaze hissed, frothy strands of drool hanging from his half open jaw. He strained his feline ears to their limit and, holding his breath, searched his senses. Compared to the humans, Kaze was a god.

At one point six meters and almost one hundred and fifty kilograms, the feline humanoid Kaze towered over his fellow journeymen hunters. Even the Barabel stayed out of his way. He had claws where humans had only puny pink fingers. With his nose he could scent a dewback across the sands of Tatooine and while his large ears could easily detect any predators or prey in the distance.

“Humans,” he growled.

Kaze shot down the corridor at a full sprint, his body armor slapping against his thick and matted fur silently. Elongated metatarsus meant that his padded and clawed feet were far better at making speed then his brothers in arms and that he could ascend or descend surfaces that would leave his opponents stuck in their tracks.

The scent of human sweat, warm and scared, sent his nostrils wild. Kaze came to an abrupt stop, scenting the air.

“There.”

His eyes narrowed to slits and then Kaze was off again.

Seconds later, pushing himself to the limit, the Togorian began to close on his prey. One moment his enemy was three turns ahead, then one, then bend, then none.

“No, please.” The human male shouted.

Kaze leapt, extending a retractable claw towards his victim. “Too late,” he said.

It never landed.

A shrill sound, like a Starfighter going super-sonic in an atmosphere, washed over Kaze. Fractions of a second later a blast wave hit him. Flung against the stone wall, hard, Kaze went down unconscious.

Smoke and debris filled the corridor. Though the haze, toting a long blaster rifle, a man appeared over the prone shape of Kaze McOnny.

“Too late,” the man agreed. “Too late for you, pussy cat.”

A distant thrumming sound reverberated down the hallway. Moments later, riding a gust of fresh air, the smoke began to clear. Seven more shapes appeared one of which towered over even the Togorian and was clad in a suit of full battle armor.

“Impressive kill,” observed Skurge with a grunt. Arms crossed over his chest, the alien approached Kaze and, prodding the animal with a toe, said, “Get up Kaze. Get up or don’t get up at all.”

From somewhere in the depths of awareness, Kaze groaned. “How…”

“Use your legs,” ordered Skurge shortly. “As for how he took you down? You got greedy. What did we learn?”

Skurge turned, yellow eyes glowing like distant stars beneath the flap of his helmet, and eyed the other six shapes and the victorious man with the blaster rifle. “What did you learn?”

“Loose sight of the objective and loose your life, get too close and you’re just as dead,” volunteered the man with the gun. “Or, for the kitty; no fucking hairballs.”

Kaze snarled but, still woozy, was in no shape to match the human. “This was the second time, Nigor. There will not be a third.”

“No, you’re right,” agreed the man, Nigor. “Next time I’m going to have to kill you.”

“Enough,” interjected Skurge. “Take a break. Class will resume when I say it does.”

The General waved a fist at his apprentices. “Now screw off!”

Like most trainees, students or young officers, Guild journeymen were no exception to the rule; All Service Men are R and R. They dispersed quickly.

“The bizarre?” Nigor asked of the others when they had returned to the living sectors of New Underground. “All that hunting around in the construction areas gave me a stomach ache. I’m pretty sure there’s asbestos in those tunnels.”

“You’re just after that pafa-girl,” quipped a young Selonian warrior. Despite his size as compared to the others not to mention his unassuming appearance and furry hide, he managed to evoke the biggest ego of the pack. “Don’t like you messing around with the locals Vak, you get us in trouble every time.”

“Chill your jets,” countered Vak Nigor with a cool smile. He was a striking human of about twenty cycles with very dark eyes and equally coal-like hair. “Her brother isn’t with the Guild. He knows his place on this rock.”

“Not if Pike has his way,” Kaze objected from the back, still sore and licking his wounds.

“Never you mind, don’t want to hear about politics, just want food,” put the Selonian, matter of fact. “Someone get us a lift.”

Skurge leaned a knuckled fist against the window pane. He looked out across the dockyard between the bizarre and Red Sector with something of an approving smile pressed across his features. His large chest rose and fall like the tectonic shift of a planetary body. The General chuckled.

“So, Pike thinks you’ve been skimming,” came the meek voice of Nergee, his small reptilian slave. The creature hissed, “Fett will find nothing.”

“Be silent, slave,” demanded Skurge in a not-too-convincing tone. His thoughts were obviously elsewhere.

It could not be as simple as that, it simply couldn’t.

No, this was more likely a move to appease the people and to ease the sense of division slowly rising in the ranks. The Guild already encompassed two fairly distinct factions, the Loyalists and the Mandalorians; each of which was in turn loyal to President Pike.

The three had known one another for some time. Pike and Skurge, as a result of their naturally long lifetimes, had been acquaintances for far longer still. Between the three of them they had built up the Bounty Hunters Guild from practically nothing, though, admittedly Fett and Pike had more to do with that then Skurge himself.

“Then it was a play. Pretend,” hissed Nergee anew. The meter long serpent slapped its tail against the floor. He slithered towards Skurge and began to ascend the general’s suit of armor. “Then Pike wants you to keep doing as you have. He must!”

Skurge nodded slowly.

“The Guild must have funding. I will continue.”

The General turned on his heel and bellowed for his adjunct.

“Bring me the list of contracts and available hunters. Prioritize anything within the next two weeks.” When the menial backed out of the office Skurge added, “We have a surplus to hide before Fett gets back.”

The pounding hooves thundered across the open tundra and drove his heart to beating faster then any human organ should. Sweat did not bead, it poured from his flesh and streamed, like tears, along his mud stained cheeks. Matted with mud and feet heavy with dirt clods, the frail human male sprinted across the open grounds as though hunted by the devil himself.

High above, judging him from a million kilometers away, a cold-blue primary bombarded him with an inhuman cerulean glow. In the off-color illumination he made poor footfalls, often stumbling to his knees though even this slowed him naught. Somewhere along the way, likely a result of a bad step, he had picked up a bad limp which only seemed to get worse with each stride.

A cold wind, harsh in these northern climes, pushed against him as though searching to slow his progress. Dust and dirt blew up in his eyes obscuring the horizon and threatening to blind him all together. He raised a hand against the onslaught and pushed on.

The hooves, the creature chasing behind him, had slowed down and slowly, the man imagined, he had begun to pull away.

A spray of warm liquid splashed across his face. At first, confused by the sensation, he did not immediately feel the sharp pain that rung out at the end of his arm… where his hand had been only moments earlier.

He split his lips to scream, to shout in pain, but no sound broke forth. Only the wet gurgle of a man succumbing to shock and a look of bloodied, stunned surprise was he able to manage before toppling, spent, to the ground.

Overhead, dimly aware of his surroundings, the man thought he heard the heavy whop-whop sound of a rotary blade of some sort. Unable to properly rationalize his predicament, the man closed his eyes and slipped into a dream land where dark-skinned men chased giant rodents with bent, flying sticks.

In a world of swirling shadows, new voices came into play. Half conscious, the man struggled to distinguish them from the illusions that threatened to overwhelm him and the reality he knew, vaguely, was just beyond his pressed eyes.

“Quite a runner, you are. Gave me a bit of the loop back there in camp, didn’t you?”

A new sensation, something dully recognized as pain, echoed through his body. Neurons firing, but removed from the signals, the man wondered at his fate.

“You can only run so far before the people you owe track you down, boy.”

With those words, that simple statement, the man broke through the haze of his own shock. Eyes shot open, he stared up at his captor and beheld the monster that would see his life ended. Buried in his chest, obviously the source of his new pain, he stared at the massive hypodermic needle that looked to have been punched through his very ribcage.

And standing over him, a writing mass of shifting flesh was Skurge.

Nothing about the creature appeared human. Standing at over two meters tall the thing looked like some grotesque humanoid/equine/canine hybrid. Even this state, he assumed, was not permanent but rather some alien metamorphic adaptation. In its claw, stark contrast against the creatures hooves, was clutched a long wooden blade bent half in the middle.

Sure enough, a couple meters away, lay the mans severed hand.

“You won’t bleed to death. It’s cauterizing as we speak.”

For such a foreign looking alien, Skurge managed to sound incredibly human despite its bulky, elongated skull.

The man groaned something of amused thanks.

“If I’d been hired to kill you… you would be dead.”

Through the pain, the man managed a word; who.

“Your wife, asshole. Alimony is a bitch.”

“Fett,” said Skurge, strolling across the flight deck in full body armor. “Good to have you back.”

“It’s good to be back,” agreed Fett non-committal. His group of Deathwatch warriors fell into tow behind him as Fett started towards the Gen’Dai general. “What news have you?”

“None,” reported Skurge with a shrug. “Construction goes as planned. We have fully incorporated yet another convoy of refugees hoping to escape the war. Displaced species are easily sold on the idea of prosperity.”

Skurge and Fett fell into pace side by side and directed themselves towards the bizarre. Crowds of unfermiliar faces parted to let them pass while whispering rumors about their grandure and terrible powers.

Fett noted, with a certain dissatisfaction, that Skurge had been running the propaganda machine full time. He doubted that many of these people truly came here of their own accord, but rather were rescued by Guild patrols on the fringes of the Ado sector. At first glance he estimated fifty to a hundred unfamiliar souls milling around the public, commercial and residential areas.

“How many new faces do we have?” Fett asked.

Skurge shrugged again, “It’s all in the reports. I’d guess it was about a hundred or so recent recruits.”

For the remainder of their tour neither man spoke, each lost to his own thoughts. Fett looking ahead, though not forward, to doing a complete internal audit of the New Underground project while Skurge seemed occupied with the duties of administration.

Soon, hopefully very soon, President Pike would conclude his business on StarForge station and return to New Underground with the Bounty Hunters Guild once again re-established.

Skurge asked, “Your visit to StarForge was profitable?”

“Yes,” confirmed Fett. “Very profitable.”