It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

[BLADE]

Imperial Processing Centre 85-32Alpha
Sulorine System
Sometime in the Morning

Ben cradled the cuppa for dear life.

Really he shouldn't have. Didn't you know the Imperium had a shortage on? It was with this (and sneer firmly fixed on face) that our aspiring Sith hero found himself dropping two bags of Commissary's Finest into a mug that read "Not Here At the Moment; Going Crazy." The slight man leaned in to peer at his cup.

You ever look down at the toilet bowl after peeing? Oh come on, we all do. Y'know when a bloke is dehydrated but just had a bit too drink? That not quite urine-yellow-you've-neglected-to-keep-your-fluid-intake-up-chappie-yellow? That was what marinated in his cup at the moment. With a sigh, Ben scooped up the teabags by the strings and deposited them in the breakroom trash.

From behind a thermos full of chia seeds and warm Hutt water (diet fad; go figure) a jowly Tefaun named Dhorees peeked at him. Dhorees, or Dory as most of the office called her was an efficient worker. Every particulate matter of an organizational skein could be turned into something delightful and color-coded and probably indexed in a system you'd never heard of but which made you feel like a right idiot for not thinking of it. She was well into what Tefaun males (gingerly and quite out of hearing range of their female counterparts) called "The Delicate Age." She was also a nosy busybody who took to mothering Ben at every turn.

He long-sufferingly adored her.

Terrible Sith he was.

Still. Bit of theatre was always good.

He scowled at his longtime secretary.

She was unaffected.

Terrible. Sith.

"Wotcher Ben!"

"Dory," he nodded with the equanimity of the damned, "That report--"

"--Filed in triplicate with HIGHCOM, chief. Still waiting on a chem report from those samples you took."

She took a swig of the Chia concoction. Ben himself had tried a bit after his husband Gherri had commented on the five Life Day pounds he'd put on. Vile stuff. So vile in fact that even some of Dory's alacrity seemed to drain out of her and go into the pseudo-plant... animal... thing?

"You alright boss?"

"Hrn?"

"You just look a bit peaky. Fancy a biscuit?"

It was difficult to keep those extra pounds off. Ben had always been a slender man, all jutting lines, and punk rock hipbones. And yet...

"No!" He scowled, this time with a bit more feeling, "I'm Sith, Dory," said Ben dryly as Dory made some kind of demon-idiot dance with the tin, grudgingly drawing his eye, "But I reckon you could be a great Dark Lord."

She shrugged, finishing her slight circuits with the Forbidden Tin, "They're double-choco."

"Double-choco you say?" The war shortage was no joke though Dory had an old friend (read: interspecies lover) at Requisitions, so maybe... I mean it would be just this once? Ben stared longingly at the blue tin with a rather stylized Empress on it (Andy's Best Chocochocs™)

His waistband seemed to involuntarily tighten, reminding him of the Life Day pounds. That and the tin illustration (an earthy baker-cum-conquering-warlord salting the Earth with the blood of her enemies... and chocolate!) decided matters for him. Not only did the Empress not look like that, but those last year Life Day pounds were about to spill into this year's Life Day.

He set his mouth in a thin line and growled at his subordinate.

"Away damn temptress!"

Dory smirked and stored the tin in the pantry; when she was on a diet, she lived to vicariously ruin someone else's, and she'd probably get Dana or Magnus (Maggie, Trandoshan, flamboyantly gay, and Ben was not one to er... point the rainbow finger) sooner or later.

"And what of our special guest?"

Ben felt his cuppa cool enough to be drinkable. He downed some of the green-yellow liquid and grimaced.

He might have spoken too soon on the "drinkable" front.

"Lord Rook is sulking in the lavatory."

"Did he have a tummy ache again? He's getting on a bit, and hyperspace leaves him... well you remember that Corellia Retreat a couple of years ago."

"Oh no, dear. Nothing so serious. He's just struggling with his jumper."

Ben's lips twitched, "Gherri is an artist," he said with all solemnity. It was bound to be worse this year, in all honesty. I mean, it wasn't like the Sith Master enjoyed Ben's husband's jumpers. But last year, he'd hit on a color that wasn't too dodgy on the wookiee's massive frame, but then again this year...

Ben looked down at his own jumper, stretched over his standard-issue armor (he had to feel at least a little bit Sithy at the office, innit right?) and traced the multicolored Mon Calamari (with light-up function!) riding some type of definitively non-existent Felucian butterfly (Gherri was definitely an artist and not a astrobiologist.)

One could thus, by inference, only imagine what Rook's jumper looked like.

Now that was an image to get you through the day, piss-tea (and oh he just knew that the barmy --and scary-- Lady in the Dark Council still had proper leaves) notwithstanding.

"Well tell Roo-Roo that when he's finished with his strop I'll be interrogating the prisoner."

With a wave to Dory, Ben made the circuit to his office, a cheerful little number not quite situated in the corner of this station (he was still an acolyte you see, and had no desire to fight his other Sith --homicidal tendencies included naturally-- over something as trivial as office space.) A squishy "meditation chair" (Gherri's doing), a cheerful desk with crayon resistant lacquer (his sister, Lyv's doing; babysitting you know?), and dozens of drawings from his nieces and nephews of such implausible things as him donning crystal wings and fighting a dragon (in retrospect, perhaps he and Gherri had babysat once too often.) It was NOT painted in Sith Black, but in a rather cheery egg yolk yellow (which Ben had to admit rather dolefully, did not stand up to Take Your Sister's Spawn to Work Day.)

Post Traumatic Glitter and Color Packet Disorder aside, Ben sat down taking the occasional wince-sip of tea and contemplating the man he'd captured only a day or so ago on Saleucami.

His "prisoner" (for lack of a better term) sat unconscious on a comfortable chair across from his desk. Med had done a fair job on him. Ben knew that the Mystery Man's extremities --tarsals and metatarsals and phalanges and super-phalanges and whatever else bloody went on in there-- had to be reconstructed and soldered with polymer and metal (though all the limbs had been saved.) His auditory and visual system though... was a different matter.

A twinge of guilt was ruthlessly squashed... or maybe that was acid reflux from this tea.

Buggering hell, I should have had one of those double-choco biccies.

The truth was, this wasn't even quite an interview. Ben was not a stupid man. He had at least his suspicions as to who his Mystery Guest was and what he was about. But he was also a very meticulous man. And the evidence was not conclusive. The armor looked posh enough, but until Central sent them chem results, he couldn't tell what sort of posh. The man was Force sensitive, that much was for certain, and had the look of someone who wouldn't be pants at fighting, but was he the Matukai they were looking for? Their leader? Simply a follower? A farmer at the wrong place at the wrong time?

Other Sith might have dove into the man's mind (always a risk and always subject to bias-confirming impressionism) or gotten a bit of their "rah-rah, we will torture and kill everything you love."

Not really his style. He was wearing a brightly colored hols jumper after all.

With a sigh, he waited for the man to come to. He did not have to wait long as The Suspect (didn't really get this fellow's name when I was exploding him, now did I?) began to stir.

@Korvo @Galavant @The Kyzer @Clayton

 

[Xeus Qel-Droma]

There was always something hypnotic about the heartbeat. To some, it was the sound of life, of one's self. Evidence of existence and vitality. To Xeus, it was the ubiquitous reminder. One that was and became what ever he needed it to be. It was the first thing heard when woke from slumber. It was the last thing he'd heart before sleep overtook him. And it was the first part of him, of his intuition, that reverberated when in the presence of danger - the physical manifestation of his survival instinct. He could remember it, the last time he'd strongly felt that instinct. It was so strong, so overwhelming. But how long did it last? A moment? An instant? Even less so, perhaps?

And now, he could hear it again. But it was not as it was. It was a sound that echoed within him, as if he were hearing it from afar. He could feel his eyes opening, but he was surrounded by shadows. Was he blindfolded? Was it night? Was he imprisoned in a dark place, below the places where light shined? He didn't know, and he couldn't tell. In fact, he couldn't recall not only where he was, but why he was there. His last memories were like a cyclonic blur, a congested amalgamation of images, sounds, emotions and pain... sharp, almost a kind of screeching pain. His clarity had waned, his memory was fogged for the time being, but the one thing that hadn't dulled was still with him. He still had his intuition, his instincts... and all they told him was that something terrible had happened.

He moved, or had attempted to, and felt a strong weight that was alien to him. Had he lost his strength? Was he retained or encumbered? Maybe he was awakening from something that had afflicted him for longer than he'd imagined, and his muscles had simply atrophied. But he couldn't see. In fact, he could scarcely hear. The sensations of sound, of the patterns of vibrations rippling through the air, they were sporadic and muted. Like a tinge of vertigo, he could feel sound's gentle whisper from only his left side. What was wrong with him? Why couldn't he hear from his right? And why was it so difficult to hear from the left of him? Why...

"Druv... druv vis... Zu'u ni hon?"

Why couldn't he hear? Had he spoken? He knew there was a voice he had heard. Quieted though it was, he had recognized it all the same. What it his voice? It was so familiar, but at the same time, it was alien to him. What was happening?

"Kolos... los Zu'u... Kolos... saraan fos... saraan?"

 

[Galavant]

As a member of the Imperial Navy until very recently, Dilara had a bit of an advantage when it came to tracking where someone might have taken a prisoner. When she'd first set down the Birikad-class shuttle at the farmhouse location where she was suppose to pick up a comrade in the fall of Saleucami. When all she'd found were the remnants of a very exploded farmhouse, and nobody alive, she'd been ready to give up. But that Saleucami had actually fallen into the hands of the anti-Imperial forces gave her more time to look around, and give some doubt as to whether or not the man she'd been sent to puck up was actually dead. With an explosion of the site that had hit the farmhouse there was obviously still plenty chance that he might be dead, but if he wasn't, Dilara would bet that he'd be in a nearby system. Standard procedure for the Imperium (and most military forces really) was to take a prisoner like that just behind the lines so any item sensitive information could be gotten out of them before they were sent back further to the professionals. The fact that without the Ubiqorate, such intelligence was all the more vital, increased the likelihood that he'd be nearby if alive. The lack of the Reckoning, and the decree that had freed all prisoners in the Imperium probably didn't help.

And even if he wasn't, a raid on a nearby system would offer the opportunity to look at what the Imperium might be planning as a response. It was a win-win kinda thing.

Except for the fact that she'd have to go, to do it. That was sort of a lose-lose in her opinion, considering her cover was probably blown as badly as the farmhouse at this point.

But her ship wasn't. The Panglossian (which she'd just started calling the Pongo) was headed for one of the nearby processing facilities, after she fixed up the hyperdrive. Maybe he was there, maybe he wasn't. Maybe there was intel there which could be used, maybe there wasn't. Dilara didn't know, and the odds were stacked against them. But the trying part was important to her. At least they were making the effort, which was more than could be said from Dilara knew about Imperial operations. It was one of the things that sickened her most about the whole rotting structure. Deals would be made with criminals so some higher ranked officers could go free, but the regular old stormtrooper? Not a chance. They were expendable to those at the top of the food chain, and all the propaganda and lies only served to make them complacent until that happened.

So, if only for her conscience, Dialra wasn't too upset about it, even if she hated the idea that they were going in with no real support.

Although she had picked up some strange pink woman she knew nothing about. It seemed to happen pretty often these days that she was either shuttling people she didn't know to and fro, or putting her life in the hands of complete strangers. It'd be thrilling if it weren't for the whole 'probably going to do die thing'.

Bringing the shuttle in close to the processing center, she gave all the right codes to anyone that might question whether or not the shuttle should be there. The Ubiqorate had defected after all taking away a great portion of the Imperium's ability to dole them out. Not to mention that she'd only just formally defected after all, and still had codes as new as last week. Given that a processing facility was liable to filled with those on the lower end of the food chain, and not considered a priority target, she doubted they'd gotten anything new that would invalidate hers, and even if they did, they'd still probably accept them. A planet had just fallen to the enemy after all, undoubtedly there'd be forces fleeing which might not have access to the latest.

The reason she gave for being there? Dropping off another prisoner that a group which had just escaped Saleucami had taken.

With her, she had pretty much all the equipment she'd had on Saleucami.

She just hoped the pink lady wasn't useless weight. As bad as two people assaulting a processing facility sounded, doing so alone sounded worse.

@The Kyzer

 

[The Kyzer]

Sitting in one of the shuttle's surprisingly-comfortable chairs, Von Raythe went through some of her gear and wondered if it would be enough. Part of her wondered why she'd agreed to something so half-brained as a two-man (well...two-woman) rescue mission into Imperial Space to save some person she'd never met or heard of. Another part of her wondered just who she was going to rescue this "Xeus"-person with and how to make use of her. Having concealed herself within the Force since departing the Rebel fleet on Saleucami, Von would feel about as Force-sensitive as the shuttle's other occupant.

Inside of the shuttle was an assortment of standard Imperial-issue gear, so they weren't lacking in hardware. That was when Von heard the other woman's reason for their arrival. Well...she supposed she'd just have to play the part of the prisoner. She discarded her armor and weaponry before picking up a pair of shock-cuffs. She had a couple minutes to rewire them before the shuttle set down. She then packed all of her gear in a large black tote and handed it to the other woman. Clicking the altered cuffs around her own wrists, the Jedi Master allowed her companion to take the lead.

"My name is Von Raythe, and it looks like I'm your prisoner, today."

@Galavant

 

[BLADE]

"Druv... druv vis... Zu'u ni hon?"

"Translation not found: server error. Please call Imperial Tech Support."

Ben cursed and tapped the console again as his "guest" swam in and out of consciousness. His terminal flashed blue and then the Imperial logo with various increasingly prissy suggestions to contact tech support. During Life Day Week. At evening. Ben was many things, but he wasn't feeling particularly sadomasochistic.

With a sigh, he bent down to reach for his CPU and tried a hard reset. No dice. Well what about plugging and unplugging it? HA!

Yeah that was a good one.

The monitor started making a sputtering sound and then...

CRITICAL SYSTEM FAILURE. WE HIGHLY RECOMMEND IMPERIAL TECH SUPPORT.

Bloody typical. My guest finally says owt and the bleedin' computer decides to go on hols.

"Well, never count out Imperial ingenuity lads," said Ben with a long-suffering sigh as he reached for thirty-six inch thick paperback (Three-Hundred-And-Sixty-Third Edition An Idiot's Guide to Six Million Forms of Communication.

He cracked open the book and ran his hand over the index before turning to the D (interjections?) section--

SLICE!

"Ah buggering piece of wank shite!"

Paper cut.

Typical.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Three hours later and stony silence (followed by stony unconsciousness and stony frustration and stony three paper cuts including one right between his index and his middle finger) and Ben was called away for an alarm. He left some sedatives and guards respectively with the gibberish man.

"Best of Chez Benachaim, mate. Apologies," he muttered as the man slumped unconscious again.

His terminal kept beeping.

His eyes twiched.

Anyhow, it was with more than a little alacrity that Ben took the lifts to COMCENTER1. Really it was just one of Regent Silentium's nerdlinger underlings' offices, but at least with the lift he no longer had to take the creepy HALL OF PORTRAITS route. He'd had no politics as far as the Imperial Court was concerned, but he'd always wondered if his superior Crusaders and Masters and Sith Lords always made it a point to pad their codpieces for their portraiture.

He found Rook lounging there with a tin of the biccies in his claws. And an extra next to him. And another one. So Dory had bullied him into stuffing himself good and proper, hadn't she?

For a moment, Ben allowed himself to be the Gay Friend and critically examined his best friend's figure. He scowled when he saw that Rook kept trim.

Bloody dogman metabolism. Probably gets a lot of exercise flouncing around and killing dumb Mandalorians.

He'd spent at least an hour that morning on the holocycle. The last time Rook got exercise, someone lost a head. Or an arm. Or some kind of relatively useful limb.

Ben gave his own bit of pudge a quick baleful glance, as if willing it to shrink by sheer ocular expatiation. His stomach rumbled as he thought of the double-chocos again.

Life just was not fair.

Suppressing the unbecoming moue that was threatening to creep across his face, Ben made it to where the demi-nerdlingers, all headsetted up were watching some woman that didn't look quite all there. She was also, unnervingly nearly Rook's size. And far more intimidating (she was not wearing a life day jumper that showed herself riding a unicorn, after all?) Well, at least she seemed to be tied up proper by one of their own (good show Empire!)

"Wotcher nerds!" He called out with little heat.

One of his nerd friends, a squeamish (but reliable babysitter, for what it was worth) Mon Calamari with the unfortunate nickname of Fishy looked up.

"Oi yourself Zhen."

"You rang?"

Rook continued to devour his biccies. Ben glanced at the tin longingly.

"Unscheduled prisoner transfer. You 'ear about this shite?"

Ben shrugged.

"Haven't a scooby mate. Why do you ask?"

"You're usually the only bloke anal enough to keep track of this."

"Could be recs and receiving. O'Vryan gets sloppy this time of year, don't he?"

"Yeah. It weren't likely to be anything else, would it?"

Ben shrugged, "What? Like..." he turned to the screen and frowned.

"STOP. ENHANCE."

He'd always wanted to say that.

Fishy rolled his eyes. Rook nearly had a coughing fit after trying to inhale five DOUBLE STUFFED biccies at a time.

"Oh have a bloody drink of water, you giant lack of table manners you," Ben reprimanded, his eyes still glued to the screen. To his delight (and after a sigh) Fishy zoomed in.

He caught a flash of a familiar face.

"That's the bint that delivered the statue of whatsherface with me!"

"Use your words, Boss."

Ben ignored him, his eyes still analyzing the audio-visual tableau ; his frown deepened.

"Manpower really that bad?" He mused. And there was a sort of rumbling in his stomach that didn't quite sit right with all this? An intuition? Or maybe he just needed a digestive.

"Well... protocol is still protocol," he said after neither the nerdlingers (some puttering around on their holopads playing Corellia Crush, or planning trips to Tatooine with their birds) nor Rook (who had recovered from his coughing fit and was now gleefully unwrapping his second tin of sweeties), "Send a couple of squads for prisoner delivery and debriefing. Got anything on the pink gel?"

"A few pop-ups on SECNET. Says she's a Jedi Master."

"Ooh. Fancy."

"Coinkidink, you think?"

"Oh now you speculate, Fish?"

"Oi! I just reckon it's a bit strange that your Matoowhatsit."

"Matukai you ignorant twat. And we haven't established that he is that and not simply some overzealous farmer militia in the wrong place at the wrong time," Ben riposted loftily. Or at least he thought he did. From the snorts, his minions (Lackeys? Occasional equal? Wookiee friend/boss?) snorted. For one brief moment he had a shining image of him with a hundred extra pounds of muscle on, inexplicably (and possibly compensating for something) spiky armor and RAH RAH RAGE BLOOD KILL.

Now those lads got respect.

"Bloody depressing thought," he murmured to himself before filching a single biccie with a twitch of his wrist and the Force.

Rook let out a growl as though Ben were leaving him entirely skint of chocolate creme concoctions. The smaller Sith gave him the finger salute and his much larger friend shrugged and got back to finishing his second tin.

"Just saying boss. It is a bit strange, innit?"

"Suppose it is. Not hardly the weirdest thing this tower's seen though, is it?"

"If you're referring to the incident with the squiffy Mynock Merchant, it weren't my fault that Deemy opened the door for him--"

"--Let's not speak of it, shall we? Anyhow, let them in. Send a few soldiers to escort them. I imagine my old comrade must be right knackered. Otherwise I wouldn't worry too much."

Ben watched the footage on loop, his stomach still a roiling flocculent bit of flesh and acid.

He ignored it.

"Besides, who'd be daft enough to only bring in two people to attack Sithatomi Tower?"