Because this is how you get ants.

[Sasha Santhe]

"I think it was convenient," Sasha replied, "too convenient." There wasn't many people who knew she was going to personally be testing this ship. [member="Marek Starchaser"] was one. "A convenient error is all." Sasha turned and smiled an uneven smile. She had to keep up pretense of being shaken a little even though she was pissed. "I'll find the cause, don't you worry about that." That much was true.

Sasha started to pace up and down the side of the fighter looking it over. There was no external damage to the craft. No hull breaches, small blessings. All the damage was internal.

Technicians scurried like ants into the vessel. Sasha frowned. A dozen people knew about the testing going on here. She should have used droids and done all the work herself. Letting out a sigh she waited for Marek. Perhaps he would have answers.

 

[Corey's OOC]

What was the issue? He wasn't even around once the ship took off. Marek had women things to do. And he wasn't exactly sitting around the shipyard, watching the test. That was why he sent Alana, to watch. And report to him, eventually. When he got the barrage of messages, though, he had to cut his very important rendez-vous short. And come deal with this.

Stepping into the hangar, he nodded to the three women. "What happened? I thought the test was going well?" He looked over [member="Sasha Santhe"]. "What happened now?" Test pilots, testing new gear, it could be anything. But through the Force it was clear she was heated. Which didn't bode well for him.

 

[Sasha Santhe]

Sasha walked up to Marek and pulled him away out of the public room. "We need to talk," she said as they left the room. Down a hall they went until approaching Sasha's on site office. Sasha pushed the man into the room, stepped in and slammed the door behind her. "I almost died." she said approaching the man and pushing him up against the wall. "I almost died out there," she repeated again her hands exploring the mans chest. She pinned his body up against the wall and slammed her lips into his passionately kissing the man. Her hands went up and down his body before finally stopping at his head. Sasha's fingers ran through his hair and then she struck like a slutty ninja...

Drain knowledge, "I need to know you had nothing to do with this," she said as she shifted through his mind. There was pain and the man made to fall over, but Sasha's body kept him pinned to the wall and upright. There was no knowledge in his head of the assassination attempt, but there was something more. There was his abilities, draining energy. "Oh Marek...." Sasha said sweetly. She recalled her hand and let him fall into her. She reached up and kissed him on the lips. "You didn't try to have me killed."

And then their bodies entwined with one each others as Sasha sought to dominate the mans mouth with her own.

 

[Corey's OOC]

Marek was so not expecting this meeting. He had plans for the day, and his Force signature was reaching out to grab onto Alana when he saw the blonde. It was a bit of security, really, seeing her. And especially with the anger rolling off of [member="Sasha Santhe"]. That was... troubling. What had Riley done? He was really hoping that Riley didn't screw this chance up, else he'd have to chase her back out of this part of the galaxy. Simple. He hit the wall and his eyes lit up. Maybe this was going to be better than what he had planned before?

With the other person, not with Sasha. "Do with?" He let out as he could feel her invading his brain. Feeling that he was going to fall, he was surprised that she could hold him up. He was pushing against her, using the Force to grab her signature and push, while pulling. He did this, he wanted to taste the Force through other people, how they used it. What she was doing...

Have her killed?

Why would he do that?

"Uhh..." Was all he could muster before he was cut off.

 

[Sasha Santhe]

After a few moment of sticky fumbling Sasha released the man and stepped back. "Someone put a power drain unit in the prototype, and they disabled the safety feature on the generator. It kept pumping out power until it blew, and if I hadn't disabled the device the other one would have went up too."

Sasha walked over to her desk and sat down on it letting her legs sway about off the edge. "Someone tried to kill me Marek." And she knew who it was, but there was no point in telling Marek there was a vindictive Sith from the Old Empire out there. "We need to beef up security around this project. There is a leak, and we need to plug it."

 

[Corey's OOC]

Looking at [member="Sasha Santhe"], Marek could only nod. There was a lot going on real fast. There was talk over sabotage and him going after Sasha and now the tech talk. Right. He was trying to follow along, but sometimes he just… couldn’t. Not for lack of trying but really, Sasha was…

Well, she was distracting, lets put it that way.

Watching her sit up on the desk, Marek made to lean against the nearest wall, crossing his arms. “Someone? Who?” Because really, that wouldn’t go over well with Marek. People who tried to kill his friends basically earned a black mark from him. Not that it mattered much in the grand scheme, a small business owner, a relatively simple Force user, and member of the Confederacy, who everyone seemed to be against lately, but still, it was another mark. “We’ve been working on ramping up a Techno Union security force? They could help.”

 

[Sasha Santhe]

Sasha considered Mareks offer for a second. "This isn't a CIS world," she said finally. "The Techno Union has no authority here." Sasha frowned. "I will inform Santhe Security though." Sasha bit her lip. "But this is a delicate matter. We need to get to the bottom of this."

Pausing she thought about the situation. It had to be someone on the staff leaking information. That should be where they start. "One of the engineers, its a short list. They knew I was going up today and on top of that had the means and opportunity to plant this device." But what motive? "We could run a trace on their accounts. Money is often a motivator. See if there are any suspicious payments to any of these men. I'm going to put you on that Marek. Meanwhile I think I will interrogate the rest of the staff. Subtly of course. I'm good at that." Sasha smiled at Marek and jumped up off the desk. She walked over to the man and planted a kiss on his lips. "You're good to me [member="Marek Starchaser"]."

 

[Corey's OOC]

Sure, maybe it wasn’t a Confederate world, but still, he was working on the private security team. And that was going to put the Techno Union apart from the Confederacy, not even flying their flag and colors. It was to help the technology of the day get built, anything that was coming from a Tech Union partner company, a privateer fleet of sorts.

Delicate matters, though. Sure, maybe he was going to be able to help with that. There were ideas he was pushing to Tion, and one he was going to activate shortly. Sure, he brought Riley here, but she was untested and merely good for a pilot. He had a few people he’d been watching for someone he could send into the field. Something he couldn’t do.

Information, that was what Marek liked. Or was learning to like. “Aye, I’ll see what I can find. I’ll contact you as soon as I know anything.” He’d hopefully find the person, shouldn’t be so hard. When she kissed him, though, that complicated that thought. “I do what I can, Miss [member="Sasha Santhe"].”

 

[Sasha Santhe]

It was only a matter of days before Marek had come up with something. An employee who had an extra source of income. It seems that his aunt had passed leaving him with a small fortune. The only problem was neither his mother or father had any siblings. It seemed pretty obvious this someone had been paid off. [member="Marek Starchaser"] had been diligent and should be rewarded.

But now wasn't the time for that, there was no telling what this man could be capable of. He was a former guardsmen of Lianna, with a degree in engineering. A competent engineer who maintained starships. Before its fall he was conscripted into the Sith Empire to be a soldier. He was a well trained using his technical abilities to cause damage in multiple battles. Sasha approached with those trusted agents she had. Her lightsaber was at her hip, and she wore a mask to cover her identity. It was time now to neutralize this threat to her.

As she approached the door she reached out with her mind and connected with it forcing it open through her mechu-deru skills. It opened up and she saw the man exiting out of a window a grenade being tossed into the room behind him.

Quickly she pushed herself up against the wall as the explosion shot out of the room. "We go in, we kill," she said with a grimace. She turned the corner and and started chasing after the man who leaped to a nearby roof igniting her saber blade as she did so.

 

[Corey's OOC]

Marek realized how obvious of a find it was, once the perpetrator was located. The extra funds were moving, and they were scattered over the paychecks, a nice bonus that could be tucked away, at least on paper. He wasted no time in contacting [member="Sasha Santhe"] with this news. This was the important bit to him, making sure business and production went off without a hitch, even for a company he wasn’t in charge of. Santhe did help out Haor Chall, though. And that was important.

Play the game, work with who you work with.

Plus, Sasha was hot.

The man had a past in the Sith, and working as a soldier for the war effort. Add to that the engineering and well, it was someone he was going to need to help hunt down. He had his pistol and lightsaber ready, plus the X-1 armor he purchased from Santhe. Why hadn’t he sent Alana or someone else to do the work? Simple.

This got personal.

When Sasha ran into the room and chased the man out the window, Marek nodded. Right, doing that now, huh? He reached out to the Force, to grab the runner’s ankle and trip him up, but was pushed back. Shaking his head, Marek wasn’t expecting that. Grabbing his comlink, he contacted Sasha.

“Uh… so he’s a Forcer.” He didn’t know what flavor, but he needed to be out there, getting to the window, Marek leapt to the other rooftop, landing into a roll, and exiting with his pistol raised at the direction of the enemy.

This was going to go great.

 

[Sasha Santhe]

Sasha frowned under her mask as she jumped off to the roof. She ignited her blade and grimaced as the man turned and fired several shots from a blaster. This was going to be harder than she thought. He was fast, agile and jumped from roof to roof with ease. The chase was on now. As Sasha jumped onto the roof she hit hard creating a reverberating cracking sound on the metal shingles that apparently they have in star wars. She started to slip off the roof and groaned jumping again into the air and landing hard once more.

Setting into a sprint she started running after the man. Hopefully Marek would get a speeder or something and come around to cut him off...

 

[Corey's OOC]

Right. A chase. When he realized he wasn't dealing with [member="Sasha Santhe"], not someone who was his lesser in the Force, because let's get real, how is Marek declared a Master with two main powers and next to no saber practice? He figured it was time for a change in tactics.

Watching the man run and fire several well placed shots from the hip, he leapt from the rooftop to the ground, slowing his descent with the Force.

Once on the ground, he approached an air speeder and used the telekinetic powers that were the mainstay of his ability to jump start the vehicle before speeding off down the street. He could sense Sasha in the Force and made his way a few houses down.

Hopefully she'd trip their target and he'd catch the runner with the front bumper of the air speeder. Or with a shot from his gun.

 

[Sasha Santhe]

Sasha continued the chase on foot as [member="Marek Starchaser"] came around in the little airspeeder. Sasha rolled her eyes as she looked at its sleek little red form. She knew the speeder well. It was a women's speeder, no real power to it. Sporty though. She shrugged, yeah when this is over she might buy one, after-all she would look cute enough in it.

The chase continued across the rooftop, Sasha barely managing to keep up with the man. She was sure now that he had bionic legs. Damn. The man stopped briefly to list up a large peice of debris on the roof to throw at Sasha. She saw him wince as he pinched his back. Bionic legs and he lifted with his back…. what an idiot. Clearly he wasn’t the mastermind behind the assassination attempt. Sasha slashed the debris with her lightsaber…. the man ran away.

Turning to look behind himself, the man who Marek located was cussing to himself in his head. What was he going to do? The woman had a lightsaber, and there was her partner, the one who was using the Force. People were going to want to know this, that there were executives in some of the major galactic corporations that were using the Force, and not on the light side. This would make him plenty of money, especially if he couldn’t end them.

He could expose them.

He was going to get away with this information, he had to. Licking his lips as he looked around the buildings, he nodded. Turning, he was making sure to get away from the speeders. And this is when he realized he should be worried on where he was going, and not where he was coming from.

Marek for his part spun around in his speeder cutting the man off from escape as Sasha dove in after him. It was a T junction with two sides cut off, one by Sasha the other by Marek.

The man smiled thinking he avoided the trap and turned down the unoccupied street. It was Sasha’s turn to smite. As he turned two lasers appeared from nowhere scorching the roof as the ship with [member="Riley Topol"] decloaked.

The man laughed and turned to Sasha, “I was never making this out alive…” he said rummaging through his pocket and pulling out a thermal detonator.

We all know what happened next….