Nails in a coffin.

[Maris Fero]

Mallit, lost for words, was simply gaping at Enyo. His jaw flapped open and closed wordlessly, catching himself and barely keeping from speaking out again. He looked from the impassive Enyo to the smiling Maris and back, struggling with the young woman's serene smile, and almost starting again when Maris snuck a coy wink to the ganger.

"... Fine." he managed, almost spitting the words out, with a grimace. "All friends again."

[member="Enyo Typhos"]

 

[Enyo Typhos]

[member="Maris Fero"]


Enyo did not need to be an empath to pick up on the revulsion Maris felt for Mallitt and the Selonian - and vice versa. Nor did she have any delusions about fealty. She would see which of the three served her cause the best, then separate the wheat from the chaff. But she needed local collaborators.


"Prepare your gangs. I want a thorough accounting of how many men and what gear you have at your disposal. I will summon you and then we will attack our first target. As a demonstration of what I have to offer, I will provide equipment to make your boys more effective in a fight."


Needless to say she would not give them anything that would make them a threat to her. She was also deliberately keeping the nature of their first raid target a secret. It would reduce the chance of one of them double-crossing her. "Everyone will receive a fair share of spoils from the first raid. It will be based on performance. Do a good job and you'll receive bonus. You're dismissed. Maris, come with me."

 

[Maris Fero]

All too soon for Maris, Enyo called an end to her toying with her old rivals, spelling out her first pronouncements and demanding a tally of what the gangs could bring to her side in the conflicts to come, she even went as far as to offer equipment to strengthen their forces. That was unusual enough to give Maris pause for thought, the real criminals on Vorzyd were tight with their credits, and gangs often had to bid for equipment in return for doing dirty jobs. Rarely if ever were they equipped for a mission to come beyond perhaps necessary explosives or evidence to plant.

She noticed Aeun and several other of the female thugs and gangers react with fleeting expressions of dissatisfaction at Typhos use of the words ‘men’ and ‘boys’ in relation to the forces each organisation could muster. Melort resisted any such display although her misandrous reputation left Maris in no doubts the slightest of linguistic decisions would likely have caused minute damage to any growing loyalty she felt towards Enyo, though the arrival of Maris had probably done more to erode that than loose words could.

Maris knew the complications involved in a request for an inventory amongst the three largest youth gangs, membership and attendance was often dynamic, almost fluid, and more often than not voluntary or done for a sense of loyalty and pride.

She could probably muster maybe fifty solid bodies who would always answer the Shrike’s call, perhaps another fifty who could be influenced to stand with them. Another hundred or so would be unreliable numbers who were as likely to join them as join the other side. And the Shrike was the very largest of the gangs in the great rebalancing. Five great gangs had become three, and three had been close to becoming one.

Of all the information requested that of gear would surely be least reliable. Equipment would be limited to personal possessions, to what little the gangs had in caches around the city - and how much of that they were willing to risk.

She wondered who the first target might be, from a cast of dozens of possible mobs and crooks, maybe even crooked lawmen or politicians. She also wondered how she might use such information to inflict further damage on her personal rivals.

Maris nodded her head, smiling with as much enthusiasm as she thought looked reasonable as Enyo spoke of spoils and rewards, already making plans as she heard the newcomer dismiss them.

But not her.

“Maris, come with me.”

The raven-haired girl paused mid-stride, eyes narrowing slightly as she glanced from Melort to Mallit to gauge their reactions to her summons, a similar look of confusion and hope on Mallit’s features, what she imagined to be a look of smug enjoyment on the ferret's dark features.

“Of course, lead the way,” Maris replied with a polite smile and a nod to Enyo, despite any coolness she felt from the warrior, determined to show no weakness and minimal submission before the rivals.

She moved to follow Enyo, mind racing as she considered where she might be taken next, her eyes flickered from thug to thug, reading blank expressions and almost feeling the same cold from them as their leader, it must have been her imagination but the girl even imagined that the more intensely she studied Enyo’s followers she could almost taste the static in the air around the visitors.

It wasn't clear how far they might be going, and Maris had no wish to spend the indefinite time in silence, so once beyond her rival's hearing, she spoke up again. One question burned in her mind, a question with many meanings and probably as many answers.

"What are you?"

[member="Enyo Typhos"]

 

[Enyo Typhos]

[member="Maris Fero"]


Her creators had raised Enyo as a soldier and this strongly influenced the way she ran her mafia. In many ways, it resembled a paramilitary organisation more than her crime rang, right down to the fact that military ranks were almost ubiquitous. Standards of training and equipment also tended to be better.


Raids and gang wars were planned with military precision. The discipline that was enforced would have probably not been out of place in the legion of an Imperial warlord. Ironically, Melort might have found a kindred spirit in Enyo's template, Siobhan Kerrigan. For the Lady Kerrigan had strong misandrist beliefs. Enyo, by contrast, had been raised by asexual droids and was more than a little indifferent to gender wars.


As for the target...well, all would be revealed...in time. Suspense!


Anyhow, Enyo led Maris away from the throng. There was one burning question on the girl's tongue and it quickly leapt from her lips. A question that was both simple and complex. It had many meanings, many answers and there was a blood-soaked history behind it.


"What are you?"

The girl was observant. That was good. Enyo appreciated her boldness...to a point. "Neither Jedi nor Sith. Neither wholly human nor a simple droid." That was not particularly informative. Maris might have picked up on the note of mild disdain in her tone when she mentioned 'Jedi' and 'droid'.

 

[Maris Fero]

Maris hadn’t really expected anything like a satisfactory answer at first. In fact, she had wondered whether or not Enyo would respond poorly to what might well be an impertinent question in the first place. When the reply arrived it posed more questions than it answered, although Maris was pleased to have received and answer at all.

She had never known a Jedi or Sith, as far as she was concerned. All of her limited knowledge of the mythical warrior factions was gleaned through the tall tales of old gangers and drunks, or offworld talespinners who wanted to front more standing or power than they truly held. What she heard most often concerned the weapons, lightsabers, like the one Enyo had wielded, and alien abilities. She had heard they were ghosts and tricksters, fierce warriors and smiling monsters.

Enyo did not feel like a trickster, and few things in the galaxy seemed less ethereal to the raven-haired ganger that day. So far the monster had not smiled, but she was certainly fierce.

She was part robot, which explained much of what Maris felt around her new companion, though explained little of how she knew it so assuredly. A Cyborg then, she had met their kind before. Some of her gang might be considered cyborgs in the crudest sense, though she doubted Enyo would recognise them as kin.

There was a distinction in Enyo’s words too. Minute and hard to catch in the almost emotionless exchange, but Maris was exceptional at reading people. There was a stress.

“What’s the difference then?”

 

[Enyo Typhos]

[member="Maris Fero"]


"I have no organic weaknesses." This was both true and false. She did not need to eat, drink or sleep, though she could simulate all of these activities. She did not tire and could work on a task for hours without pause. She had no vices holding her back. But...she still felt human emotion, no matter how tightly she kept them on a leash. Ironically, it was her love for her sister that had enabled her to break her chains.


"And I can use the Force." A droid could not. It could only perceive the world in ones and zeroes. "Jedi are hypocritical, preachey cowards who hide in their ivory towers and speechify about peace. When they're not burning worlds over dogma. Sith are chaotic slaves to their emotions and follow a dark lord like sheep, hoping he will toss scraps of power their way - until they turn on and devour each other. Both cults are fixated on their vendetta against each other. I follow my own path to victory." Her opinion on their philosophy did not stop her from working for Sith on occasion. But that was a contractor, not a minion. She had a higher opinion of some Sith than her words implied, but she would not bend a knee to any dark lord or emperor.


She cocked her head slightly as she looked at Maris. "You're perceptive." Her words indicated approval, or something close to it. This trait of Maris' was useful, but might also become a cause of concern. Either way, the girl was smart beyond her years. It had probably helped her survive in the war-torn slums of this wretched hive of scum and villainy.

 

[Maris Fero]

The openness with which Enyo chose to reply was refreshing. It occurred to Maris that perhaps the Cyborg didn’t recognise -or perhaps respect her as a threat enough to lie.


Still, the ganger was instinctively suspicious of Typhos opening statement. Claiming no weakness was just sounded like a weakness in itself to Maris, pride and hubris had been useful flaws in Naitin Karperko, faults which Maris had played upon to help her rival and admirer damn himself.

The Force was a hoodoo term thrown around by mystics and drunks, or so Maris had hoped. It was undeniable that Enyo wielded a power Fero could little understand or mimic, but scepticism had saved her ass in the past. Despite her distrust, Maris could not dismiss Enyo’s claim out of hand, she had witnessed something, felt something herself each time the cyborg had used her powers.

The role of the Jedi and Sith according to Enyo Typhos told Maris that her new employer had little love for either faction. She named both cults, and Maris had met a cult once before on Efavan, the old preacher had led a cult, slaves to his debts and vices. Was a dark lord just another shallow tale teller using his naive followers?

“So what vendetta are you fixated on then?”

The question escaped her lips with little thought, so obvious it arrived almost instinctually. “I had my own path too, my own payments to collect. Everyone has a cause,” she added, conscious that she might have insulted her new boss by implying she might be as bad as her ill thought of force cults.

[member="Enyo Typhos"]

 

[Enyo Typhos]

'“So what vendetta are you fixated on then?”


The question had burst from Maris' lips like a repeater round exiting the muzzle of a blaster. It was followed by the assertion that everyone had their cause to pursue, their blood debts to collect, with the young ganger being explicitly included.


Enyo's expression remained unchanged. It was placid and calm. "None you need to know of," she spoke softly. This was one way of saying 'this is need to know basis'. A select few amongst the Iron Fist knew of her connection to Archangel and how strong her hatred was for the machine cult that masqueraded as a legitimate droidmaker. The rest were left with rumours and half-truths.


Some thought she was a fallen Jedi or Sith, which amused her to no end. One had pronounced her a Shard, though he probably only knew of the enigmatic crystals from spacer tales. Others latched on to her startling resemblance to Siobhan Kerrigan, and labelled her as some sort of freak experiment. Those were very close to the truth, though the Fire-Maned Lady had played no role in her mirror's creation.


"You'll find that the larger galaxy is both different and startlingly similar to this slum you inhabit. The strong do as they will and the weak suffer what they must. It is just sometimes draped in fancier language," she remarked.


You've probably already unconsciously drawn upon the Force without even knowing it. It may seem like luck or coincidence to you, she thought. You could be quite an asset if you harnessed it - or a problem. Their first mission could be a good test. "Tell me what you know about the local underworld and the big players." After all, Maris had claimed to be very knowledgeable in this regard.'

 

[Maris Fero]

Another limit to Enyo’s openness, though Maris still heard no admonishment for her impertinence. Still, the answer was an unsatisfying deflection, one which immediately made Maris even more determined to discover the truth of her new boss’s motivations.

The midnight-haired youth considered Enyo’s remarks on the parallels between her ‘slum’ and the galaxy as a whole with care. Her dark lips pursed as she nodded eventually, glancing over at the woman she walked beside.

“I want to be strong. Weakness is ugly.”

The words came with ease, the goal was not a new revelation to Maris, though the latter remark had been unexpected - coming with a memory of her Mother that left the ganger feeling uneasy. Her Mother had lost it all, and lived still in the slums of Efavan, though Maris had stopped using her family's true name years before.

Her jaw set as she pushed the image of the pale-skinned woman whose features were so similar to Maris’ own from her thoughts as Enyo asked her next question. She considered her options for a moment, collecting her thoughts.

“So about two years ago there was peace. House Bar’ar had the Comanu Star casinos; The Hutt clans - under Bogo - had the MezNez, Acripora Princess and the West Dock complexes. The Ezatz Family had everything east of Upper L and the Amphidome fight arena. Gopta his crew moved most of the substance traffic and distributed, no one messed with him cos he had ‘offworld friends’ “ she added her own air quotes to signify her disdain for the theory.

“That left about a third of the city under small time operations and acting under the umbrella of a Togruta called Sapani Vitalo, and his Vitolo Lounge casinos.”

“Beneath that, there were street-level gangs: Shrike, Carrik, Lower-L crew under Kaperko, Oddballs, and Little Balo’s boys. About a dozen other outfits with no backing or real spirit, they didn't last so long.”

“About that time something happened to my employer, Tratten, he was taken out and it was only one of like, a handful of guys to disappear in the Ezatz family alone. We all thought Vitolo had made a move, you know?”

She looked to Enyo again, realising that perhaps the outsider didn’t care for a history lesson and paused to await her approval to continue.

[member="Enyo Typhos"]

 

[Enyo Typhos]

[member="Maris Fero"]


Enyo could be harsh - extremely so. Such as when minions committed misdemeanours such as betraying her, disobeying her orders or flirting with her little sister. She was not given to spontaneous outbursts though. Time would well whether Maris' understandable curiosity might get her into trouble. It would certainly be fun to find out!


“I want to be strong. Weakness is ugly.”


The young street thug's words struck a chord with Enyo. Perhaps she remembered a time when she had been weak and afraid, a plaything in the machinations of powers that sought to mould and dominate her - and discard her when she was no longer useful. She'd sworn never to be weak again.


Maris launched into a history lesson about the Gangs Efavan. The cyborg's features made it difficult to discern how much she already knew and what might be new to her, but either way she did not interrupt. Patience was a trait she shared with HRDs, though she could not store the same massive amount of information as true machines could. "Continue. Get to the situation that is relevant now," she ordered. Children make good spies, she thought, remembering an obscure novel she'd once read during simpler times. She recalled child spies being called Little Birds in it.

 

[Maris Fero]

Get to the point Maris. Her new boss was patient enough in comparison to some of the mobsters she had worked for or witnessed in action, but it was clear she was less interested in the History and more in the matter at hand.

“Right, right, relevance.” she nodded, shrugging her shoulders in a half-hearted apology for the distraction before continuing.

“Okay, everyone got spooked, Ezazt hit the MezNez hard, Bogo retaliated. Bogo’s son was taken out in a drive-by on his speeder yacht.”

“Long story short Bogo is underground and only appears on Holovids now, the Clan was pushed out of its dock holdings.”

“Gopta took them a while, but he’s missing and his twisted sister LuLu set up shop there, the word is she’s a not all there upstairs but she’s probably on an offworlder payroll.”

“Ezatz got militant and started picking of independents, old man Ezatz is in hospital they say, something wrong with his bones they can’t fix. His oldest son’s a public face in the planetary government, so it's up to his brother Linon to make all the decisions. Violent guy, he sent me out to find Trattens stash, but then the gang war heated up..” she let that trail off, figuring it was better not to explicitly state that she had gone rogue on her previous job to follow her own trail of violence.

“Vitalo’s closest allies have a cabal in Lower D who meet up and think no one knows, they have stakes in Vitolo Lounge and everything in big credit laundering goes through some guy there called Spenk.”

“There are more small arms and higher grade loot been coming in from the star dock but I don’t have a name of who’s behind it. Two of my rival street gangs are gone, my doing, a third was going to be forgotten tonight-” She raised her hands in a gesture that suggested she had dropped the whole affair for now, “but something came up.”

“Oh and every couple of Month’s a freighter captain, Remos Murca brings in people illegally, to sell to the casinos and the crimelords. I had to collect shipments from his folks before, for Tratten.” she looked most unhappy about the last crook, spitting a gob of phlegm to the deck as she walked, sickened again by the memories of the indentured arrivals.

“You need more?”

[member="Enyo Typhos"]

 

[Enyo Typhos]

[member="Maris Fero"]


"No, that suffices," Enyo spoke. "There is a special task I have for you. Knowledge is power. I want you to gather the most perceptive from amongst the street urchins of this town and set up a network. Kids who can follow orders, keep their ears peeled, eyes open and keep secrets. All I need are whispers."


"If they do their job well, they get protection, food, clothing, credits, a chance to be a part of the organisation and so on. If they have loose tongues, they lose them. I want to know as much as possible about what is going on in the underworld." There would only be so much she could learn about the bigger gangs, but no one noticed a dock hand unloading crates of spice. In time, they might be able to turn members or insert their own.

 

[Maris Fero]

She listened to the task as Enyo described it, nodding along as she spoke of knowledge and power. For a moment Maris said nothing in reply - considering her options again. Enyo wasn't really aware of all that Maris had done beneath the feet of the Vorzyd capital, but even if she had been it was unlikely she would have known that just such a network already existed in the most informal of fashions. Maris cultivated trusts and favours with meticulous care; Never the biggest or the strongest, Maris had survived and flourished by utilising her own strengths - speed, information gathering and her wits.

"It can be arranged - but they need to see they are being cared for upfront if you want reliability," she explained herself carefully, though the statement was true in itself she had already bought that initial trust from many of the voices who whispered to her. "But if you want the ears of the Casino kids too you need to be able to offer something beyond food and cloth, that's basically all they get for acting as porters anyway."

"How wide do you want this to go? I only wanted word of my peers before."

[member="Enyo Typhos"]

 

[Enyo Typhos]

[member="Maris Fero"]


Enyo considered this. Did she trust the girl? Of course not, but she considered her useful. Besides, she was talking sense. "I have credits and I'm not tight with them...if I get good work in return. Someone hurts them, the Iron Fist takes care of the problem. Furthermore, I have the ability to raise them up after a certain amount of years. I promote on merit. I can even take them from this world and give them a better life beyond it." Of course, her idea of uplifting might not be what the kids had in mind - always read the fine print. Maris' last words implied that she might have already set up some sort of network in basic, embryonic form.


"As for how wide I want this to go, for starters the territory we operate in, naturally." That was the territory of the Carriks, Oddballs and Shrikes. "But I want it to go beyond that. My competitors aren't the small fry. I want this network to expand, city district by city district. Don't rush, move methodically. I'm also particularly interested in any other offworld activity and any new arms that are being brought in." What she did not mention was that she knew that Yerevan, a Dark Jedi who'd once sponsored her private crusade against Archangel, was operating in the city via proxy.

 

[Maris Fero]

Though Maris might have been prone to many sins and vices, material greed was not one of them. There was no hint of further interest in the mention of loose credits, though she expected Typhos was not one to forget details or overlook skimmed money.

In fact the more the cyborg spoke the more convinced Maris was becoming that perhaps Enyo Typhos didn’t consider herself a criminal at all. Much of what she spoke of seemed to indicate long-term employment, an honest day’s pay of a dishonest day’s work.

What did get Maris attention was the suggestion that Typhos might take those who worked well for her from the under-slums of Efavan. The statement alone suggested two things to the bright opportunist, Enyo Typhos did not intend to set up shop and stay of Efavan herself and that if she played the loyal employee she could get off of this rock.

The urge to escape surprised Maris, she had never considered a life beyond her goal to control of Efavan’s underworld, but Enyo’s arrival had changed something in the girl, the ease with which the outsider had simply demanded her loyalty, the offworlder exuded was a heady lure to the raven-haired youth. Despite her easy skill in dissembling the interest would have been obvious.

“Sure, Okay, I’ll get on that, I need to talk to people. Need to put a halt on some other things I had going on too. I have folks I can talk to. -” she nodded to herself as she talked through half thoughts and glanced to Enyo again, wondering if there was more or had she been dismissed suddenly. “Need to decide what to do with Mallit’s brother too.”

[member="Enyo Typhos"]

 

[Enyo Typhos]

[member="Maris Fero"]


“She killed my brother... She killed all of them.”


Enyo remembered Herk Mallit's words from earlier well. Indeed, she could have performed a perfect mimicry of his voice if she'd been so inclined. So his brother Akro was not dead. She could imagine what had been done to him. This helped explain how Maris and her crew had been able to deliver such a blow to the Carriks. Clever girl. The cyborg approved, though she wondered why Maris had not disposed of him after she'd gotten what she needed.


Still, there might be use for him. Be it as a card she could play - or simply as someone she could process into an obedient, mechanical drone. "Hand him over to me. Let Mallit continue in his belief that his brother is dead by your hand," she ordered. Sparing him was no mercy, not at all. Her attention remained on the girl. She was good at dissembling - very good in fact - but the yearning to escape this rock did not escape the hybrid. You may get your chance. We shall see. Either way, it was a possible lever.

 

[Maris Fero]

She hesitated only a moment considering Enyo’s suggestion - which in truth was likely an order - before nodding her consent. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Typhos, she didn’t really have a choice in any case. What concerned Maris was the possible damage her reputation might sustain if word got out Mallit was alive.

Part of her current infamy was based on the fact that she had killed Akro Mallit; Rumours already circulated that she had ordered the death of Little Balo, a year before. Naitin Kaperko had been killed by Mallit for that same crime but as the gang leaders of the Carriks had been accompanied by Melort and Maris the underworld at large had attributed the kill to the triumvirate.

In truth, Maris had avoided introspective examination of the blemishes on her own soul by holding onto the fact that she had never truly killed anyone - by her own hand at the very least. Balo’s face loomed large in her mind’s eye as her thoughts wandered; His eyes were wide as she imagined that it was herself pushing him from that roof; Naitin’s face of confusion as she pictured herself in Mallit’s place, discharging the blaster at short range.

“Yeah, Okay, where do you want to make the exchange?” She covered her lapse by dropping back into professional criminal habits, set up a meet, work the security, arrange the drop. “If Mallit’s folks find out we’ll need to finish the Carriks.”

Balo’s face in her thought’s again, confusion and fear as he toppled from the edge, Maris imagined she could see her own smirking face in the boy’s wide eyes.

[member="Enyo Typhos"]

 

[Enyo Typhos]

[member="Maris Fero"]


Enyo nodded curtly. "We can handle this quickly and quietly. Lieutenant Chazzak will accompany to where he's being held and pick him up there. She's reliable." As if on cue, the Zabrak emerged from the shadows and stepped towards them. Her expression was alert and she carried herself like a soldier. She was a veteran of many blood-soaked campaigns. And one of the few members of the Iron Fist who knew her true agenda - and both the depth of her loathing for the machine cult called Archangel.


"All friends now, huh?" Neda Chazzak asked rhetorically, tone sarcastic. "You know how to pick 'em, Boss. Never a dull day in the Fist," she spoke to Enyo in a more respectful tone. Traditional Zabrak tattoos graced her face, which was marred by scars.


"Report to me once you're done," Enyo ordered her subordinate, then turned her attention back to Maris. "I will summon you and the others when it's time for us to make our first move. This will be soon," Enyo told Maris, handing her a card that presumably contained contact details.

 

[Maris Fero]

Maris head flicked to the Zabrak, a once assessing the woman, a warrior alert and prepared. Around Enyo there were professional people, and Maris realised that she needed to be aware of their presence in future, anticipate them. She eyed the soldier again, no obvious weaknesses revealed themselves - Maris would keep looking - but she nodded and flicked her head in the direction they would be travelling.

“All friends,” Maris confirmed with a sweet smile that would be unlikely to impress either of the two warriors, not that she cared to.

The raven-haired ganger chaffed silently at the idea of being summoned again, a pang of resentment rising in her once again that was harder to quash. She offered only a firm nod in agreement instead of any rebellious quip or timid acceptance, taking Enyo’s card and stalking off into the gloom toward one of her distant stashes with the Zabrak in tow.

[member="Enyo Typhos"]