The Climb Is All There Is, Part II

[Ugoto Chivaro]

FORT AMARANTH

Eugene was tapping his fingers in a bored, impatient manner on the long meeting table. Deglarch was seated across from him, eyes shut in some sort of Morgukai meditative state. Or maybe it wasn’t Morgukai meditation and just regular meditation. No one could really tell. There were some others present. Rahgot was standing in the corner, fiddling with a specially-sized datapad. Was he texting someone? The Sakiyan, Grigori, looked to be in deep conversation with a rather large Trandoshan. Derrenger. Derrenger gave Eugene the creeps usually, but in this moment he looked so bored and exhausted trying to ignore Grigori’s spiel that he couldn’t help but sympathize.

There was a mean looking Mon Calamari that Eugene did not recognize. Seated next to the Mon Calamari was a Gand. Neither seemed to acknowledge one another. The Mon Calamari was reading a book - an actual book, a rather rare sight - while the Gand was cleaning a blaster pistol. Then there was the Besalisk. Ogedei was his name. Ogedei didn’t talk much, but when he did it was rarely to impart anything beyond a grunt, scoff, or insult.

What a happy band of gentlemen they were.

Eugene was the only human present. He had never known Maleagant to make a point about keeping the Syndicate’s uppermost ranks racially diverse, but… Well, it would be hard to prove otherwise with this meeting room’s populace kept in mind. Good grief. Whatever was on the Syndicate’s list next must have been pretty big to warrant calling everyone in today.

At least when Maleagant showed up, Eugene wouldn’t be the only human in the room. Or did near-humans not count? Maleagant looked like a Rattataki, sort of. Some days more than others. Eugene had never bothered to ask since Maleagant rarely appreciated that sort of inquiry. Speaking of which, the doors to the conference room slid open, and in strolled-

Was that an Arconan?

Felix. The Arconan. He was tall even for his species and his lab coat seemed ill-fitting. While not hooked on sodium like the rest of his race, he still looked worse for wear. Eugene knew that Felix was some kind of deserter from a high-profile intelligence agency on the other side of the galaxy. Now he worked for the Syndicate, maintaining the Crimson Codex network.

He also had a lisp.

“Friendth,” Felix said. “Maleagant will not be joining uth thith evening.”

The previously silent room erupted into some muttering. Ogedei only grunted once. He didn’t really care, now did he? What could Maleagant be doing that the science spook had to stand in for him?

Felix held up a hand and kept talking. “He’th charged me with the tthoopervision of thith upcoming operation while he ith away.”

Oh boy.

 

[Ugoto Chivaro]

FORT AMARANTH

Once the conference room had settled down, Felix began his presentation. The lights dimmed and a holoprojector activated. Deglarch continued his meditation. It was then that Eugene realized that Deglarch had actually fallen into the sternest slumber he had ever witnessed. His eyes were shut so tightly, his lips as if they had been welded shut. Only his breathing, barely noticeable underneath his stiffly crossed arms, looked somewhat… Regular. Regular for someone in the middle of a nap. Someone would have to fill him in later. Eugene didn’t know much about Morgukai, but startling one awake from a nap didn’t sound like the best idea. Felix’s holoprojector crackled a bit, but the picture eventually came into focus. A map of the alignment. Several planets were marked with waypoints.

“Now that we’ve taken Fort Aldmer from the Waylon Thyndicate...” There was a muted groan from someone. It was always Waylon. The bastards refused to die out or stop their meddling in Helix Syndicate affairs. “...They are without a thentral command, without thtrong leaderthhip. They are on the edge of going away for good, we juth have to give them a nithe… Puthh.”

Eugene found himself more focused on Felix’s mouth than the actual words emerging from it. Why did he talk like that? What had happened in this Arconan’s childhood to save him from a sodium habit but cursed him with a lithp? Er, a lisp. Eugene squinted in the darkness. Maybe Felix was faking it just so he could seem less of a threat, more approachable and weak. It definitely sounded like a gimmick an actual intelligence agent might use. But everyone here knew Felix’s background. Why keep up the act?

Oblivious to Eugene’s treasonous thoughts, Felix continued. “We have identified the latht of Waylon’th thafehoutheth, motht of their remaining informanthh, and their final outpothtth.”

What? Safehouses and outposts, right? Was everyone else seriously picking up on this or was Eugene the only one having trouble. He glanced around the conference table to see if anyone else was having private doubts. Grigori seemed to be listening with rapt attention. For the life of him, he could not read the expressions on Derrenger or the Gand, although they were following along. Deglarch was still sleeping. Ogedei, though, he looked frustrated and angry.

No, wait. He always looked like that.

Turning around to look at Rahgot would have been too obvious. The Mon Calamari was checking a small pocket datapad. Was he… Texting? Unbelievable.

“All thith ath a rethult of the Crimthon Codex,” Felix said, smiling smugly. He had a large part in its initial development and now oversaw its day to day use. It was also his fault it had been stolen by that raging intern, but he never wanted to talk about that. “You will all be going to the remaining Waylon Thyndicate thtrongholds and dithmantling them. I, meanwhile, thall remain here for… A theparate tathk.”

Eugene looked over the crowd to see if there were any reactions different from what he had already observed. Of course there were not.

“I’ll hand out your mitthon documenth now...” Felix said, shuffling over to a filing cabinet to retrieve some folders. He began handing them out according to the names on each one.

 

[Ugoto Chivaro]

ORD THODEN

There was nothing to suggest Mr. Clarence Waters had anything to do with the Waylon Syndicate. On the surface, anyway. By all appearances, he was just a simple foreman at one of the the local Lommitte mines like everyone else. He was a well liked and respected member of the community, always willing to go to bat to protect his own. Except when the Waylon Syndicate got involved. Then there was a lot less reason to go to bat for anyone who wasn’t, you know… Him.

It wasn’t easy, leaking information on his employees like he did. From what he understood, Waylon was in a bit of a downturn. That meant they needed more aggressive ways of replenishing their ranks. The best way they figured to do that was to extort some miners into doing it for them. Miners. You know, big, tough guys. Used to long hours of monotonous, physically grueling labor. Those guys. In Waylon’s heyday, there hadn’t been any problems. Now that they were getting their asses handed to them by someone else…

Well, Waters didn’t like to think about that. He wasn’t supposed to. He made a deal with Waylon a long time ago: potential recruits for cash. Waters funneled them in Waylon’s direction, they paid him. Now they were paying him less and demanding more. It would have been nice to just cut himself out of the deal, but Waylon was not in an amicable mood for that sort of thing. They would kill Waters, his immediate friends, his family, probably his pet fish just to be sure. Waylon was in the pits, but they still had power on Ord Thoden. If only there were someone he could turn to.

One morning, when he opened the doors to his office, there was a Besalisk inside waiting for him.

There were not a lot of Besalisks on Ord Thoden. Probably none. And this one was sitting at his desk inside his locked office. Mr. Waters froze in the doorway.

“Come on in,” Ogedei ordered, waving Clarence over with a muscular arm.

Clarence did not move. Ogedei scowled. “I said come in.”

They escaped his notice before, but Clarence saw them now. On either side of the doorway was a Helix Syndicate Enforcer. He knew what they looked like. Who didn’t? Red jumpsuits and bull’s-eye helmets were hard to miss. The two approached in order to grab him, but Clarence tried to take a step back. Only he bumped into the third one behind him.

The three Enforcers dragged him struggling back into the office, shutting and locking the door behind him. Ogedei stood up from behind the desk. Two hands were clasped behind his back while he cracked the knuckles on the other two. “Now you made me ask three times.”

Clarence was forced into a seat usually reserved for potential or current employees, across from the towering Besalisk. He gulped uneasily. This was not going in a pleasant direction, and his sinking suspicion that he was about to change employers was all but confirmed from what Ogedei said next.

“I think you’re gonna wanna talk to me, stretch. I wanna talk about your current bosses and where they’re hanging around. Know anything about it?.”

There was the distinct impression that Ogedei already knew the answer to that, and so Clarence told him. Everything.

 

[Ugoto Chivaro]

JAEMUS

Jaemus was one of those worlds that defied expectation. Outer Rim worlds tended to be undeveloped, uninhabited, and underpopulated. Not Jaemus. Jaemus was urban sprawl, factories, and people packed tightly together. Its shipyards were among the most productive in the Alignment, second only to those at Yaga Minor. Those shipyards weren’t what brought Derrenger and Eugene to this world, however. Instead they had to get rid of some upstart Waylon thug who was fixing to hold his outfit together and reclaim control of the rest of them. He was now known simply as The Ulberto. Not just Ulberto… The Ulberto. Weird how that worked. His birth name was something entirely different, but that wasn’t important.

It looked like he was gathering steam, but anyone with experience in how thorough the Helix Syndicate was knew better. For example, part of the upstart takeover had involved a lot of purging. Purge this guy, purge that guy, purge the whole accounting department, purge everyone. The whole thing was being held together with duct tape, optimism, and fear. They were only projecting a powerful image. The Syndicate had it on good authority that if The Ulberto went away, the rest of the cell would too. Then Felix could work his cybercrime magic to track down any threatening survivors and prune those as well.

On the roof of a skyscraper, Eugene was opening up a suitcase. The contents included the various components of a high-powered disruptor rifle. The distant roar of various repulsor vehicles cut through the nighttime air, but otherwise it was silent this high up. He glanced at Derrenger, who was keeping watch at the rooftop access door, and set about assembling the rifle.

“How’d we even find out about this guy?” Eugene asked. Might as well make smalltalk…

Derrenger’s only answer was a noncommittal hissing sound. Probably Trandoshan for “don’t know, don’t care.”

Eugene screwed the barrel on and checked the sights. “You’d think he’d try to cover his identity a little more, y’know?”

Nothing from Derrenger.

“Look, if you’re still mad about-”

“Eugene.” Derrenger said, in a short tone so steeped in finality it made Eugene pause what he was doing. “I was told to watch the door. I watch the door. You were told to shoot Ulberto.”

“The Ulberto.” Eugene corrected.

Derrenger looked away from the door, glaring straight at the Mandalorian. “Shoot the Ulberto.”

He never did understand why he always got paired with the antisocial ones. This was a miserable line of work they were in. Profitable, obviously, but draining and gruesome. Eugene was, after all, about to assassinate The Ulberto while he was at his daughter’s quinceanera. If you could enjoy some idle chitchat with your coworkers, it typically took the edge off.

Eugene finished assembling the gun. “Whatever.” He meandered over to the edge of the building, took careful aim at one of the windows on the building adjacent to them, and waited...

 

[Ugoto Chivaro]

FEDJE

“Ach!” Aldabert cursed, lowering his macrobinoculars and slapping them several times. “Vat is vif zese zings! I can see nachthing!”

Indignant, the Gand held the device over his head, attempting to hand them off to Rahgot. “See if you can get zem to verk.”The towering Mandallian Giant looked down on the macrobinoculars, tentatively taking them from the Gand. Rahgot immediately realized that they were too small for him to look through properly. His head was much too large, and even if it weren’t, his hands were too unwieldy. Sometimes Rahgot envied his smaller colleagues and their adroit, tiny hands.

Ah well. Rahgot preferred his acquisition of glory with his bare, meaty hands than the finesse of using macrobinoculars. He pretended to look through the macrobinoculars with one eye, spying at the hidden Waylon Syndicate hideout. It was a refueling station for their operations on the planet. Any second one of their smuggling shuttles would touch down for refueling.

“I am unsure that we are even needing these.” Rahgot said. They could just make out the base from where they stood, and considering what they were waiting for… “Why even stay? There is work to be done elsewhere. Glory to find.”

Aldabert’s response began with a tsk. “Sometimes, vee haff to be sure zat zee plan hass gone off vithout a hitch. If we depart too soon, vell, vee may never know if it worked, ja? And zen how vould we get our glory?”

The Gand reached back up for the macrobinoculars. Rahgot handed them back gently. “Ach! Zere vee go. You got zem verking. Many zanks.”

“There is no glory here, or in this.”

“Vell, in zat case...” Aldabert sighed. He could not understand the Mandallian’s transfixation with “glory.” It was as if everyone had to be killed with fisticuffs or else there was no “glory.” Well, glory was not keeping Aldabert’s parents in the retirement home. Or his second cousin through college. “Vee are here because I vant to se vat happens next.”

Rahgot huffed in disapproval. A freighter circled overhead before touching down at the fuel pad. A couple Waylon goons stepped off the lowered ramp, glancing around in confusion for the landing pad’s crew. Unbeknownst to them, Rahgot and Aldabert had already dispersed them. Or dispersed some of them and killed the rest. Any survivors would probably get killed in the forest or were hiding uncomfortably still. Not that it mattered.

“Here vee go.”

An explosion ripped through the landing pad, igniting fuel canisters and all sorts of explosive equipment. The mooks who had dared venture out were immediately engulfed in flame or torn to pieces by shrapnel. Aldabert made a wheezing sound that might have been a laugh. Rahgot only folded his arms and scowled. Two more explosions tore apart other areas of the outpost, but the shuttle remained unharmed. Its pilots desperately raised the craft back into the air with the loading ramp still partially open.

“They’re escaping,” Rahgot observed.

“My freund,” Aldabert said, stooping over to pick up the rocket launcher that was at his feet. “You vorry too much.”

 

[Ugoto Chivaro]

ENTRALLA

Chretien entered the room, snagging a towel from where it hung on a rack nearby and wiping the blood off his hands. He did not look inherently happy. Grigori was leaning against the wall on the other side of the room, checking his datapad. Grigori much preferred the delight of conversation instead of looking idly at his datapad, so the device was immediately shut off and pocketed once again when Chretien entered.

“Is he being ready to talk yet?”

The Mon Cal said nothing at first, walking over to the fridge and opening it. “Don’t know,” he found what he was looking for and removed the can, popping the tab and letting the door close. “We’ll see when he wakes up.”

Grigori was not much for torturing. He didn’t think Chretien was until they found out the target was a Quarren. Chretien had it out for them for some reason. Grigori was understandably hesitant to ask for clarification. Besides that, there was something else Grigori wanted to talk about. Better to do it here and now so no one got the wrong idea.

“I have been thinking as of the late,” Grigori said cautiously. Chretien glanced at him as he drank but did not stop. “The behavior of boss Maleagant… Does it strike you as… Ah, strange?”

Finishing his drink, Chretien crushed the can and discarded it in a small bin. “Haven’t been here long enough to tell. Why?”

“Well, is just the being...” Oh, how to word this. “He is seeming rather detached this lately, dah? He no longer is making the appearances at the meetings. And then there’s the thing with his, ah, room.”

“You’ve seen his… Room? At Fort Amaranth.”

“No!” Grigori blurted, then reconsidered. “Well, yes. But I was only walking by when a droid came out, I glimpsed the inside.”

Chretien looked skeptical, folding his arms. “What’d you see?”

“Well, it was dark, but, ah, books stacked on the ground. And the walls! They were having been painted. Very big, scary symbols. White paint. I could see no more.”

Well traveled mercenary that he was, Chretien was used to dealing with weird bosses. As long as there weren’t dead hookers piled up in there, some cultist notions on Maleagant’s part were hardly the worst he had dealt with. Paintings and books? That was almost a relief compared to some other people he had worked for.

Grigori did not see it that way. He noticed Chretien’s bored expression and quickly added. “And! Once, I was having going to deliver information to him, but when I came to his office, his eyes were closed! And he was doing the chanting! It sounded dark, like something-”

“Yeah, okay.” Chretien interjected. “I’ll go see if our pal has woken up now...”

Grigori looked crestfallen as Chretien left, due to both the loss of company and that no one shared his concerns.

 

[Ugoto Chivaro]

FORT AMARANTH

The hologram projection of Maleagant sat shirtless and cross-legged. His eyes were closed. This was not the projection Felix had been expecting to see. There were tattoos on the left half of his torso. Although it had been several weeks since he had seen Maleagant, the last time they had spoke the Rattataki was both fully clothed and… Well, he looked awake. Unsure if Maleagant was conscious of having answered the holo-call, Felix only stared in silence for a few moments.

“Speak.” Maleagant said, breaking the silence suddenly. He did not stir.

“Yeth, hello, thir,” Felix bowed slightly. “The lieutenantth have thuccethfully driven apart most of the remaining Waylon holdoutth. I have largely automated the retht of the cleanup proceth through use of the Crimthon Horthe.”

“Good.”

Felix paused for a minute, then realized he was supposed to keep speaking.

“...The rennovationth to Fort Aldmer have been completed, too, and the new droidth have entered production. Their programming theemth to be working quite… Well?”

With the absence of any kind of body language, Felix was having a hard time figuring out whether or not this was what Maleagant was looking to hear. Consumed by insecurity over how worthwhile his reporting was, he began to doubt his sincerity. And the authenticity of his reports. “Thereth.., Thereth altho the mineth, collection centerth, and the cathino ethpanthions that are nearing… Completion?”

There was a low rumbling sound from Maleagant. “I see.”

“Thir, if I might athk...” Felix boldly inquired, “When do you-”

Maleagant’s eyes cracked open and he stared straight at the Arconan. “My business on Dathomir is not yet complete. My negotiations with the Spider Clan are ongoing.”

Felix had no idea what that was.

“If the droids are complete, I will need a division of them and shocktroopers routed to me in the next few weeks.”

Wait, what? What was happening on Dathomir. “I’m not thure I underthtand what-”

Maleagant stood up. “I do not expect you to. You will have someone else to answer to soon enough. What I’m doing here leaves little time for… This.”

Felix stared, dumbfounded.

“That will be all, Felix.”

The hologram flickered off.

 

[Darth Osano]

DATHOMIR, DAY 11

Your enemies crowd around you. Each year they chip away a little bit more. There’ll be nothing left soon.

We will not barter with an outsider.

Not even to save yourselves?

You understand nothing of this place, of us. You have no connection to the land. We will not give you what you seek.

Your pride is misplaced.

These hills are littered with the bodies of those who sought our power.

No wonder they keep finding you.

You think us scared of an attack from them? It has been this way for centuries. They come. We move.

A miserable existence.

Do not pretend to understand.

But I do.

Any of those worthless clans would give you what you want. Yet you squat in this place, bothering us with your requests and your deals and your bargains. Why?

I have come to prefer the company of underdogs.

 

[Darth Osano]

DATHOMIR, DAY 18

You survived.

Barely.

You will not be so lucky tomorrow.

I had a feeling you would say that.

Leave this place.

No.

We will impart nothing to you.

I disagree.

IT IS NOT OPEN TO DISAGREEMENT.

If I die here, this place will be scoured. None of you will survive.

...

My forces are more thorough than the Nightsisters.

You do not scare us.

I would rather direct these forces to your enemies than you.

This? Again? We do not need you.

You won’t listen.

No.

Then go away.

 

[Darth Osano]

DATHOMIR, DAY 32

When we find you, you will beg for death.

You will be staked to the top of this hill.

The spiders will find you that night. If you are lucky.

You will be bound and kept alive for some time. Drained of blood.

It is agony, to be conscious for it all.

Your screams will not carry far through the webbing.

When it is over, perhaps we will use your bones to cast fortunes.

After that? No one will remember you. No one will care.

Everything you have built so far will crumble. It will fade from memory.

You will die forgotten, like the rest of your worthless lineage.



Nothing to say?

I’m trying to sleep.

 

[Darth Osano]

DATHOMIR, DAY 45

You should not have done that.

You should have listened.

Your luck will run out before you leave these hills, outsider, and when we-

I’m not leaving.

Then you are a fool.

You will all die without my help.

We would rather die without your help than live with it.

Pointless.

You would not have-

I would not have if you had listened to me the first time.

You think you can buy your way to power with cheap favors? By delivering us from a crisis you caused?

Yes.

Fool.

There will be a battle in these hills. My forces will be present. You will be protected if you give me what I want. You will be next if you don’t.

I will not negotiate with you.

What is your chain of command? If I kill everyone in that chain, one by one, starting with you, how far down will I have to go before someone wants to talk?

…

Most organizations crack after the first three.

...

I trust you’ll consider it.