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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ankh-Morpork Guard" data-source="post: 3423189" data-attributes="member: 10079">Chapter 447: Disjointed TrailNar Shaada was practically designed for tailing people without them noticing. The high buildings, narrow walkways, and large amounts of people, along with the speeders providing a distraction via noise and movement made it extremely difficult to keep a focused attention all around oneself.    While an Alraxian would tower over most sentients that were walking the narrow skypaths, a human didn’t. The planet was crowded with humans, Rodians, Trandoshans, Duros, Bothans, Nikto, and a hundred other species...but there were no Alraxians.    Quietly, even in her mind, Marix was glad that her human body wasn’t tall. It meant she was good and hidden while she trailed the Verpine that had left Soff’s tavern. She had gone after the Verpine because he was easier to keep track of...and the Corellian moved much faster, meaning she lost sight of him early on. This Verpine wasn’t tall, but his pair of antennae were enough to let her keep a good eye on him from about twenty meters back.    He was walking slowly, taking his time, through the main skypaths that crossed some of the airspeeder lanes near the upper levels of the city. Here, the air wasn’t as grey or stench-filled as around Soff’s, but it didn’t mean it wasn’t pleasant. This was, roughly, the same level that Halpak’s tower was on...high enough that one could see the tops of the giant buildings and actually see the system’s lone star.    When the Verpine turned to a large building and entered, Marix waited to go in. Instead, she walked past it, then found a back alley and wrapped around to make sure it didn’t look suspicious and to check that she wasn’t being followed. Through the Force, she tried to lock onto the Verpine. He’d been a constant feeling of unease, making it hard to keep up with him in the flood of that emotion that seemed to permeate from Nar Shaada itself.    Five minutes later, she, too, entered the building. It was an apartment complex from the looks of things. The main entranceway was probably once an elegant lobby, but now more of a rundown, faded looking collection of old furniture and Hutt carvings. The hallways branched out into a large circle on both ends, with rooms on either side and a trio of turbolift tubes directly in front of her.    Marix didn’t stop moving, but slowed down. Though there was no one around, she would look suspicious just stopping and staring. So, she let the Force and her natural instincts guide her...and ended up heading right, down the circular corridor. As she walked down the corridor, her eyes scanned the area and she reached out with the Force...and found a familiar feeling. Relatively familiar, at least.    She stopped in front of a small door a good distance from where she’d started walking. It was nondescript, with nothing to identify it beyond a simple number on a box next to the doorway...12. Quickly, she checked herself.Marix was wearing, over her standard morphsuit, a simple pair of black trousers and a jumper that matched it. She had left Jyren’s old jacket aboard Loki and wished, now, that she’d taken it with her. It had a way of really helping one look a mess. And, right now, if she was going to try looking like she worked for a Hutt, it would have helped...but, hopefully, this would do. After putting on the right expression of neutral anger, she banged on the door hard.    It took a bit, but the box with the number on it made a crackling sound and the odd voice scratched through it, “Wha...whooo is it?”    Marix turned and looked down at the thing, then noticed a small button next to the box. She reached down and pressed it and said in an angry voice, “Gorla sent me.”    Hopefully that was enough. She could only use generic phrases before so long, and it was going to be difficult to reach out to the Verpine and pick his brain for help...something about those insect species’ brains made them impossible for her to make heads or tails of. Not to mention that, if she could see a face, she couldn’t read it one bit. This was going to be purely based on her natural instincts...    The voice returned to the comm panel at the door, “What does heeee wants from me?”    Now time for another guess, and it was going to be pushing things but she knew how most people would react to it and hoped this Verpine would do the same, “Your last payment was short. This is your one chance to fix that.”    This time, there wasn’t a long wait before the Verpine responded, “I paid Gorla double what we first negotiated!” that was, admittedly, a bit loud for what Marix was used to hearing from people being accused by a Hutt agent. She wondered if he even cared about what his neighbors thought...or heard.    “And the account you gave was bogus,” Marix growled, pushing her luck even more and just hoping it would get the right reaction. Just to make sure, she added, “If you don’t open that door I will break that and more.”    There was a pause, then the door slid open. Marix could see a small entrance way that led into a barely-furnished room...and nothing else. Before she walked in, she said, “Step out where I can see you.”    Slowly, the thin, insectoid Verpine stepped out from a place behind a small wall near the far end of the room. There was nothing in his hands, which he was making a point to show. Good. He was afraid.    Keeping aware of everything around her, Marix slowly stepped in and walked towards the Verpine. His two large, alien eyes were watching her carefully, and it was hard to tell exactly how he was reacting beyond the fact that he’d been hiding when the door had opened. She stopped before entering the large, main room he was in, and instead stood in the small hallway where she could see everything around her, “Because Gorla values your services, he does not wish for me to harm you unless you are difficult...do you understand?”    Slowly, the Verpine nodded his oversized head. He didn’t say anything though...another good sign she had the upper hand.    “Now,” she spoke in an almost conversationally dangerous tone that most Hutt thugs liked to use, “Why the account you gave Gorla didn’t clear doesn’t matter to me, so don’t bother with that. I’m here to get the money you owe him. If you don’t have, we will go, together, and get it. So, now, what you need to do is to tell me whether you are going to hand me the credits right now...or if we have to take a walk.”    “I-I...” the high-pitched voice stuttered, then the Verpine waved his long arms, “I have it...”    Thankfully, Marix knew that most Hutt contacts had a way of cheating their bosses. It wasn’t too hard to guess about it and sound truthful to scare them into thinking someone knew something. When the Verpine moved to get something, turning away and heading towards a small desk, Marix called to him, “Move slowly, and if you do anything that makes me nervous I will kill you before you can do a thing.”    The Verpine slowed down. He took a long time to make sure she could see what he was doing, digging through a desk drawer. In a moment, he withdrew a small credit chip. When he turned around, he was still, intelligently, unarmed and slowly walked to her and extended his hand with the chip, “This...this...has iiit all...”    “Thank you,” she reached out, took the credit chip calmly, then, with her other hand, snapped out and grabbed his hand. With a strength helped by the Force, she crushed the small, long-fingered hand with all of her strength, which got a disturbingly high pitched screen from the Verpine.    When he reached out to get her to let go or attack in some way, he got no where. Marix spun him around by his arm, snapped it back behind his spine, which would have broken it if he’d been any other species that wasn’t so flexible, then threw the small-framed alien down to the ground on his face. She was on his back the second he hit, withdrawing a vibroblade from a sheath at the small of her back and carefully placing it up against the long neck of the Verpine...who stopped struggling immediately.    Leaning down slightly to put more of her weight on him, she said quietly, “Thank you for the money. Now you’re going to tell me everything you know about the Hutt dealings with the Vong.”    “Wha...Iii thought you were-“ the protest meant that Marix dug her knee into his small back, getting another screech as his hard exoskeleton was crushed slightly, “Iii know nothings!”    “Lie to me and again and I will kill you,” she snapped, pressing the blade, with its vibration to help cutting actually off, right up to the exoskeleton covering his neck, “That Corellian told you about it!”    At hearing that, the Verpine seemed to give up. He obviously wasn’t a fighter, as he’d not put up a single fight this entire time. She was glad it was going easily. In a defeated voice, the Verpine said, “Theey...make deeeal with Yuuzhan Vongs....Hutts not fight. Hutts stay out of wars...let Vong through to kill New Republic. Vong not fight Hutts...Vong leave Hutts alone and go to Core.”    Marix sighed inwardly. Nothing she hadn’t heard. From the sound and feel of it, that was all he knew. So, another tactic, “Where is your Corellian friend?”    “Iii...don’t knows!” the Verpine struggled against the pain he was having to deal with in addition to the threat to his life, “Harent goes alls over. Never tells meeee whereee. Heee not trust meee enoughs to tells me whereee hees live.”    It sounded truthful. Again, nothing useful. So...one more chance, “Where is this Gorla?”    “Heee’ll kills meee if I tell!”    The Hutt probably would. Especially considering what Marix was going to do when she found him.    But...    “He’ll kill you if he finds out,” Marix stated flatly, “I’ll kill you right now if you don’t tell me.”    A few beeping-like sounds escaped the Verpine that Marix took as a kind of stuttering. After a few of them, Marix dug her knee in deeper to get a long screech which slowly turned into words, “Stop! Iii tells! Gorla...Gorla on Ryloth...”    Ryloth?! The Twi’leks would lose their minds if a Hutt was on their planet. He would be competition right there under this noses, not to mention that the Twi’leks were fully supporting the New Republic during the war...suddenly it made sense why the Verpine had been so hesitant to speak it.    Without another word, she reached down with her free hand and, right after slipping the knife away, slammed the Verpine’s head hard into the ground. He stopped moving.    Marix quickly got to her feet and pocketed the credit chip while putting the knife back in its place and heading out. Now she had another destination on a trail that she wasn’t sure why she was following...or where it was going.    As she left the apartment building and started the long trek back to Loki, she went over it all.    A ship left the Gateway to Mygeeto...the Vong were there with Peace Brigaders, who all seemed to be the kind of people normally found under the Hutts...so then she went to Nar Shaada. After listening around, she found that the Hutts were making deals of neutrality with the Vong...    Did that mean the Hutts and the Peace Brigade were connected?    No.    No...the Peace Brigade seemed to be actively working for the Vong...then what was going on here? She’d followed a trail to protect her people and now was getting caught up in some kind of political mess within this war. And yet...while the obvious thing to do was to duck out and only make sure the trails to the Empire were cut, something told her it was important to keep following this. And if there was one thing Marix had learned over the years, it was to truth her instincts.    Currently, they were telling her that this was very important...and she needed to figure it out as quickly as possible.</blockquote>

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