Mactire leaned against the railing on Nar Shaddaa. The moon, which orbited Nal Hutta, smelled just as bad as a Hutts backside and looked twice as ugly. Passers by occasionally glanced at him. Some muttered to their partners or group members that they should keep a distance. The Human chuckled at these comments as he slowly reached out with the Force in search of others that were slowly breaking out or of the targets that he had been assigned to ascertain while here.

His cloak fluttered lightly against the slight breeze that speeders and transport ships caused as they passed by, revealing his blackened armor; the armor of the Peacekeepers. Some people that got close could see his Rancor claw arm braces and his curved Wolf engraved Lightsaber. Mostly they noticed the quiver on his back and laughed thinking he was someone from a backwater planet that didn’t have blasters.

Mactire opened his eyes and sighed heavily before slowly moving towards the level’s local Cantina. Though in all honestly he had lost track of which level he was on. It had been three weeks since his arrival and not a single lead had turned up.

Jedi all across the galaxy had become targets for execution or capture by the Inquisitors. This had caused a rift in the Clan since there were a few Jedi sympathizers, along with a few Jedi themselves. Mactire himself had been trained by a Jedi, Sanguinius Tsucyra Entar. He tried to quell the anger in Mactire as best he could but with so much, there wasn’t much that could be done other than hope for the best.

As Mactire entered the Cantina he heard the beat of music playing. It was loud and annoying. There were people dancing on the floor, others were at tables or booths having a conversation or drinking alone. A number of tables were engaged in playing a game of sabacc. He kept the hood of his cloak up watching people but not letting anyone see his face. In case of a look-out here, he wanted to hide. His previous experience in this system didn’t turn out as planned. Chaos, as always, had followed him.

As he approached the bar, a Twi’lek stopped him. Her skin was crimson, while the tattoos on her luka were a vibrant emerald green. She was wearing a plain simple dress, which seemed more appropriate for a Noble form one of the Core planets. The violet in her eyes matched that of the lilac flowers of Corellia. The scent that came from her reminded Mactire of the fresh smell of the air after a rain.

“Excuse me, sir,” she said in an elegant voice that reminded him of a gentle breeze across the open fields. It was soft as well as soothing.

“I’m the one who should apologize ma’am. Please continue on your way,” Mactire said slightly stepping to the side and continuing to the bar.

“Oh you misunderstand, Mactire,” she said with a stern look of coldness that would freeze most men on the spot.

“You have me at a disadvantage? You are?” Mactire asked slyly, slowly turning to face her.

“I am who I always will be. Though you can call me AhToka,” she replied, slowly moving her hands behind her back.

Mactire faced her, locking his eyes intently on hers while not letting off of her or her movements.

“If circumstances were different I would say it is a pleasure to meet you. But what do you want?” the Human muttered with slight aggravation in his voice.

“It’s simple: I know your mission to hunt Jedi on this moon, and I want you to stop and leave them alone.” There was a sense of command in her voice, as if she was used to getting her way.

“Sorry honey, but I have my orders and my reasons. Now, if you want to talk and tell me where the Jedi are I could buy you a drink and we could discuss this like civilized people. Or we could make it challenging,” the human said smugly.

“You are hunting me and my friends I will not allow this to happen,” the Twi’lek said, stepping back, while drawing a lightsaber from behind. The hiss of it deadened the room as all eyes turned to her. The blade was a deepest blue to rival most oceans.

“Oh so it’s the hard way. Lady you really don’t want to do this,” Mactire said, slowly stepping back.

AhToka closed her eyes, shaking lightly as a table levitated off the ground and slammed into the Human's stomach, forcing him against the bar. Coughing heavily, using all the power he could muster Mactire pushed the table away making the people in the Cantina start to head to the door quickly.

Mactire drew his lightsaber, panting heavily. The hiss of it echoed in the empty place as its emerald green color matched that of Yavin IV’s jungle.

“Alright so you got some power behind you. Now you know what it will be like to face a Knight in battle, little girl,” Mactire said slowly spinning his blade in one hand.

The techno beat from the band continued to play as some of the patrons were looking at them and placing bets on who would be the victor of the outcome.

Another table came bellowing through the air at the Human. This time he was ready, leaping into the air, he stepped on top of it and used it to close the gap quickly between them while swinging his saber at her neck.

The Twi’lek’s opened her eyes at the last second and ducked as the Human passed her and landed behind her, swinging his saber again towards her stomach. She dodged, spinning gracefully to the left, as their saber connect for the first time, the sparks and sound made the onlookers gasp.

“Hmmm. This will be more fun than I thought,” Mactire said standing straight up and looking at his prey.

AhToka smiles back thrusting her blade at the human. He blocks it effortlessly, stepping backwards smirking. She try’s thrusting again and again failing to connect with anything but his blade against hers.

“Thrust, thrust. That’s good now let’s fight for real as true force users.” Matire says raising his right arm and pulling a chair up from behind her, forcing her to fall backwards.

The Twi’lek glares at him, standing up and closing her eyes a again slowly making everything in the room raise up off the ground. Mactire rushes towards her and knees her in the stomach making her gasp out for air sending her stumbling backwards, letting go of her saber.

“I won’t fall for that trick again.” The Human says sternly.

“You kicked me. A girl. I thought you had more class than that.” AhToka says winded.

“Me have class in a fight? Lady if you want class in a fight do back to school. Out here, there are no rules.” The Human growls using his saber to break hers. Forcing her to try to rely only on the Force.

“YOU HAVE KNOW HONOR” she shouts angrily at him, then starts to recite the Jedi Code as if to calm herself down.

“Look sugar, if you wanted honor in a fight, you won’t get it from me.” The human says slowly closing his eyes while putting his right hand out at her and concentrating on suppressing her link to the Force.

“No one calls me sugar, you siths blood nerf herder.” She grumbles. Closing her eyes and focusing her energy on trying to levitate the table behind him. It shakes lightly and then falls back to the ground. She keeps trying, but nothing is happening.

AhToka looks at Mactire startled, like a deer in the forest knowing the predator has finally caught it. “What… What have you done to me?”

Slowly opening his eyes, the Human walks over to her, smirking with victory. “Oh I just suppressed your connection to the force for a while. I’m gonna bring you back to my Clan and let them decide your fate. After we get the locations and names for all the other Jedi you’ve been helping darling.” Raising his hand one final time, he uses telekinesis to throw her harder than anything against the shelves of the bar. Breaking all the bottles as she impacts it, falling face down onto the floor.

Mactire slowly walks over to her, bends down and checks her pulse. Smiling in satisfaction he picks her up, puts her unconscious body on his shoulder and carries her back to the landing pad. Knowing this is a small victory for the Clan it does leave one less threat against them, with the possibility of turning her into an ally to use, along with a gaining information on other Jedi.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bfwlshO3ympjZ6ThNwmvmpdkTAAJLdAfu9I3kT_zb6g/edit?usp=docslist_api

Quo sat in the diner watching as the clientèle went about their business ordering their meals and drinks. There was a constant buzz about the place as the conversations of the patrons merged into a background mush of noise. Their humdrum existence was not in the slightest bit interesting to the Sith as he observed the movements of the serving droids, and of the owner who was preparing the food behind the serving hatch.

There were three WA-7s in the cantina, all identical to each other, even the vocal units installed were identical. He had tried to discern any difference between them in the hours that he had observed them, and at a cursory glance none would have been apparent to the casual watcher, however he had noticed several idiosyncrasies in their behaviours, probably internal glitches in their core programming that had crept into the systems over the years of use that differentiated the three into distinctly individual units to the trained eye. The owner of the establishment obviously had not taken the time and expense to eradicate these vagueries, and he himself seemed to be able to distinguish between the three seemingly identical units.

“Table twenty four, Ne-ne,” he called from the galley kitchen to one of the waitress units, “and there are two spiced caffs to go for the two gentlemen at the counter”

The WA-7 addressed as ‘Ne-ne’ wheeled its way over to the serving hatch and took the orders across to their respective customers, the ‘face’ of the unit displaying the happy smile that was designed to put sentient life forms at ease. Her voice was bright and sing-song in its nature conveying a simple pleasure into the conversation that it engaged in with the clientèle. The programmers had decided that a high pitched, female register voice would make interaction more pleasurable to living beings, and this one had a slight giggle added to its speech patterns, either intentionally or through a programming fault which made its individuality more recognisable to the Sith taking it all in.

The unit behind the counter serving the patrons seated on the tall bar seats was different. Sure, it had the same sing-song female voice, although without the giggliness, but this one had a strange habit of wiping its hand over its cranial unit in a mimicry of the habit of some of the locals that frequented the eatery. This again was a distinguisher that Quo had picked up on early in his observations.

The third had a tic, the vocal processor unit had a habit of looping for a fraction of a second, resetting the word that it was attempting to say, giving it the appearance of having a slight stammer. At first the Zabrak had found it irritating, although now he just saw it as an error that should be fixed. It did, he would admit to himself, make it easy to spot the droid from its counterparts.

Atra and Evant hadn’t been able to discern from their interrogations which particular droid the information had been deposited in, he would have to discover that for himself. He tried to put himself in the position of a Jedi who was cornered and tried to deduce by logic which of the droids was the most likely target to search, however, even with his keen intellect he couldn’t decide which one it would be. Every time that he though he had a definitive answer his brain threw up a new scenario which countermanded his decision.

It would take longer to determine which one of the droids contained the information. He was gathering information every time the droids passed his spot, he watched them for signs of tampering. Fresh scratches, screw heads with no paint on them, panel alignment. He was sure that the owner did all his own servicing when required, there was a toolbox on the floor of the kitchen with droid maintenance tools sat within the open drawers, he had spied it as he entered. Even with the do it yourself approach to repair there should be a build up of food remnants and airborne particulants over the surface of the fixings through working near to hot food, and grime built up to form a protective film over the bodies of the droids. Any fresh tampering would be relatively easy to spot he thought, how wrong he had been. For over an hour he had tried to gain an incite to guide him, but the droids weren’t still long enough for him to thoroughly scrutinise them.

Sweeping around he sent a piece of cutlery off the edge of the table in front of him, making it look like an accident. The ‘giggly’ droid wheeled over to retrieve it giving the Sith a chance to sweep his eyes more thoroughly over the body panels of it as it extended an arm to pick up the errant utensil. Searching intently he could not establish any portion of it that was not covered in the thin film of grease and grime, there certainly were no marks of disturbance in the recent past at any rate. One down, two to go.

Standing from his table he made his way across the floor of the diner towards the lavatories, that would bring him closer to the ‘stammerer’. He followed it as it carried across another order from the kitchen although he tried not to look like he was following it. His gaze roved across the body of the droid, every surface coming under fierce scrutiny. Every fastening and panel was ingrained on his mind, although he couldn’t find any sign of interference. That left only the droid tending the counter to check.

Making his way back from the cubicles of the lavatories he made his way over to one of the unoccupied stools at the counter. At least with this one he didn’t have to travel around the place to try and get a good look at it, this one was restrained by the confines of the counter area. Ordering a spiced caff he sat watching as the droid perambulated the confines of the counter space. At first he didn’t notice it, but after a few minutes of scrutiny he noticed it. It was small, but from the gleam from the scratch it was recent, the newly scuffed surface flashing silver as the roof mounted lighting caught it as the droid moved.

Down near the midriff of the droids body, partially hidden away by the arm the panel had recently been removed. The layer of grease and grime showing signs of disturbance and several of the fixings had new working marks on their surface. At least now he had his target. Finishing his beverage he rose and made his way from the diner. He would communicate his findings to the Voice and return just before closing under the cover of his Force induced cloak of invisibility.

Several hours later he entered the diner again, following through the door left open by one of the final customers of the day. Taking up his place in the corner of the seating area he knew he could wait for the diner to close in this position without being disturbed, he only had to wait another 5 minutes until the final clients were ushered from the premises leaving him alone with just the droids and the owner for company. He bided his time watching as the receipts for the day were calculated and tallied, the profits being stored into the safe, the cafeteria made ready for the following day, before the owner made his way to the doorway. A cursory glance around as he brought out the remote for the droids, keying the button to deactivate them for the night and he was away, locking the door behind him.

Quo approached the dormant droid behind the counter under cover of darkness, his senses guiding him through the murkiness. Light was entering through the windows, however the polarisation prevented much of it entering, making the diner appear to be complete darkness from the outside. There was no reason for him to keep up his invisibility in the darkness, but still moved warily. He had no idea what sort of security the establishment had to watch over it, so was not going to take any chances. If there was surveillance all it would discern would be a dark shadow. The cowl of his hood would prevent them seeing his face.

His leather clad hands ran over the body of the droid quickly locating the panel that had been removed. Whoever had replaced it had left it sitting proud of the surrounding panels, making the task of locating it in the dark a lot easier than if he himself had done it. Taking out an extraction tool from his belt he felt with his hand for the recesses of the locating pins before loosening them, letting them fall into the open palm of his other hand. Within seconds he had removed the panel and looked into the black opening behind it. In this light he could not make anything out so reached in and searched with his hand, slowly and methodically he searched the recess, working around the perimeter of the space. There were a myriad of wires and servos that activated the droids movements, but he felt nothing initially. Turning his hand over in the space he moved it upwards to the top of the recess. There he found what he was seeking, attached quickly to the inner framework of the droid.

Removing the item he replaced the panel ensuring that the fit was flush this time before running his hand across the surface, smearing the grease and grime in a thin layer across the surface. He would look at it later. Moving from behind the counter he made his way through the kitchen towards the rear exit. No point in attracting attention by going through the front. After all there may be security personnel patrolling at this time at night. A glance at the door showed that it was a simple lever lock, no obstacle to the Sith. Manipulating the workings through subtle machinations of the Force he opened the lock. Stepping into the night he reversed the process to lock it again behind him. The cafeteria owner hadn’t done anything wrong, there was no need in his mind to punish him by making his place vulnerable to robbery.

Quo moved in the shadows, checking that he wasn’t being followed as he went. Within twenty minutes he was back in his accommodations, sitting before his portable computer. The item that was deposited within the droid turned out to be a data car. Quo had connected it to his computer and downloaded the files to memory. There was no information that at some point wouldn’t prove valuable to him. There were several encrypted files on the stick that he was currently attempting to decrypt using the laptop software. Looking up from the screen showing it’s progress he decided that it was opportune to inform Arta and Evant of his discovery, ommiting the copying of the data of course.

“Quo to Evant, Antwort, I repeat, Antwort.”

He had used the agreed password to tell them that he had found what they had been seeking. He waited for a response, whether to return to base or to continue the mission with an amended objective. There were surely discussions going on in the office of the Voice to determine the best course of action on which to proceed. It was some thirty five minutes later when the reply was forthcoming.

“Anwesig.”

A simple one word code that had the Sith packing his meagre possessions required for the mission together. It was a matter of moments before Quo was making his way back across the city, towards the Inquisitorious Citadel and his debrief. A sense of pride flowed through him, he had done the job quickly and quietly, no fuss or mess to clear up, and he himself was unscathed. Things could not have gone better he thought to himself, nobody knew he had been there, apart from to drink spiced caff, and nobody was any the wiser to his real intentions, just as any good Inquisitorius agent should do.

Sweeping into Evants office with no announcement he deposited the card on the Voice’s desk, a curt nod passed as a greeting. Quo waited patiently as the Seer closed his hand over the prize. The Grand Master would be pleased. Placing the card into a biometrically locked drawer he would present his findings to Pravuus later after he had read it himself. The solid wooden doors to his office were slammed shut keeping the rank and file partitioned away from this secret world, of which many were simply oblivious, just the way they should be. Evant felt the touch of the Dark Side caress his mind, velvet darkness stroking gently on the core of his being. Today was a good day.