As I walked I pulled up the information I had so far collated on Borgollo. I had been given a address to contact via a text message to request an audience. Even the lowest Hutt required deference by those without a large power imbalance over them and Borgollo was no exception. While one could show up to a Hutt's base it would showcase impatience and weakness to the Hutt whose lifespan could measure in millennia if they were careful.

Showing up as a representative of the Machine God would be a curiosity to the Hutt and at least and expressing a desire to purchase one of his old Haor-Chall transport ships should get me in the door. It would bean easy decision to buy one if the Gozanti was able to fit but information I could find on the old ships was hard to find, and the ones that kept coming up were the stats for the newer Super-Freighter that the same company had developed to replace the older ships.

I finished my introduction to the Hutt and made sure to check it against any cultural taboos I could find. Ideally I was expressing this to be a meeting of equals. I had heard at the bank and read on a net forum for betting on the fates of the various under-lords of the industrial district that the Hutt was in a hard position. I was too, but all the Hutt needed to know was that I could put credits in his hands.

While I had spent near four-hundred thousand credits already I was sure even if the Hutt wasn't desperate I could get him to part with one of the freighters. Perhaps even some of the industrial techniques he employed could be on the table.

++The Quest for Knowledge is Holy ++To understand the universe is to change it ++

I paused in my walk to my next destination. The path that my mentor had left me would be an arduous one. I sighed, all I wished for was the ability to leave this xenos world behind and work on my holy task. Continuing on my way I began to see lit signs pointing the way to the next store I planned to stop at.

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The Advertisement for the Czerka Interstellar establishment was not at the entrance like the others I had visited. I was above a set of wide stairs, enough so to fit a Leman Russ tank down them, down to the next level. Watched by armed droids as I passed, I walked down to the landing of the level immediately underneath. Coming out onto a promenade around ten meters under the topmost level. There were just as many if not more than the level above but there was already a stark difference in the panoply of xeno and humans moving around. These seeming to be laborers relegated to lower levels so as to not crowd the spacers and businesses on the level above.

Looking for the Czerka sign I found the next also pointing down to the next level. More security droids watching the stairs down. I continued, wondering why an ancient galaxy spanning organization would not be at the surface.

With the next level down, I heard a buzz and whine not dissimilar to a large grav repulsor and two blurs sped past the entrance. I only got an idea of what went by due to the auto cognis-targeter on my mechandrite tracking the possible threat and providing me picts of the vehicles that passed on speeds higher than a jet bike might be able to. A human and some sort of simian creature that piloted with its feet had been foil to fin racing. The thoroughfare here had less pedestrians and more droid laborers working on exposed vents and columns, all of which ducked habitually as the racers sped by.

Turning to follow the Czerka signs I noticed a human watching me with wide eyes and moving to the opposite side. Following his eyes, I noticed it must be the mechandrite sneaking from under the robe that had unnerved him so. I folded it back closer to my spine, out of view. He just walked faster. Turning my eyes to the Symbol for the Czerka company I saw why there was not an entrance on the levels above. Massive pillars held the levels above aloft situated on either side of a hive tower that had been build around. The chasm that held the tower descended four more levels turning into an artery of transportation through the levels. Aircars and speeders regularly flying past and swapping levels as they moved around the multi level atrium formed by the entombment of the Czerka building. The majority of the light in the area coming from the rift in the planet's artificial crust visible behind the Czerka building that allowed larger transports to move between the levels, though even that was muted multiple levels down.

++Agitation ++ Attention Required ++

The signal coming through on the commlink was coded to the one I had left with one of the servitors on the Crow. I parsed through the link and saw the pict-recorder feed it was patched into on the ship. In its understanding Bedan, the one currently on watch, had left to patrol the hanger. When he arrived at a service entrance at the rear he seemed to check the integrity of the panel before jumping back as it sprang open. The servitor monitoring the situation sent the message my way as he was being drug through the door by cloaked figures.

++Secure the ship ++ Notify the others ++

With a deadline I moved toward the lift that would take me the levels down to the entrance. I wanted more to my name than a few xeno plasma weapons before retrieving the property of the Cult Mechanicus. As I activated the lift I interfaced with its system and allowed the slow equipment lift to increase its pace. The servos creaked under the pressure once due to the increased strain I forced the system into but the descent was safe. Arriving at the bottom showed that each descending had more in common with the third level. A bustle of human and droid activity taken to the level of absurdity as it extends down under the planets skin. I wonder If this is indicative of the rest of the planet or if it was due to the Czerka colored security bots keeping the menials in line in this area.

I made quick time to the entrance of the tower, looking up at the symbol I saw scuffing on the paint, and was certain there had been a different symbol once that had been covered up.

Walking inside there was another large show room. Eerily different than the Corellian one, this had slightly spotty lighting after the first dozen meters. Many civilian air-cars, speeders and appliances being monitored by more droids gave way to empty equipment pedestals or something under cheap plastic sheeting. The droids mostly continued their work but one of them was startled by my entrance.

"Ah, Customer!" The bipedal droid decorated with black and gold parts approached, "What can we at Czerka Int, er Arms do for you?" The droids stuttering was odd. Perhaps a mistake in programming or having gone too long without a memory wipe.

"I am hoping to requisition weapons and armor typical for anti-pirate boarding actions or exploration of wild-space beyond the Rim."

"Of course!~ Right away~ Please foll-" "HEY!" I turned to a larger man who had wheezed his way to us. "S-0D3, you know I've told you to not speak with customers." The man said between breaths.

"Yes, but sir, this customer needs hel-." "NO, No. Go back to your inventory of the new Baktoid Auto shipment. I'll take care here."

I wonder why he didn't want his droid interacting with me. "I don't mean to rush you, but I require tools to aid myself against piracy. I saw on the local net this establishment came highly advised."

After a quirked eyebrow he begins. "Of course," he said while bobbing his head. Right this way, we've got our in-house produced line of blasters and armor. He quickly separated us from the odd stuttering droid and began a tour where he made mention of the extremely decorated history of the Czerka company. Claiming many designs of current equipment and droids had been tested extensively over thousands of years.

The tour of their fare was upsettingly lack luster. The armament from their adjudicator line was unfit for guardsmen and the plasma weaponry didn't have anything more to offer than the small armory I had procured on the Dusty Crow. He had settlement defense scale weapons, prefab lookouts build to scare off and repel raiders but nothing man-portable that resonated with my need to find and educate those who would steal from me. Righteous anger burned within me, and I suspected much of the companies current line was a pale shadow of what they had once been capable of.

I could feel my temper rising until I noticed a section we had seemingly avoided. Ignoring the salesman wasting my time I walked over. Except a squawk of disagreement he only tried to keep up and began talking as if walking over had been his idea. I tuned him out before I saw what was present and after I ignored him completely. There was an unremarkable gaudy suit of armor fit for an incredibly fat man or some rotund xeno and what I had noticed. An axe. As large as any Omnissian axe built with modules that seem not dissimilar from the other vibro weaponry I had examples of.

It differed from an Omnissian axe in that it was built for sheer brutality. A thicker haft then an unaugmented human hand could reasonably grip in combat. It had a single blade that seemed a bardiche had been part of this weapons inspiration. The rippling metal was of one piece with the knurled haft. It was otherwise devoid of artifice and decoration. Truly a master of their craft had built this, and was far and away superior to the armor stationed nearby.

As I neared it I ran a mechandrite over it to test its metal. A strange metal alloy now familiar to me as it was present in the hull of the Dusty Crow. The axe was clearly durable and even had space on the back of it I could possibly use for the sacred cog. But first I would have to understand the metal itself. So I turned to look back at the man escorting me. He had paused some ways back and was giving my mechandrite a leery look.

I was surprised by a voice behind me. "Customer." Turning to look at the droid who had come up behind me. I could see a line of skeletal droids, some still in packaging, and a small armory behind it, having been hidden from the previous tour by matte grey space dividers. "I can't help but noticed you've found one of the oldest pieces on the display floor, can I assist you?"

I turn to the axe, my hand grasping the haft. It feels heavy, right. It was familiar to me as many of the Omnissian axes from home were equally sturdy. I could carry out the Machine God's justice with this.

"I'm taking this. What are those droids behind you?"

"Test-bed shipment from Bactiod Automata." The droid conferred in clipped tones. "Czerka has a standing contract to market new droids and these have recently, along with i-identical basic soldier models, been released to the galaxy. These are visually the same as the Soldier droids but with increased functionality, for personal s-service."

I didn't really have much of a choice if I wanted to find the human before, presumably, my enemies acquired too much information about me. Already I had tarried too long and needed to hurry.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

I felt the rage of the Machine God rise in me like pressurized oil. I would need a battle congregation of servitors to put between myself and those who toiled against me. These would do.

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As I walked into the space port I reflected that the impulse buy of the droids was less than ideal. These made some servitors seem free willed but paradoxically they couldn't just stay quiet. Part of my time on the way over had been immersed in the noosphere taking in the travesty which was these droids programming. It seemed someone had simply taken programming for a few different types of droids then puta protocol droids programming on top. At least they were mercifully silent now. Giving me short transmissions of acquiescence, from comlinks embedded in their chassis, rather than ceaseless verbal exclamations. At least they would be good between me and any plasma guns. And less than half the cost of Czerka's heavy armor. They had a suit of power armor available I wish I could have put my mechandrites on but with a cost of near fifty-two thousand credits it was the price of a good shuttle. Perhaps later.

Mentally I requested another update from Gravis, having sent him ahead to begin auguries to begin tracking our new prey. Looking through his eyes I could see the former Enginseer's analysis of the panel the menial had been pulled through. Recent low temperature plasma burns and poorly hidden tampering with the local surveillance architecture got me curious. Shouldn't this have been noticed by the ports security? Even an acolyte could have noticed.

As I walked passed glassy eyed security personnel and bustling ship crew I reached back through the noosphere and grabbed a remote data port with as much finesse as I could. Spoofing access with a fake ship ID, there should be no record of my passing.

While Gravis commanded a servitor from the ship to open the panel I was moving through the rough security of the systems around me. This port would typically only allow public access to the planetary network but the decade old port security system was so intertwined with others that had existed as few as a few days or, like one was returning tome, near a millennia. The path I took digitally was circuitous but I was rewarded by finding a system that held admin rights to most of the cameras on this level. Importantly, the ones in the service corridors.

From there I was able to secure my grip onto the server and the ability to change between the levels below, but not into the admin levels above. It made sense for the administrative level to have a newer security system, I supposed. I was collating a map via the extensive camera footage I had but I ran into a snag. I was not positive where this level ended and another began. I could locate only one stair way and that had no markings to indicate which floor it was on. And while I had access to the live footage I seemingly could gain no access to where it was held on the infrastructure.

Gravis and the servitor had the maintenance panel off now and I sent them forward to hunt while I located which camera they were on. I began cataloging which cameras they had identified by dint of passing underneath with one part of my mind while I made the shameful decision to check one of the xeno world network libraries for a solution on the network. It was more successful than I could have hoped. Who would keep solutions such as these in a library that carried no level of firewall against intrusion? It seemed anathema to the sanctity of knowledge that the Mechanicus carries.

In addition to finding what was the most common user and password I found a standard list of commands for the network. Both eased my passage and I was able to play back the memory of most of the cameras. Finding the right timestamp and poorly edited picts, it seemed that the pirates either had a 'slicer' working with them or one of the port authority was working with them. As an added precaution I informed those on the ship to start charging shields and weapons in the case I'd need to leave quickly.

Working my way back through the logs digitally I continued to find evidence of edited passage. As it turns out that is what causes Gravis to find where the miscreants had come into this section of port from first. Preforming the auguries his auspex were capable of he, the servo skull I remind myself, had found a disguised door that lead to a lift. Then getting my attention via vox comms.

I realized that I had been following edited footage but the time stamps had preceded into the previous days. A note for later, it could be that I could follow the edited recordings to other hangers that the Black Sun have utilized or burgled. I entered The Crow's docking are and continued through without stopping. It did not take long going through cluttered maintenance tunnels to get to a section of wall where a servo skull watched a servitor pull back a stubborn piece of wall plating that held a cavity behind itself. Two of the droids move to help, and fall over themselves as the panel is torn free.

I had one of the droids look up and down the tunnel in the case of traps, but all I got was a dimly lit tunnel going up two levels and down many hundreds of meters. There was no connection between the networks I currently had access to and any of the electronics present in the hidden lift. Since I couldn't simply call it down I would need to improvise. Without the gear one would usually need to commit to an under-hive expedition. Especially one so old.

Without repelling gear I'll need Gravis to go alone. The servo skull begin sits descent and I mark every door that has seen recent use. Hopefully my targets will be wherever the lift currently is at I cannot take that on faith. After the first five levels the clear intrusions into the levels becomes incredibly scarce. But it isn't until twenty-seven levels down we find the lift.

Once Gravis gets to where the corridor is occupied the skull begins the auguries to determine the best entrance to the lift.

A few minutes later everything was down except for myself. I had taken the time to not only scrub any evidence of my passage on the pict-recordings but had changed logging algorithm on most of the older servers that hosted the recorders themselves. Any change the mysterious slicer made to the recordings from now on would save into formats that they wouldn't notice and allow me to find them should they ever repeat their escapades in this star-port.

He looked up as the lift returned for him. The droids having taken defense points beneath were ready for my arrival, none present besides the typical dross of an under-hive, gang symbols and more esoteric things painted on the walls. It would require a search to see if we could locate the base they had absconded to with Bedan, but Gravis was already cataloging and beginning a search pattern as I entered the lift.

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Ka' grunted in satisfaction as another viridescent veined purple crystal crunched in his beak. His form slowly reconstituting itself with the stolen energy. Once known as Ka'a'Xirox The Golden Maw of Discourse he now debases himself by crawling with his single functioning limb along the deck plating of an ancient ship. Eating the energy rich crystals that was all that was left of his former legions that had been placed into stasis with him. Something had been wrong with their latest transition to real space and the weaker daemons did not survive the turbulence.

Sighing he reaches for the next before loud sounds fill the hallway. Head perking up on his curved neck he observes a handful of small greenskins. Their heads pop as easily as the others, but he knows he is on a time limit. They've been waking up in ever larger amounts.

He once again considers fleeing to the warp to reconstitute himself but decides against it once more. The calmness is unsettling, and Ka' does not know which is the more frightening option. That there is a trap waiting for him specifically or the Four hold no power in this area of space.

He breaks the next crystal out of the corpse it has grown in. Crunching down on the next one. Feeling his reserves rise higher. It was too bad his calculations let him infer it would take the nearly half of the crystalized remains to recoup enough to fully reconstitute his form.

Competition with the vile vermin that had stowed away upon this ark would be a complication, and if there was any other living forms he could convince to fight and die for him they were behind stasis fields or more than a few au away depending on how his senses were being effected by the lack of turbulence in the warp. One would assume he would safely be able to reach further out but he dared not, feeling the eyes of a predator getting nearer the more he pushed.

He munched on the next crystal. At least his subordinates proved useful in death. Though he would have to study the phenomenon of warp crystallization closer. Perhaps he could volunteer the next weird-boy who stumbled upon his form, assuming any survived.

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Pagueis awoke from his trance. They had been getting longer of late. He breathed heavily of the bacta laced air before returning his mask.

Leaving his meditation chambers on Sojourn he walked past the many experiments that would culminate into his Great Work. Custom bacta strains, regenerative alien species from all over the known galaxy, and a few beyond. A clone of his dead master, there was many he took in, and more he ignored for now. Stopping in front of a terrarium. Feathers expanded as the animal within entered its threat response. Known for their abilities to utilize their lacrimal glands the Fosh in front of him had long abandoned begging. Plagueis stared, his mind lingering on the visions that had been coming through the veil of the Dark-Side with more frequency as he worked on it.

The feathers were a clue. There was a threat, or an opportunity, the Dark-Side was not clear. One thing Plagueis was sure of now, He was not the Sithari. As disappointing as that realization had been it had been made clear to him, despite the vagueness of the visions. There was something else out there and the Dark-Side seem to coil around itself in anticipation.

This was either a test, or something much more sinister. Again he considered approaching his apprentice, perhaps Sidieous would have Insights into the visions that Plagueis lacked. And again he hesitated. Knowing his apprentice would let the paranoia eat him alive. Already he worried that the boy he had come to care so much about was too entrenched in the ways of the Bannite Sith, rather than truly following the new path Plagueis saw ahead of them. In time, he knew, Sidieous would come to see things his way.

Leaving the Fosh behind he continued to his own hyper-relay. He would need another update from Zuckuss. It had been nearly a month, and perhaps the Gand had figured out what had so moved the force in wild-space.