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The jump to Ord Canfre was uneventful, and Revak began to relax in the cockpit of his starfighter. The pirates ship had done quite a number on the Pride of Mantell it’s fuel cells were cracked, and its hyperdrive badly damaged, they’d barely been able to make the twelve light-year jump from the nav point here.

They closely followed the ship down into the spaceport and parked beside it as the Captain came out of the ship. She was a human woman of a tall and lanky build, with black hair and grey eyes. Her clothes were a burned and oil streaked mess from the last minute repairs she’d made to limp here, still despite all the problems she smiled as she watched the two Rapora clamber out of their cockpits.

As Revak walked over to her she quickly wiped her hands with a rag from her pocket, “Thank you Revak, Calra. If you hadn’t have nailed those YVH droids I’d have been a goner.”

“So that was what they were,” Calra replied, “We’ve never dealt with tin-can soldiers before.” Revak grinned, an excellent way to describe them Calra, tin-can soldiers indeed.

Still there was a question that needed asking Revak thought, “How long do you think it will take to make repairs Captain Olo?”

“Please, just call me Jenel” The captain answered before frowning at her smoldering ship, “Well, it’ll take awhile, and my cargo is shot… That ion pulse fried the hyperdrives I was carrying.”

“So you’ll have to return to Ord Mantell?” Revak asked quietly.

Jenel nodded, “Afraid so.”

Revak nodded, “I’ll give you a hand, I’m quite the skilled mechanic…”

“Is there any limit to what you can do?” Jenel Olo answered with a shake of the head.

Iria gasped as she beheld the holo, though slightly alarmed at the appearance of the black-clad man before her.
That's the strange guy from before! "Yes, sir," she stiffly declared. "I don't think I could forget that face," she said. Nor the manner in which he stared at me.


(( Eladan: you really need to pay attention, hon. The last page says Bespin plain as day. ))

"I watched him as he left," Iria said. "He appeared to be heading to the east,"
"As for the time, it was just less than an hour ago," she added. Looking over the man, and appraising his armor, she thought A storm commando? She'd remembered seeing them on Coruscant, as well as various knights and paladins talking of them.
"Of course, if I may speak candidly, this fellow did not appear to be a savory type," she continued. "He seemed inclined to stare at me in a manner which made my skin crawl,"

In the swirling chaos of hyperspace, the Huttese freighter sped, Carrying the jedi swordsman Link Darksun to the nearest port: Ord Mantell.
As he watched the starlines fly by, his thoughts turned to the image caster his ancestor had built.
"This seems as good a time as any." He muttered as he fumbled about inside his tunic.

He drew the device out of a pocket inside his tunic and activated it.

With a sputter and a whir the device emmited a hologram of a weather beaten space pirate. He was lean and muscular, dressed in a black wrinkled spacer's outfit berift of sleeves. The Man had short grey hair and a thin beard, his wrinkled face marred by several large scars. The man's left eye was covered by an eyepatch but his remaining green orb was a vivid hue.
Despite the fact it was a hologram, the man seemed to radiate a fierce and tenacious spirit.

"So this was Cale Darksun." Link muttered

"If you're seein' this," The hologram spoke crisply. "Then that means two things. 1, this projector I built actually works. 2, I'm probably dead and you're probably lookin' for my loot. Well guess what? I aint tellin'."

Link blinked.

The hologram Cale chuckled briefly. "This image caster doesn't have the coordinates to my fabulous treasure on it. You want it, you gotta earn it. And theres only one way to earn it."

The image shifted to show a depiction of the image caster itself. "See, I scattered a sith load of datalinks across the galaxy. The datalinks are hidden and each one points you to the location of the next one in the chain, eventually leading you to my treasure. Also the datalinks are locked. you need to hit the green button on the side of the Image caster to send the unlocking signal to 'em."
At this the image highlighted the image caster button Cale spoke of. "Its a short range signal so you have to be in 1 meter of the datalink. Once it's unlocked, you plug this image caster into the datalink, and the caster will play a hologram pointing you to the next datalink."

"A treasure hunt....terrific." Link muttered to himself.

"Still paying attention?" the Hologram asked. "Better hope you are. This part's important."

The image shifted once more to display a spinning Dark Sun emblem. "Ive marked the Datalink locations with my emblem, and the first Datalink contains a homing program that will let you zero in on the precise location of the DL's with the Imagecaster. Providing that you find the first one. I'll give you a hint: Theres a certain bar on Ord Mantell that I'm particularly fond of. Frankly because its the only bar dirtside with a jukebox that plays my favorite songs. You figure the rest out."

The Image of the elderly space pirate apeared again and he flipped a salute to it's solitary viewer. "Clear skies mate. Have fun dragging your a** across the galaxy."

The message ended and the image caster fell dormant again.

As Link mused on the message, His ship dropped out of hyperspace in the Ord Mantell jump zone.
Link turned to look at the rapidly nearing world.
"An Idea, this one has...."

" You watch out for this man, he is very dangerous. He will most likely return to this bakery and when he does you contact me, here is the frequency for my comlink. You will be compensated for the trouble, but for your own sake don't do anything rash such as telling the authorities about him. He has killed before and will not hesitate to kill again if he senses something is wrong, and I don't want any innocents harmed," Iust said as he reached into his pack to grab a piece of paper with the comlinks frequency on it. As he does so his cloak sweeps back and reveals a holstered DC-15S blaster and a class A thermal Detonator on his belt.

He places the number down on the counter and turns around and leaves the establishment and heads east. Was I right to trust her? I sensed no deception in her words, but still something doesn't sit right with me about her. After Kier Derith is judged I will find out about this woman. Iust thinks to himself as he sets out to find the murderer.

"14,850...14,900...14,950..." Link muttered to himself as he walked along counting his money. The fellow at the spaceport said the money was all there, but on a world like Ord Mantell, precaution was the norm. The Starship Dealers couldnt be trusted, but saying so much about them was an understatement at least.

He paused as a Reptiloid hurled the unconcious body of a Sith out the door of a Docking bay.

Link blinked.
"Only on Ord Mantell." He found himself saying.

He looked down to the bills of Imperial Currency and frowed.
"Now where was I?" He asked himself.

Link sighed and started over as he walked past the scene, enroute to the Dead Space.
"50...100....150...200...."

~~~~~~

Several hours later, the Noghri Commando Shuttle known as Nyatso's Pride. Came into high orbit around the busy traffic at Bestin IV. Detre commanded one of the two humans onboard to hail for clearance onto the planet.

"Come in Bestine, this is Nyatso's Pride. Requesting clearance. Over.

The rouse was simple, but effective. No uniforms to identify them. Barely anything to set them as odd, save the two noghri. They were posing as smugglers/freighters from Nar Shaada, and their story had them coming here to refuel, and pick up a secured suply of new ship components. There was nothing visible tying them to the loyalists.