The Hand of Mercy

[Jacobi Wylcott]

He simply shook his head, “This is how these things work, Mercy. Blood, whether he’d kneel before me once more or not is absolutely irrelevant. He did what he did because he believed me to have gone astray from the ideals and goals of the Sith Empire. He was certain that I was no longer sufficient to lead and therefore saw to my undoing. In turn, if I cannot prove not only to him but to myself that I am worthy to take the throne - then I do not deserve it. If there is ever one thing that you’ll take from your interaction with me it should be this - Nothing is given, everything is earned. If you cannot rightfully lay claim then you’ve no true claim at all and your word is as ash.”

There was much to think about now and more plans to weave. Mercy had brought to light new information but in the end it changed not the end result but perhaps the route he’d use to get there. He brought up a holoprojection once more - this time it was a world that was the color of soupy mud. Words scrolled over the designated world that denoted the sector location, atmospheric type, major cities and all kinds of other data. But one glaring identifier came to view and that was its name - Nal Hutta the capital of the Hutts.

“This is where we’re heading for now. Blood will still be expecting us and so we can’t just stand him up. A delay is stretching it as is. But we also can’t just come to him empty handed - for one thing I’m not ready to take him on. Short of throwing a ysalamiri in his face, he’d likely fry us both soon as we landed and if we showed up in failure of our contract we’d likely just see the same result.” He zoomed the view on to an off-shoot sector of Nal Hutta in the wildlands where the scrap cities were many and the law was that of whatever warlord or Hutt claimed it to be. It was not a pleasant place and it wasn’t one where any sane person should ever choose to go willingly.

“I’ve got a contact down here. A friend from the old days, if he’s even still alive. He can help buy us some time with Blood.” His voice drew low and dark, “He wants the girl? Well that’s exactly what we’re going to give him.” He leaned back, “We also need a dirt trail to throw off the Jedi. Unfortunately our mission on Tibrin didn’t go unnoticed and you can bet your tail end that the Jedi will be sniffing along our tracks. We need something to throw him off and I think the same thing that can fool Blood will fool the Jedi - at least for a while. Borrowed time is all we have and we need to make the most of it.” He looked towards cargo hold where the cell should be - Kita floating within it - deep inside Jacobi stirred and began fighting Tormentous down, he didn’t like the plan Tormentous had in mind, not even a little bit.

This trail of darkness and lies was already narrow and with enough crazy curves and sharp turns to make a pod racer course envious, Nal Hutta was about to take them off the deep end into the twisted and deranged. Things were about to get very sick - and very dark. Tormentous was at work and he would be as diligent as ever to remind the galaxy exactly why he was a hated man.

And most of all - it would ask the legendary Jedi Master that had let him live - why he let such a monster take another breath when he had the chance to end this nightmare once and for all.

[Slade Xandir]

Maybe it was just a pride thing. Or maybe there was a deeper ritual that she just wasn't in tune with, or even heard of. She didn't deal with frills and tophats with Dastan- it was either you were right or you were wrong. You were strong enough, or you weren't. Couldn't they sense how strong the other was? Why go through all that carnage, that stress, that power surge only to have that obvious answer? Blood wasn't nearly as heard of as Tormentous was-
But then again, she and Dastan hadn't been too far through the known parts of the Galaxy. Most artifacts were the in the unknown regions, and while it bothered her that she wouldn't ever know where the hell she ended up having to fight or steal unmapped objects. There wasn't very good satellite service out there either, so if you lost connection, you were just hell outta luck. Dastan kept them extra careful out there. Specific beacon trackers that were invisible to unconnected latches, and a single use encrypt. The works. However, while she could vibe with his motto and all - after all, it was what she had lived by under her Master's tutoring - but if anything, all of it just seemed like he was setting the world on fire to just keep warm. Shaking her head, brunette walls swish subtly with her personal dismissal on his opinions. Or rather, his law. "I guess. Whatever you wanna do." Mercy wasn't silly enough to get wrapped up into politics, and this seemed to be the driving force of everything in the Sith rule. The girl was about as ignorant as a babe in it. But wherever he'd point, they'd go. She could atleast follow directions. She just didn't know what Jacobi really had in mind as far as this whole ordeal he was plotting.

But once that name splayed across the air between them, she gasped and threw him a disgruntled look. He already denied her the chance to be lazy through achieving these holocrons, and by the gods she was grateful that he seemed to plan going with her, whether it be to help achieve the mission faster or to make sure she didn't dart. She couldn't exactly stop herself from slithering her vehemence of such a terrible place. How many people had she watched get carted back off to that place??! How many were on the news appearing as missing, only to be featured on the net as little pansy panty-clad girls serving berries to some fat slime worm that couldn't even stick with one gender?? "That planet is nothing but degenerates and rapists- tell me you're frakkin' joking." If Jacobi had any kind of contact here, he was just as filthy as the rest of them. But how the hell could she judge him so harshly? Well...

Some answers would just have to wait until she could get a bit more recon on him. Dude surely wasn't telling her everything, and obviously the hard-to-guess factor was huge in this little shat up relationship of their's. "That Jedi was the Grand Master- it's waaaaaay too much of a coincidence that he was there when we were. I think something's been up since you guys left each other. So you think he put a tracker on us? And who the hell was that other guy? He looked Sith, but I didn't recognize anything on him. They seemed to be on opposite teams."

[Jacobi Wylcott]

“Kidding wastes time - and that is something we can’t afford. No -” he declared and aimed the discussion towards the Jedi Master, “we don’t have to have a tracker for him to find us. That level of a Jedi doesn’t need it. The only thing we have on our side is a head start but that narrows with each passing moment. We desperately need something to distract him with - and we’ll just utilize the same method we’re about to use on our precious Lord Blood.” Again the holo changed and this time from the location general it flickered away and brought up the image of a broken down husk of a man - to be precise it was a blue skinned Twi-lek with much of his body removed and replaced with bionics. Both eyes were gone, now just empty pits with one massive optical array of seven or eight blisters based on the left side of his cranium. The left hand was augmented heavily with nearly a dozen surgical instruments grafted to the arm and the scene only got more grotesque from there.

“Dr. K’cuf K’cis, resident crazy and on the payroll of the Hutt Council.” Even Tormentous seemed to pause in disgust at this creature as Jacobi fought and tried to claw his way forward - if he could warn Mercy then maybe she could play along with Tormentous long enough to get close to the Doctor and kill him before he got his hands on Kita - he failed to do so as Tormentous suppressed the Mandalorian consciousness and forged onwards. “For all his shady dealings - K’cis is a genius and is beyond the forefront of his practice. He once worked under the greatest Imperial Biologists - namely under Dr. Blaje Burkey before that accident in her lab,” Mercy would likely only know hints of the name - Burkey had been the brilliant pathologist under contract to cure the Chiss of certain strains of cancers within the Chiss Ascendancy - unfortunately for her a certain Director of the Imperial Security Bureau had taken her research, murdered Dr. Blaje to tie up the loose ends, and restructured the cure to concoct what today is remembered as the Red Plague. The disease that eliminated more than 65% of the entire Chiss population and essentially crippled their entire civilization - courtesy of Silas Karn himself who hand delivered the toxin and viral strains. The accident in the lab was a fire that burned the facility to the ground - though Burkey’s remains were recovered with a very blatant blaster shot in her forehead though of course that didn’t make it into the official report.

Though an even less known fact of Dr. Blaje was her involvement as one of the lead scientists behind the M6 Project. A Project that would ever go down in infamy only within specific intelligence communities - which had culminated in the effective procurement of three out of six specimens of extreme volatility. Out of those three, there had been one reject - Subject 03. Dr. K’cis had been with Dr. Blaje in those days too.

“I don’t intend Dr. K’cis to operate on Kita at all. I just need a bit of her DNA - vial of blood will do. With her DNA on file we’ll be able to register her phsycial form easier with a holographic display matrix. Kita will effectively cease to be and our Jedi will lose her in a fading trail while Blood will also see a different girl - blame his intelligence cadre for poor information - we’ll be given much time this way.” He spun his chair away from Mercy in that moment, he began checking the route to Nal Hutta, it was in several hours yet. His true purpose was to prevent Mercy looking into his face that she wouldn’t be able to see the lies imprinted there as Jacobi screamed the truth at her.

A HDM would only fool so much and definitely wouldn’t fool either Blood or Kenobi. No - Tormentous had something far worse in mind and while he didn’t lie that no harm would come to Kita - he did tell her the whole truth about his ploy to actually force Kenobi to act. If Mercy knew - she’d likely lose her mind in the foul villainy at work. She may have been Sith - but such crimes against humanity drew a line.

Tormentous was about to break that line in splinters.