The Best of Plans...

[Regnier]

"Am I dead yet?"

"No."

"Damn it." Nazante muttered, glaring at the other man in the dimly-lit, stark, and empty room.

"Oh, quit pregnant doging. You still have things to do, places to see, people to kill..." Nazante replied, glaring back.

"Oh, shut up."

"I would have though you'd know better than any the likelihood of that happening."

"...condescending ass."

"Being you, I'm not sure how I should take that..."

"Being me, you should know exactly how I meant it."

"Point taken. Are you going to wake up and try to fix that horrible mess that became of your plan yet, or are you just going to stay here belittling yourself for no real purpose all day?"

"Take a wild guess, numbnuts."

"You know what? Screw this."

Both Kiffar's hands snapped up, blasters gripped tight, and fired in near-perfect sync. Both fell over backwards, neat holes drilled in their foreheads.

Vos really hated it when he did that.

-----

His eyes blinked open, vision slightly blurred, the pulsing in his head diminished, but still faintly there all the same.

Floating.

Bubbles.

Re-breather.

Half-naked men.

Vos shook his head slowly from within the kolto tank as his memories began piecing themselves together. Right. Tatooine. Cantina. Explosives. Renegade sith. Rapidly, everything became clear again. He wished it hadn't. The events of the past few days only made him want to hurt someone. The past few months, did, honestly. Year, even. The last five of them did, in all actuality, but that was beside the point, Vos was a very unhappy man in his new life who quite frequently felt the need to hurt someone. Fortunately, he was also very good at personal restraint, otherwise he would have charged into his case handler's office with a thermal detonator a long time ago.

Oh, I really should stop giving myself ideas like that...

He looked the room over as thoroughly as he could from within the confines of the tank, studying its architecture, exits, cover, anything that could potentially be used as a weapon, any computers or technical terminals, the occupants, and, lastly, the tanks themselves, both the inside of his own and the outside of the others. He rapped his knuckles gently against the inner wall a few times, listening intently to the sound it made. Hmm...nice model.

[Ardenator]

The rest of the trip was a poorly-defined blur...

A flash of light, bubbles floating upward, a pounding in his head... He looked to his right, and noticed Garner floating beside him. He couldn't understand why, however...

Another time he awoke, the ship strangely shaking. Were they in danger? Oh well... Darkness.

Another man next to him, someone he didn't recognize...

He woke up on one of the medical beds, Hamstein standing over him. He looked around, trying to remember where he was. Suddenly it all came back to him. "Are we safe?" The other soldier nodded. "Yeah, we made it ok. We're on Nar Shadda. Rene said she had some connections here."

Ardent nodded. He looked himself over. He seemed fairly clean and healthy, except for a few bacta patches and freshly-applied synth-flesh here and there. He got up gingerly and swung his legs over the table. Everything felt sore, but in place. He'd be fine.

"How are the others?"

Hamstein motioned towards the other two, located on adjacent medical beds. "They're ok. You all got lucky, nothing worst than a few breaks and internal bleeding and organ bruising. You all will be sore as hell for a while, but you'll be able to fight again. Not immediately, though. They haven't woke up yet, but I think they will soon, the sedatives will be wearing off now."

Ardent nodded, and shakily rose to his feet. He looked forward, in the direction of the cockpit. "Rene! Come over here please!"

[Regnier]

What was that? Was that…a voice? Two? Three? No, two. Maybe. Or not. Not that it mattered all that much. In an instant, the Kiffar’s eyes snapped open and he shot upright. Immediately, he regretted it, and just as fast as he’d come up, he went back down onto the bed, a series of colorful and distinctly foul curses in Bothese, Huttese, Dosh, Durese, Rodese, and Toydarian flowing quite freely from his lips. He drew in a sharp breath and shook his head slightly, semi-composing himself. Everything hurt. Oh, well, I wonder how that happened. You have got to start finding safer ways of doing things, Vos. Bacta patches and fresh synth-flesh adorned his body, further reinforcing the blatant obviousness of just how well he could do heavy-handed. The problem was the whole receiving thing. The cosmetic-grade synth-flesh that had formerly concealed his clan tattoos had long since come off in the bacta, and he honestly still didn’t look very well rested. It was going to take a lot longer than that in order to catch up.

Deciding he could only stare at the ceiling so long, Nazante tilted his head slightly to one side, then the other, quickly scanning the room. It looked familiar, but, in his previous concussion/drug-induced state, his memory was a little foggy. He did, however, recognize the men inside the room. He grinned painfully at the man that seemed to be the medical professional, so calculated by the fact that he was in the medical bay, and free of obvious injury. ”That…was not what was supposed to happen...so much for the plan…”

Pulling his torso off the bed again, slowly, and with a few less curses this time, he swung his legs over the side, but made no attempt at standing. He probably could have, if he’d really wanted to, but…well, for one, it really just wasn’t worth the effort right now, and, for two, his ‘hosts’ probably didn’t want him trying to wander around too much. He could only guess at how hard it was going to be to convince them he was who he really was, while still trying to convince them he wasn’t interested in trying to send them to hell on an express trip. ”…wouldn’t be too much to ask for pants, would it? Just…thought I’d ask. Not that I mind having a nice chat with someone in my skivvies, mind you, but it is a little cold in here, and I’d rather not have my balls fall off unless absolutely necessary. A little fond of them.”

[Ardenator]

Ardent turned as the one he only knew as "the drunk man" woke up. He seemed to be hurting pretty badly, too. In fact, he seemed like the most injured one here. Well, he did take the brunt of it... Ardent thought.

Hamstein motioned to one corner of the room in response to the man's question. "Yeah, they're over there, on the counter. Go over and get them yourself."

Ardent smiled. "You're a great nurse, Hamstein." Hamstein responded with a hand gesture that wasn't exactly homely, and with a smile Ardent focused on the drunk man. "So, stranger, it seems you've got a little explaining to do. What was going on in the bar? Why did you contact me? What happened? Tell me everything." Ardent waited, staring intently at the man. He had no idea what was going on, and he did not like that one little bit. Lack of sufficient Intel was what got good soldiers killed, and he did not like the lives of his men and himself being risked like that. Something was up, and Ardent wanted to know what.

This man knew what he wanted to know. Ardent wanted to trust him; he likely had saved the lives of he and his comrades back in the bar, but he couldn't risk it, not until he learned the man's identity and story. He couldn't convenience himself with trust and other warm fuzzy feelings, not now. Not when there was spilled blood, and questions to be answered.

So he stood there, and awaited the injured man's reply.

[Regnier]

"Yeah, sure...I could use the exercise." Vos muttered as he slid off the bed and onto his feet. Of course, anyone with eyes could pretty easily tell he was the kind of person that didn't qualify running ten miles in a desert as exercise. He wasn't big, exactly, but he certainly had enough muscle to hurt someone, and he had a nearly ridiculous lack of body-fat. He was built for running a very long distance, and for beating the piss out of just about anything that got close. Even his slow and pained movement across the floor didn't hide the grace and fluidity residing in those muscles. Nazante was the kind of guy that if you stuck a coat on him, he looked about as dangerous as the next Joe on the street, especiall when he was trying to hide it.

He wasn't. Right now, he just didn't give a damn if anyone knew he wasn't the kind of guy to take lightly and he didn't give a damn if the watched him closer for it. It was pretty obvious that he didn't give a damn whether or not anyone nearby would take offense to mass-quantities of swearing. Resting his inverted wrists against the counter, he sighed and turned, leaning into the wall as he pulled his pants off the counter. It took him a few seconds to bend over far enough to get his feet through, but he persevered, and eventually pulled them up around his waist. Raising a hand and shaking his head slightly, he waved Kuundra off as he reached for his boots. "Slow...slow down...one question at a time, huh?"

Dropping his boots on the floor with a thud, he again slowly bent over and started pulling them on, organizing his thoughts into coherent pieces. "Okay, the bar...put simply, you walked into a cantina with four sith black-ops, and they figured out who one of you was...eh, Copler, I think his name was. Anyways, they linked him to you, assuming you are who I think you are, and being right about these things is my job. By association, they linked him to that lecherous bastard O'Hara, and decided to crack some skulls. Your's."

Securing the second boot, he straightened up again and took a deep breath, cursing once more as something in his back popped. He twitched, and reached for his shirt, which had, thankfully, been protected from a great deal of sand by what he'd worn over it. "What happened is, I killed my three...'partners' before they could kill you. The people I work with a very good at what they do; you should be glad that I'm better." Muttering something unintelligible as he pulled the shirt over his head, he twisted and bent awkwardly to get his arm through without raising either shoulder more than a fraction. Impressively enough, he managed. "Lesse, where was I...right. The part where I nearly died. One of those operators that tried to off you carried quite a bit of explosives on him, and he was a little more clever in how he trapped his equipment than I'd expected. I fully intended to blow that place to hell, but not while I was quite so close to it."

He shrugged, then winced at the motion. "Even I make mistakes every now and then." Instinctively, he reached for his gunbelt next, then stopped himself as he realized where he was. It was probably best for everyone involved if he didn't have immediate access to any firearms just yet. Better for the mood. "So, yeah, there it is. I'm a dark ops for the sith Empire who doesn't technically exist in any database and was pulling an inane op on an equally inane planet, when you, a former sith Elite, now wanted by the Empire for crimes they will execute you for, walked into my little bar. The rest, as they say, is history. Point is, I killed three very dangerous sith, nearly blew myself into tiny little pieces, and am still taking a huge risk of blowing my cover, which could easily get me killed in, all likelihood, a very painful manner. I'm also risking the only thing in this galaxy I consider worth a damn thing by even considering helping you."

He paused, letting his words settle one both himself and Kuundra. Everything he'd ever cared about, everything that was important to him, his entire reason for living was at stake here. "Because I need you, alive, and out of the hands of the sith. You're useful enough to risk everything for, because you can help me save it. In turn, I can keep you alive a lot longer than you'll last the way you're going."

[Ardenator]

Ardent took the man's cue; he walked over to the counter and took his own clothing, taking a moment to gingerly put it on. He nodded along with the man's fantastic story. So they had stumbled upon a Sith Intel Operation... just their luck.

He looked the man up and down, sizing him up. He fit the profile, all right. Muscular and graceful. He was definitely one of those bastards. He tipped his head at him. "I guess I owe you a thank you, then. Your help is appreciated. So, what do we do next? I'm assuming you have some agenda for us, else you wouldn't have gotten involved. Let's hear it. and you're name, too."