Children of Mandalore: Red Fang

CHAPTER TWO:

KUAT CITY, KUAT, HOME OF TYRAN AND ARU NUMECK, 40 ABY
FOUR DAYS AFTER THE ATTACK ON TORYAZ STATION

Aru sighed as she pulled the two merlie steaks out of the gasser and placed them on two plate that had large heaps of mashed topatos that were covered in an imported Hapan gravy. For a woman who was wanted by the Hapans, Neada Tash sure could get her hands on a lot of Hapan goods. Aru walked over to the conservator and grabbed the container of blue-milk and poured some into a glass and added a decent squirt of chocolate syrup, that was also imported from Hapes. She gave it a quick stir for a few seconds and then brought the glass of milk and one of the plates of food to the large imported worshyr wood table that dominated the central room of the large apartment.

At one end of the table was the redheaded daughter of Neada Tash. Little Vyndra was being harassed by the one threat that Aru couldn't protect her from: the floating orb that was her home tutor. The TD-5 Tutor Droid floated overhead as Vyndra looked down at a sheet of flimsi with hand drawn math equations for her to solve. Aru smiled slightly as she walked behind Vyndra and the droid and placed the food and the milk in front of the girl.

"Tee-Dee it's the weekend and Mrs. Kioda didn't set any homework for the class to do. So why do I have to do these math problems?"

"Why to keep your mind sharp." The droid said as if it was an obvious answer. "The less you do these problems, the easier it becomes to forget how to solve them."

"I spent all day doing exams like this and I don't want to do anymore."

"Breaks are not part of your planned study regime I'm afraid." Tee-Dee carried on. "Only once you have finished the sheet in front of you can you rest for one standard hour before moving on to the next set."

Vyndra looked to Aru and gave her an expression that was just on the verge of hopeless despair and it made the older woman laugh. Aru grabbed the circular droid out from the air with her hand and hit it's manual standby switch. The droids protests were silenced with an electronic snap. Vyndra smiled up at her bodyguard and grabbed the fork that she was then handed and began digging into the mountain of mashed topatos. Her eyes shut as she embraced the velvety texture of the Hapan gravy and began thinking of the world she should have been growing up on.

"Have you ever been to Hapes?" Vyndra asked around a mouth full of mashed topato.

Aru shook her head. "I've been to a lot of worlds in my time, but never to Hapes." She walked back to the kitchen and grabbed the second plate of food. "Eat all of that or I will turn Tee-Dee back on."

Vyndra resumed eating at a steady pace while her bodyguard walked down the hall to one of the small bedrooms that littered the apartment. She knocked several times before walking into the dark room. On the bed there was a crude tent made out of bedsheets and blankets, a soft dim light was emitting from the center of it. Aru waited for a moment feeling sad for her son as she flipped on the switch to the illumination panels in the ceiling. There was no sign in the tent that Ijaat knew she was there, but that was the point her son was trying to make. He wanted to be left alone.

"Ijaat, I brought you your dinner." She said trying to sound friendly hoping it would draw her son out from the shelter he had retreated into hours ago after coming home. "It's your favorite: merlie steak with mashed topatos."

"I don't want it." Ijaat said glumly from the confines of his homemade structure. "Please go away."

Aru felt her heart shatter at the pain in her son's voice. She wanted to climb into the tent and just talk with him but she couldn't see an opening into the makeshift shelter and decided against it. She feared that if she ruined the tent that it would make her son all the more angry.

"It'll be in the nanowave if you decide to change your mind." She said sadly as she hit the illumination panel switch again plunging her son back into the darkness he desired.

He gave no sign of acknowledgment as she left the room and returned to the dining room. Vyndra gave her a sad look as Aru walked by her with the full plate of food still in her hands. All Aru could do was shrug at the small girl as she headed into the kitchen and placed the food in the nanowave as promised. She couldn't be angry at her son for not wanting to eat anything, all the blame could be placed on Tyran's shoulders for that. Her husband could actually be blamed for a lot.

With each passing day her plan of taking her son back to Mandalore seemed like it was becoming her best option, it was actually the only way she could show Tyran just how detached he had become from his family. If that failed to change him then she would have no problem following through on her promise to find someone who would not only meet Ijaat's needs but hers as well. Aru didn't want to have to fulfill that promise but if Tyran kept going the way he was going then she would without looking back and he would only be able to blame himself.

Aru walked over to the caf dispenser and poured herself a large cup without adding anything to it and sat down next to Vyndra. The little girl had devoured most of the steak and topatos on her plate and was now pushing a lone piece of gristle around with her fork. The backs of her feet were making soft thumping noise as they smacked against the legs of the chair she was sitting in.

"Is Ijaat going to be alright?" She asked quietly as she played with the gristle on her plate.

Aru sighed heavily as she thought about her answer. "Yes Ijaat is going to be fine." Aru found the little girl's worry for Ijaat heartwarming. "Finish your milk and then it's time for you to take a sanisteam and then go to bed."

Vyndra looked at Aru. "Do I have to go to bed right away?"

Aru let out a tired laugh. "It is the weekend so I don't suppose and extra hour or two wont hurt anything."

Vyndra smiled and got from her chair and gave Aru and hug before heading for the sanisteam. Aru used the next twenty minutes to just sit and relax as she sipped at her unsweetened caf. The sadness she felt for her son only grew as she realized that Vyndra was his only real friend. She strongly suspected that as they both grew older that their friendship would blossom into something else. That was the only thing that Aru found herself agreeing with Neada Tash on. A bitterness tinged with some jealousy had developed inside Aru when it came to her husband's employer.

She was a Hapan and it was no secret how Hapan women viewed men as nothing more than breeding stock and status markers. Aru understood the threat that the woman was under and that she needed a good security detail, but she was keeping both Tyran and Dyir in the office for much longer than she really needed to. Maybe it was just paranoia on her part mixed with the increasing anger she felt towards Tyran and his continued absence in Ijaat's childhood. Deep down inside she knew that Tyran wouldn't ever have an affair, but she couldn't stop thinking that maybe some part of her secretly wanted him to so she could have all the more reason to leave Kuat and head back to Mandalore with her son.

Vyndra reappeared wearing her night clothes, her hair was still damp and clinging to her neck and face. She had a small brush in her hands and gave it to Aru. The two of them sat down on the couch and Aru began the process of brushing the small girl's hair. Aru felt a sudden pang of sorrow for Vyndra. She was just as detached from her mother as Ijaat was from Tyran. Aru hadn't known she was going to inherit Neada's motherly duties when she had agreed to protect Vyndra. If she had to follow through on her threat it would also mean abandoning the girl and virtually robbing her of the closest thing she had to a mother.

But when it came down to it Vyndra wasn't her daughter and she had to do what was right for Ijaat and if that meant leaving Kuat then that was what she was going to do. She finished brushing Vyndra's hair and the small girl curled up next to to her on the couch.

"Can we watch a holovid?" She asked Aru.

Aru shrugged. "I guess so, want to watch anything in particular?"

Aru grabbed the controller and activated the vidscreen and brought up a menu of stored holovids on the home recorder box. She handed the controller to Vyndra to let her pick something on the list. It didn't surprise her when the girl picked a documentary, it suited her curious nature, the content the documentary covered did however. The documentary was: Contested – Gyndine and the Yuuzhan Vong Invasion. Sadly she had some not so fond memories of that planet. Aru remembered flying over the surface in her Gladiator starfighter, before she had been issued a top of the line XJ3 by the Alliance later on in the war.

It had been converted and bombed beyond recognition during the repeated attempts by the Galactic Alliance to retake the world, and the final battle between the Mandalorian Supercommandos, commanded by Boba Fett and the Yuuzhan Vong warriors of Domain Rurjak. Unfortunately it was something that was now being covered in Vyndra and Ijaat's school lessons.

"Can we watch this?"

"Do you really want to?" Aru asked.

"Yes, it will give me an edge when we go back to class."

"How come you didn't want to do your math work for class but you want to watch this?"

"Well I already know my math," Vyndra said with a shrug. "I don't know much about this other than what we've covered."

Aru relented. "Okay we can watch it, but don't come running into my room tonight if you have a nightmare."

"I won't have any nightmares, it's only a holovid. How scary can it be?"

Aru thought back on the images and aftermath of battlefields she had been on after fighting the Yuuzhan Vong. She hadn't faced the warrior-caste in close-quarters-combat, but rather fought them from the cockpit of her starfighter. She'd heard the stories of their brutality though and had seen the savagery they could inflict secondhand via after action reports and HUD recordings.

"Scarier than you might think."

Tyran couldn't put it off any further and he knew it, if he stayed at the office any longer then it would only make things worse for him when he finally did go home. Neada had left hours ago with Dyir which had left him to deal with the problems presented to him in peace. He didn't pay his younger brother any mind at all and didn't really care if Neada and her analysts found the information he needed on Red-Fang. The problems Rixa and the others in the Numeck Homestead were having were not his concern at the moment. Tyran's only concern was his wife leaving and threatening to take Ijaat with her to Mandalore.

If that happened then everything he had done in the last decade meant nothing. He had worked himself to the bone to create a life that neither he or Aru had ever dreamed possible as teenagers, and now he couldn't figure out why it was all coming undone around him. It wasn't his fault that protecting Neada was a full time job and required him to spend the majority of his time with her. It had to be because Neada was a Hapan, and a particularly beautiful one at that, that Aru had become suspicious of his employer. The long hours and many distant trips they took together didn't help to assuage her concerns.

That couldn't be helped though, Aru just had to trust him to be faithful, and he had been. As far as things went with Ijaat, Aru had him cornered. He knew he could have made better efforts to partake in his son's education. It wasn't like Neada would have told him he couldn't take an hour or two off so he could go watch his son win an award. But Aru had gone too far when she had called him a bad father, unattentive would have been the more accurate word. Aru had thrown down the gauntlet and he had to come up with appropriate response. What exactly his response was going to be he had yet to figure out.

The one thing he knew for certain was that Ijaat was never going to set foot on Mandalore.

He took a deep breath and exited Neada's office and proceeded to exit the building only stopping when he had to wait for the night guard to unlock the doors to the building to allow him to leave. He stopped at a street vendor and bought a bottle of fizzade and a chocolate candy bar that he knew Ijaat was fond of. This wasn't the first time he'd had to apologize to his son for missing something important and he'd learned that sugary products tended to help.

The walk back to his home was far too quick and he found himself standing outside his apartment door hesitating to hit the palm switch. He shut his eyes and took in a steadying breath and braced himself for the big night of arguing he had ahead of him. He pressed his hand against the switch and the door parted with a soft woosh. Tyran stepped into the room and turned his head towards the vidscreen and the sound coming from the speakers. He was taken aback by the stock footage of Yuuzhan Vong hordes swarming over the rolling hills of a battlefield he recognized all too well. Two heads looked up at him from over the back of the couch, both of them were glaring at him and he scowled in return.

"Don't give me that look Vyndra." He said tiredly. "At least wait until your a teenager before giving me looks like that."

Vyndra's glare didn't falter as he walked further into the room. Aru wrapped her arm around the small girl in a clear show of a united front.

"Glad you could take time from your schedule to come home." Aru said coldly.

"I almost didn't." Tyran shot back with his voice just as frosty. "Where is Ijaat?"

"Where do you think? He wont come out and he wont eat anything."

Tyran walked over to the kitchen and opened the nanowave, Ijaat's plate was sitting in it untouched, Tyran closed the nanowave and hit the reheat button on the interface. The machine hummed into life and Tyran realized just how many times he had done this before. He had his son's favorite candy bar and fizzade tucked away in his back pocket, he knew just how long to reheat his son's dinner because it was all heavily practiced routine.

Aru walked around the corner not looking any happier. She crossed her arms and leaned against the counter. Tyran made an obvious effort to not make eye contact with her.

"How many times are you going to put him through this?" She asked as she tried to counter her husband's attempts at evasiveness. "How many times am I going to have to watch Ijaat fall to pieces, pull himself together and get shattered all over again?"

Tyran didn't respond as the nanowave buzzed and he pulled the plate of food out and turned away from her as he exited the kitchen. Aru followed him and grabbed onto his bicep. Tyran stopped and looked down at her hand and back up at her. "I don't have anything to say to you and you've said more than enough so let go of my arm."

Aru glared at him but released his arm and Tyran walked down the hallway to his son's room. He didn't bother knocking and just entered the dark room. He activated the illumination panel switch and moved up to the makeshift tent. Unlike Aru, Tyran knew how to enter the surprisingly sturdy, yet simple structure. It was nothing more than a bed sheet tied to the top of the four bedposts of his son's bed with blankets draped over the sides in an apparently disorganized fashion. He walked over to the left side of the bed and simply lifted the sheet to reveal the dark interior. He placed the plate of food on the bed.

"Eat." He said patiently. "You know your mother doesn't like to cook so you should take advantage of it when she does."

A small hand appeared from the darkness and pulled inside. "How come you didn't show up this time?" A soft voice echoed out.

Tyran sat down on the floor next to the bed and inhaled deeply. "After the attack on Toryaz Station, security was beefed up for every Government official, not just Neada. I know that competition was important to you but-"

"-But you have a job to do." Ijaat finished for his father. "I've heard it before dad."

Tyran nodded his head. "I guess this isn't the first time we've had this conversation." Tyran just happened to glance up at that moment and his eyes fell on the collection of trophies and ribbons his son had collected. His guilt rose as he realized that he hadn't been there to see Ijaat win any of them. "I'm sorry."

There was a few minutes where the gentle scraping of Ijaat's fork on his plate was the only sound that filled the room. "Mom has been talking about going to someplace called Mandalore." Ijaat said around a full mouth. "I looked it up and I can't understand why she would want to go there."

"She told you that?" Tyran said trying to keep his voice even. He was furious that his wife would go and reveal things he had spent so long trying to hide from Ijaat. He couldn't help but feel that everything was going to come unraveled in the next few moments.

"No, I was listening to a conversation she was having with another bodyguard at school." Ijaat said. "Why does she want to go to Mandalore?"

A direct question that had a direct answer Tyran didn't want to give and he scratched at the side of his head as he carefully thought about how to phrase his answer. Oddly enough he decided to go with the truth, just a different kind of truth.

"She has some friends there. Your mother doesn't think I'm doing a very good job as a father and she told me she's going to leave and take you there with her to find someone who can do better."

There was silence from the tent for a few seconds and the fork scraped against the plate again.

"That's not such a bad idea." Ijaat said slowly. "You really haven't been home much and when you are you don't really talk to us."

Tyran stared into the dark entryway of the tent not believing what he was hearing.

"You want a new father?" He asked.

Ijaat's hesitation to answer actually answered for him.

"Sometimes I do." He whispered.

Tyran felt his fingers clench into fists and something painful rose up from his chest and into his throat. He bit down on the inside of his cheek and placed the fizzade and candy bar gently on the bed.

"I hope you realize that everything I do is done so you don't have to become what I became." Tyran stood up and turned for the door. "I'm sorry you and your mother can't appreciate that."

He walked out of the bedroom and headed straight for the door to the apartment. Aru crossed the living room in a second grabbing his arm before he could hit the palm switch.

"Where are you going now?!"

Tyran turned and faced her. "I don't know and wouldn't tell you even if I did."

Aru was taken aback by the pain she saw in Tyran's eyes. The last time she had seen him look like that was when he had learned his father had died fighting off the Yuuzhan Vong on Mandalore.

"What's going on?" She asked.

"Congratulations," Tyran said his voice sounded truly defeated. "You got what you wanted. Our son thinks I am just as bad at being a father as you do. If the two of you want to go to Mandalore, I wont stop you."

He hit the palm switch and disappeared out the door before Aru could say anything. Aru stood in front of the polished worshyr wood table that dominated the center of the apartment and found herself not knowing what to do. A part of her wanted to go and chase after Tyran and just talk with him and the other part felt content to let him sit and fester. He had done this to himself after all. She decided against following Tyran because he would come back in an hour or two, he always did, and she headed down the hallway to check on her real priority.

CORUSCANT, GALACTIC CITY, SPACEPORT, 40 ABY, EIGHT HOURS TO RED-FANG DEADLINE, FIVE DAYS AFTER THE ATTACK ON TORYAZ STATION

Rixa yawned as he stretched in the cramped confines of his wife's old XJ3 series X-Wing. He decided he wasn't going to spend credits on a room at one of the many hotels that littered the skylanes near the spaceport. He still felt that at twenty-nine years of age that his body was still young enough to deal with the aches and pains that would come from sleeping in an enclosed space such as he was. Rixa also decided that he wasn't going to submit to gender bias next time and give his wife the much more roomy and comfortable Aggressor starfighter that they also owned. He checked his datapad for any calls he may have gotten while he was sleeping and found nothing.

He checked the chrono on his wrist and sighed. He only had eight hours before he had to call Vitrix back and give him a decision about taking the Red-Fang job. If Tyran didn't call him back with the intel he needed, Rixa was contemplating taking the job anyway and just waiting for Tyran to deliver the intelligence whenever he got it. The only drawback to that plan was he didn't even know if Tyran had taken his request seriously and followed through on it or had simply said he would dig around just to end the conversation quicker. Either way time was running out and a decision needed to be made and he needed to make it soon.

He activated the holo-communicator and tapped in Jaya's comm code and waited for her to answer. Maybe he could give her some good advice on how to deal with the situation. Though he suspected she would just tell him to come home and be done with it. It took longer than usual for her to answer his call but then he realized what time it was on Mandalore, she would have been sleeping. Jaya appeared on the holodisplay before him, her hair was no longer tightly braided to her head but actually just tied back. She certainly appeared to have been roused from her sleep.

"Did I wake you?" He asked.

"No, the twins did." Jaya yawned.

Rixa laughed. The twin children of Ryia Devieyc and his wife Lin were the household alarm clocks and usually kept a pretty standard cycle when it came to crying. "Well at least they are consistent."

Jaya smiled tiredly. "How goes your hunt for the mysterious Red-Fang?"

"Still haven't started it yet." Rixa admitted. "I'm waiting on Tyran to get me that information, but I've only got eight hours left before I have to call the contact and give him my decision."

"What are you going to do if Tyran doesn't call you before the deadline is up?"

"Well..." Rixa sighed. "I might just accept the mission and give it my best shot until Tyran does call me with the information."

"If he calls you with the information," Jaya said. "He may have just said to hell with it and left you in a bind."

"He very well might have but I have to do something. The Homestead doesn't take care of itself unfortunately."

"I think you should just tell your contact you can't do it and come home, we've got enough credits to last through the summer."

"What about the winter Jaya?" Rixa said. "This contract could lead to a lot more contracts with the Galactic Alliance, lucrative contracts that we can't pass up just because we can't locate the target right away."

"I can't argue with that." Jaya conceded. "If you need help please make sure to call Me, Ryia or one of the others."

"Don't I always call for help at some point?" Rixa grinned at the holographic image of his wife.

"Yeah but just make sure you don't get into the kind of trouble that only your brother can get you out...because you might not be able to get out of it."

"I know that if I really needed him that Tyran would do the right thing."

"The right thing for him or the right thing for the family?" Jaya said. "Think about the next time you call him for help."

"Yeah I promise to keep that in mind." Rixa said. "I'll be home soon, with or without a contract."

"I'll be counting the seconds." Jaya smiled and her image faded from the screen.

Rixa exhaled and powered down the holo-communicator and leaned his head against the head rest of his seat. He realized now how hard it had been for Tyran to try and provide for the residents of Homestead for as long as he had. Rixa suddenly understood why Tyran had left in the manner that he had and instantly felt bad for all the cruel things he had secretly called his older brother over the years. Rixa just hadn't understood the pressures his brother had been under. Still though Tyran had managed to do a better job at providing for the family then Rixa was doing. It proved how much reputation meant in their line of work.

How was Rixa supposed to compete with a man who was known for bringing down an entire Yuuzhan Vong warrior-caste damutek down onto not only himself, but the yammosk coordinator that lived in the warrens directly below the damutek, and lived to tell about it. Tyran had a reputation and a long list of accomplishments that made him seem invincible. Rixa on the other hand had quite the opposite reputation, despite his skill level he was known for getting himself into tight spots he couldn't get out of and often being able to not deliver on a contract.

That was the old Rixa though, one still recovering from the mental damage caused by the Yuuzhan Vong Breaking. There weren't many people who could say they had survived one of those. He was older now and much wiser, at least he thought he was, and he was slowly eroding away his less than stellar reputation. It just didn't seem like enough though. The frustration of it kept him up some nights.

His commlink began to chirp and he instantly snatched it into his hand and answered the call.

"Yeah?"

"Rixa?"

His eyes narrowed. He knew that voice and could tell that something wasn't right. "Aru? Whats wrong?" He sat up straighter in his seat.

"Are you still on Coruscant?" Aru asked.

"Yes but I don't know what that has to do with anything." Rixa said.

"I need you to come to Kuat, I've got a problem."

Well this was a first. "What kind of problem?"

"Me and Tyran had an argument yesterday and it went on into the night. Tyran left the apartment and he didn't come back."

"He's probably working." Rixa said.

"No he isn't." Aru said. "His boss hasn't seen him at all, which is highly unusual, and the Tal'galaar is still in it's berth, and before you say anything I already know he isn't on the ship. I checked. He hasn't been to any of the cantinas or tapcafs, he hasn't gone to the orbital rings, or offworld at all. I'm getting worried."

"So go look for him." Rixa said as he felt his hopes of getting his intel on time plummet. "I can't help you."

"I can't. I don't have anyone to watch the kids while I go play bounty-hunter. If I have to pay you we can talk price."

The offer was tempting. Did she say kids? That was plural, had she and Tyran had another child? Rixa sighed. "I'm not going to take your money, and Creation knows I could use it. I'll be in-system in three hours."

"I'll make sure you get through the picket-ships without a hassle."

"That would be much appreciated."

"Oh don't wear your armor, I don't need Ijaat seeing a fully armored Mando sitting in our living room, at least not yet."

"Yeah, yeah I'll keep Tyran's dirty little secret a secret." Rixa said a bit agitatedly as he began warming up the drives. His wife's R2 unit had already programmed the navicomputer for the hyperspace jump to Kuat. "See you in a few hours."

The call ended on the opposite end and Rixa scratched at his beard. Tyran was missing, probably on a bender somewhere in the bowels of Kuat City. It didn't bode well for Red-Fang at all.

"Rusty patch me through to Colonel Vitrix." The rust colored droid bleeped and twittled and soon Rixa's holo-communicator was up and running again with a new holoimage.

"May I ask how you got this number? It is my private line." Vitrix asked coolly.

"I'm resourceful." But not resourceful enough. He didn't add. "I'll take the job Colonel."

"Splendid. Now should we talk price?"

"We can do that in person, same meeting place as last time. I have some pressing business to attend to elsewhere I'm afraid so is two days from now okay with you?"

"Is this business unavoidable?"

"Sorry to say that it is."

"Then I see little point in arguing the matter. Two days from now, Skyview Terrace, fourteen-thirty hours galactic standard."

"Agreed." Rixa said.

"See you then."

The holoimage faded away and Rixa brought his X-Wing up out of the berth and pointed it on the course his droid had programmed. "You know what Rusty, you take control of the ship for a while, I've got some thinking to do."

The droid tweetled a confirmation and a few seconds later Rixa and his craft were soaring up into Coruscant's upper atmosphere.

KAYTA SYSTEM, KAYTARES VII, GALACTIC ALLIANCE SECURE FACILITY [UNDER CONSTRUCTION], 40 ABY, FIVE DAYS AFTER THE ATTACK ON TORYAZ STATION

Iman Vitrix stared at the small communicator in his hand. How that low rent mercenary Rixa Numeck had managed to get his grubby hands on the comm code to his personal line was beyond the Zabrak. Fear that he may have underestimated Rixa Numeck warmed his blood and fought off the cold that seeped into every hallway of the makeshift camp he was visiting while an army of construction droids built his newest acquisition. The Kaytares Black-Site was the gem he had been looking for since Red-Fang had fallen apart. It was here he could place all his enemies and political rivals, after having some thoroughly prepared and completely false evidence that condemned them as traitors to the Galactic Alliance planted here and there. He could then use them as his lab rats for some of his more aggressive plans.

This complex was completely off the grid, a total of nine government officials knew it existed, six of them had been suddenly killed after disagreeing with him on the new purpose of the facility. Now the facility was his own to do with as he pleased. Sadly it once again paired him with Odas Zistra, for all the Gran's faults his one saving grace was that he could keep a secret, with his help Vitrix had neatly erased this prison from the grid. Mostly, some of the remaining military members of what was now called the K-Group still wanted to have suspected Corellian sympathizers brought here for interrogation away from the prying eyes of oversight committees and the Jedi who hampered them getting results, causing more threats to arise before they could be quelled.

Vitrix was a patriot and had no qualms about this, as long as he got to have his way and run his schemes without any interference then he would let his fellow military brethren conduct their alternative interrogation techniques unhindered by the laws passed by Omas and the Senate.

Still he couldn't shake his worry about Rixa Numeck. If the bounty-hunter could get his personal line, he wondered what else he might have gotten access to. He made a judgment call and activated his throwaway commlink. The person on the other end took two seconds to pick up.

"What?" a gruff voice echoed.

Vitrix smiled. "I am Colonel Iman Vitrix of the Galactic Alliance Special Deployment Group. I hear you specialize in killing Numecks?"