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Ares was born on the Chiss homeworld of Csilla. She never fit into the precise world of the Chiss Ascendancy. When the Ascendancy allied with the Empire, Keeper offered her a job. She took it.

Chapter 1: Immortal

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Pestilence was born on Courscant. He was a kid during the Sacking of Courscant and when the Empire withdrew, they took Pestilence along for the ride.

Chapter 1: Courscant

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Born a Mandalorian, Ralstin has only recently learned that he is Force sensitive. He still keeps close ties with his Mandalorian family but he has struck out on his own in an effort to learn and grow stronger in the Force.

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Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology.

Chapter 1: Start Server

BEGIN LEVEL 1 SYSTEM DIAGNOSTIC:

• Core: 100%

o Power: 100%

o Structural Integrity: 100%

o Central Processor: 100%

• Communications: 50%

o Vocoder: 100%

o Holo-Communications: 0% System Not Installed

• Extremities: 86.5%

o Right Arm: 50% Appendage Missing Below Elbow

o Left Arm: 100%

o Right Leg: 73.6% Foreign Object Detected. Recommend Immediate Removal

o Left Leg: 100%

• Sensors:

o Visual: 49.8%

 Visible Light: 87% Cause of Malfunction Undetermined

 Low Light: 0% Sensor Not Installed

 Thermal: 12.8% Cause of Malfunction Undetermined

 Ultra Violet: 0% Sensor Not Installed

o Audio: 100%

• Weapon Systems: 0%

o No Weapon Systems Installed

• Defensive Systems: 54%

o Armor Plating: 74.8% Heavy Damage to Right Side

o Shield Generator: 0% Generator Not Installed

o Stealth Field Generator: 87.2% Cause of Malfunction Undetermined

LEVEL 1 SYSTEM DIAGNOSTIC COMPLETE

• System Status: 56.7% of Optimal … Field Repairs in Progress … Expected Duration of Repairs: 15:32:13.5

• Diagnostic Elapsed Time: 15.2 Seconds

• WARNING: Field Repairs Unable to Repair Damage to Right Arm. Please Visit Qualified Repair Depot at your Earliest Convenience.

“Since when do I have a system diagnostic?”

“OW! Damn, that hurts!” he thinks as he tries to move around, he can’t seem to move his right leg, and the pain is incredible. “Let’s not do that again.” Holding his right leg still seems to dull the pain somewhat. The faint hum whine of a machine can be heard in the deathly quiet void.

“What is going on? How the hell did I end up here?” He can feel panic starting to creep into his thoughts.

“No! Don’t panic" he says out loud. "I can figure this out! First things first, I need light so I can see.” As if on command, he can make out a very faint shape outlined in green a scant three centimeters from his face.

“Huh, that wasn’t there a second ago.” Looking around as much as he can, he can make out slight variations in the blackness.

“There should be a light in my pocket. Crap, now I'm talking to myself.” With his right hand, he reaches for the pocket, or he tries to but he feels nothing. Frowning with surprise, he brings his hand up to his face and tries to wiggle his fingers in front of his eyes. He can feel his hand, but the faint green shapes are not blocked by his hand. Panic starts to slip into his thoughts again.

He brings his left hand up and with the tight confines he is forced to slide it up his stomach, only he finds nothing there. Below his ribcage is nothing but empty space and a metal rod where his spine would be, connecting his hips to his ribcage. No longer content to sit at the edges of his thoughts, panic pounces and he starts thrashing about.

“What am I?” he screams. “What happened to me?!” His thrashing about causes the pain in his right leg to become unbearable and he passes out.

Slowly he comes back to consciousness. “Ughh, how long have I been out?” he wonders. “28,685,493 milliseconds” flashes across his vision. “Huh?” he thinks.

“Doctor, the patient has woken up” a male voice says to the left of him.

He opens his eyes but is only greeted with blackness. He struggles to turn his head or lift his arms only to find that he is completely immobilized.

“Very good, thank you nurse. See that Watcher 4 is notified.” This voice sounds like it is coming from a holo-communicator. It is the cultured voice of someone accustomed to rubbing elbows with the most elite of the Empire. The doctor’s voice triggers something in him:

SUBJECT PROFILE:

NAME: Wallace Higgens

OCCUPATION: Doctor

FIELD OF SPECIALIZATION: Advanced Cybernetics and Artificial Intelligence

SPECIES: Human

AFFILIATION: Imperial Army Medical Corps

RANK: Imperial Army Colonel

The profile also contains a synopsis of the doctor’s personal and professional history.

“Yes sir” the nurse replies.

“And nurse, sedate him until I arrive.”

“Yes doctor.”

He hears the nurse press a couple buttons and chemicals flood his brain. He remains conscious long enough to register several alarms flashing in his mind’s eye, then darkness.

I received a holo-message from my brother today. Battleship has started his training at the Sith academy on Korriban. He’s been there only a few days and already he’s being groomed to be the apprentice of Darth Baras.

I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve talked to him since I left Courscant. I think the only reason he sent the holo was to warn me. After abandoning him like I did, I’ve got to be high on his hit list.

Growing up in the under-city of Courscant wasn’t easy, for either of us. The Sacking of Courscant by the Imperial Army didn’t make things any easier. I learned a lot in the hell that followed the Sacking, about myself, and about life in the galaxy.

To this day, I regret leaving Battleship there after the Treaty of Courscant was signed. But what choice did I have? He is almost 8 years younger than me and back then I was barely old enough to hold a blaster rifle steady. I thought I was a man though.

I killed my first man barely 3 days after the Imperial invasion. It wasn’t much of a kill really, just an old guy who wouldn’t give me his credit chip. He tried to hit me with a stick. I panicked and stabbed him in the gut with the knife I was threatening him with. I didn’t even have the courage to finish him. I just stood over him and watched him bleed out.

At first he was trying to stuff his intestines back in his gut, but as he lost blood, he tried less. After about 5 minutes, he was dead and I was in shock. “Why did he have to fight me?” I fumed to myself. “He didn’t need to die. All he had to do was give me his credit chip!”

Then the horror over what I had done turned to anger; no I had done the right thing “The old man deserved to die. No one ****s with Pestilence and lives!”

Angrily, I kicked the old man in the head. “How do you like that mother****er?” Another kick, “That’s what you get for *********** with Pestilence!” and another.

With a panic I realize I’m standing over the body of an old man I just murdered for a credit chip. What if someone saw what I had done? I hurriedly take in my surroundings and breathe a sigh of relief. No one seems to have seen us in this side alley.

Having confirmed no witnesses, I search the body for his credit chip. A quick search finds it in a pouch hanging on a chain around his neck. It takes 3 hard yanks to break the chain and come away with the pouch.

As I stepped over his body, I stomped down with my heel on the guy’s skull with as much force as I could muster. His skull caves in, blood and grey matter go everywhere. “That is what you get for making me look.” I say to the corpse.

The credit chip probably held the old man’s life savings, 258 credits. Not a lot, but enough to buy dinner tonight for me and my brother. Maybe tomorrow I’d be able to get a real blaster too.

“Where’d you get the money for food?” Battleship asked me as I hand him a bowl of rice mixed with an unknown meat.

I looked my brother in the eye and told him what had happened. I may have embellished the story a little. The guy may have been 30 years younger and put up more of a fight, but the major details were the same. By the time I was done telling the story, my brother was staring up at me in awe, food completely forgotten.

“Quit drooling dork, and eat dinner” I say. I follow my own advice and shovel some rice and meat into my mouth. Obediently, Battleship finishes his dinner without another word.

As I was walking around the neighborhood the next morning, I came across an Imperial platoon. I marched straight up to them and asked the one who looked to be in charge if they had a blaster pistol I could buy.

The platoon sergeant looked me up and down and laughed. “I bet you don’t even know which end is the dangerous end, kid.”

I never liked being talked down to and no one has ever accused me of being smart. I stood up to my full height and puffed out my chest as much as I could and said “I do so! I killed a man yesterday!”

“Is that so?” the sergeant says, looking down at me. “Maybe I should kill you, one less murderer to worry about.”

“Aww, give the kid a break, Sarge” one of the troopers says. “Let’s see if he can shoot. I bet 20 credits that he can hit that rock over there.”

The sergeant turns to trooper and sighs. “Ok, you’re on. Give the kid your rifle. If he so much as looks like he’s going to point it at anything but that rock, I’m going to put a hole in his head. You’ll be next, Private.” Dramatic pause “Still want to see if he can shoot?”

By this time the entire platoon was watching the exchange and the private didn’t want to look weak in front of his unit. “It’s on Sarge” he says with false bravado.

The trooper walks over to me, grabs me by the shoulders and turns me to face the rock in question, pointing it out. It’s about 15 meters away and about a half meter tall. Today, I could make that shot, easy. Back then, I was scared out of my mind. What had I gotten myself into?

As with the day before, the fear quickly turns into anger and I shake the trooper’s hands off my shoulders. Without another word the trooper unslings is rifle and hands it to me.

“Damn, its heavy” was my first thought. “The heroes in the holos fling these things around like they are nothing.” Again I wonder what I’ve gotten myself into, and again the fear feeds my anger.

With an angry grunt I shoulder the weapon, aim it in the general direction of the rock and pull the trigger. The weapon was on full auto and a spray of red blaster bolts fly down range. They hit everything but the rock.

“Full auto, *******?” the sergeant says as he smacks the butt of his rifle against the side of the privates head.

The private yelps in pain, “Sorry Sarge!” he pouts as he puts his hand to the side of his head. It comes away bloody.

The rest of the platoon find the whole exchange hilarious and start laughing and calling me and the private names.

Without even realizing it, the anger builds inside of me until I was seeing the world through a red haze. Before I could turn the blaster on the laughing soldiers, the Sergeant clamps a hand over the top and pulls it away from me without even the slightest effort.

“I like you kid, you’ve got spirit” the Sergeant says to me. His glare passes over his men and they all quickly quite down.

“Take it” he says as he thrusts the rifle into my chest. I hurriedly grab it, lest it fall to the ground.

“Hold the rifle like this” he says, demonstrating the proper technique with his own rifle. I mimic his stance and he looks over at me. “Good, now change the fire selector to single shot.” And he demonstrates this by flipping a lever with his thumb.

Watching me with one eye, he nods his approval as I thumb the selector switch to single shot. “Now get a good sight picture, let out your breath and slowly squeeze the trigger.”

Putting his words into action, he squeezes off 3 quick rounds from his rifle. The first 2 shots hit the rock dead in the middle. The 3rd shot nails a mouse droid I didn’t even know was there, a hundred meters down range. The troopers all start to cheer at the demonstration.

“Your turn kid.”

I look down the sights of the rifle and not wanting to embarrass myself anymore than I already had, I channel my anger into the shot. It felt like I was staring down the sights of the rifle for an hour when suddenly everything came into crystal clear focus.

I adjusted my aim slightly and squeezed the trigger. I swear I could feel the bolt as it traveled down range to impact almost on top of the shots the Sergeant had put there. I had never felt anything like that before. I had never felt so powerful as I did at that moment.

“You’ve got potential kid” the Sergeant says as he claps me on the back with an armored hand. He takes the rifle from me and tosses it back to the private it belongs too. “And you owe me 20 credits.”

“But Sarge! He hit the rock!”

“After I showed him how to shoot. Now quit bleeding all over the place, your making a mess.”

With a contemptuous flick of his hand he dismisses the private and turns to me. “You may be useful kid. What’s your name?”

“Pestilence.”

“Odd name for a Zalbrak.”

“Wouldn’t know, it’s what I’ve always been called.”

“Well, Pestilence, I need someone who knows this area. Are you that someone?”

“Maybe, what’s in it for me?”

The sergeant barks a laugh “You are brazen. Food, for starters. If you prove useful, I may teach you how to shoot.”

“I want food for my brother too.”

The sergeant shrugs off his pack and pulls out two ration packs and hands them to me. “Ok, done. No more charity though. Meet us back here first thing tomorrow morning. You’ll be earning your way from here on out.”

To this day, I cannot remember the name of that sergeant. He died in an ambush about a month later, though he was good to his word. He did tech me how to shoot before he died.

When the Treaty of Coruscant was signed, the Imperial Army was ordered to withdraw. They offered to take me with them and they made it perfectly clear that Battleship was not welcome. Never one for goodbyes, I left one morning and never came back. I’ve never been back to Courscant, though I did send cash to Battleship from time to time.

After the Imperial Army got me off of Courscant, I got tied up in a weapon smuggling ring with some prissy Chiss ***** that thought she was some great puppet master. When the Chiss Ascendency caught up with her I tried to turn her in for a nice pay day. Turns out she was pretty smart and expected me to betray her and managed to escape. I heard they found her corpse a few weeks later, but I doubt it was really Ares. She’s too smart to be killed so easily.

The Chiss were not happy that I let Ares escape. Even though they found her “corpse” a few weeks later, they wanted the pleasure of killing her themselves. Considering they just commandeered my ship and dumped me on the nearest Imperial planet, I think I got off lucky.

With barely a credit to my name, I started poking around for work. That is when I came across Mako and Braden. They were looking for someone to back in the Great Hunt. I contacted them, and we struck up a deal.

They flew me to Hutta where I secured the Great Hunt invitation, and eventually became the winner.

In a weird way, I feel like that winning the Great Hunt was the start of a new life for me. I am currently sitting in my cabin on my own ship. I can hear Blizz tinkering with something on the weapons bench. Torian and Skadage are sparring. Gault is on the holo trying to con someone. And my wife, yes, I’m married! is sitting in the pilot seat, plotting our next destination. These people are my family, and that amazes me.

As I sit here, I look back on what I’ve done in my life. I’ve lied, I’ve murdered, I’ve broken deals, I’ve cheated, and I’ve gone out of my way to hurt people because it was fun. In general, I’m a not nice person. But for some reason, Mako loves me, in spite of the horrible things I’ve done, many she has witnessed firsthand.

Maybe what they say about the love of a good woman is true. I know I am a better man because of Mako. I hope my brother can find love. Maybe that will help heal the hate that fills him.

“Ares Immortal” Raina Temple slurred slightly. “Ares” she drawled. “Ares Immortal” this time rolling the words around in her mouth, as if she was tasting them.

Ares leaned back in her chair and eyed the drunk Ensign, waiting to see where Temple would go with this.

“Ares is an odd name for a Chiss” declared Temple. “I’ve always wondered about that. It’s obviously not your birth name.” Temple suddenly leans over the table she is sharing with Ares and Kaliyo. Only Kaliyo’s quick reflexes save her drink from Temple’s drunken move.

The three of them are in a VIP room in the Nexus Room in Kass City. Over the last couple months, Ares and her crew had seen a lot of action, what with the assault on the Jedi Temple on Tython and the fall of the Duality. Now that things had died down Kaliyo thought they should go out and blow off a little steam. Ares is not much for drunken nights on the town though, and Temple is a workaholic, but eventually Kaliyo was able to cajole the two into a ladies night.

Kaliyo downs her rescued drink and grins at the antics of the obviously drunk Ensign. “Amateur” Kaliyo thinks to herself with a grin. Temple is motioning for the two of them to lean in closer. With a sigh and a look at Ares, she leans in.

“I know Ares is not your real name” Temple says as she shakes a finger at the Chiss. “I did some digging in the Imperial archives and your history is false.” She pauses to gauge Ares’ reaction. Only a slight arch of her eyebrow gives away Ares’s curiosity. Emboldened, Temple continues “Did you know her history was a fake, Kaliyo?” she asks.

“I had my suspicions” says Kaliyo as her turns her gaze to Ares. “Spill, Agent. You know all of our dirty laundry. And consider the things we’ve been through together, I think you owe us.”

Ares leans back in her chair and contemplates the two women over the top of her glass. She has known these women for a long time. Kaliyo has been with her the longest, since Hutta. They owe each other their lives at least a hundred times over.

“Ok ladies, but what I am about to tell you does not leave this room.” Both women nod their agreement.

“You are correct, Raina. My birth name is not Ares.” She pauses for a second, taking a deep breath, she continues. “I have not talked about this with anyone since I left the Ascendancy. I was born on the Chiss home world; Csilla. My family was a career military family and my life was preordained almost before I was conceived. I would begin my career as a police officer and eventually transfer to the Chiss Expeditionary Defense Force.

“Chiss children mature faster than most sentients” she says. “As a result, I was fully grown and serving in the Csilla police force by the time I was 13. It was expected that I would serve in the police force for five or six years, then transfer to the CEDF once I had some experience under my belt.”

“I’m guessing things did not happen that way” Kaliyo said.

Ares chuckles. “Hardly” she says and takes a sip from her drink. “This is thirsty work, keep the drinks coming.”

Temple taps a few commands on the menu. “Another round on its way!” she declares triumphantly. Ares tries to hide a grin at the Ensign’s antics. Kaliyo, not so much.

“I didn’t take well to the restrictions placed on me by police work” Ares continues. “I got results, but I didn’t always stay between the lines. That didn’t earn me any friends on the force. By the time I was 17 I had pissed off a lot of people, and the Lieutenant was tired of dealing with me, so he set me up. It wasn’t enough to get me thrown in jail, but it was more than enough to get me drummed out of the police force. My family was disgraced and in an effort to save face, they disowned me.

“Not knowing where else to go, I ended up living on the streets I used to patrol. That worked out well for me though.

“I had gotten to know everyone on my beat. These were the down and outs, the dregs of society, living off of scraps. I tried to help where I could, even if it was a crust of bread, or a credit chip. Once or twice I got into big trouble for facing down a spice dealer who was paying off my Lieutenant.

“Those people remembered that and when I found myself on the streets, they gave me food and shelter.”

The door to their VIP room opens and they are assaulted by the heavy bass of the club as the serving droid comes in with their drinks. The three women wait in silence as the droid places the drinks in the center of the table and withdraws from the room without comment.

Ares takes a drink from the center of the table and sniffs it. There is no telling what the drunk Ensign ordered. Finding the scent agreeable, she cautiously takes a sip. Kaliyo shows no such hesitation. She grabs one of the drinks and downs half of it in one swallow.

As Ares is about to resume her story, Kaliyo stops her. “Helping the down trodden is all well and good, but what I want to know is: what is your real name and where did Ares Immortal come from?”

“My birth name is of no consequence” Ares says, waving the question away with her free hand. “The person that belongs to that name has been dead for decades.”

Kaliyo concedes the point with a shrug. “Ok, but what about Ares Immortal?”

“I was getting to that. Ares is the name of the god of war in a long dead religion. I took the name Ares as a warning to any who would stand in my way.”

“Naming yourself after a god. Arrogant. I approve” Kaliyo says, nodding and holding her drink up for a toast.

The three of them clink their glasses together and take a drink.

“And Immortal?” Temple presses.

“Patience, Ensign” Ares says, glancing her way.

Apparently having run out of liquid courage, Temple turns her attention to her drink, hoping to find more at the bottom.

Ares continues telling her story: “Those people helped me in what was a dark time for me. I’m not usually given to self pity or doubt, but in a matter of days everything I had known had been taken from me; my job, my family, my friends.

“They tried to protect me, but an uncle had decided that I was too much of an embarrassment to be left alive. He sent a couple of thugs after me.

“As inept as these thugs were, the street trash were no match for them. The thugs killed three of my friends trying to find out where I was. My friends never gave me up though.

“Once I found out about the thugs, I set a trap for them, lured them in and killed them. That was the day I assumed the moniker of Ares and cast off the expectations of my old life.

“I had killed before, twice actually. Both of those times were in self defense, in the line of duty. This time was different. I made a plan and I executed it. This time it was murder, though that thought didn’t occur to me until much later.’

Ares paused for a second. Her solid red eyes are difficult to read, but it seems to Ensign Temple that she is lost in her past. Wisely, the young Ensign holds her tongue.

With a small shake of her head, Ares returns to the present.

“I soon realized that losing my job as a police officer was one of the best things that had ever happened to me. My whole life had been scripted; by my family and by society. Now I was free of the script. I could choose what I did and where I went and I chose to be right where I was, in the slums.

“The group of people I was with had nothing and they were preyed upon by a half assed swoop gang, their Chiss name translates loosely as the Red Horizon. I look back now and I see a dozen ways to wipe those ******* out without even getting dirt on my boots. Back then though, I was young and even after four years on the streets, naïve.

“Still, I had a few things in my favor. For 17 years I had been groomed for a leadership position in the CEDF. That meant I knew a thing or two about how to fight and how to lead. The Red Horizon was a gang of thugs that liked to ride their swoops, kill and ****. They lacked discipline though and would break at the first sign of resistance.

“Most of the people on the streets had been there for their entire lives. They were broken and had very little strength in them, though there were a few still willing to fight. I knew that if I was going to get rid of the Red Horizon, I would have to find some help. Fortunately I knew who to talk to.

“One of my informants was a 12 year old kid, Sahaosr, he was smart and hated the Red Horizons. They had kidnapped his sister and then gang raped her. He found her four days later, stumbling down the street bleeding from a dozen wounds. Sahaosr took her home and tried to get her medical treatment but she died soon after.

“Sahaosr vowed revenge on the Red Horizons and tried to challenge their leader, a big brute named Kan'ahaul'ourno. Sahaosr was badly beaten in the encounter and almost died himself. After that, he became my informant, feeding me info on the Red Horizons activities.”

“Good for Sahaosr” Ensign Temple says. “It’s sad about his sister, but I’m glad he was strong enough to stand up to that swoop gang. What happened to him?”

Ares takes a swig of her drink and says “He died.”

“Oh, sorry.”

“Don’t be, Ensign. It was a good death.” The haunted look returns to Ares as she falls back into her history. “Sahaosr, me and two of his friends set a trap for the Red Horizons. The Horizons were predictable. They always rolled into the neighborhood the same way, two a breast on the swoops, and they were always hooting and hollering, paying more attention to themselves than they were the environment.

“We used that against them. We dug dead falls in the road, not deep, just enough to make them loose control of their swoops, and we strung a length of durasteel cable across the road, chest high to catch any that didn’t fall in the dead falls.

“There were only eight of them this time. They hit the dead-falls and cable doing around 50kph. Bikes and people went flying everywhere. Before the Horizons could recover, my friends and I attacked. I had a knife” unconsciously she pats the battered old dagger she keeps in a sheath on her right leg “and my friends had pipes or rocks. Those Red Horizons didn’t have a chance.

“We looted the bodies and came away with a couple blaster pistols, some ill fitting body armor and about 300 credits.”

“Wah-hoo” Kaliyo says as she holds her glass out. “A toast to Ares, the God of War.”

“Hardly” Ares chuckles, but she and Temple touch their glasses to Kaliyo’s and take a drink.

“Word quickly spread that we had killed those swoopers. Kan'ahaul'ourno had to respond quickly or he would look weak. He gathered up the rest of the Horizons, a little over thirty strong, and rolled into my neighborhood.”

Ares pauses for a second, then grunts. “Huh, never thought about it before, but I guess it was my neighborhood. I had always been treated well and respected by those people, but after killing that group of Red Horizons, I became their leader. It became my responsibility to protect them.

“Anyway, the Red Horizons were bullies to their core. They relied on bravado, intimidation, body armor and fierce tattoos to get their way and everyone usually cowered before them. Best of all, they were predictable. I can use predictable.

“After our initial victory, everyone wanted to help. I sent out a couple of scouts to keep an eye on the Red Horizons clubhouse. I figured I’d have a little over a day to prepare for their retaliation. They didn’t disappoint.

“Kan'ahaul'ourno brought the Red Horizons out in force. Most of them were high on spice, or drunk, or both. I was waiting for them though. They rolled into my neighborhood, Kan'ahaul'ourno in the lead, and found me standing in the middle of the street, waiting for them.

“Kan'ahaul'ourno was a huge Chiss, fully two meters tall, and well over 150kg. Much of that mass was bio-engineered muscle grafts. I had met him a couple times before, but that was when I was a cop and I had the advantage.

“This time was different. This time I had no police backup, and he knew it.”

Ares pauses to glance at her companions; Temple is leaning forward in her chair, hanging on every word, her drink forgotten. Kaliyo has kicked her feet up on the table and is leaning back in her chair, the front two legs off the ground. The rattataki is feigning boredom but Ares knows her well enough to see it is an act, she’s as enthralled in the story as the young Ensign is.

“He stopped his swoop a little in front of me and got off of it. The swoop actually rose a couple of centimeters in the air as its repellers were relieved of his massive bulk.

“He laughs at me as he gets off his swoop. ‘Well, if it isn’t the police *****!’ he pauses for a second and on cue, his gang laughs. ‘Are you the one who killed my boys?’

“I don’t reply, but I do step back so I am a outside his reach. ‘Look at that boys! She’s afraid of me. Poor cop doesn’t have any backup this time, does she!’

“His gang laughs louder and I hear a few replies of ‘Kill the cop *****!’ and ‘Rape the ****!’.”

The last bit catches Kaliyo’s attention. The front legs of her chair come crashing down, knocking Temple out of her reverie. “I hope you hurt those bastards” she says.

Ares just smiles and continues with her story.

“I knew what Kan'ahaul'ourno was doing. He was building up his gangs courage to attack. I knew I had to shut him down, but I was waiting for the right moment and I didn’t have to wait long.

“Like most bipedal humanoids, Chiss males keep the family jewels front and center, right between their legs, and I’m told they are very sensitive. I decided to experiment. The instant Kan'ahaul'ourno turned his head to look over his shoulder at his gang, I struck, with a kick to his groin.”

“YES!” Kaliyo bellows. “Nicely done, Agent.”

A look of shock passes over Temples face, which is quickly replaced by a huge smile and a giggle.

“Thank you ladies” Ares says with a smile, "but the story is not done yet.”

She continues: “Kan'ahaul'ourno slowly dropped to his knees, his mouth open in a silent howl of pain and his gang abruptly falls quiet. Kan'ahaul'ourno looks up at me in shock as I grab a fist full of his hair and shove my knife into his eye.

“Before the Red Horizons can recover from the loss of their leader, my people strike, lead by Sahaosr. There are fifteen of us and a little over thirty of them, but the swoopers are in shock and totally caught by surprise.

“I pull my knife from Kan'ahaul'ourno’s eye and let his body fall to the ground and launch myself into the melee. It wasn’t even close to a fair fight.

“The swoopers were not used to fighting against an enraged enemy. They were used to smacking around defenseless kids and the elderly. When faced with a determined foe, they crumbled and tried to run. We didn’t let them.

“Sahaosr died in that fight. He caught a blaster bolt from one of the Horizons, right through the center of his chest.” Ares pauses for a second.

“He was more than a friend, wasn’t he?” Temple asks.

Ares nods, not trusting herself to speak.

The three women a quiet for a moment, each reflecting on those they have lost.

“I need another drink. Order us a round of drinks, Ensign” Kaliyo orders.

Temple flashes Kaliyo an irritated look.

Ares catches the look and clears her throat. “Yes, please Ensign. Another round.”

Temple nods to Ares “Yes, Sir” and taps another order into the table.

Taking a deep breath, Ares continues with her story. “The fight was brutal. These people had been oppressed by the Red Horizons for years, and now they had their chance to extract revenge. From a numbers standpoint, we slaughtered them. Twenty-nine Red Horizons died that day, and only three of my people.

“There was a huge block party that night to celebrate our victory. The next day we raided the Red Horizons clubhouse. Any surviving members were smart enough to have skipped town by the time I showed up with my people.

“The Horizons made their money by selling spice and running guns, neither of which they did particularly well. I dismantled their spice operation but picked up the gun running where they left off.

“The twelve that survived the battle with the Red Horizons became my lieutenants; they got the best of the weapons and armor that was left in the clubhouse. Flush from their victory and newly armed, they felt invincible and they started calling themselves ‘Immortals,’ though I tried to dissuade them from it.

“The Immortals moniker stuck, and it didn’t take long for it to evolve into Ares’ Immortals. I liked the sound of that, so I adopted it and became known as Ares Immortal. Go big or go home I suppose.

“Anyway, the gun running business turned out to be extremely profitable and it became known on the streets as the Immortal Syndicate.”

A sharp gasp from Temple causes Ares to stop and look at her.

“I know that name” she exclaims. “Crap, that was you! How could I have not put that together before?”

“What am I missing?” Kaliyo asks.

Temple looks at Ares to see if she is going to answer. Ares smiles at the excited Ensign and motions for her to answer the question.

“The Immortal Syndicate was one of the first Chiss organizations to make contact with the Empire. They sold Chiss weapons to the Imperial military, if I remember correctly.”

“But why sell weapons to the military?” Kaliyo asks. “Where Chiss weapons better than Imperial weapons?”

“No” Temple replies. “The Chiss weapons were on par with Imperial weapons. The vast majority of the weapons went into private collections. The Brass love showing off their newest toys and at the time there was nothing newer or more novel than Chiss weapons. From what I heard, the Immortal Syndicate made millions of credits.”

Ares nods. “I’m impressed Ensign, that is exactly right.”

“But how are you alive? The Ascendancy moved in and shutdown the Immortal Syndicate just before they formalized the alliance with the Empire. You were killed, or umm, the reports say you were killed anyway.

“That is a story for another time. Let’s just say escaping that trap was my audition for Imperial Intelligence.”