Seated within the Glorious Jewel of the Hutts, the Winter Palace is situated on a remote island near the planet’s equator. Although blanketed with the pollution from Hutt industry, its location makes the climate hot and humid. Surrounded with trees and vines, it could be considered to be a paradise, even among the barren wasteland of Nal Hutta. Outside of the Winter Palace, a network of sewer pipes transfer the waste from the palace to wherever seems far enough to dump into the oceans surrounding the island. Flora and fauna that have adapted to the Hutt’s environmental changes thrive in the polluted forests surrounding the Winter Palace.

Stepping through its gilded gates, the lavish interior serves as the main audience chamber. Once belonging to the wealth of Jiliac Desilijic Tiron, the gleaming stone of the main aisle leads up to a Hutt’s dais lined with an expensive carpet. Beautiful tapestries line the high walls, telling of the sordid histories of those who woven them, awaiting execution in Jiliac’s dungeons.

Finally, the antechamber to the "throne" room is illuminated from above with high-skylighted ceilings. Constructed from lightly colored stone, the antechamber might have been where the late Hutt entertained his guests before an audience with spice and exotic dancers. In the hands of the Hutt Kajidics, however, these traditions have continued as the Winter Palace now serves as a front for criminal and business ventures that come and go.

Hevan adjusted his sight on his rifle as he overlooked the cartel's palace, setting his rifle's bipod up with his other hand. His small snipers nest in the trees gave him just enough of a view into the Hutt's conference room through one of the large windows. Now, all he had to do was wait. Hours passed as he sat, his eye glued to his scope, spiders and other creatures crawling freely over his body. Suddenly, the door to the room opened, the usual servants to the Hutts entering, flanking a party of visitors, then followed by his targets.

Setting his sight on the back of one of the Hutts, he caught a glimpse of one of the delegates. "The Dread Lord? What is she doing here?" He stat in deep thought, finger barely touching the trigger. He sighed after his moment, lifting his barrel and picking up his rifle. Dropping to the ground, he picked up his bag from the ground and began the walk to the palace.

"What she be playing at? Far as I knew, she was back home doing... Dread Lord stuff. " Talking to himself as he walked helped to ease the worry he felt. He didn't like being not being informed about stuff like this. Secrecy, he was well used to, but something as important as the Dread Lord going to an active mission's site without the usual glamour that she preferred to travel with annoyed him to no avail. Either he wasn't told, or it was said when he fell asleep in the morning briefing.

Without realizing it, he had arrived. The gate was uncharacteristic unguarded, not even a droid to keep watch. Something was wrong with this whole mission. Perhaps it was best to exfiltrate and report back to TuQ. Deciding against it, Hevan threw his grappling hook up to climb the walls, hoping to have a silent entrance.

Guards were not present in the courtyard either, allowing him to enter through one of the large castle's many windows. Now he was worried, the lack of guards was unusual for the Hutts. He snuck through the labyrinthine and narrow passages, becoming more worried as he faced a curious lack of opposition. The few guards he did encounter were easy to bypass, almost like they, and the whole palace, was blind. Every instinct in Hevan's body pressed him to leave, but curiosity drove him forward.

Entering the upper levels, he began searching for the conference room. He knew it was westward, but only that. Finally, he opened the door into the large room, only to find his targets being held at gunpoint by his Dread Lord. "Problem. Big, big problem."

Hevan muttered to himself as he spied out the room. Duty to clan, or job? This was not something he wanted to be facing now. He couldn't risk her killing the Hutts, he wouldn't get paid then. But he couldn't stop her. After all, his contract simply stated to use shock and awe, not kill everyone in the castle. Attack his targets against the Dread Lord's wishes, or attack the Dread Lord? He finally made up his mind, stepping out the shadows, into the large amphitheater.

Selika watched as the tall, broad shouldered man with the bearing of a soldier stepped out to face his targets. She almost let a smile tug at the corner of her mouth as he moved forward, his blaster rifle trained squarely on the Hutt he thought of as his target.

"I must insist, with all due respect my lord," Hevan said, his voice even so as to betray none of the confusion that Selika could feel roiling off of him in waves, "I believe that target is mine."

Selika made no move to respond as Hevan became even more confused as he watched his Dread Lord turn her back on him and jam the blaster held in her hand deep into the side of the corpulent Hutt. With slow steps the warrior moved to close the distance between himself and his target, moving his weapon closer to the Dread Lord before him.

"I said he's mine," Hevan spat, his frustration beginning to overwhelm his trepidation at opposing the Dread Lord. "My superiors sent me here to claim this one's head, and I'm not going to come in second."

Still, the Dread Lord who was now near to the barrel of his blaster made no move to even acknowledge his presence. Finally, as he finally seemed to throw caution to the wind, Hevan moved to grab the Dread Lord.

"Are you even listening to me?" he yelled angrily as his hand went for the woman's shoulder.

Instead of closing around the armored shoulder, his fingers passed through her as the apparition before him revealed itself for what it was. Blaster armed Dread Lord, Hutt dignitaries, the accompanying retinue, all seemed to dissolve into indistinct smoke and blow away into nothingness.

"I saw you up in your little tree, staring through your sniper scope," Selika said, stepping out from behind one of the exotic plants that stood along the meeting room's periphery. "I saw you before you even got up this morning."

"What!?" Slavis shouted, whirling around to face her as his weapon was still at the ready.

"Come now," Selika scoffed, "Holding a Hutt at blaster point? I thought TuQ'uan had taught you to be more observant of details than that."

"What is this?" her underling demanded, causing Selika to inwardly relish his outrage.

"A little test, Slavis," Selika explained. "It's always good to understand the capabilities of one's subordinates. There's no better way than to see them first hand."

"Why here?" Hevan said, his eyes still darting around to the various corners of the room as if he still had yet to come to trust his surroundings as real.

"The Hutts have always been accommodating," Selika answered. "You don't spend three years at the head of the Shroud Syndicate without making friends in low places. Now, go on. Take your shot, Equite."

The man's hands gripped the blaster in his hands as if it were a lifeline he clung to, beads of sweat forming on his forehead. His eyes were now locked with hers, no nervous glances at the entrances to the room.

"And if I don't?" he asked.

"Then you won't make it out of here alive…"

Before she could finish her taunt, three angry blaster bolts leapt from her adversaries blaster barrel in quick succession. Only the reflexive barrier she called into being between them stopped the shots from turning her face into a burning crater. He had gone straight for the harder kill shot, not risking that her armor might have defeated an easier, center mass shot trying to put her down.

"Good," Selika said with a smile.

Before Hevan could react Selika wove the Force together and lashed out with her mind, extending out her left hand towards him to focus her effort. The wave of Force energy shot him backwards, lifting him from his feet as it did so. The blow itself did little to inflict any damage, but the momentum took him crashing into the window behind him.

The Hutts had spared no expense to surround themselves with luxury, and the hand crafted window made from real glass was no exception. The impact of Hevan's body smashed the glass into shards, doing little to arrest his motion. Out into the air he flew, dropping down below Selika's view as he fell to the courtyard a full level below. Selika, her inactive lightsaber hilt now in her hand, strode across the room and leapt out of the window. Using her telekinetic skill to arrest her fall, she touched down lightly as glass crunched beneath her boots.

"Hmm, it seems you're a bit more durable than it first appeared," Selika mused, seeing no sign of her opponent aside from the broken glass that now littered the courtyard.

Hevan ran. He knew better than to try to stay and fight, he had seen the remains of those who had tried that before. He ran, past anything that tried to stop him. He only cared about getting to a more advantageous position. As he ran, he swore in between breaths, cursing himself for even staying. Suddenly, he stopped running, being pulled back into the castle. Squirming and twisting in midair, he struggled to hold his rifle towards his attacker, managing to let off a single shot that severed a bang of Selika’s hair, causing her to drop him as she screamed in agony, the sound alone perhaps rupturing her eardrums.

Hevan knew, now, there would be no more running. If he ran, he would only die at a later time. He drew his blade, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath.

“I can feel your fear.” Selika’s voice, coupled with the sound of her blade ignoring, woke him from his stupor and chilled him to the bone. Perhaps he had gone too far and actually angered her. That would be a fatal mistake, one that he had no intention of committing.

He steeled himself, spinning on his toe and facing the dread lord. She circled him like a hunting predator, her saber carving a circle into the floor around them. The two’s blades met in a clash, but her attack was not true.

“You’re testing me.” Hevan backed away, now perfectly facing his superior.

“How very perceptive of you. I shall commend TuQ on his excellent teachings.” Hevan did not need to use the force to recognize her sarcasm, instead closing his mind in a feeble attempt to resist what he knew was coming.

It came, with the mere hand motion of a wave, but the emotional wave of an angry gundark. With the simple wave, waves of past trauma and pain resurfaced over his mind. Past soldiers, family, friends all long dead, memories of their deaths hitting him like a runaway land speeder.

Clutching his head and kneeling on the floor, he tried to push these thoughts away. Selika approached his trembling body, lifting his head to look her in the eyes, her signature smirk of arrogance etched upon her face. Tears streamed down Hevan’s face, distracting Selika as he grabbed his lightsaber.

A click and the blade of energy from the hilt pierced Selika’s thigh, dropping her to the ground.

Pushing away the thoughts, Hevan grabbed Selika’s saber and ran, knowing the dread lord would be unable to properly follow in time to stop him from setting a sniper’s nest up.

Selika screamed out a series of invectives, never repeating herself, that ended with a hissing intake of breath as she gave in to the anger boiling up from within. Overconfidence had led her to underestimate her opponent and, somehow, his weapon had found a gap in her armor to stab into her leg. The only thing that saved her from bleeding out right then and there was a lightsaber's cauterization of her wound, but that didn't stop it from feeling like someone had driven a white hot spur of metal into her leg and left it there.

Stupid, stupid, stupid, Selika chided herself as she summoned the mental focus to push the searing pain in her leg into a walled off corner of her mind.

Her mental control was enough to banish the physical sensation of pain from her conscious mind for the time being, but the physical damage to her leg still left her moving with a pronounced limp. Her lightsaber ignited and at the ready, she moved after him like a wounded, stalking beast seeking her prey. Outside of the walled courtyard, the terrain abandoned the manicured order of the Hutts and gave itself over to the more wild, untamed flora of Nal Hutta. The only sound Selika could hear from her one good ear was the slight breeze rustling the leaves around her as it seemed any of the local fauna was giving the armored, saber wielding Sith a wide berth.

"Run and hide," Selika spat in frustration. "Rely on your crude weapons because you don't trust yourself in the Force. Hopefully, you will learn."

As she pushed her Force perception out farther from her, that is when she finally sensed Hevan. There he was, just behind the trunk of a felled tree just below the crest of a hill. What was more remarkable was that she could sense the eddies in the Force woven around him, bending not only the light around himself to hide him from sight but also his own glowing essence in the Force. Cloaked and concealed, he was truly hidden. But not from her. He was staring down the scope of his rifle, watching Selika as she moved along the path winding its way through the trees. It was obvious that he was waiting for her to pass by so he could manage an unobstructed shot at her back, giving her little warning and ensuring that her blade was not between his weapon and its target.

"I'm sure this has worked for you very well," Selika murmured to herself. "I guess I should play along."

Selika continued to advance down the path, her movement almost automatic as her attention was firmly fixed on her quarry. She sensed the tension in his muscles, the dull aches he still felt from his fall, even the beads of sweat forming on his brow that now ran down his cheek. His breaths were slow and even, the Equite ready to take his shot as soon as the best opportunity presented itself. Selika felt his finger begin to squeeze the trigger as she passed his position and showed him her back, acting before he could complete the motion.

The Force currents of her telekinetic grip closed around the weapon and slammed it backwards with a short, sharp motion. Only an instinctive jerk away saved Hevan's eye as the weapon jolted rearward, the scope instead digging a gash across his face that now gushed blood. The stock of the weapon slammed into his shoulder like a jackhammer, breaking his clavicle and dislocating his shoulder in the process. The weapon continued backwards, spinning end over end as it disappeared into the bushes.

As Hevan pitched backwards with the force of the blow, Selika had already redirected her focus to the fallen tree between them. Gritting her teeth with effort, she grasped the tree with her mind and pulled upwards. The weight of it resisted her at first, but it finally moved upward as it wrenched itself free of the packed dirt around it. Keeping it a few feet off the ground, Selika pushed it backwards and then let it drop, slamming down atop Hevan and pinning him to the ground. Snapping twigs were accompanied by cracking ribs, as the armored chest piece he wore did little to stop the impact of the weight atop him. The huge log shifted slightly and came to rest, pinning his body and one of his arms beneath it. The scream that ripped itself from the Equite's mouth was equal parts rage and pain, the latter taking over at the end as his fractured ribs grated against one another with his breath.

Selika allowed herself a self satisfied smirk as she made her way up the slope to where her opponent lay, the pain in her leg starting to pierce through the barrier she had built to keep it away after her Force exertion. She hadn't really needed to be so showy, but sometimes the situation called for a bit of dramatic flair.

"Still alive?" she chided him as she finally came face to face with him again.

"Witch!" he screamed, a spray of blood coming from his mouth as he did so. The vitriol of his response trailed off into a weezing groan, the shout having once again extracted its toll in the form of the pain in his chest.

"Now now, you're just lucky," Selika explained, "that you picked a smaller log to hide behind. Anything bigger and you'd probably be dead."

The Equite stayed quiet this time, but the fire in his stare would have burned her to a cinder if it had been flame. Unstrapping the commlink from the wrist of her armor, Selika tossed it down next to him within reach of his own free hand.

"Call yourself some help," Selika said, turning to make her way back to where her ship waited. "And be sure they bring a saw."