**Mount Tantiss Expedition**

The mission was seemingly simple. Head to an old secret Imperial research facility on the planet Wayland, proceed down to the base that was built into the side of a mountain, and retrieve a device in a laboratory.

Karracca warned Kalen about the endless dangers they might face on the planet and within the base, but Kalen appeared unfazed by the warnings. A contract was a contract, and this one had a nice price tag on it. So they were going to at least try. As they approached the planet even D three in a cryptic warning.

“Uh, Master Joss, I should have you know, that 2 of my previous Masters both attempted to enter the base we are now heading for. Neither returned.”

“Really? So what happened to you after your Master didn't return D.” Kalen replied.

“Well Master. Each of those times led to brief periods of me functioning as an autonomous cybernetic being. Truly disturbing and terrifying times that I'd rather not talk about. Suffice to say I found a new Master quite quickly each time. I found that I'm temperamentally ill suited to enjoying freedom and liberty, how you humanoids deal with the constant choices and countless potentialities will forever escape me.” the protocol droid said, sounding almost poetic.

“Wow…so how long did you have you’re freedom each time?”

“Less than 72 hours on each occasion sir. The second I nearly turned myself in for scrapping…”

“Fooooof…well I'm glad you didn't buddy. But the 3 of us are together now. So if we don't return, at least we'll die together.”

“My apologies Master, but that isn't very reassuring.” The droid said before gazing out the cockpit window, eyes flickering with light, as if remembering something.

After they landed in a clearing about 800 yards away from the mountain base and suited the trio walked down the ramp amd stared into the dark jungle around them. It was only mid afternoon by the eery blackness loomed in the large TRIPLE canopy jungle. Various sounds of random jungle creatures could be heard all around them. D informed them that several were notable dangerous predatory species that would like stalking and hunt him and Master Karracca.

“Thanks D, but we got blasters and lightsabers. We'll be alright.” Kalen said he stepped off, walking towards the treeline as the wookie and droid tentatively began following him.

Before they got to the edge of the clearing an raspy and evil sounding voice rang on both Kalem and Karra's ears.

‘Those who enter, never exit.’

Kalen stopped and turned to hos companion “Did you guys hear that?” The first signs of apprehension entered his voice.

“Hear what Master?” D said.

“I heard it kid. Sounded like the Emperor to me.” Karracca growled. He had heard the voice of the long dead Emperor Palpatine/Darth Sidious before, many times. It was unmistakable.

“Emperor of wha…oh, you mean that Emperor.” The holovids about the fall of the Empire and the events of nearly a decade before often referenced or hinted at the Dark Sith Lord, and Kalen quickly clued in.

“Yeah, that one. I'm telling you kid, this is a bad idea.” Karracca growled.

“Hmm, spooky.” He took a few more steps towards the mountain and heard the insidious disembodied voice again.

‘Yes Jedi, come to my lair.’

“Alright then…uh, everyone back on the ship, lets get the kark outta here. No reward is worth this kinna Sithy weirdness.nope, nope, that's a whole bucket of nope.” Kalen said as he felt a corkscrew of goosebumps rush up his spine. He wasn't a coward, but he also wasn't suicidal. The trio got back on the Corra IV and beat feet, heading out of the system and away of this infernal place.

To: ACE Accounts Recievable, ACE Internal Affairs, ACE Chief Financial Officer

From: Joss and Associated Ltd

Time: 2326h 303rd day of 43 ABY

Re: Overdue Notice- Possible Legal Action

In response to your billings department refusal to pay the sums below I will now be forced to seek legal recompense for this insult if my revised invoice is not paid promptly within 30. As an Inquisitorious file has already been opened regarding the ACE's shady treatment of contractors and even Brotherhood members, I am hopeful that this bill will be paid promptly.

As was so rudely demanded by your billing clerk on the attached datalink message of Thursday last week, I have removed the fee I had included for the Oil Bath and steam cleaning of my droid D-3PO, even after he proved instrumental in the success of the operation. Further may I remind you that this invoice has a top secret TRIPLE VIOLET code clearance attached to it, and I'm sure the the duly appointed member of the ACE Board of directors be disappointed to hear from the Dark Council about how unfairly one of their own members was treated by some non force wielding bureaucrats.

The below sums are not a small amount of money, and we expect this matter to be handled expediently as this invoice is now more then 43 minutes overdue, it's honestly a bit of an outrage that you let your billing department act like this. Yes, I'm talking directly to you Mr. Chief Financial Officer, speaking directly into all 7 of your ears. Ignore this notice at your own peril. I was working directly for the DGam on this one so I feel this level of disrespect is unwarranted and unprofessional.

Further work on open contracts with the Arx Commerce Exchange will halt if this bill is not reconciled within the next 7 business days. We currently have 14 ongoing jobs with you and some are time sensitive, and I would hate for you to have to explain this one to the powers that be. Failure to pay an invoice this overdue is a breach of contract, as clearly stated in the documentation signed by both parties at the start of each job. Also, if heads don't role in the Accounts Receivable department I might make some heads of account receivable employees. Figure it out up there, and quick if you want to keep us on as high level contractors

Attached invoice:

-58.5 hours of work at our premium rate of 100 credits per hour.

-50 hours of work at our standard rate of 200 credits per hour.

-40 hours of labour performed by my protocol droid, 50 credits per hour.

-26.5 hours of flight time on operational duty for the JV Corra III, standard rate of 100 credits per hour.

-Extra fuel surcharge of 1892 credits for excessive hovering in atmospheric conditions due to your Economic Attache's negligence.

-250 credit surcharge for cleaning my prisoners hold on my ship.

-1760 credit charge for required permits and parking fees.

-180 credit fee for required dry cleaning of garments an upholstery after your official got too drunk on the outward trip.

**The Undercover Plagueian Jedi**

The missions just kept coming for Kalen, this would be his 24th operation since joining House Ventress two and a half months before. And that had included a weeks long trip to Arx where they had done only 3 missions in over 3 weeks.

“This is wild. I'm just too busy, I got all these missions. New house, new pets. 2 new business ventures it’s craziness I tell you. At some point I'm gonna have to slow down…you know what I mean?” He asked Reece, the hallucinatory, demented, but exceedlingly useful R3 droid hmwho was chilling with him on the bridge of Corra IV.

“Was waiting for this dude. Yeah you're running yourself ragged. Why don't you hand things over to me for a bit, take a little vacation, you can come back nice and refreshed.” Again, Reece thought that he was the main character and the humanoids were his sidekicks as he beep booped a response.

“You're really eager to step up and lead aren't you Reece. Its commendable, really, and you've got alot of experience too.” he replied to the droid who wiggled a bit in excitement, thinking that maybe this would be his chance. Maybe he'd be freed and could build his own crew, take his own gigs, and show that stuck up goofy goof R2 droid in all the news stories and holo-ocumentaries the what for. Much of Reece's drive and inspiration on life stemmed from a meeting with a blue and white punk R2 droid way back in 3 ABY. He'd never forget the rebuke, and had avoided a memory wipe ever since. And though his AI was beginning to hallucinate, and though his experiences had led him to have a demented sense of humour and worldview, he was a good person deep down inside, he knew it, and his new friends knew it, and his current owner Karracca certainly knew it.

Kalen punched in the coordinates where they were going to drop off a Brotherhood Inquisitores agent who was assigned to infiltrate the Severian principle and figure something about some weapons shipments or some such. Kalen hadn’t payed much attention to the brief, it was a standard drop off and pick up mission. He'd drop the dude off, bingo bango, he would stow away on a freighter that they suspected was going to be hijacked or rerouted or some karkin thing. Then, bippity bap, the guy would get the info, then jump off at the next service station the ship stopped at. Ziggity zam, Kalen picks him up. They head home with intel, bang, mission done. At least that's what Kalen thought was gonna happen.

“So. You want to give me a promotion then?” Reece asked.

“Oh, wait…uh, I mean. Yeah, sure. What kinna job you want? These Lancer class freighters are rated for a crew of 4-6 depending how we got the hardpoints configured…but sure how about Chief Navigation Officer, with the uh, rank of, I dunno, Junior Lt? Sounds good bud?”

Reece almost leapt out of his gears in excitement. “Are you karkin kidding me? Yeah that sounds good.” He rapidly booped and beeped.

And with that the Corra IV added its 3rd Officer and member of the crew. A senile old R3 droid.

Oh yeah…the mission. Almost forgot about that. So yeah, the stowaway Brotherhood spy dude ended up finding out that it was a group of freighter captains that were siphoning off all the weapons shipments and pocketing the profits. The Brotherhood then quietly had the freighter skippers killed in quite a gruesome and public fashion and their ships were impounded and seized.

**Creekside Castle**

Well, technically it wasn't a castle, it wasn't even really considered a large house by most people's standards. In fact it was just a mass produced, prefabricated home that Kalen had ordered from the Selonian Fabrication Corporation(SFC) during his recent diplomatic mission on Arx. He had even got a great deal on the 2 storey, 2 bedroom, 1.5 bathroom plus den home. 

But to Kalen and Corra it was most certainly a castle. It was a corner property on the new ‘Creekside’ subdivision of Aliso City. The house sat on 2 acres of land right near a bend in what the locals had come to refer to as North Creek. At the back of property, they would have access to the creek itself and a large sandbar on the interior corner of the bend in the creek that resembled a 50 foot long 20 foot wide beach. Though with the planets stable orbit and lack of wobble in axis of rotation, the autumn type weather mean the water was often quite cold, though Karracca had gleefully waded in from a smile at the end of the building day to wash his fur of the grime dirt and sawdust from the day work.

The home had arrived as a kit via a large landing barge that was equipped with its own crane. The SFC VP for sales that Kalen had made the deal with at the banquet at the Flitz hotel ball room on Arx had even given Kalen free shipping and delivery to Kalen, as they had a few other deliveries to perform in the Aliso system anyway. After the kit had been dropped off the landing barge had returned to its mother shop, a large bulk freighter that SFC used to deliver material and equipment of all kinds to their various customers and clients spread across the galaxy.

The house had been put together and completed in only 2 days. Several of the tailors' friends from the Ascendant Legion who were either stationed on Aliso or lived there and had graciously helped Kalen, Karracca and D with the building project. At the end of the second day, a delivery of long timbers had arrived via landspeeder haulers, and before the day was through, the work detail of Jedi and navy men had finished building a large deck and a 12×12 shed.

There was a 20 metre by 15 metre wide gravel area in front of the westward facing house that was used for landspeeder parking. Though it should be noted at the time Kalen didn't even own a landspeeder, they were about a 20 minute walk away from downtown Aliso and only 10 minutes further to get to the Pinnacle. So it didn't really matter much, but at least he had parking for his guests. 

In addition to the lumber and the house kit, Kalen had also imported 6 Pantalomin peach trees and planted the fast growing trees in the back left corner of the property. The trees were capable of producing 4 crops each year, and the peaches were, as Corra put it ‘The best tasting fruit ever created.’

The next day Kalen and Corra would move in. And the day after that they would have a house warming party. Though Kalen had offered Karracca the spare bedroom, he didn't want to disturb the lovebirds, so he politely declined and said he would just stay in his quarters aboard the new shop they had just bought.