After her latest and long mission for Ledora, Hanshara takes the ship to Malastare for repairs. She finds Khameir, negotiating for cloning materials, and meets with him after their long separation.

Striding to the repair shop, she left instructions for repairs and the readout from the log, then considered how she might find Khameir. Sub-space communications having finally failed before she could ask Ledora for more exact details of his whereabouts, she would first have to try local links using their personal encryption system - which she did. A very short message stating arrival time, date, location, and her initials was dispatched immediately.

Meanwhile, Khameir became aware of her arrival, and he quickly checked ship to terrestrial communications, then the local link where he retrieved the message. He responded with a set of planetary coordinates, local time, and the simple instruction "Come, KS".

Hanshara appeared at the gate to the private garden where the merchants, their Guild Leaders, and Khameir were taking a short recess from their talks. Khameir walked to the gate, stood for a moment looking at her, smiling, and impatiently raised his right hand.

The locked gate swung open, and he stepped forward. Bending, he took both her hands to kiss them, touched her cheek then her neck, saying, "Beloved Tai Shan," while his mind touched hers, enfolding her within. In that instant, he revealed to her his aching want for her, his need for her presence, his overwhelming desire after this long separation.

"Beloved Khameir, beloved Lord," she whispered. She looked into his blazing yellow eyes and momentarily caressed his face, understanding how he felt, revealing to him her need also.

"Come," said Khameir, briskly taking her with him to the group of curious Malastarian and Zabrak citizens sitting by the water sculpture. "Gentlemen, my consort, the Lady Hanshara Sinn-Tau."

"An unusual alliance!" murmured the Guild Master, who returned Khameir's malefic glare with equanimity. The Zabrak traders meanwhile, looked surprised, wondering how such an alliance was possible at all, looking at Hanshara with undisguised interest.

"I have not seen my husband for some time," said Hanshara. "It would be a great privilege to tour your beautiful garden while I wait for him."

There were murmurs of concern and consent, she was offered refreshment and a young maid was instructed to show her the delights of the garden and to see to her comfort.

The Master of the Guild of Merchants was a stern but kindly man who thought highly of Lord Sarin and his honest dealings with him. When he saw the way Khameir looked over his cup at Hanshara talking to the maid in the distance, he said, "The lady is most dear to my Lord Sarin I think."

Khameir slowly turned and stared at the Master, and friend though he was, gave a look that would have quelled a lesser man. The Master continued in a low voice, saying, "...and those feelings are more than returned I think!" as he also looked at Hanshara. Khameir continued his stare, and raised his head as if to warn the Master that this was none of his concern.

"Take care young warrior. I have some skill in matters of prescience, and there are those close to you who would harm you."

Khameir was startled, said nothing, but lowered his gaze into his cup and pondered the matter. Then he thanked the Guild Master.

Khameir's negotiations for cloning materials were successfully concluded that day, and he attributed this in large part to the presence of his Tai Shan, and that the perceptions of the Merchants were perhaps mellowed by her.

At the end of the day he rented a flyer, very small, very cramped. There was just room for two, a basket of fruit, and a bottle of local wine. He took them to a secluded riverbank, where they sat on the soft yielding grass and picnicked in the last of the warm sunlight. After they had eaten and the remains were cleared away, Khameir pulled Hanshara down beside him. Whatever his intentions, she lay down with her hands behind her head, closed her eyes, and smiling, she soaked up the last of the sun.

He leaned over her, stroking her forehead and cheek, taking her hands and kissing them, courting her again. Whispering soft words of love to her, he undid her belt and pulled her tunic aside to kiss the throat and shoulders of his beloved. As he kissed her breasts and circled the rosy nipples with his tongue, she sighed with pleasure and murmured his name, drawing her fingers along the contours of his face, touching his horns, making him shiver with delight.

He stroked and kissed her soft belly, moving down to her intimate places, and allowed his manhood to harden, achingly so. "Take me now....." he said, undoing the ties of her breeches, taking her hand down to his.

As she pulled at the fastenings of his garments, Hanshara strained her body to his saying, "Slowly, that I may enjoy every moment, and remember how it is when we are parted".

So Khameir cradled her head in his hands, and drowned in the dark pools of her eyes as she guided him into her. They moved slowly together, savouring each tiny portion of time, each movement, each sensation, until their passion would be controlled no more. He bent his head to her neck to inhale her scent, then reached for her mind, and they joined, until their bodies also joined together in ecstasy. She screamed then, arching her back until he thought it would break, her breath coming in great shuddering gulps.

Then Khameir lay across her chest, not withdrawing, holding her head in his hands again, kissing and teasing her lips until she opened her eyes to drown in his. Wrapping her legs around him, she commanded him to stay inside her, not to leave her. "As my Lady wishes!" he said, smiling down at her, wanting himself to stay for all time, starting to move in her again, feeling her eager body enclosing his.

This time was also long and luxurious. Long slow strokes as Khameir purred and Hanshara sighed and moaned with pleasure, each totally immersed in the here and now and each other. Hanshara caressed his back, his shoulders, his arms, hearing his laboured breathing, comforted by the purr deep within his chest. She touched and stroked every bit of him she could, renewing her knowledge of his body with her fingertips. Her hands moved up to his neck, and his horns, then she stroked the bases of the temple horns to make him whimper and shudder and whisper to her, "Again, again." She opened his lips with her tongue and explored his mouth, enjoying the different metallic tangy taste of him, feeling his teeth, pointed and sharp.

He used the Force to send tendrils of love and desire into her mind, and to increase their sensation of each other. She used the Force to bring him deeper within her, to make memories to sustain her during their times apart.

They held each other all night as the twin moons of Malastare rose and set. They wrapped their long cloaks over them to keep away the chill and damp of the river as they kissed, caressed, and devoured each other.

Then they parted again.
 

Rune Haako was greedy, even for a Trade Baron. He was constantly envious of the success of others, always eager to renegotiate deals to his own advantage, and always very eager to renegotiate a deal to someone else's disadvantage. When the spy reported to Rune that there were rumours of a new and strange race of beings on Nurius III, and possibly a fortress-like structure hidden under the mountains, his first thought was that the Jedi, or Palpatine, were conniving against the Trade Federation and himself. Perhaps to the benefit of Malastare or the Zabrak rather than the Trade Federation.

There was no evidence to support this theory and he was at first inclined to disregard it, but then Rune struggled to dredge knowledge from the depths of his mind. A hint, a fragment of something nearly lost or taken perhaps. A sliver of memory which irritated and gnawed a little. Why would it be possible that the Jedi were not impartial? Then Rune remembered that the Jedi and the Zabrak were linked somehow. Having no proof, Rune decided to send the spy to investigate Nurius III, and bring evidence with which to confront any conspirators.

"Send no communication," said Rune to Chadran Hoth. "Send nothing that may be intercepted. Only bring to me proof of what you find, in person and to no other."

"Assuming there is something to be found, what sort of proof do you need Baron?" said Hoth.

"Images, sounds, artifacts or other things taken from the planet surface. Use non re-writeable media, there must be no doubt about its authenticity," replied Rune, dismissing the spy with the injunction to be thorough rather than immediate.

Having sent the spy on his errand, Rune decided to prepare the ground for further negotiations with Governor Palpatine. But the question of proof was still on his mind, and his instructions to Hoth were too recent to have dissolved from it.

"There are allegedly rumours of inhabitants on Nurius III," said Rune to Palpatine, as they congenially shared a mild stimulant.

"Come Baron, the planet has been surveyed and scanned most thoroughly by our Guardians of Galactic Justice!" said Palpatine.

"And if the scans are not perfect? And if those 'rumours' are secreting themselves in a hidden place Governor? What else might that place hold?"

Palpatine smiled poisonously at the Baron, and said in a low whisper, only for Rune's ears, "Perhaps the sort of wealth one can only dream of Baron! Why, perhaps we should share it?" and Palpatine invaded his mind and found the spy, and where he had been sent, and when. Then for a while, he indulged the Baron with vague talk of private treaties and vast wealth shared between them only.

Escaping Rune's attentions, with great urgency, Palpatine summoned his Aide. "Chadran Hoth, destroy him. Even now he is preparing to go to Nurius III under the direction of Rune Haako to find proof of our enterprise. Such proof must not be allowed to happen. Do this now, there must be no delay."
 

Stalking the spy, Khameir sat at the controls of the Interceptor, stationed behind the asteroid. Tracking devices were activated, the ship was cloaked, and he was tense with anticipation, looking forward to the action to come. Magnified on his viewscreen, the spy's ship was still on the surface of Nurius III, partly obscured by the low wind-scoured hill behind which it had been landed. On seeing the spy appear from his observation point, Khameir checked the laser cannon and activated the tracking mechanism of the forward pair. And waited. Patiently.

Chadran Hoth walked towards his ship, a small but fast craft with two booster engines and two extra laser cannon. There was also a cloaking device similar to that installed on the Interceptor.

The spy was on edge. His instincts told him that something was wrong, he felt watched, observed, that someone was looking at his every move. Khameir cloaked his mind to escape detection by Hoth's primitive use of the Force and the spy's mood lightened a little as the sensation eased. Even so, there was a remnant, and carrying his imaging equipment, he quickly walked up the loading ramp and stowed it away. Preparing for lift-off, he decided not to use the cloaking device. It only had a little of its limited life left, he was reluctant to use it.

From his own vantage point, Khameir watched with narrowed eyes as the ship lifted off the surface and blasted into space, accelerating rapidly towards Malastare and a meeting with Rune Haako. The Interceptor moved from it's hiding place, followed the spy into open space and rapidly closed the distance between them.

The first intimation that something was wrong came to the spy when two laser bolts crossed in front of his ship and Lord Sarin appeared on the communications screen. "I suggest you stop, spy," said Khameir helpfully.

"Or?" snarled Hoth, trying to feel brave.

For answer, Lord Sarin took aim, caressed the trigger of the canon, and sent a laser bolt down the side of the ship, scoring the hull with pin-point accuracy. Hoth started in his seat. He was a spy, used to lurking in dark alleyways and conversing in shadows. He was not a coward, but he was not brave either, and the attention of Palpatine's Aide was not something he wished for.

Looking intently at the viewscreen, Lord Sarin focused his mind on the spy and prepared himself to use the Force. He caused tendrils of fear to gently stir in the mind of Hoth, and to swell and grow, then he followed this with another laser bolt which destroyed the aft communications module. Hoth closed his eyes, fought the fear, and activated the cloaking device, then the booster engines, sending his ship screaming down the space lane.

"Too late spy, I have you now!" whispered Lord Sarin, sending the Interceptor in pursuit.

Chased by laser bolts, the spy tried to evade it's more powerful pursuer, using both speed and cunning to try and shake off the ship. But to no avail. The Interceptor easily maintained the distance between the two and Sarin increased the fear starting inside Hoth's mind until the spy decided it was time to die, turned the little ship viciously, and made to ram the Interceptor.

"Indeed, time to die now" whispered Khameir to Hoth caressingly, sending a final jolt of almost paralysing fear down his spine, and the spy's ship exploded as a fusillade of laser bolts seared into the cockpit.
 

To be continued...