Published: July 1st 2023, 5:22:07 pm
The Xanadu dropped out of hyperspace at a decidedly unconventional spot, over three hundred thousand kilometers z-negative of Nal Hutta itself.
Its form shimmered briefly briefly in the void before vanishing.
I checked the cloaking system briefly, getting only green status lights from the diagnostic. ‘We’re good to go, master,’ I thought to Anakin. ‘We didn’t even get pinged by their traffic control grid.’
‘Seems like it was worth spending all that extra computer time on the calculations then. I doubt that many sensors are even pointed in this direction.’
It took us barely over four minutes of travel, even at the relatively slow acceleration of 1800G that would keep the cloak intact, to cross the distance into a high orbit of Nal Hutta, then another minute to adjust that orbit for an intercept of Nar Shaddaa.
Next was entry into the atmosphere. Just barreling straight into the atmosphere for a least time entry and aerobraking would not only compromise the cloak but also light up even the oldest and most primitive sensors that were pointed at the sky. Anakin therefore had to carefully flip the Xanadu and begin matching Nar Shaddaa’s orbital velocity around its parent planet and carefully slow it down so that we essentially ‘slipped’ into the atmosphere as Nar Shaddaa itself caught up with us.
The maneuver was not complicated for a skilled pilot and we were essentially treating the moon as if it was something to dock with in space, it just so happened to also have an atmosphere. Most ships didn’t bother with atmospheric slipping because it was slower and used more fuel, a problem that was compounded as the mass of the ship went up. If you didn’t care about those things, then it wasn’t a problem.
The moon now dominated our rear view, growing ever closer.
It really was an ugly thing. A light mud brown from space and even the few clouds that were visible had a brown tinge to them. It really did look like it’s more derisive name; Little Slugland.
It was an ecumenopolis and the reason for its brown appearance was simply due to pollution from power plants and the venting of their excess heat. I was very grateful that M8 came standard with a filter for such environments, I was even tempted to go for a full vacuum rated seal and use my onboard oxygen supply only. Besides the obvious problem that our stay here would probably be longer than the supply lasted, there was no telling what problems we would encounter on the smuggler’s moon and using the oxygen so frivolously wasn’t wise.
The Xanadu slipped into the upper atmosphere and the stratospheric winds began buffeting the ship. Anakin smoothly corrected for deviations and turned towards our identified landing coordinates.
Already I could see the tallest spires of Nar Shaddaa, some reaching three kilometers in height spearing through the air towards us. The small dots and lights that represented speeders, shuttles and transports of every description, snaking through the barely organized air lanes that weaved around the buildings of the surface level of the moon.
Our approach just happened to be on the ‘night’ side of the moon’s dance around Nal Hutta, which was further complicated by the fact that it was tidally locked to it - one side always faced the planet, whilst the other faced open space.
Already I could begin to see the surface differences between this moon and Coruscant - the holo signs and physical signs mounted on the buildings were mostly in Huttese, which in written form to my eyes looked like someone who had vomited up some spaghetti. Only occasionally were these signs supplemented with Basic translations flashing underneath. The images in these were also more fitting of the Hutt version of Coruscant - obviously featuring a lot of hutts drawn in stylized manner, but there was quite a lot of twi’lek eye candy on display as well.
In one extreme example the Xanadu stealthily flew past a gigantic blue holo-twi’lek who was mostly nude and constantly threw flirting looks and blew kisses at passing shuttles and ships, whilst the name of some establishment in huttese floated above her head.
Yeah, you wouldn’t see that on Coruscant, unless you went to the much lower levels and even then it would not be so blatant or overt.
That was a good description for ‘Narsh’ - as it was called in short form slang by its residents; blatant, vulgar, over-the-top in everything and was a reflection of the species that dominated it.
‘Approaching drop point, Snips,’ Anakin’s voice in my head pulled me out of my woolgathering, though I could sense a slight amusement that my eye had been caught by the giant twi’lek holo.
‘I saw you looking too, Skyguy,’ I poked him on the pauldron of his armor.
He only shrugged as if to say, he couldn’t help it, he was a guy. He flicked a couple of switches and looked into the twitching mechanical eye stalk of Xanadu’s integrated droid intelligence. “Okay, Xanadu, you know what to do.”
“Affirmative, Master. Be careful.”
“You too.”
We got out of our respective pilot seats and headed into the back to make the final touches and inspections of our armor.
M8 reported that all systems were green and functioning nominally as I holstered both my WESTAR blasters on my hips and hid the Darksaber in a specially designed smuggling compartment on the back of my utility belt, which was disguised to look like a cylindrical auxiliary life support unit for the armor. That was not the only change, as we had both removed the military camo, Republic, and Jedi insignias from our Aegis armors.
A repaint now had us looking like two very well armed, red and green armored bounty hunters or mercenaries.
Anakin had picked up a pair of blasters of his own after we had made a quick stop at Randon.
When he chose two DL-44 heavy blaster pistols, I had to bite my lips to keep from outright giggling in disbelief. Thankfully Anakin hadn’t enquired too deeply on my reaction, writing it off as yet another typical ‘Ahsoka quirk’.
Even now as he fiddled with the holsters on his legs and checked the extra power cells, I had to make sure to bury my amusement into the deepest corners of my mind.
I threaded my montrals and lekku into my helmet and secured it. The HUD activated and began augmenting my vision as it also paired a datalink with Anakin’s Aegis.
“One minute to drop point,” announced Xanadu in my HUD
Anakin stepped up to the meditation bench and after fiddling with a hidden control panel, it blossomed open to reveal the second means of getting out of the Xanadu. The normal entrance-exit to the craft had been shifted to a hatch in the ceiling of the interior passenger space. In this way almost reminding me of the future TIE fighter’s method of entry and egress.
This hidden exit allowed for what we were going to do next.
“Pressure equalized, you may open the hatch, master.”
Anakin reached down and twisted the manual release.
An inner hatch door irised open with a hiss of metal on metal, before another section of the door unlatched and split open, before the hidden ventral exterior hatch of the Xanadu opened.
I was glad I couldn’t hear the deafening noise of the rushing air that penetrated into the cabin.
“Three… two… one…”
Anakin led the way, simply threading his legs down into the hatch and let gravity do the rest.
I mirrored his method and was soon falling 2400 meters above the surface of Nar Shaddaa.
I tumbled a bit, but smoothly corrected by moving my limbs as control surfaces to bring me to a classic belly to earth skydive position.
M8 helpfully highlighted Anakin’s freefall position for me in the HUD and I steered myself to catch up, briefly diving head first to gain some more speed before flaring my arms and legs to slow down again.
The adrenal rush of a skydive hit me and it was awesome.
I wish I could do it more and at the same time knew that I shouldn’t, otherwise it would become normalized. It would lose the sense of thrill and danger that it had.
Some twenty odd seconds later we began reaching out to the Force, beginning to bleed off our speed and slow down.
Five seconds later we were slow enough, and with the uppermost buildings of Nar Shaddaa looming large in our vision, we brought our legs down and engaged the flight systems of our Aegis armors.
Boot jets flared with thrust and with a bit of rapid leg positioning, we were stabilized and hovering.
M8 displayed the direction for the rendezvous point for our local contact and we both angled, then shot off in that direction.
A few minutes of flight later we descended and came to a soft landing a few streets away in the most unpopulated bit of alley we could find.
Of course, that still meant we suddenly surprised a number of drugged up denizens of many species, who were seated and leaning against the walls; either zoned out in la-la land or rocking back and forth, stoned out of their minds.
Most just took one look at us and decided it would be more conducive to live another day of drug fueled haze if they didn’t bother the dangerous looking bounty hunters that just dropped out of the sky.
The law of averages indicated that there had to be one really stupid one among the bunch though.
A cathar got up with an angry hiss, on two very unstable legs, “Hey! Can’t you ssseee… th… that we’re… we’re… this is our alley!”
Anakin shook his head with incredulity, took a single step forward and simply pushed the cathar on his furry forehead with two fingers.
The cathar simply collapsed backward into his own spot of the alley with his drugged out slitted eyes wide and open. “That’s… that’s not fair… how did you move so fast?”
We didn’t have time for this and turned on our heel to exit the alley and merge with the ever shifting flow of pedestrians moving on the surface floor of Narsha.
The cauldron of sentience that had been created on this moon was quite something to experience.
Ganks, humans, skittering four legged colicoids, trandoshans, twi’leks and even massive t’landa Til walked the streets with no problems and just went about their day. In the latter case, most people had to make room, as they were 2.5 meters tall, had four trunk-like legs with massive padded feet, a tiny pair of forward facing arms and a very sharp horn mounted on their foreheads. It was very unsettling seeing them, as their rapacious snouts and mouths featured nasty looking teeth and permanent sinister grins. They were a species related to the hutts, who had diverged at some point in the distant past.
I made sure to keep my outward mask and the body language of a hardened Mandalorian bounty hunter. That I had no problems walking here, I knew exactly where I was going and that I belonged here. That combined with our physical outward appearance was just as good as invisibility and we could spare ourselves the use of Force Perception for later, when it truly mattered.
It wasn’t long until our destination came into view.
Fidax’s Fine Entertainment
Well, that’s what it translated to in Basic anyway. In Huttese, there were some connotations to the translation of ‘fine’ that gave me a suspicion that the place we were going to walk into was going to be… problematic. The sign outside with a huge holo twi’lek dancer was another big clue.
Nevertheless, we both walked into the establishment with not a moment’s hesitation.
Once inside M8 immediately indicated that the music was… horrible and didn’t feel that she should subject her mistress to even a description. I could feel the deep bass, a repetitive thrum through my lungs.
The club beyond was bathed in a purple light to my eyes, including holo-lasers that flashed in various visible spectra that I knew would be invisible to quite a few species. Togruta eyes tended to lean slightly differently in the light spectrum, letting certain ultraviolet frequencies be visible. Even for my eyes there was holo action going on that M8 needed to adjust my HUD to see.
I didn’t need that to see what this place truly was though.
Dozens of rounded booths, surrounding tables where various people were eating, drinking, and visually appreciating the efforts of twi’lek erotic dancers and strippers, who were expertly dancing on a platform and pole that hovered above the table.
All booths looked towards a large stage that was currently empty at the moment. Each dancer could get on that stage and there would still be room for more. I could well imagine that this place could hold a performance that would be right at home on the Vegas Strip.
“Kava can jee-jee hopa? How can we help?”
Our interlocutor was a green skinned twi’lek male, dressed quite professionally in a style that could see him not looking out of place as concierge on Hosnian Prime or even Corellia. A pressed, handsomely cut suit of blacks, grays with a foundation of white. The overall design, if I could give it a description, was neo-sci fi minimalist.
“We’re here to see Ipp Draasa,” Anakin said, the vocabulator in his helmet did a very good job of giving his voice a sinister yet not entirely threatening edge. He also did a good job of adopting his own ‘bounty hunter’ style mask for his body language; relaxed yet coiled to spring into action, his right hand hooked on his belt and ready to draw blaster.
“Of course, one moment.” He consulted a datapad briefly. “Yes, Mr Draasa is at booth eight, over there. He did indicate he was expecting to meet two people for an appointment, so you may proceed. Fidax’s Fine Entertaiment hopes you will have a pleasant stay and if you engage in any hostilities you may find a swift death. Good day.”
We didn’t bother acknowledging the concierge and walked straight in the direction of the indicated booth.
We found Ipp Draasa sitting back, enjoying a drink and simply staring at the blue twi’lek who was dancing above his table. The trandoshan didn’t acknowledge us at first, taking the time to flick a credit chit at the female, who rather impressively caught it as she was doing a pirouette move on the dancing pole and in a further display of skill, lost the last small bit of silky transparent clothing she had around her generous hips and continued dancing.
“Ah, my friends, have a seat? Do you want a Pink Nebula on me?” Draasa lazily gestured to the drink he was nursing.
We sat down and Anakin shook his head, “Prefer a Revnog rather. It agrees with me more.”
Draasa waved over a twi’lek waitress, who’s outfit seemed more like the suggestion of one, it covered the important bits, but the red material was just transparent enough to give a tantalizing hint of what was underneath.
“And your partner?”
“She’d prefer a Bantha Blaster,” Anakin answered for me.
The waitress took the orders and practically glided away. I didn’t realize until that moment that you could make such an ordinary thing as walking look so downright seductive and sexy. Sure, sway the hips, feet positioning, but that waitress took it to another level.
Draasa pulled out a small datapad casually, tapped it a few times as if he was just referencing something then put it back into his pocket.
‘Anti-eavesdrop field detected, white noise detected, origin, a device in Ipp Draasa’s left jacket pocket,’ M8 announced in my HUD.
“Now we can talk slightly more securely, it’s not perfect, so let’s still remain nice and vague, my friends,” Draasa cautioned.
“Do you have a location?”
“Yes, I do. Our mutual friend has taken to recently spending all his time on the Promenade, more specifically, Szog’s Casino.”
Of course Ziro was there. It was the most affluent bit of floating real estate on the entire moon. Just under a hectare of contiguous buildings, a central square filled with exclusive shops and restaurants, walkways, hallways and speeder docking stations. From a certain point of view, it could actually be called a ship, only this one just floated permanently a few hundred meters above the uppermost level of Narsh, a stone’s throw from the space port. It could also be the most secure part of the planet at a single word from any of the major hutt players on the moon.
“How long has this been?”
“Going for three weeks now, he even sleeps there. However, I think that his presence there is just a gilded cage. Our friend’s crime cannot be forgiven by Jabba. A hutt’s offspring is one of the few things they value more than power or wealth. If it was up to Jabba alone he’d have…” Draasa mimed the slitting of a throat with his fingers. “Everyone knows that Ziro is only alive because he has an insurance policy sitting somewhere in the galaxy, waiting. The Hutt Council is spending a lot of gullible bodies and money to find it.”
“Have they gotten anywhere close to finding it?”
“No, Ziro has been quite clever in this case. The best and most cunning bounty hunters and slicers have traced every move that slug has made for the last few decades and found only dust and echoes.”
“What’s your opinion on just what this ‘insurance’ is?”
Draasa hissed and the informant shrugged his shoulders, “Nothing specific but definitely is enough dirt and secrets that those old hutts never want it to see the light of day. The Council paid a fortune for ol’ Bane to spring Ziro from prison on Coruscant. Ever since, he’s been moved from gilded cage to cage all over hutt space. At this point it’s a very long game of deadly dejarik between him and the Hutt Council.”
The waitress returned with our drinks at this point. She put them down, in the process producing bouncy cleavage that I couldn’t help but look at, then push down a stupid surge of envy.
I opened the induction port on my helmet and threaded the straw in there. I didn’t drink, but M8 had a mechanism that would siphon it, simulating that I was indeed imbibing the fluid. Anakin had no such issues, easily downing a few sips of his Revnog from a thick straw through a similar port in his helmet.
“Do you have what we need?” Anakin asked, getting down to business.
Draasa didn’t answer at first, but I felt his clawed foot pushing something that bumped against Anakin’s leg.
“Inside the case, you’ll find a data chit. Full schematics for the Promenade, as up to date as they can be. As for what sensors you’ll be up against, can’t be of much help. They change those often and shuffle them around like a deck of pazaak cards. Also details for a credit account you’ll need.”
Anakin carefully slid the small case to lay next to him on the seat, yet still out of general view. With his right hand and a dexterity that would impress an old school magician, he had it open and slid the chit into a specially waiting port on his utility belt. In the next moment, the case was closed and back on the floor, being pushed back to Draasa.
‘Scanning, it’s clean,’ Anakin thought to me. ‘Pushing a copy to you.’
M8 accepted the data handshake from Anakin’s armor and began a download, shunting it into a protected and isolated partition of the armor’s data storage.
I didn’t bother looking at it now, as my own senses were spread out over the entire establishment, searching for possible threats.
I had to consciously stop sensing the emotions of everyone in the place, lest it force me to hurriedly look for a cold shower.
“Thank you, one moment… Your payment should now reflect in your designated account,” Anakin said.
Draasa pulled out yet another datapad from his jacket, and quickly put it back. “So it has, pleasure doing business. Now tell me, how is old Tera doing?”
“Shouldn’t you know?” Anakin retorted mildly.
“Info security in that wonderful place you live in on Coruscant, is tighter than a hutt holding it in these days. The slicers you guys got holed up in there, are no joke. I tried once in the beginning of the war, but ended up replacing a fortune of equipment after I got reverse-spiked.”
Anakin chuckled, “I’ll be sure to pass the complement along. As to your question, Tera is as healthy as you can be at that age.”
“I remember a time when he didn’t even need to use that cane, only kept it as a disguise for his… you know.”
My Prescience pinged on a probability line at this point… Someone was coming for Draasa, they would be here in less than ten minutes… I saw a scuffle breaking out, then devolving into a full on gunfight that would kill nearly a dozen people, including a number of dancers and employees. Most of those kills were as a result of collateral damage after the club’s own automated defenses dropped out of the ceiling. I didn’t know if it had anything to do with our reason for being on Nar Shaddaa, if it was a Ziro loyalist or some other hutt…
I looked up and sure enough spotted the cunningly disguised seams of where those turrets would pop out.
I sent my thoughts and foresight across to Anakin in a quick burst to save time.
In response he downed the last of his drink and we both stood, “Well, we have to be going. Thank you for the chat. Tera sends his regards and he suggests you try some Novonian Grog.”
Draasa outwardly didn’t respond at all, but I felt he was alarmed and his alien thoughts were racing as he casually looked around the place. “Are you sure?”
“Definitely.”
Anakin led the way out of the booth and we both walked casually towards the exit and made it outside into the throngs of the busy street outside.
‘Think he’ll listen, Skyguy?’ I thought as we headed towards our next meeting.
‘Well, we used the right code words and phrasing, he knows enough about Jedi to take it seriously.’
‘I just hope we haven’t ended up costing Master Sinube his info broker on Nar Shaddaa.’
‘So do I, he seems a capable sort. I don’t think whatever trouble he’s in is something that should concern us for the moment. Now, where’s your contact, Snips?’
I did a quick consult of the local maps with M8, before sending the coordinates to him.
‘Here, five clicks, south-south east, we can walk or hire a speeder.’
‘We’re going to need one to reach the Promenade anyway, so might as well do it now.’
88888888888888888888888888
The closest speeder rental business was a few hundred meters north-east according to the local maps and databases. It would’ve been nice to just use boot jets to fly there, but we wanted to conserve their use as much as possible. They didn’t have fuel to the point where we could use them for all our travel needs, despite being extremely efficient and powerful for their size. It would also attract unnecessary attention to us.
We ended up having to walk quite a roundabout route, because of the crazy way the streets and the various levels were built. Unlike Coruscant’s orderly upper levels, Nar Shaddaa was built layer upon layer in quite a chaotic fashion. The urban landscape was kept at a barely functional level and quite a bit of it was stained with the rot of decay and pollution.
It took us nearly fifty minutes to make it to the speeder rental as a result.
It was run by a shifty looking colicoid, who wore only a shirt and harness across his insectoid-like thorax. He was escorted everywhere he went by a pair of cybernetic ganks - a short humanoid type species that were covered from head to toe in battle armor that was grafted directly onto their organic bodies. Their oddly shaped near cylindrical heads with a single red eye sensor was rather unnerving to look at. These two were only armed with rustic blaster pistols, but thinking them incapable was a mistake.
HK-47 found a lot to admire in the simplicity of the ganks - as they delighted in finding opportunities for violent mayhem and massacring whoever their hutt masters pointed them at.
Anakin quickly managed to negotiate the hire of a two seater speeder that at least didn’t look like it would fall apart and cause us to plunge to our doom in Nar Shaddaa’s deeper levels. It reminded me of an old BMW Z3, except it could fly and had a body made of plasteel colored in a light gray.
After handing over a deposit of credits and the hire fee, we climbed in and Anakin started it up.
The onboard engine and systems responded well, at least from what I could feel through the seat and M8 reported that the sound was ‘dreadful but strong’.
I felt a bit better about it as Anakin pulled on the yoke and throttle to send us into the air, where we slid into an air lane in the direction of our contact.
It was a surface level apartment building, which on Nar Shaddaa meant that the tenants in it were not without some level of wealth. It also meant that this was a place for either mid-tier criminals bosses in the Hutt cartel, those who owned a business or even some off-worlder who wanted to make a risky real estate investment. How potentially competing crime bosses could live in the same place and could even be potentially neighbors was something of a revelation to me. It was either some form of unwritten rules going on or the fact that the hutts didn’t want their criminal organizations imploding from overt infighting.
We landed on an open parking spot on the roof of the building and one look at the other speeders also spoke of the wealth of the tenants below. It was also in generally good shape considering most of the moon embodied the concept of urban decay, though the stains and overall pollution in the air meant that it was an exercise in futility to attempt a steam clean of this parking lot. You’d do all that hard work and not an hour later it would be dirty again.
I hopped out of the speeder, spreading out my senses with the Force…
Good, no waiting ambush or any surprises.
We walked to the small turbolift on the corner of the roof parking lot.
‘Broadcasting access key sequence, mistress,’ M8 announced in my HUD.
Obediently the turbolift door slid open and I entered without hesitation.
Anakin followed, ‘That’s a relief,’ he thought to me.
I tapped the button for the twenty-third floor. ‘So little faith, Skyguy?’
‘It’s one thing to tell me you have a clandestine network, Snips. It’s another to see it actually working.’
‘The person we’re here to visit isn’t actually part of it, he’s just a work colleague of someone who is part of it.’
‘That’s not very reassuring, Snips.’
I rolled my eyes in exasperation. This was Nar Shaddaa, nothing was ever certain on the smuggler’s moon.
The turbolift stopped, the doors hissed open.
We stepped out into a long corridor that was lined with doors periodically on either side. It split into a T-junction direction nearly twenty meters away. The place was ‘clean’ to a certain description, there wasn’t junk lining the floor, but the walls were stamped and painted with graffiti and gang art, some of which was quite good.
I led the way and began counting the doors we passed.
There were no apartment numbers here. No one who lived in this place wanted to make it easy for anyone to readily find them. You either knew where to go or you didn’t, the latter meant you didn’t belong or have true business. Anyone who was ‘lost’ or didn’t know where to go, would swiftly find a blaster shooting their face off. It was a rather simple yet generally effective defense for the tenants.
I stopped at the eighth door on the right from the turbolift. Right next to it was an artwork of a nude human female, straddling and ‘riding’ a comically small phallic shaped starship. It somewhat reminded me of the classic pinup artwork that was painted on the noses of war planes during old Earth’s WW2.
What I was sensing through the Force though, brought me no levity.
I unholstered both my WESTARs.
‘There should only be a single human in here, master.’
Anakin pulled out his DL-44s as he also sensed it. ‘Yet there’s six people in there… two trandoshan, three ganks and a… colicoid. No human.’
‘There goes our easy, uneventful plan,’ I commented sarcastically then reached to my belt and pulled out a flashbang.
‘Snips, you sure about this?’
The answer was simple. ‘Yes, usual drill, I go left, you right.’
I placed myself against the wall to the left of the door, whilst Anakin did the same on the right side.
I reached out with the Force, evaluating the door’s mechanisms. It would’ve been nice to use the whole thing as an improvised projectile, but it was a sliding door that moved into an armored receptacle mounted in the wall. It was possible but you would tear a good chunk of the wall out with it. Going that route would also indicate the presence of a Jedi to anyone with half a brain. Instead I managed to find the small yet powerful electromechanical system that operated the door and manipulated it forcefully with TK.
The door slammed open and I chucked the activated flashbang device.
The instant I felt the slight overpressure from it, I crouch-walked into the room with my WESTARs raised and firing. Anakin followed and his blaster’s fired as well.
In less than three seconds of time, all the ganks were dead with blaster shots coring through the red optical sensors on their heads and a trandoshan had his head blown off by Anakin’s shot through the neck.
The colicoid and remaining trandoshan were still trying to blink and restore their sight when my second grouping of trigger pulls occurred.
My left shot went through the colicoid’s right eye, popping it and frying his brain, whilst my right shot hit the trandoshan on the snout, burned through the mouth and made a further steaming mess of flesh and bone.
I lowered my WESTARs as M8 unnecessarily scanned the room and declared no further lifesigns or detectable dangers.
The place had been a rather nice living room once, but had already been rearranged by the six uninvited guests beforehand.
Seated in the middle of the room, tied to a chair and bearing the signs of being extensively tortured before he had died, was my contact.
In life he’d been a light blonde haired man in his late twenties, ordinary face, slightly scruffy beard and very unmemorable. Now his face was covered with dried blood from cuts made to his scalp and judging from the discoloration around his mouth, he’d taken a suicide pill of some sort of poison. His clothes were also torn and sliced from numerous cuts from a dagger that had been wielded by one of the trandoshans.
Each one of this crew of torturers had some form of blaster and a blade that had taken part in the ‘questioning’ of my contact.
‘Just perfect,’ I thought sarcastically.
Anakin was already busy closing the door and keeping a watch for anybody else potentially attracted to the ruckus.
I could sense a number of the neighbors on the floor being very naturally alarmed by the sound of the blaster fire. Then over a period of roughly fifteen seconds, when nothing more happened or any further signs of fighting, they very rapidly grew relieved and went on with whatever they were doing as if it wasn’t their problem. Some remained paranoid and activated a number of personal security systems and armed themselves, but remained within their apartments.
‘Think we’re clear for the moment, Snips.’
I nodded and thought hard about what to do next. It would’ve been nice to have the help of the contact, but it was more what he provided that we needed. It was entirely possible that the package I had ordered was somewhere in this rather large apartment. It was not a good idea however, to go poking around willy-nilly, given what this guy worked with on a daily basis. We’d need help.
I tapped the comlink in my vambrace, getting an encrypted channel, then buzzed the specific address over the Holonet. The channel was routed through a dozen planets in the core worlds, so I wished anyone good luck in tracing it.
Then appearing in the palm of my hand, was the very familiar full body holo visage of Nack Movers.
“Ah, Fulcrum, that you’re calling me now means the news can’t be good.” The portly trandoshan hitman folded his arms and gave me a suspicious stare.
I nodded and opened a small control interface touchscreen on my vambrace and began tapping in words that M8 rendered into generic female vocal speech.
“No, your contact had unfriendly visitors.”
I adjusted the scanner of my comlink into a 360 degree mode to capture the entire scene. Then stepped close to the now deceased contact.
Movers took a few moments to take it in before shaking his head ruefully, “Shinn, Shinn, what sloppiness got you into this mess, eh?” He asked the dead body ironically. “He was a good student, but had a tendency to be occasionally forgetful of the little details. Not much of a perfectionist. Not something that makes for an entirely good Malkite assassin, but he was good enough to graduate from my training.”
“Not much of a teacher, are you then?” Anakin commented derisively.
Movers shrugged, “He survived for eight years on Nar Shaddaa after leaving me… whoever you are. That’s actually pretty good in our line of work. I figured he’d either learn, grow stronger or die.”
“Do you think we can still get what I ordered?” I typed out.
“He’ll have it prepared already, now it’s just a matter of finding it. More than likely he’s got a hidden room in this place where he does all the preparation work. Let’s take a careful walk through the place, shall we?”
Anakin was already busy setting up the room to deal with more potential assailants, using TK to move the bodies to the side and stacking the furniture to provide cover.
In the meantime I walked slowly into the small corridor that separated the various rooms of the apartment.
I found the bathroom first and was somewhat glad for the air filters on my helmet. It seems like this Shinn didn’t put much stock in keeping an entirely clean place to wash in or he was just a typical lazy bachelor. I had M8 scan it anyway just to be thorough.
Next came a kitchen, same story. There wasn’t much food preparation going on and it was just remnants from food that definitely came from a selection of restaurants and fast food.
The next door opened to what seemed to be an entire empty spare room for just drying clothes?
There was a collapsible dry rack in the center of the room and that was it.
“Yes, this is the place,” Movers commented.
M8 played her holoscanner all over the room. ‘He is correct, mistress. Structural scan indicates this room should be larger than what we are seeing. The west facing wall should be three meters further out.’
I carefully approached the seemingly innocuous steel gray wall and tried to spot anything that looked suspicious or would indicate a way into the hidden space beyond.
Naturally, my eyes found nothing and while my Farsight could also see the space, it was in complete darkness, with only a few devices inside giving off tiny amounts of light.
“So how do I open it, Movers?” I tapped into my keypad.
“I’ll be sending you a file, it has a keycode and specific frequency to transmit.”
‘Received, mistress. Scanning for threats… none detected. Should I?’ M8 asked brightly.
I nodded.
In the next moment I had to step back as the wall perfectly split down the middle and became in effect a huge door, which split and folded further. Overhead lights came on to reveal a workspace that was filled with equipment that looked like an electrician’s dream and any sane chemist’s nightmare. A desk on the left was rather haphazardly strewn with electrical tools and components, as if Shinn had been in the middle of working when he had been interrupted by the crew that had invaded his apartment. The right side of the hidden space was actually shielded and isolated by a physical transparent sheet - beyond which was beakers, sample containers, small centrifuges, even a very illegal and specialized nanodroid lathe, plus an array of specialized scanners with displays that I only half-recognized.
“There we go,” Movers pointed at a small black plasteel case that was on the worktable. “Go ahead and pick it up.”
I carefully opened myself to Prescience before doing so, examining a variety of probability lines.
Satisfied, I picked up the case, which was roughly six inches by five in size.
“You can open it. He hasn’t armed the case’s self destruct yet, it’s inert. Yes, the small latch on the side.”
Inside were two large vials, roughly a thumb width thick, one was red and the other green.
“There you go. It’s all there and ready.” I closed the case and latched it onto my belt via a handy clip built into its side. “One more thing, Fulcrum. We can’t leave this workspace intact. It’s hidden well, but there are a lot of Malkite secrets in here that could cause disaster in the wrong hands.”
“Another self-destruct?” I typed shortly.
“Correct, see the small pad mounted on the wall above the desk. Type in the following numbers, 764766. The hideout will close and disintegration charges will go off after ten seconds.”
“How do you know so much about your former pupil’s hideout? Wouldn’t he have personalized it?”
“This equipment was procured through me, Fulcrum. I naturally left backdoors and universal codes that could not be removed, at least not without rendering the hardware useless in the process. Shinn was a loyal Malkite that knew the danger of our work. We have to be able to clean up after our members when something like this happens.”
My finger tapped in the sequence and I jumped back as the folded walls began closing again.
I did not want to trust in either Movers or Shinn’s demolition work. Disintegration charges were not something used without special training and were as highly illegal as their gun counterparts in Republic space.
My feet carried me in a near sprint as I quickly typed a ‘goodbye thanks’ before cutting the comlink.
‘We need to move, master!’
Anakin had the apartment door open already and he led the way, both of us breaking into a full burst of Force Speed.
We stopped at the turbolift and looked back, just in time to nearly be blinded by a flash of extremely violet light, which M8 and Anakin’s helmet filtered and polarized. It still left us with spots in our vision and there was a brief spike in radiation.
‘I’m very tempted to let HK have a chat with Movers,’ I grumbled in annoyance as I saw the damage.
Far from just disintegrating the workshop, it had actually also taken the entire apartment.
There was now just an empty gap where there should’ve been a sixty square meter living space.
The edges of the disintegration effect were still glowing cherry red.
‘Time to go, Snips.’
‘Definitely.’
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The journey to the Promenade was two hours by speeder. Anakin put the thing on autopilot and we spent most of it doing a final review of the next stage of the plan.
At this point we’d memorized the layout of Szog’s Casino so thoroughly that we could probably recreate it by hand with a pencil and paper if we really had to.
To actually dock at one of the floating district’s speeder access points was not a come-as-you-please affair. You had to actually electronically wire credits to a specific account that was broadcasted to you at short range as you made your approach to the dock.
It was a form of access control and accountability of who was in the district. Thanks to our intel and preparation by Draasa, we already had an account prepared with the suitable credentials and funds.
‘Sending the credits now, master,’ I thought and tapped the sequences into a small dedicated ‘financial’ datapad. The thing almost reminded me of a banking app, but it was hardwired to only be able to process, manage and handle credits.
We waited patiently, hovering just about a dozen meters from the docking platform. On the semi-circular platform that jutted out of the Promenade, a half dozen very well armed ganks stood along with their boss, a pasty white skinned twi’lek male who looked a bit overweight from all the sitting he did behind the control terminal for the platform.
We’d either be accepted to land or they’d reject us and we’d have to go to Plan B.
My right hand WESTAR was already out of its holster and hidden from view by the speeder door, whilst my left hand worked the pad.
Anakin kept a weather eye through the Force on that twi’lek, ready to bring the speeder into evasive action, but kept his body language unconcerned and relaxed.
‘Did that transaction go through, Snips?’
‘Immediately, Skyguy. No delays on our end.’
The twi’lek boss just kept typing and squinting into his terminal. Nothing in the guy’s emotions indicated anything odd, we were just another pair of visiting bounty hunter scum, looking to lose some money on the Promenade.
Finally, the guy looked up and waved us in to land.
I let out an inward sigh of relief.
It was always amazing how, in plans like this, success or failure hinged on the smallest details. If our fake account hadn’t passed muster, we’d be given one warning to fly away or every gank would open fire with their heavy blaster rifles and the anti-fighter weapons mounted on the platform.
Anakin turned the speeder in and accelerated briefly before lining up with one of the demarcated landing spaces, then steadily decreased the power to the repulsorlifts to bring it to a smooth and professional landing.
We both hopped out. He walked over the twi’lek to hand over the secondary keycard to the speeder, so it could be moved to a parking bay. Anakin also greased the twi’lek’s palm a bit with physical credits just because it was customary to do so.
We fell in step next to each other, walked off the platform and into the large, three meter tall threshold of Nar Shaddaa’s Promenade.
The corridor beyond was wide enough to fit two large speeders through and on either side a seemingly endless street of shops catering to seemingly everything and everyone. Each storefront was garishly decorated with flashing holo-ads, trying to outdo their neighbor in attracting a customer.
The amount of foot traffic wasn’t as high as I was expecting. It certainly wasn’t the unwashed masses we’d encountered so far. This was the relative ‘cream of the crop’ of Nar Shaddaa and I estimated at least a hundred to two hundred people of various species were in immediate sight. They wore somewhat expensive clothes and were generally armed in some fashion. Most of them seemed to actually be visitors to Narsha as there were a lot more variety to the species. In one glance, I saw human, togruta, trandoshan, cerean, bothan and sullustan.
The street turned left and eventually opened up into a huge central square - the main feature of which was a gigantic gold statue of a rather bloated hutt that gazed with satisfaction and malevolence down upon all who walked under it.
My curiosity got the better of me and I typed an instruction to M8, ‘Scan the statue, material composition?’
‘Twenty percent of the mass is aurodium, layered at least two meters thick on a durasteel base, mistress.’
Typical hutts. Gold in the Corusca galaxy didn’t have the value a planetbound civilization ascribed to the relatively rare metal. Not when general asteroid mining existed in almost every star system in the galaxy. It was an excellent conductor, used in a lot of construction and looked pretty. There were some parts of the galaxy where it was so abundant that the mining companies would pay you to take it off their hands, just so it wouldn’t clog up their systems.
The actual rare metal element that held value in terms of wealth in the galaxy was aurodium.
It was a mining prospector’s dream to find an aurodium asteroid, but the majority of the metal that existed was mined from rare planet side mines, of which there were only a few dozen publicly known across the core of the galaxy. If an aurodium asteroid was discovered, the civilization that found it would quickly place engines on the thing and relocate it quietly into an orbit that was a closely guarded secret.
It was rumored that the hutts had the most aurodium asteroids in their own space and were carefully mining it to regulate the price.
Another tall rumor was that there had once been chemical forges on the Jedi held world of Ossus that had been capable of transmuting lead into aurodium. A rumor which the Jedi of the time had strongly discouraged, but it didn’t matter as the planet was later destroyed in a supernova event.
At this point we had to go up a long sloped walkway to transition to the upper floor of the square, where the majority of the prime real estate for shops, casino, cantinas and clubs were. There were even outdoor restaurants here.
Our destination came into view.
Szog’s Casino was like most establishments on the Promenade, utterly festooned with holosigns in bright colors announcing itself and displaying all manner of stylized representations of the games of chance you could play inside.
We casually ambled inside. Immediately, I could feel Anakin wince and turn down the sound pickups on his helmet.
‘Be glad you can’t hear this, Snips.’
‘Is the music that awful?’
‘Yes,’ he thought emphatically.
That was the reality of when you were dealing with a vast array of species with different forms of hearing. The music you’d hear on Shili or on the Bith homeworld was bewildering if not incomprehensible to most humanoid species, especially when the instruments were making sounds with frequencies outside the standard range. Hutts also heard sounds differently considering how far they were outside the humanoid norm, as a result, their music was also not pleasing to the ears of the majority of the galactic species.
We passed the pazaak tables, weaved through the rows of holo ‘slot’ machines, avoided the rowdy dejarik tables where bets were being made on who would win and I couldn’t help but pause to look at the giant holoscreens overhead that was displaying pod racing. There were also a few screens showing the infinitely safer swoop racing circuit.
Crowds of betters were congregated underneath the screens, shouting, cheering and jeering for the performance of their riders.
‘Come along, Snips, if we don’t have to flee for our lives off this rock, we can take some time to play a few games after our mission.’
I felt a bit embarrassed at getting so distracted. I was just so busy lately, I hadn’t even found time to check the recent racing results… I hadn’t even known that the pod racing circuit was on its Nar Shaddaa leg.
We finally stopped near an area where a lot of tables were set up for playing Hintaro dice games. To one side against the wall was a set of double doors that was marked in both Basic and Huttese as ‘Employees only’.
It had some basic limited access control, mostly because of the amount of employees coming and going through it at any given time. Most of them were twi’lek waitresses coming from the kitchen with large trays balanced on their hands.
It wasn’t a minute before one such waitress emerged, bearing two large trays filled with very exotic looking drinks. Her strength and balance was quite impressive - as was her attractiveness. Only the best would be here on the Promenade.
‘M8, did you catch that?’ I typed subtly with my arms folded behind my back.
‘Yes, mistress. The twi’lek’s aurodium choker had the code transmitter hidden in it. I can duplicate it as necessary.’
I nodded at Anakin and we both fell into the Force, beginning to use the Persuasion to vanish from the minds of those around us.
It took barely a few seconds because everyone was so focused on their games.
Next I briefly shorted out the surveillance sensor that looked down on the employee entrance.
‘Go.’
We strode forward without hesitation and into the corridor beyond.
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The large entertainment room was filled with the typical collection of little aquatic fish that tended to follow in the wake of a larger predator. Groups of exquisite twi’lek who were chatting and giggling. Various high rollers of a variety of species, sitting at gambling tables and trying their luck, a band producing live music for the entertainment of everyone in the room. Nearly half a dozen small tables, with various denizens drinking and talking business. Anyone who was anyone significant on Nar Shaddaa, was in this room.
Ziro Desilijic Tiure lounged at the head of it all, ate his favorite snack of pickled space worm and drank his favored style of spicebrew.
He surveyed his current domain with satisfaction.
Jabba always populated any space he occupied with so many disgusting elements - criminals, hunters, assassins, smugglers, with only a few bits of pleasure here and there for the senses.
Ziro preferred as few of that ilk in his presence if he could help it. If it was beautiful and handsome then he wanted it in his court. He was so emphatic about that, he had even gone to great lengths to beautify himself; increasing the purple hue of his skin around the back areas and with numerous decadent tattoos covering his front. He was also one of the few hutts that had actually gone through a biosculpting to correct that typical lopsided mouth deformity that so many of his kind found no problem with.
The only element that he had no control over in the room was the half dozen bounty hunters lining the edges of the room that reported directly to the Hutt Council.
That was the subtle reminder from Jabba and those other slugs that he was only alive and relatively free at their sufferance.
Ziro inwardly smirked, that wouldn’t be for much longer though. Three of them were already secretly in his pocket and the fourth wouldn’t resist for much longer. Once that was done, the many machinations that were happening all over hutt space would enter the next phase. His revenge on those sleemo and the takeover of the Hutt Cartel to his will alone would be all but inevitable at that point.
“Ziro honey, I’m about to take the stage, any specific requests?”
He narrowed his eyes in seeming consideration of his lover’s request. Sy Snootles was looking particularly fetching today, with a new shade of lipstick on her stalky mouth and even a new pattern of tattoos adorning her wonderful leathery skin. That was the one thing that attracted him the most to the female pa’lowick, besides her singing voice, was her passion for beauty.
It was the one thing that made him truly angry about his own imprisonment on Coruscant, that it had caused his brief estrangement from Sy. Thankfully, she had understood and was waiting for him with open arms when he had finally returned to hutt space.
“No, just sing to your heart’s content, my dear.”
Her mouth trilled with pleasure and she delivered a thankful kiss to the side of his head, before trotting off to the stage.
It was truly a pity that she would have to die at some point. Jabba thought he was so clever, turning his lover by offering her a better share of the profits at her musical performances all over hutt space and even letting her perform at the most exclusive venues. He idly wondered what hidden clause his nephew had engineered in those contracts. Sy was many things; writer, musician, a female who knew how to twist anyone around her fingers, even a part time bounty hunter, but a shrewd contract expert she wasn’t.
He was so entranced watching her walk away that he had almost totally missed the approach of the two rather well armed and armored mercenaries.
Their armor was of a pattern totally unfamiliar, though there were hints of Mandalorian in the design. Their hands were at their sides and they approached with no threat in their stance.
Ziro put down his glass and idly rested his right arm on his exclusive table. This brought his hand within touching distance of a hidden pad that controlled numerous defensive systems that always came with him everywhere.
The two mercs stopped their approach a respectful distance from his raised dias and bowed slightly.
“Greetings Ziro,” said the taller one, male, human if he had to guess.
“Hello mercenary,” retorted Ziro lazily, as if the merc was hardly worth his time at all. Inwardly, certain alarms were going off in his mind. That none of Jabba’s goons had at least stopped and talked to these two was concerning. The Hutt Council currently had a vested interest in keeping him alive, as much as they wished him dead.
“May we have a moment of your time. It concerns the death contracts you have against a certain Republic senator.”
The merc was using a voice modulator, how cute.
“Really? Do you wish to try your hand? I hope you don’t expect an advance from me. The Jedi are now guarding her and I’ve stopped throwing money so frivolously at the problem. The death contracts are now only valid if you can actually deliver me her head.”
Ziro had to admit he had let his emotions get away from him when he had begun the campaign to end that insufferable Amidala’s life.
“You misunderstand, we want you to rescind every death contract, even the ones that should trigger upon your death.”
Ziro had to struggle a bit to contain his sheer amusement, he settled for chuckling in his favorite manner - a nice sinister timbre. “Oh, did that pesky senator hire you two to negotiate with me? I hope she paid well.”
The smaller female mercenary folded her arms behind her back in a very military stance. “Amidala didn’t have to pay a single credit, Ziro,” she said, her voice also modulated, but conveyed amusement. “In a way, you are correct, we are here to negotiate… from a certain point of view. Whether you will enjoy these negotiations, I highly doubt it.”
Ziro didn’t like the tone he was sensing here and he narrowed his eyes at the two mercs. “Oh and why is that?”
“You have already lost the negotiations and our visit is to simply make you aware,” the male merc stated simply.
Ziro felt his anger stir, the presumption! “You better start talking fast if you wish to leave this place alive.”
“It’s as we said,” the female merc continued. “You will rescind all the contracts.”
“Oh, how precious and why should I do that?” Ziro asked in a mocking tone of voice, reaching to his glass of spicebrew and finishing the last remnants.
“It’s apparently getting very tiresome protecting the senator from all these assassins, not that you care about that. You will however care about the poison in your food and drink that you’ve been eating for the last two hours.”
Ziro wanted to release a full belly of laughter, but that was Jabba’s thing. He simply smiled and shook his head knowingly. “What I eat for breakfast would kill you three times over, little mercenary. Poison is useless against hutts!”
“You are correct,” she said, completely unphased. “However, hutts aren’t immune to all poisons. We know it takes a very special kind, knowledge which you hutts generally try to suppress or destroy. The poison you ingested was a special custom creation and it goes right through most scans and even the poor twi’leki you use to taste test.”
Ziro began to feel the slightest stirrings of fear and he felt his stomachs begin to grumble uncomfortably at the thought.
“It’s a rather amazing poison,” the male merc continued. “It comes in two parts. You’ve already ingested the first. It goes down, saturates your stomachs and intestinal linings and just sits there, quietly, interfering with nothing, totally undetectable. The second part is just like the first, except when the two meet in your body… that’s when things get interesting. They get together and have a party in your nervous system, after which you will be very dead.”
“And why should I believe all this, little mercenaries? Tell me why I shouldn’t just have you killed right now?” Ziro sneered.
“Feel free to scan yourself with a medical scanner, a frequency of 219.53 will reveal them briefly before they adapt. Also, if we die, our associates will deliver the second part of the poison to you. We are very good at infiltration, as you will see. If you fail to rescind all the death contracts within the next two hours, you will die. If Senator Amidala ever dies in a suspicious manner that even hints at your involvement, you will die. At this point, it’s just a matter of deciding whether you want to continue to live, Ziro.”
“Just think of all the money you’ll save as well,” the female merc chirped mischievously.
Ziro couldn’t help it and openly snarled, and turned to his protocol droid. “Get me a portable med scanner and tune it to the frequency!”
“At once, Mighty Ziro.” The silver droid twitched in fright and waddled off.
He glared menacingly at the mercs, his fingers twitching and desiring to blow them to little pieces with the hidden blaster turrets concealed in the decorative plants that lined his dias. It would be so easy! Yet something about these two was giving him pause. He had to appreciate the sheer audacity it took to threaten a hutt in his own center of power like this, yet they were standing there with not a hint of fear or uncertainty.
The droid returned and Ziro grabbed the pad sized scanner, powered it up and waved it at the main trunk of his own body.
The results made him feel like his stomachs wanted to jump out of his own body.
He calmly returned the device to the droid before exploding in anger, “You infected me with nanodroids?!”
The female merc giggled, “Oops, yes, small clarification, but the poison is carried by the droids and it’s what resists any attempt you’d make to find an antidote.”
Ziro balled his fists and mightily tried to control his temper, even as fear now surged forward like a wave and engulfed him. He hated it when someone tried to take his freedom, take away his choice. It was all that stupid tiny senator’s fault!
“What will it be, Ziro?” the male mercenary asked casually.
He hated this… hated being in the corner… nowhere to turn.
“Fine! Consider the contracts revoked.”
“That will not be enough, Ziro. We must see you doing so to your pointman who organized on your behalf.”
How!? How could they know about him?
“Get Vaszan on the holo,” Ziro snapped to his protocol droid.
“At once, Mighty Ziro.”
He turned to the mercenaries, “I do this, then afterward you will leave this moon and hutt space forever. I will find out who you are and anyone you call an associate or friend…”
“You are in no position to make such threats, Ziro,” the male mercenary waved him off! “We are fully aware of your precarious position among the hutt elite. I will admit it’ll be interesting to see if all your plotting will work out in the end or if you’re going to end up with two blaster bolts through the chest after suffering a betrayal you’d never expect in a million years. Isn’t that just the way it usually is with you hutts?”
Ziro was forced to just keep smoldering in his anger as the protocol droid returned with the portable secure holoterminal.
“You might think you’ve won, mercenary, but I’ve survived for hundreds of years at this game and I will continue to survive long after you’re dust in the ground.”
“We shall see, Ziro. We shall see.”
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A/N: Plotting and machinations abound as we have Ziro vs the Hutt Council. Have a great weekend.