Eye for an Eye
© Mark Chesner February 1999
Based on a character created by Sean Dean
CHRONICLES OF THE GHOST BEARS
This story is a work of fan fiction and is not endorsed or approved by George Lucas or LucasFilm. The characters and situations are based on the Star Wars RPG sessions Ward and friends enjoyed in college, and which I had the privilege to observe on more than one occasion.
Lieutenant Loc Cotral savored the taste of cold, unfiltered air in his mouth as his helmet came free. He breathed deeply, enjoying the smell of air untouched by his own body odors. Stormtrooper armor was lethally effective for intimidation and physical defense, but after a few days of wear became little more than a breeding place for filth and stench.
“Let us go, you imperial scum!”
Loc growled at the sound and threw his helmet away with a curse. He looked across the room at the woman struggling against the armored grasp of his soldiers. She was an exotic specimen, even here on the resort world of An Toshel. Dark brown eyes, hard as diamond, blazed out of a deeply tan face surrounded by an avalanche of long, straight raven hair. Her body was long and lithe, muscled like a tigress with shapely, small breasts. She was dressed in a day-glo orange suit, lined with pockets and an empty holster on her right hip. She was staring at him with naked fury - her brown lips parted and baring an impressive display of ivory teeth. Loc felt a flush of heat flow across his body as anger and desire were kindled in equal measure.
“Shut up, witch,” He stepped over a corpse and stood face-to-face with her, reflecting back her fury. “Terrorists responsible for the deaths of Imperial citizens have no currency to bargain with and no rights to assert. You should be grovelling now, thanking me for sparing your worthless life.”
She pursed her lips for a moment and he was captivated by the perfect heart-shape that her lips formed. A fantasy flashed across his mind and he felt them pressing against his own lips with passion. But suddenly, instead, they parted and a glob of spittle shot out. Loc stepped back and allowed the saliva to fall past him. It splattered on the nose of the corpse beside him. The liquid hung for a moment on the bridge of the nose before sliding down the slope and falling into a smoking crater in the dead man’s forehard. Loc thought he heard a hiss of steam.
Outrage flamed in Loc’s chest and he slapped the woman hard across her face. An edge of his armor caught on her flesh and a long gash was torn across her right cheek. He saw tears forming in her eyes and felt a rush of adrenaline victory.
But as her tears flowed across the wound, he could see that her eyes were not on him. They were locked on the slack-jawed, gaping-eyes corpse.
“Oolat... Poor kind Oolat,” She whispered.
He could feel his stomach cramp with fury and looked around the long room. Blood and soot caked the few windows left intact after the fire-fight. Seven orange-clad bodies lay sprawled about, criss-crossed with scorch marks. One stormtrooper lay in the doorway behind him, also motionless. The rest of his team was around him alive, relatively unscathed, and seething at the sight of their dead comrade. Two stood at the door and watched for any sign of further resistance outside. Two more watched the rear of the building through shattered windows, firing at any movement that seemed remotely human. Four held the prisoners, the woman and a young boy who gazed about the carnage with wide eyes. Loc realized the child’s mind was likely struggling to absorb the spectacle without letting it overwhelm his immature senses. The rest of the team was arrayed around the room, examining the equipment hanging on the walls and packed into alcoves.
“Bijou and Molli’s Animal Control.” The flashing sign outside the building had been blaring into the night for almost a decade. The official business listing filed with the Ministry of Commerce claimed that they provided services for the capture or elimination of wild beats anywhere on the planet of An Toshel. Between the resort world’s numerous continental zoos and the tropical climate over most of the planet which encouraged uncontrolled breeding for most creatures, there was no shortage of animals requiring domestication. And the moist atmosphere that permeated the planet ate away at fences and force field emitters with rust and mildew. Escapes were common and nothing scared off tourists faster than free-roaming predators. Reports gathered by Imperial Intelligence indicated that the group had dealt with uncounted low-grade escapes and seven class-one escapes including a Naboo world-snake, a bothan sabre-tooth, and a krayt dragon in the last year alone. It had been given an excellent loyalty rating in the Ministry’s classified system. But all that had changed two weeks ago when group of twenty self-proclaimed revolutionaries had stormed a military shuttle at the Paradizo Spaceport.
Armed with high-powered blasters, they had cut through a squad of stormtroopers and taken hostage some minor general. They had demanded secession from the Empire and held the blubbering officer for twelve hours before realizing there would be no response to their demands. Panicked, the group had hijacked a shuttle and attempted to flee with the hostage. But they only managed to crash themselves into a touring air-speeder that had stopped to show off the spectacle to V.I.P. vacationers. Everyone on both ships was killed.
There was an immediate deluge of outrage. Imperials demanded to know how the “revolutionaries” had penetrated security and civilians demanded to know how tourists were allowed to be caught in the crossfire of a political debate. Imperial intelligence immediately seized upon the blasters as the key to tracking down the terrorists base of operations. An Toshel had strict laws restricting the import of weapons which were ruthlessly applied. Scans and searches were made of all vessels and persons coming to the planet whether the vacationer be pauper or trading magnate. Only military personnel were allowed to carry blasters. Any civilian found carying one was shot on sight. The merciless application of the laws had kept the resort world free of violent crime for decades. The only loophole in the law was for businesses specialized in and licensed for Animal Control. Even then, only stun weapons were allowed, but any stunner could be modified into a blaster with minimal effort and no extra parts. There were twenty licensed animal control agencies on the planet. Bijou and Molli’s was the only one on the right continent and the only one using the same class of weapons as those used by the terrorists.
Loc grabbed the woman’s face in his hand and turned it to look up at him. But her eyes remained locked on the corpse. The feel of her soft skin in his hand inflamed him all the more, and her stubborn will challenged him.
“Molli, confess now and I promise you things will go easier for you,” He growled the proposition to her. “The Empire can be kind to its... friends.” He touched her cheek tenderly.
His head rocked back and he grunted in pain. The woman had somehow pulled free of the soldiers that held her and had placed a right hook strategically across his jaw. As he wheeled his arms to steady himself, he felt a dull thud through the pelvic armor as she attempted to kick him in the groin. He roared in fury and grabbed her by the shoulders as he regained his balance. He threw her across the room against the shards of a broken window. She shrieked in pain.
“Momma!” The child struggled against the stormtroopers that held him in desperation as the blood flowed down his mother’s back.
“No, Shibu!” The woman bit her lip to control the pain and waved her child to silence. “Let me handle this. These men won’t hurt you.”
Loc strode forward and grabbed her by the neck. He lifted her and slammed her back into the shards. He twisted her and sneered at the pain in her eyes. The feeling of power was tremendous.
“That’s right, girl,” He could feel his voice deepening as she squirmed. “We won’t hurt the child. So long as you cooperate, that is. Tell us who you sold the weapons to and little Shibu has nothing to worry about. Refuse and I promise to personally introduce him to a level of pain that he has never even imagined.”
Her eyes seemed to shatter as he spoke. They darted back to the child for a long moment before returning to him. For the first time, they held fear along with an ample supply of tears. He reached up and brushed the tears away. Only the terror remained.
“We didn’t sell weapons to anyone,” Her voice had fallen to a whisper and she held her hands carefully at her side now, giving him no reason to cause her any more pain. He twisted her against the glass anyway. “We’re only into animal control. We shoot escpaed beasts for rich folks. We make enough money so we don’t need to get into gun smuggling.”
“Then why did we find several illegal blasters in the hands of your people?” He could feel himself smiling as he spoke. “And why was one of my men cut down when we tried to get in and discuss this with you?”
She cried out as he ground her back against the glass.
“We modified our stunners into blasters for our animal work!” She shouted out the answer. “You can’t take down a Corellian leviathan with a stunner! And my people shot at you because you shot first.”
He eased up his grip and pulled her off of the shards. He smiled at the pool of blood on the floor. She was breaking well.
“Next question, pretty one,” He could smell her fear mixing with some spicey perfume she had been wearing. “Where is your husband? Why isn’t Bijou here?”
He barely had the time to register the hum before she began to move. He thrust himself backward and tolled away from the woman as she slashed a short vibro-blade at him. The blade cut cleanly through the armor at upper arm and he felt it bite into the flesh beneath. He kicked out at her and knocked her back against the wall before she could renew the attack. She hit the wall and bounced off, leaping at him like a wild beast, murder in her eyes. He threw himself away as the humming blade came down again, just evading the strike. She pivoted and tensed herself for the next strike.
Suddenly, a crackling circle of blue light struck her in the chest and she fell to the ground. He looked back and nodded thanks to the stormtrooper at the back wall whose stun blast had felled the demon-woman. He almost wished he had blaster her instead. A creature like this could not be suffered to live.
He pulled the armor off of his bleeding arm and judged the wound. It was not deep, but it was bleeding freely. He would have a scar for life to remind him of the witch. He walked over to her and saw that her eyes were still moving. The stun setting must have been low - she was paralyzed but conscious. Her eyes still shone defiantly.
“Pick her up!” He barked the order to the two soldiers standing by the door. He motioned to a long table by the back of the room. “Put her over there and hold her down!”
They moved quickly and lifted her limp form onto the table. They held her arms carefully, as though afraid of breaking a large doll. The stun should hold her for hours, but the blade still humming on the floor chided them all for having been careless. Her head rested against the wall and was propped up to give her a perfect view of his approach.
He moved slowly toward her, picking up the vibro-blade as he passed it. He reached down and snapped open the pelvic portion of the armor and smiled as her eyes grew wide. He had not been able to conquer her with pain or words. He would conquer her the only way left to him. He stepped out of his boots and traced the outline of her jaw with one finger. He stroked her left arm with the blade, relishing the thin line of blood it drew. This would be a long, pleasant experience for him.
“Who here is Loc Cotral?” An electronically-processed voice rumbled from the rear.
He turned in fury and saw a tall armored form standing in the light of the doorway. It’s face was hidden behind an armored helmet with a red-rimmed black visor over a long green shard of metal which projects down its face and past its chin in a triangular blade that reminded Loc of a bandana worn over nose and mouth. The rest of the helmet was a light tan with breathing slits by the edges of the shard and a polished sheen by the forehead. The chest-piece of the armor was a black sheet of durasteel, carved slightly with the outline of pectoral muscles. Billowy khaki fabric formed of the sleeves and pants of the uniform, with green wrist-guards and the black boots. Some kind of silvery metal box was seated on the back, and a small blaster was held by a holster on the left hip. The creature was no imperial soldier or authorized civilian.
“Kill him!” He growled to his men.
He reached down to hold the woman and pulled her in to his arms as the stormtroopers all around the room drew their rifles to fire. Suddenly, the form shimmered and the image faded out. Inside was a floating silvery globe with spiny protrusions. The protrusions blazed to life and the room was filled with scarlet bolts of energy. The drone fired relentlessly at every form holding a blaster until Loc, the child, and the woman were the only ones left alive.
The drone hovered silently, but Loc knew the sensors would be scanning the room for any other sign of a threat. He held himself still as the smell of scorched plastic and burning flesh filled his nostrils. The globe silently began to float forward and he tensed himself and guaged the distance to it.
He turned with a swiftness he would have thought to be beyond him and threw the vibro blade with all of his might. The drone turned at the motion, but apparently was set to scan for blasters only. The humming blade covered the distance in a moment and slammed into the center of the globe. The drone was cut in half and exploded with a shower of sparks.
Loc sighed and shifted the weight of the woman on his left arm. Whoever had sent the drone was obviously coming for him. He needed to get back into his armor before the assasin tried again. He stepped toward his chestpiece, lying in the center of the room and noticed the eyes of the child firmly upon him. Motion flickered at the corner of his eyes and he turned to see the same armored form steo through the doorway.
The creature turned toward him and raised a strange two-barrelled rifle at him. A thin blaster barrel was above, and a larger barrel was slung underneath, apparently designed for projectiles. The form leaned down and picked the vibro-blade off of the floor and keyed off the weapon. The assassin threw it aside and shook its head.
“That drone cost me a lot of money, Lieutenant Cotral,” The creature’s vioce had risen to a smooth alto level. “I am afraid I underestimated you. A failing common to those of us new to the job.”
It stepped toward him and he stepped quickly back, feeling his heel slam into the chest piece on the floor. He wanted to drop the woman, but feared any sudden movement. He could see no blasters within easy grabbing distance.
“I have a message for you, Cotral.” The voice now risen to a piercing soprano. “The Resistance knows you were responsible for the killing of several innocents in your search for them. These murders can not go unpunished.”
Loc dropped suddenly to the ground and grabbed the chest-piece. He rose to his feet and threw the thick, plasteel plate at the armored form. He turned to reach for a blaster.
But the intruder simply grasped the lower barrel and pulled it back in a cocking motion. As the plate flew toward it, the trigger was pulled and a thick projectile was fired out. After a moment, it exploded into a cloud of razor-sharp shrapnel that cut through the white plasteel as though it were nothing more than a mist.
Loc had only time to gasp in shock before the cloud was upon him and he felt a million bee-stings all along the left side of his body. His vision was cut in half as his left was shredded and he could feel the body of the woman grow suddenly light as the razors cut her apart as well. He felt the ground slam into his back as he landed, but felt no pain. The attack had overcome his nervous system.
Through his right eye, he saw the child running toward them - terror in his eyes at the sudden death of his mother. But the intruder simply pivoted and fired a blaster bolt through the boys right leg, dropping him instantly to the ground. The armored form stood over the boy and stared down at him.
“Stay where you are, child,” The voice had fallen to a deep bass sound. “This is an important life lesson for you. Don’t mess with things you do not understand.”
Loc felt himself growing cold and his vision dimming as the armored form strode out of the room. He could see the child weeping silently as the pain of his leg and his loss tore through the young heart. Loc felt sorry for the child and had the sudden urge to sweep up the bawling boy in his arms.
But as the pools of blood oozed toward the child, Loc realized he might not have an arm to comfort with. As he pondered the riddle, the world grew black and his mind grew still.
“Kendal Sly!” The giant finished his story and slammed a holo-card down on the engine block that was serving as a desk. The card shimmered and a tall armored form rotated slowly on the surface. It differed little from the giant’s story, though the armor now sported a long brown cloak and the helmet sported a similar wisp of fabric.
Lix Firebrand looked up at the dark giant and frowned. The man was over two meters tall and towered over everyone around him, and he knew it. He flexed his arms as she looked him over, showing off thick bands of muscle and a number of battle scars. He was dressed in a rough, well-worn grey ship-suit, with smooth black hair just long enough to be shaggy. His mouth seemed frozen in an eternal growl and his brown eyes shone like embers from a long-burning fire.
A tall, thin woman stood behind him silently. Green shone out of her half-closed eyes and contrasted sharply with her dark skin and curled raven hair. She wore a long, shimmering white gown that Lix knew to be the height of current Imperial fashion. A strong chin and thin cheeks filled out the impression of royalty in her stance. Lix assumed her to be the financier - the giant looked like the kind of person who would have a problem holding onto credits.
“So you want me to kill him?” Firebrand held the giant’s gaze without flinching. She might be barely two-thirds of his height, but she had brought down humans and aliens far more dangerous than he. “I’m a bounty hunter, not an assassin.”
“Of course, I don’t want you to kill anyone,” The giant’s voice thundered in the small space of the cargo hold. “I want you to find Kendal Sly so that I can kill that murdering offpsring of a hutt and a...“
“Shibu!” The woman stepped forward and grabbed the giant by the shoulder. Her voice floated in the air like a clarinet. “Calm down. We’re not going to convince Ms. Firebrand by breathing fire and shouting. She is a business woman.”
She stepped forward and placed a thousand credits on the engine block beside the holo card. Her hand was smooth as silk and the fingers sported perfectly manicured fingernails. Lix could see a pouch concealed in the sleeve of the gown and knew there would be many more credits within. Maybe this wasn’t such a bad job.
“Let me handle this, Foli,” The giant rumbled. “I’m not a child anymore.”
“No, Shibu, you’re not,” Foli answered smoothly. “But I am still your big sister. I always will be. Don’t forget that.”
Lix picked up the credits and held them in her right glove. The fingertip sensors sampled the paper and certified silently that the currency was authentic. They further noted that the paper and ink were of the type used exclusively in the mints on Imperial Center. Lix mentally activated her implants and brought up a list of current members of the Senate. The woman did not match any of the files, but the world-city of Coruscant held millions of sentient beings of importance who were no officially part of the Senate. She’d have to access the databanks of her ship directly, later, and see if the woman was to be found. Lix had lived a long time by refusing to accept Imperial bounties. She was not going to be suckered into it now.
“I offer one thousand credits, now,” Foli looked meaningfully at the currency. “And another nine thousand upon completion of the job. And by completion, I only mean getting Shibu within shooting distance of Kendal Sly. I don’t care whether or not Sly is actually killed.”
Shibu looked over his sister’s shoulder and growled. “I care. And there is no way that piece of filth is going to survive me.” He turned and walked out of the cargo hold into the searing heat of the Mnerine hangar.
“What’s with your brother?” Lix felt the shallow dent the giant’s fist had made in the engine block’s thin casing. She was going to have to invest in something tougher if she accepted the job. She could see her own face in the shining surface and brushed a strand of flaming red hair out of her eyes. She wondered what the giant had though of her small frame and unique hair coloring. The central spot of red over her forehead which faded slowly out to deep brown hair by her ears. “He seems desperately in need of a strong drink.”
“Shibu wouldn’t be helped by any drug, Ms. Firebrand.” Foli looked sadly down at the holo-card. “You heard the story. He has been obsessed with avenging our Mother’s death. He has been pushing and plotting since he was ten years old. I was able to put it behind me years ago, so was my sister. But Shibu was there when she was killed. Its so much a part of him now... I don’t think he’ll ever be able to get past it.”
“Can he handle himself?” Lix fingered the blaster at her hip. “I’m not looking forward to carrying a man to commit suicide. I’ve heard of Sly - he’s no one you want to mess with. He’s racked up an impressive body count.”
“Actually, Shibu is an experienced soldier already,” Foli sighed as she spoke. She seemed to age as she thought about her brother. “He may only be seventeen, but he has been part of a number of rebel cells on a number of planets. Did you hear about the incident at the Imperial consulate on Yaga Minor?“
“The inferno that flash-fried a thousand Imperial troops?” Lix had a droid intelligence that monitored the news channels. That particular story had generated nearly thirty bounties that had been snapped up by her competitors. The money she had missed out on had almost made her reconsider the non-Imperial policy. “Yeah, I heard something about that. People are saying its evidence that there really is an organized rebellion against the Empire.”
Foli smiled and bit back a laugh. “No glorious rebellion, Ms. Firebrand. Just one man with a score to settle and too much time on his hands. It’s the last time I take him along with me on a trade mission.”
Lix examined the woman’s face carefully for any sign of deception. But only bright expectation shone out. Of course, if the woman really were some kind of diplomat she would be a carefully trained liar. Still, her ship was in serious need of repair. She might call it the MORNING STAR but the fact was that it was not going to be able to rise again without some serious investment. Still, the investment would have to be more than a thousand.
“Tell you what, five thousand up front, ten more at the back end and I promise to keep your brother from killing himself,” She stood to her feet, barely coming to Foli’s breast-line. She had to reach up to offer the handshake. “Course, I won’t be able to keep Sly from killing him. That can’t be part of the contract.”
Foli sighed and a tear formed in her right eye. But she seized Lix’s hand and shook it strongly. “I’m not sure you’ll be able to keep Shibu from blowing himself up. But I appreciate the offer. Fifteen thousand it is.”
She slipped her hand into the hidden pouch and pulled out the missing four thousand credits. She handed it to Lix along with a small data card. “This has a code that will allow you to contact me through the Imperial Holo-Net. You may have to go out into the Rim to find Sly, but even out there you should be able to find a connection point. But it can only be used once, so don’t try it until you feel the contract is over, one way or the other.”
“Tell your brother I leave tomorrow morning at 0630 sharp.” Lix tucked the credits and the cards into a pouch at her left hip. “He’s not here, I’ll find Sly on my own and collect the cash.”
“I doubt I’d be able to keep him away.” Foli smiled sadly and strode out of the cargo hold.
Lix shook her head in surprise. She wondered whether this job was really worth it. But she still accessed her implants and signaled the best ship mechanic in Mnerine. She needed an overhaul of the sublights and repulsorlifts by early morning. It would be a rush-job, but with five thousand credits in hand it would be easy to get.
Shibu stood eye to eye with a huge, black, bullet-shaped droid and growled. The droid swiveled its domed head - Shibu doubted he could circle it with his own arm span - and stared balefully at him. After a long silence, the droid’s single eye spun out of focus and a long stream of beeps and warbles sounded out. The bulk backed slowly away on a single tread, its twittering rising in both volume and pitch until it seemed to be screaming in terror. Shibu frowned in annoyance.
“Leave Arewon alone, big guy,” Lix Firebrand laughed out the order from her position at the navigation console. The large black droid bumped up against a wall-screen, it’s tread scraping on the durasteel floor. “He’s not going to hurt you.”
Shibu turned from the droid and walked toward the bounty hunter. He was still trying to figure out the tiny woman. Barely 1.3 meters tall, she moved with a strength and purpose that he liked, but he couldn’t see her bringing down any serious criminal. He could hardly imagine her being able to lift a blaster rifle. But Foli insisted that the woman’s reputation was solid and her prices within the narrow range that his sister had been willing to pay. The woman’s silver eyes and starburst hair were certainly interesting, but nothing he had seen so far justified the high price they had paid for her services. Even the black chest-plate and shoulder pad armor seemed out of place on her tiny frame, despite the form-fitting red jumpsuit beneath it. Her soft face and thin jaw enhanced the chine doll appearance. The only part of her that didn’t seem out of place or out of scale was the delicate blaster pistol slung on her right hip. It was a nickel-plated model generally used by the rich and famous wanting to look tough. Similar blasters would have problems punching through a paper bag.
“Didn’t think it was going to hurt me,” Shibu spat out his reply. “Just never saw a droid like that. Can’t say I like droids in general. This one isn’t helping my attitude.”
The bounty hunter laughed loudly and waved the huge droid to silence.
“That’s R1-G9,” She tapped commands into the navigational console. “One of the earliest astromech droids, before the R2 units came onto the scene. He may be big and timid, but he’s the brain that keeps my ship in space. Leave him alone, and I promise he’ll leave you alone.”
Shibu grunted and fell into a seat next to the woman. The droid had stopped screaming and had moved over to another computer console and plugged itself in. It began quietly warbling to itself, but kept its single sensor eye carefully locked onto him. He spat toward it and the droid hummed to itself worriedly.
Another droid hobbled up onto the bridge. It was centaur-shaped, with four double-jointed legs scrabbling at the metal floor and a tall cylindrical body sprouting from the central bulb where the legs joined. The body was lined with eight arms, spaced equally around the body - each with a different length and thickness of three fingers. The top of the cylinder was capped by a binocular sensor unit which regarded the bridge with equanimity. Its metal was painted a pale red color, with a few swashes of green on the legs. After a scan of the full bridge, it hobbled over to Shibu and extended a hand with short bulbous fingers.
“Keep your droid paws off of me, pinky!” He slapped away the appendage and growled at the droid.
“Necessity of scannage, sir,” The droid spoke with a sputtering dialect of standard. “Meds of you is unrecorded. Required to treatment if damage sustained.”
“Meet CDJ-9, Shibu,” Kept her face to the console and Shibu could feel the deck-plates vibrate as the repulsors came online. “He’s the only medical droid on board this ship and unless you think you’ll stay completely healthy his trip, you’d better let him get your baseline medical readings into his memory banks.”
“Affirmation of message, sir,” The droid reached again for him. “Scannage or unknowing of you and guesswork is must.”
Shibu shivered as the droid ran the fingers across his body, carefully tracing his scars and holding the fingers in place for an obscene amount of time over the blaster burn on his leg. It continued all over his body until finally he growled at it and it hobbled away with a sputtered thanks.
“You’ve got some kind of droid zoo around here?” Shibu braced himself as the wall screens showed that the MORNNG STAR was moving into position for blast-off. “Or maybe a museum. I’ve never seen these models before.”
They were thrown back in their seats as the sublight engines ignited and the starship blasted out of the atmosphere. Stars filled the screens and TIE-fighters and other assorted short-range craft flew past, blissfully ignorant of their mission. The R1 droid chirped to itself behind them and numbers began to pour across Lix’s computer console. Shibu thought he recognized them as hyperspace equations.
“A litte bit of each, actually,” Firebrand leaned back in her chair as the astromech droid calculated the jump. “I find old obsolete droids and buy them for next to nothing. Then I upgrade them at my own convenience until they are up to whatever I need them for. They get a home, I get a state-of-the-art crew that never whines about the pay.”
“Plus,” She looked back at him with her silver eyes. “I feel a special affinity for droids.”
Her eyes suddenly grew red and Shibu looked down to see a targetting laser dot on his chest. He jumped up and backed into the tall black droid who squealed a protest. Lix smiled and the eyes grew dim.
“Calm down, soldier,” She turned back to the console and tapped in a series of commands. “If you haven’t learned it yet, its time someone taught you. No one is ever exactly what they seem.”
She pulled back on a trio of levers and the stars lengthened and swirled into a whirl-pool of light. Shibu felt a jerk of pseudo-motion and they were suddenly in the mottled sea of hyperspace.
Lix took a deep breath outside of the Gutter Scum bar to calm her mind and prepare her body. It was a definite mistake. She had to access her implants to suppress the instant gag reflex triggered by the stench that flowed out of the open doorway. Pestilence, Excrement, and Death seemed to be vying for the maximum odor output in the dark interior and it would take a careful referee with a cast-iron nose to judge the winner. The Gutter Scum attracted the lowest criminal element on the swamp world of Hach Gek which was renowned for its population of political, criminal, and social outcasts. Apparently, bathing was considered to be a luxury on a world where mold colonies were known to smother unwary visitors in their sleep. Lix activated a program which suppressed all of her olfactory senses, pulled out her silvery blaster and strode confidently into the bar.
The light outside had been dimmed by a thick cover of clouds, but the interior of the bar made it seem bright by comparison. Two tiny hover-droids held out dim glow-bulbs at the corners of the trapezoidal room which just barely cut through the haze of smoke and steam that hovered over it all. The room was filled with wire-mesh tables rimmed with ruddy rust and green mold, and they were in turn filled with mugs and tankards of various shapes. Around the tables sat creatures of all manner of description, from the wolfish three-fingered Yelrn sobbing into their fire water to the pear-shaped Gulp whose profuse hair and quadrilateral symmetry made it impossible to decide which way was forward. A stocky, blue-grey wookiee stood behind a bar that covered the short side of the trapezoid, his fur shaved away in confusing patches, and threw tankards of various liquids to whatever customer shouted loud enough to be heard. Several methane-breathing Havah stood about in their sealed space-suits, plugging smoky pipes of purple weed into their intake valves to inbibe of the intoxicating tabaac
And in the center of it all sat a tall orange-skinned lizard, laughing loudly and crunching contentedly on a bowl of kava nuts. The creature was roughly humanoid with a long reptillian face and thick muscular arms. He was covered in rags of glistening green, cinched at the waist with a pearlescent stone the size of one of Lix’s fists. He was surrounded with a small group of creatures who seemed slightly less disreputable than the average customer - some actually wore unstained clothing and seemed to have a rudimentary idea of brushing - and who were cackling loudly at the lizard’s last joke.
Lix walked slowly up to the lizard’s table, carefully watching his white-slitted eyes for any sign of recognition. She quietly slipped past a table of green-skinned rhodians arguing about their bill and slid off the safety from her blaster. Few of the customers seemed to have noticed anything strange about her. Humans were a rare but not unprecedented sight in the Gutter Scum and few of the creatures even claimed to understand the sensibilities of the hairless brutes. She sidled up behind one of the taller groupies at the lizard’s table and placed the blaster firmly in the back of a yellow trandoshan that was slapping the table in hilarity. She pulled the trigger.
The bar was suddenly silent and the sound of the alien toady hitting the ground seemed incredibly loud. All faces were suddenly turned her way and she found herself being silently regarded by eyes that saw in many different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum. The orange lizard was regarding her with amusement, his tongue flicking out to taste her scent and recognition dawning in his eyes. She pushed the dead alien’s leg off of the stool it had been occupying a moment before with her boot. After a glance to confirm that the creature hadn’t left any kind of residue, she sat down and placed her blaster carefully down on the table. It shone and sparkled even in the darkness.
“How’s it going, Jako? Business seems good,” She kept her voice firm but strong as the lizard smiled back at her. She nodded at the corpse, “Even if you are having problems keeping the place clean.”
The wookiee bellowed a question across the bar and the lizard nodded slowly. The furry giant growled and hurled a tankard of hydrocloric acid at a customer by the bar and suddenly the chatter filled the room. If Jako were calm, then everyone could be calm apparently.
“Chakta ubta, Lix Firebrand,” The lizard’s eyes narrowed as he spoke, but his smile got wider. He was enjoying the diversion. “Havaj cum actu yakta sum ru?”
“Well, I just knew I had to get your attention,” Lix answered the alien’s banter carefully. It had been a long time since she had tried to listen to his particular dialect. Jako could speak perfect standard but generally refused to. It was his way of asserting dominance from the start. “And your boy here had bounties on his head in seven star systems for poaching. A girl has to earn a living.”
Jako laughed loudly, his tongue carefully shaping each bark. The other aliens around the table shifted uncomfortably in their chairs at their host’s indifference to their well being. Lix recognized at least three others around her as low bounties. She knew a quick access to her ship board computer would reveal several more. But she had another job to do here.
“Tabatu fulaba cum yukt,” The lizard leaned toward her, his spicy breath fillig the space between them. “Am kulu da gabu?”
The lizard wanted to get straight to business. It hadn’t built its small empire on a swamp world by dallying once he caught the scent of money. He knew he had something she wanted.
“Simple question, simple answer, Jako.” Lix touched a hidden stud at her belt and an invisible energy field covered the table. The lizard looked around as the sound of the bar was suddenly dampened and several of the groupies around the table jumped back as they were shocked by the field. Jako’s smile deepened as he recognized the hush field. This conversation was for her and the lizard only. “I’m looking for someone and I know you are the only person on the Rim territories who might know where he is.”
The lizard looked at her for a long moment and held up three fingers. She winced at the price but handed three thousand of Foli’s credits under the table to the creature. She hoped the charge for the answer wouldn’t be too much more. She only had a few thousand left after upgrading the MORNING STAR.
“Yamut, mu tula,” The lizard licked his lips and ran his eyes hungrily over her body. Lix wondered whether the creature enjoyed cross-species coupling or was just ready for his next meal.
“I want to know where I can find Kendal Sly,” She spoke clearly, enunciating each syllable so the lizard knew exactly what she was saying. His eyes grew wide as he heard the name, and she could see his lips curl in momentary surprise. This was not the request he had been expecting.
“Are you crazy, human?” He slipped suddenly into standard, betraying his shock. “Sly is not someone that a tiny bounty hunter like you is going to bring down! Maybe Boba Fett, but not you. Sly has cut down more tough guys in his sleep than you have in your entire career. His location is not for sale at any price.”
Suddenly, a tall robed form stumbled up against the lizard. Jako looked up in annoyance and barked out a curse in his own dialect before noticing the blaster barrel poised an inch from his right eye. The figure shurgged off his hood and Shibu’s dark face shone with a self-satisfied smile. His heavy blaster pistol whined ominously as the capacitors audibly charged.
“Well, if it’s not for sale, maybe you’d better make it a gift,” Shibu’s deep voice rumbled through the hush field. “Makes no difference to us, since we’re walking out of her with the info one way or another.”
Jako jerked his head free from the field and stood to his feet as Lix deactivated it. Shibu’s aim followed the creature up and he found himself looking up at a creature for the first time. Lix had tried to prepare the boy for the lizard’s eight-foot frame, but words didn’t communicate the experience of facing the senient equivilent of a krayt dragon.
“Are you going to shoot me, boy?” Jako’s voice rang over the general babble and silenced it by its urgency. “Do you think anyone here is going to let you shoot your better?”
Lix rose quickly to her feet as the Havah around the room suddenly pulled blaster rifles and vibro-blades out. Firebrand’s implants quickly categorized seventeen immediate threats carrying rifles and thirteen secondary threats carrying some form of bladed weapon. The methane-breathers had seemed stupidly intoxicated on their smoke a moment ago, but now showed eyes that were stone sober. This was slightly more than she had anticipated. Even the wookiee had ducked beneath the bar in fright.
Jako’s barking laughter filled the bar as he examined the two humans threatening him.
“Why don’t you run along and play, little ones,” He jerked open his mouth to display a weathly of sharpened teeth. He pulled it closed with a snap. “You might get hurt if you try out your toys in our neighborhood.”
“Actually,” Lix lifted her blaster slowly from the table, carefully keeping the aim to the floor. “We wanted to show you our toys first, big guy.”
With a flash of blinding light and deafening sound, the hover-droids exploded. The explosion carefully channelled shrapnel out in a cloud of razor metal over a group of three methane-breathers, shredding their suits and exposing the creatures to the toxic oxygenated air. The glow-globes fell to the ground and shattered, releasing a yellow mist which mixed with the exposed methane and produced a deep pea-green fog that filled the bar.
Lix dropped into a fighting crouch and mentally called up the night-vision subroutines in her robotic eyes. The thick fog suddenly grew transparent and she could see that the bar had instantly degenrated into a panic. Customers were trampling each other in a futile attempt to get out of the war zone, and the methane-breathers were firing wildly into the air as they tried to open up a path of visibility in the fog. She aimed and carefully squeezed off shots into six of the rifle-toting aliens before she felt something large brush up against her right leg. She pivoted on her left foot and carefully aimed a kick at the center of the thing’s mass.
“How’m I doing, bounty hunter?” Shibu’s graveled voice whispered to her out of the fog and she sent the kick backwards instead, shattering the rib cage of a rhodian that had been stumbling about with a drawn blaster pistol Don’t think a Verpine could have rigged those droids any better.”
She winced at the eagerness in the giant’s voice. He might have the body of a man, but Shibu was far too eager to please. She had to constantly remind herself that the kid was only a teenager.
“Don’t get cocky, Shibu,” She squeezed off six more shots at methane-breathers, taking out one with each shot. “You may be something special where you come from and you handled yourself okay so far, but it only takes one mistake and I’ll be bringing you home to your sister in a box.”
The giant grumbled beside her as the mist began to disperse. She keyed her blaster to full power and stood to her feet through a small clearing in the fog. Three Havah with vibro-blades were slashing wildly at random customers around them and she fired a single shot that burned through all of them. She turned and placed another bolt into the fur of a Gump whose body oils burst into flame. It ran head-long into the remaining blaster-toting methane-breathers who were instantly roasted in the alien’s panic. Two others ran over with knives and tried to cut the creature off of their fellows, but were likewise consumed by the blaze. She could see Shibu retching beside her from the smell of burnt fur and pressure suit.
As the fog thinned to transparency, the crowd itself dispersed out of various doors, windows, and make-shift holes. But Jako was nowhere to be seen. She swore to herself and quickly set her impants to replay the entire scene and scan for the lizard’s current whereabouts.
Suddenly, a blur of orange scales slammed into her back from the ceiling and her blaster slid across the floor toward the bar. She hit the ground hard and felt the air forced from her lungs as a half-ton of bone and muscle crashed onto her spine. She looked up and saw Jako’s leering face glaring down at her. The creature kicked out at Shibu where the human lay vomitting and sent him crashing through several tables. The lizard flexed his seven-fingered hand and extended black two-inch claws.
“Feeling so smart now, little Lix Firebrand?” Jako snarled down at her and ground his heel into her back. He slashed at her with his right claws and she could feel them scraping against the armor on her back. He was playing with her. “I think I’ll fillet you right here and serve up your remains as tonight’s dinner special. It only seems fitting after you turned my bodyguards into appetizers.”
As he tensed his claws for a killing blow, Lix accessed a central implant node and activated her robotic endo-skeleton. She grunted with exertion and felt the servo-motors move her alloy steel bones into motion. She threw off the lizard and rolled away as the creature slashed at her with its claws. She grabbed a fallen stool and hurled it at him with such force that he was slammed against the back wall with a pained yelp. Jako stood slowly to his feet and snatched a blaster rifle where it has fallen from the charred hand of one of his bodyguards. Lix tensed herself for sudden movement and watched the lizard’s trigger finger.
Suddenly, a crimson bolt of energy struck the rifle and shattered it into a firey explosion. Jako was thrown to the ground and lay moaning as his green cloak began to burn. Lix looked back and saw Shibu leaning heavily against the bar, holding her blaster in his hand, still pointed at the lizard.
“Never would have thought this ugly thing was good for a fight,” The dark giant rumbled. “But this nickel-plated sissy pistol packs some serious heat.”
“Cover him for me, kiddo,” She spoke loudly in the silence of the empty room.
Lix moved quickly over to Jako’s smoking body and stood over the creature. His eyes were closed tightly against the pain of the blackened wound on its right shoulder. She reached down and grabbed him by the throat. As her robotically-enhanced fingers began to crush his wind-pipe, the lizard’s eyes fluttered open. They looked at her with unfocused hatred.
“Sly is going to the Duncan system to deliver a message to Grand Moff Garn,” The lizard hissed out the information. “He’ll be enterring the system through the central asteroid belt to avoid detection. Sly is bringing some important message from the Moff’s mistress on Coruscant. Now get out of my bar and leave me alone.”
Lix released the lizard and let his head fall back to the ground. She walked back to Shibu and pulled the weapon gently from his fingers. He leaned heavily on her as she helped him slowly out of the bar, glancing back to their handiwork with pride.
“Not bad for our first job as a team, eh?” His voice was filled with exhaustion. “Though I hope its a little more exciting next time. I was hoping to use a thermal detonator I hid in the pants of a gammorean in the doorway.”
The kid still had a lot to learn.
The sparkling mass of a quartz asteroid tumbled past the view-screen, glinting in the blue white glare of Duke, the central star of the Duncan system. Shibu noticed that a mountainette on the eastern side of the asteroid barely missed the fragile magnetic grid that served as a wing for their starship and swallowed loudly. Lix had positioned them carefully in one of the densest part of the system’s asteroid belt to avoid detection by the passing security drones that patrolled the hyperspace jump points of the wealthy system. But the swarms of tumbling mountains always seemed on the verge of crushing them out of existence. Claustrophobia had never been a problem for him before, but now each asteroid made him feel like the walls were closing in.
Shibu closed his eyes and thought back to the first time he had seen the MORNING STAR, back in the hangar a Mnerine. Foli had praised the sparkling silver vehicle, but it had looked like nothing so much as a limp squid to him. The ship’s central mass was a long bullet-shaped mass with a a large cockpit visible in the front most area and large sublight engines taking up most of the rest of the area. The sides of the ship jutted out slightly into smooth curves, like wings whose growth had been stunted, but out of the curves sprouted long metal fingers, as long again as the ship itself which had been tucked tightly against the ship.
Shibu had joked about the fingers, wondering aloud if the bounty hunter was a fan of sign language. But after takeoff, Lix had explained that the “fingers” were in fact adjustable magnetic wings which could be positioned differently to take advantage of the momentary needs of the mission. During launch from a planet, they spread out horizontally and stretched the invisible monofilament fibers that hung invisibly between them, until they locked onto the magnetic field of the planet and assisted the repulsorlifts in levitating the vessel. In the air, they narrowed and swept back to serve as makeshift airfoil to keep them afloat and maneuverable even with constant thrust from the engine. In space, they could be extended vertically to catch the solar winds of a system and allow them to move quickly without using their engines at all. Overall, the MORNING STAR’s “wings” allowed it to be silent and deadly in any terrain.
But Shibu’s imagination was consumed at the moment with speculation on the fate of the ship if one of those wings were torn apart by a thousand tons of space-borne debris. He ducked as a large carbonaceous mountain rolled by above the ship.
“You can relax, big guy,” Lix was reclining in the pilot’s chair at the front of the bridge, sucking at the remains of a juice-bulb that a hobbling power droid had delivered to her minutes before. It waited patiently for her to finish and place the empty contained back on its rusty head. The ancient R1 droid hummed to itself behind him. “Arewon is keeping up safe from any passing pebbles. It looks crowded out there, but the fact is that most of this area is just open space. We actually have to fight to stay in a swarm of mass that shields us from anyone’s sensors.”
Shibu winced as a mass of rock the size of his head shot by the view-screen and rumbled to himself. He didn’t appreciate the fact that the little woman kept reminding him of his shortcomings. He had racked up an impressive career as a freedom fighter in his seventeen years and he didn’t need some runt bounty hunter acting as his mother.
“So why are we bothering with this hide-and-seek game?” He growled back at the woman. “I thought you were friendly with imperial-types. Afraid they might have an outstanding warrant for you or something?”
Lix squeezed the juice bulb to push out the last drops of liquid and dropped it absent mindedly on the devoted droid. It let out a satisfied “gonk” and hobbled off the bridge. Firebrand tapped at a sensor control with her right boot’s heel and grunted to herself.
“You’ve got the wrong idea, muscles,” She smirked at him from her relaxed position. “We’re not out here to hide from imperials. We’re out here setting am ambush for Kendal Sly.”
“You think he’s going to pop out of hyperspace here, just because your feminine intuition tells you so?” Shibu spat the words at her. “He could be coming from any direction and come out anywhere short of the inner planets. I may not be a pilot but I do know something about hyperspace.”
Lix sat up and let the back of her seat swing into an upright position. She keyed the controls on her console and Shibu could see the four laser cannons spaced around the cockpit swiveling about as they targetted random asteroids. One fired a low-power shot that illuminated the shadowed dark side of a shale asteroid. Shibu assumed she was running a diagnostic.
“You don’t know as much as you think you do, kid,” Shibu winced at the condescending tone in her voice. “This asteroid belt has a constantly shifting gravitational footprint that would yank any ship out of hyperspace if they tried to punch through. There are only four places in the entire system that maintain a meta-stable area without a footprint. The other three are on the other side of the system. This one is closest to Duncan III, which is where Grand Moff Garn is stuck right now chairing a conference on diplomacy on the Outer Rim. If Sly wants to get in-system, this is the logical place to do it.”
Shibu leaned against the viewscreen and stared out into the asteroid field. He could see a small rock-free area at the very edge of his distance vision.
“Assuming your buddy Jako wasn’t full of it,” Shibu fired his voice with scorn, “Why don’t we just position ourselves at the jump point and blast Sly out of existence when the ship falls back into realspace?”
“Three things to remember, rookie,” Lix’s voice mirrored his own in intensity of scorn. But he could tell she was struggling to keep it in a lecturing tone, treating him like a student instead of a moron. “One, Sly’s not the only one who can use that jump-point. I’m not looking forward to slagging some droid barge trying to deliver cigars to the natives. Two, you’re not paying me to kill Sly. I find him, deliver you to him, and step out of the way. I’m not wasting my blasters on your target. Three, Jako is an information dealer. He doesn’t make his money off of that run down bar of his. So he doesn’t lie about his information, but there’s nothing to keep him from selling information about us to Kendal Sly either. And all my data says that Sly has bigger cannons than I do. Got it?”
Shibu rankled under the tone, but accepted the information. He’d had to deal with too many rookies in his short career with the resistance cells around the galaxy to ignore her advice. You didn’t gain respect by refusing information from some who knew a heck of a lot more than you did. But he didn’t have to like it.
Suddenly a flash of pseudo-motion caught the corner of his eye and a small freighter fell out of hyperspace. The ship was a long, flat shape cut in the shape of a crescent moon with the arms swept far back behind. Blaster cannons protruded on the top and bottom of the ship tracking about the asteroid field for any target. Small rectangular engines sat in the deepest part of the curve and windows shone in at the outer edge of the central bulge. Shibu darted forward into the copilot’s seat, knocking up against the ancient R1 droid. He called up the ship’s transponder codes and saw that it was registered as the starship HOT ZONE.
“There’s our boy,” Lix tapped the sensors to passive mode, bringing the ship into full stealth mode. “Right on schedule and just as paranoid as I thought he’d be. He just sent out a magneton pulse that identified every particle of dust in this quadrant. Luckily, the MORNING STAR’s magnetic wings were set to absorb it so he has no idea we’re here.”
“No one knows whether Sly is a boy or girl, actually,” Shibu absorbed every detail from the passive scans. “No one’s ever seen that idiot without the armor. I’ve been studying every detail of Sly’s life I could find and even folks who worked with Sly didn’t know what air that moron breathed.”
“Details, details,” Lix tapped away at the navigation console and brought the ship slowly about behind the HOT ZONE without emerging from the asteroid field. “Whatever gender he is, Kendal Sly is now in our sights.”
Shibu grabbed a small disk from a hidden pocket in his shirt and slapped it onto R1-G9. The tall black astromech squealed at his touch and Lix spun around in shock at the movement. Shibu grabbed the co-pilotting controls and activated the console. He powered up the engines and weapons systems in one smooth movement.
“What in blazes do you think you’re doing, Shibu?” Lix stood to her feet and slapped a control that instantly cut power to his console. “If you light the engines, Sly is going to know for sure that we’re out here.”
“Know what that is?” Shibu rumbled the question as he pointed to the silver disk. It was about the size of Lix’s open hand and was covered with flashing lights. He could see the confusion in her face. “It’s a proton bolt. The thing is filled with enough explosives to vaporize your precious droid and open up this compartment to space.” He showed a small control nestled in his right palm. “I’ve got the detonator control right here. Now, you will hand over the controls of your ship to me or the big guy gets recycled.”
Lix reached slowly for her blaster, but pulled her hand away and relaxed as Shibu moved his thumb toward the detonation control. He could see her eyes measuring the distance between them to see if she could reach him before he could activate the explosive. As they grew hard, he knew she didn’t like the results of the mental calculations.
“I don’t think you’d really set it off, rookie,” She spoke softly and slowly, trying to penetrate his calm. “If you open this ship up to vacuum, you’ll be in a worse situation than I would. I know where the pressure suits are stored.”
Shibu pulled a transparent plastic mask from a side pocket and placed it over his face and eyes. “You’re not the only one who comes to a fight prepared.” He pulled straps over his head and let the mask hang at his neck. “You might want to strap in before you give me control. I plan to do some fancy flying.”
Lix dropped back into her seat and pulled the straps slowly around her shoulders. She took her time securing the station and returning control to Shibu, hoping it would give Sly enough time to power up and escape. She did not like being double-crossed. But the ship remained solidly in place, playing scan beams across the field. Finally, she keyed the co-pilots station to activation with a groan.
“Relax, girl,” Shibu brought the systems on-line with clumsy speed. Lix swore as she head the power systems groan under the strain. “Foli’s got enough money to make all this worth your while. You’ll feel a lot better when Kendal Sly is just a bunch of scattered atoms. I know I will.”
Shibu slammed the throttle forward and brought the MORNING STAR out of the asteroid swarm at high speed. He could feel the shock on the ship as it shouldered the flying mountains out of the way and he saw that the astromech droid was helping with the flying, presumably in hopes of keeping the ship in one piece. Shibu activated the weapons systems and could hear the whine of a targeting lock even before they had cleared the last rock.
The HOT ZONE responded as soon as the engines were lit. Its own engined flared blue white and the ship rocketed for the outer edge of the asteroid field. But the light frieghter was no match for the sleek speed of Lix’s fighter-craft. With constant pressure on the throttle and a hard hand on the maneuvering controls, Shibu was within weapons range in a few seconds.
He slammed his hand onto the firing controls and green bolts of plasma streaked out from the four cannons surrounding the bridge. They slammed into the rear shields of Sly’s ship which glowed red under the barrage - a sure sign of impending overload. Shibu twisted the MORNING STAR as he saw the dorsal blaster cannon of the HOT ZONE tracking them. He barely avoided a red bolt of plasma and placed four more blasts into the rear shields of the enemy ship. The shield parted for a moment and one bolt got through, digging a deep crater just forward of the starboard engine. But Sly quickly adjusted the power distributions and they could see the shielding reestablish itself as a crimson laser blast slammed into their own ship, rocking it violently and causing the black droid to squeal.
“Let me fly!” Lix screamed as she reached forward and keyed piloting back to her console. “I don’t know what breakfast cereal you got your pilotting lessons from, but I am not about to let you get my ship torn apart just because you’re threatening to blow it apart. I’ll fly, you shoot. We’ll settle accounts later!”
Shibu grunted as Lix brought the ship out of its spin and folded the magnetic wings into tight maneuvering fins swept back along the sides of the ship. He could feel the vessel flying smoothly now under the loving hand of its master. He had learned the fundamentals of pilotting from one of Foli’s imperial body-guards, but suddenly realized that he hadn’t learned as much as he had thought. No problem. He’d rather focus on vaporizing Sly than piloting anyway.
But the momentary lapse in concentration had given Sly the moment he needed to run. The dorsal cannon was still firing, but sensors showed that the HOT ZONE had collapsed its shields and channelled nearly all of the power in the ship to its sublight engines. The freighter was streaking away from them at an alarming rate. It would be visible to the patrol drones in a few seconds.
Shibu leaned hard on the blaster cannons as they flew toward the enemy ship at top speed, carefully dodging each laser shot from Sly. The dark giant was able to place several hits on the freighter but nearly all were in non-critical areas. The attack would eventually add up to a crippling blow, but Sly’s careful piloting was going to delay the inevitable until the MORNING STAR was itself vulnerable to local security.
“You’d better do something quick, kid,” Lix twisted the ship around a crimson laser blast as she spoke from behind clenched teeth. “He’s going to be out of reach in about five seconds.”
Shibu swore to himself as the latest barrage went wide. Four seconds. He glanced down at the controls in search of some alternate means of attack. Three seconds. No proton torpedoes, no concussion missiles, not ion cannon. Two seconds. Something. One second.
He looked up and slammed his hand down on a somewhat obscure control at the far edge of the console. The MORNING STAR was jerked by a sudden shock and Shibu grinned as he saw the HOT ZONE yanked off course by the sudden force of his tractor beam. He might not have been able to atomize Sly with one shot, but now he was on a tether and it was only a matter of time. He laughed aloud as the freighter twisted back toward them and Lix deftly avoided the shots from Sly’s laser cannon. He carefully lined up the other ship in the targetting sensors and waited for the prime shot.
Suddenly, the freighter exploded. Shibu winced at the memory of Kendal Sly’s flechette weapon and fired the blaster cannons into the expanding cloud of metal. They hadn’t fired and he was sure that their earlier shots hadn’t been enough to destroy the other vessel. He scrambled with the tractor beam controls and keyed them off as they threatened to overheat from the impossibility of maintaining lock on the thousands of fragments.
As he struggled to shut down the tractor beam, he saw a flicker of motion out of the corner of his eye. He looked up and gasped as a Y-wing fighter, its long engine nacelles pointed straight at them, streaked away. He fired ineffectually through the particle cloud, but was unable to get any kind of a target lock. The light, powerful craft was out of the asteroid field in a moment, suddenly out of reach.
He swore loudly and looked up to see a silvery blaster barrel pointed at his face. Lix’s silver eyes shone over the top of them and he could see her finger already had the trigger half pulled. He moved very slowly and reached up toward the proton disk with his left hand while keeping the detonator in his right hand visible to her. He touched a hidden control on the proton bolt and it slid free and deactivated. He handed it to her gently and deposited the detonator beside it in her hand.
She stepped forward and smacked him across the face with her left hand. Her tiny frame belied great strength, as he had seen in the bar, and he saw stars for several seconds after the strike. He grunted and rubbed his cheek.
“Alright,” He rumbled. “I deserved that.”
“Blast it. You deserve a lot worse, kid,” She motioned manacingly at him with the blaster before sliding it violently back into its holster. “Lucky for you, I have a soft spot for hard luck cases and idiots. You’re both. If you had mentioned this little stunt to me before this, I could have told you it wouldn’t work. Sly is too well prepared for the usual stuff. You want to sort things out with him, you have to do it face to face. And even then, I give you thousand to one odds.”
Shibu leaned back in the copilots chair and ignored the glare of the R1 droids single sensor. Somehow the machine was able to put considerable emotion into a glass lens. He had screwed up. Sly now not only knew he was around, but that he was going to kill him.
“But I promised your sister I’d keep you from killing yourself,” Lix sighed loudly and began typing commands into the navigation console. “So I guess that means I have to find some way to smuggle you down onto Duncan III. Otherwise I think you might just stick you head in front of some idiot bureaucrat's blaster while trying to intimidate your way in.”
She slapped the engines to life and brought the MORNING STAR slowly out of the asteroid field. With a flick of her wrist, the engines flared and they arced toward the inner planets of the Duncan system.
Lix threw herself through the doorway of a cardboard hovel, shoving aside the small rhodian that had been blocking the doorway a moment before. The green, scaled alien jabbered out a rather colorful complaint a moment before a scarlet blaster bolt burned a large hole in the side of the hut. The creature screamed wetly and dove under a pile of filthy rags at the back corner of the room that probably normally served as a bed. Lix had limited experience with rhodians, despite their intergalactic reknown as bounty hunters, but was fairly sure the sharp tang in the air was the smell of various bodily fluids of the fish-faced species.
Lix ducked to the side of the doorway opposite the new hole and fired wildly back into the street, hoping to hold back the swarm of stormtroopers that had decended upon them a moment after they had disembarked from the MORNING STAR. She pulled back as more blaster bolts turned the walls of the house into a cloud of smoke. She switched the programming analyzing the visual inputs of her eyes through her implants to infrared and found the thin walls of the hovel were nearly transparent. She saw seven large, hot armored figures slowly moving foward in a tightly ordered formation, the white-hot barrels of their rifles playing across the north wall of the hut. She measured the distance and angle to each soldier and began the calculations to see if she would have a chance to blast each one without being shot in return.
As the calculations ground through her implants, she thought back and cursed herself for having not taken more precautions during infiltration. After Kendal Sly had fled their attack in his fighter, she had extended the magnetic wings of her ship to tack through the solar wind of the system. That, along with the thrust of her newly overhauled engines, had brought them within weapons range of Sly just shy of the atmosphere, but a swarm of TIE fighter and security drones had kept their weapons silent, despite Shibu’s urges. However, while the genetic courier had cut through the security surrounding the planet with little response, they had quickly learned that the landing procedures for Duncan III were going to keep them in orbit for at least three days. After an hour of listening to Shibu’s grumbling, Lix had finally decided that the chance of finding Sly quickly and cleanly outweighed the dangers of crossing Imperial regulations. They blasted past the outer defenses and followed their target’s observed course through the atmosphere.
Sly had landed on the northern continent, an temperate area of the world with thick forests, and it had taken a half hour of scanning before they found the renegade Y-wing. A burst of the MORNING STAR’s blaster cannons had rendered the fighter into scrap, but there had been no life signs. Sly had already left the area. She had ordered Arewon to bring the ship to within a meter of the surface and take off as soon as they were clear of the ramp so as to throw off any would-be pursuers.
The plan had worked for a few minutes, as TIE Fighters and Skipray blast-boats screamed after the delicate shape of her ship. They tracked Sly’s traces through the forest with her specialized implants and had emerged into a squatters village in a two-kilometer clearing. The entire village was composed of waste materials - cardboard, corrugated aluminum sheets, and squares of crumbling duracrete - and was filled with the aliens that had been chased out of the streets of the major cities of Duncan III by the Imperial human-centric policies. Unfortunately, it was also filled with a squad a stormtroopers assigned to keep order among the vagrants who immediately recognized that the two humans were out of place. Another moment and the squad’s commander had identified Shibu on a warrant sworn out on Yaga Minor. Unfortunately, he was wanted dead or alive. They had killed three in the initial confrontation, but the running chase through the squatter’s village was quickly raising the odds in the Empire’s favor.
There was a sharp explosion outside and the sounds of electronically-processed screaming for a long moment. Then silence. She braced herself by the door and watched as a tall, muscular form walked slowly toward the doorway, glancing over its shoulder with nervous movements. She clicked her blaster to full power and aimed it into the doorway.
“Blast it! Isn’t anyone in this flaming village normal size?!” Shibu swore as his head slammed into the top of the doorway and tore through the cardboard. He rubbed his head and frowned at the webbed foot that pulled itself under the pile of rags. He smiled at Lix. “No offense, tiny.”
“None taken, freak,” She slid around the doorway and glanced out into the square. There was a large crater in the center of the clearing and there was a large scorch mark against the side of a duracrete hutt on the north-east side. Scraps of stormtrooper armor were scattered around the clearing, with no sign of human remains. “I see you brought some of that quaint backwater cheer of your to the locals. Don’t suppose you brought enough to share?”
Shibu shifted uncomfortably and brought his heavy blaster pistol up by his ear as he peered out across the clearing. She could hear him clicking the safety on and off nervously.
“Sorry,” He rumbled, she could see a flush of warmth flash across his face. A guilty lie, but not one she was going to call him on. She disengaged the infra-red filters and was relieved as color returned to the world. “I used my thermal detonator clearing out your buddies. Figured it was my best bet to clear a way to track down Sly before reinforcements arrive. There’s a few more scattered around searching for us, but I get the feeling no one’s in a hurry to step in front of our blasters.”
Lix smirked and waved at the alien whose house they had shredded. She wasn’t surprised that the stormtroopers were less than eager to throw themselves at the intruders. The alien slum was likely a cushy assignment for underachievers. If her rhodian friend was any indication, the locals were a timid bunch not likely to put up much of a fight.
She engaged an olfactory enhancement program through her implants and after a momentary enhancement of the gag reflex at the smell of a sweaty rhodian, the discrimination programs locked onto the antisceptic smell that she had learned to associate with Kendal Sly. She walked slowly to the southeast, pushing past the tattered wall of the hutt and walked slowly, staying latched to the scent. She frowned at the smirk on Shibu’s face. She knew he was laughing at the idea of her acting the part of the bloodhound. The kid would have to learn that the most valuable skills in her line of work or any other were the least glamorous ones.
She led them for about a kilometer to the southern edge of the village, dodging the ruinous shanties and scuttling of terrified citizens. Finally, they emerged into a clearing by the border of the forest and walked into five stormtroopers with the rifles drawn. Shibu dove into a aluminum shack to the east and she drew back into a duracrete hut as the blaster bolts flew.
She could hear the bolts slamming into he walls and laughed thankfully that she had chosen something more durable than cardboard to hide behind. She disengaged the bloodhound program and activated her robotic endo-skeleton. She’d need speed more than sensors in this particular situation. She slid in a blur to the far side of the doorway and speared a white-armored trooper that had dashed forward through his helmet with her blaster. She fired a series of shots into the clearing, hoping to nail a few more, before ducking back into the hut.
Suddenly, Shibu threw himself through the doorway and slammed into the far wall of the shack with a grunt, knocking loose a cloud of white particles. He smiled up at her with an apologetic look in his eyes and pushed himself to his feet, wincing at some pain in his back.
“We’re not doing too bad, tiny,” He winced as more blaster bolts slammed into the walls of the hovel. “I took out one of the ’troopers right away and looks like you found a new use for their helmets.” He waved to the body of the dead imperial. “I think his face would make a great strainer, don’t you?”
She smiled back, surprised at his sudden burst of good humor. She had expected a tirade about the newest setback in hunting for Kendal Sly. She winced as another storm of blasts cut into the south wall and slid partially out of the doorway to blast another imperial through his chest plate. As she ducked back into the shanty, a blaster burst slammed into the top of the doorway, showering her with fragments. She looked up at the gouge about a meter above her head. She noticed that it was even lower than the one in the cardboard hut where Shibu had hit his head. Her stomach grew cold as she realized that he should have hurt himself far worse on this openning.
Lix turned in shock back to the giant and saw that his face had suddenly slackened and lost all color, fading to a dusty brown. The eyes and nose smoothed out into a uniform covering and an armored hand yanked the material back from the face to reveal an armored helmet with a crimson visor and a metalic green triangle covering the jaw like some kind of outlaw bandana. She drew her blaster up with all of the speed her enhanced body could muster, but a small cylinder in Sly’s hand had already ejected a cloud of blue energy.
The cloud of lightning hit her dead center and she shuddered as the ionic pulse swept across her body. She could feel the circuitry in her endo-skeleton burning out with flashes of heat and her implants were flashing a nonsense jumble of words and concepts across her consciousness as the pulse slowly reduced them to so much slag. She hit the ground hard, her blaster rolling away from her numb fingers, and twitched uncontrollably as the energy swept across her again and again.
“You should learn to keep your nose out of other people’s business, bounty hunter,” Sly’s speech synthesizer was still using Shibu’s tones. “I don’t know who sent you, but nothing stands between me and my goals.” Sly brushed a flap of the brown material attached to his helment away with a strangely feminine gesture. Lix could feel the void of unconsciousness closing upon her. “Enjoy the ion pulse. It’s nothing compared to what your boy-friend is in for.“
The darkness claimed her as the electronic laughter pulsed out.
Shibu swore loudly as he scraped his head on the door of the aluminum doorway, drawing a small trickle of blood into his left eye. He fell to the floor of the hut and fired his heavy blaster wildly through the southern wall, knowing that he would likely be able to take out at least one trooper with the flurry. He ducked down as a returning volley of blaster bolts burned through the thin walls of both sides of the room. He suddenly wished he had followed Lix into the duracrete bunker on the other side of the street.
Another volley of red blaster bolts tore through the walls and he heard a gasp from behind him. He rolled to a corner and brought his own pistol around to face a mangy wookiee slumped against the far wall. There was a smoking crater in the alien’s chest and the smell of burnt fur was quickly filling the small space. The creatures eyes were staring vacantly at Shibu with a sorrowful expression in its eyes. He found his voice catch in his throat as he tried to mumble an apology, but the light quickly faded from its eyes. The creature died without so much as a moan. He could feel tears burning his own eyes as blaster bolts sounded from the duracrete bunker across the way. He hoped Lix was taking revenge for both of them.
Suddenly, a large armored shape barrelled through the door and slammed into Shibu. He rolled away and threw the attacker away with a shove from his boots. He continued the roll and landed hard in a crouch by the doorway. A quick glance outside showed all of the stormtroopers dead or dying with blaster marks across their bodies. He smirked and muttered a thanks to Lix Firebrand. She was even better than he had seen in the Gutter Scum bar.
He looked back to the armored attacker and suddenly tasted the sour taste of bile in his throat. The khaki colors of Kendal Sly’s armor were stained with ruddy smears from the rusty patches in the walls of the shack. The expressionless face of the armor’s mask looked up at him and Sly was struggling to rise, but his right leg would not hold his weight. Shibu could see from the unnatural angle it was held at that it was broken. Sly’s right hand was flailing about the ground, apparently trying to find some weapon to use against him.
He could feel his mouth aching with the smile that tore his face from ear to ear. His blaster felt heavy in his right hand and the trigger seemed to be biting into his index finger. With a grunt, he raised it and felt a stab of pleasure like an orgasm as he fired again and again into the black chest-plate of Sly’s armor. The crimson bolts cut deeply into the body of the genetic courier. He fired again and again until the smell of blood and scorched flesh blotted out the scent of wookiee fur. Finally he lowered the blaster and grinned at the blackened edges of the smoking wounds in Sly’s chest. There had been far less left of his mother at her murder. He could feel the fury burning in him again.
He walked forward toward Sly’s body and crouched low over it. He was going to see the face of the creature that had dared to kill his mother. No one else knew whether Sly was male or female, human or alien, but here at the end, he would know. He reached down and grabbed hold of the triangular shard at the front of the mask and pulled. But after a moment of exertion, the metal grew soft in his hand and he felt his heart growing cold as the mask grew dusty brown and collapsed into a heap of fabric. He pulled away the covering and saw the blank white mask of a stormtrooper underneath. The rest of the armor slumped into a similar mound of fabric and he recognized the cloak of Kendal Sly. But this was not Kendal Sly.
He turned back towards the door as he sensed the displacement of air and shouted in agony as his head was snapped backwards. He fell to the floor on top of the stormtrooper corpse as a black metal boot came down and the armored form of Kendal Sly stood over him. His head slammed into the helmet of the trooper and he saw stars for a second. When the pain cleared, he saw that Sly had pulled out his signature double-barrelled rifle. With the rifle in hand and without the brown cloak, Sly looked very much as he had on the night of his mother’s murder. The smell of blood was suddenly very strong.
“Who are you, child?” Sly’s voice was shrill in the soprano range. Memories of the voice from almost a decade earlier burned in his mind. “I know all of the bounty hunters stupid enough to take on a job against me. And I would have heard of a hit placed on my head. So that makes you something of a mystery. You’re good enough to have cost me the HOT ZONE, which is going to cost you. But you’re not good enough to have made a reputation. Who are you?”
Shibu stared up into the twin barrels and could feel himself rumbling in fury. The person who had torn his life apart and destroyed any chance for his family to live a normal life didn’t even know who he was. He could hear the sound of his own heartbeat and the roar of blood in his ears.
“I asked you a question, child,” Sly’s voice had fallen suddenly in the bass range and Shibu could see the courier’s finger tightening on the trigger. “I do not take kindly to being ignored.”
Shibu pushed himself back against the wall and could feel the flechette grenade in his back pocket. He had saved the explosive for Sly, but had been carried away by the sudden appearance of the imposter. His own blaster pistol had rolled away to the corner of the shack, but the flechette grenade gave him a chance to survive.
“My name is Shibu, hutt-breath,” He shifted his body as he spoke, hoping to work the weapon loose. “You killed my mother.”
Sly cocked his head to the side quizzically and Shibu imagined he could feel scan beams playing across his face. He wondered if the armored form was running his face through some kind of search program. He could see Sly’s left arm flexing under the armor as his mind ground through the pattern.
“I don’t remember you, Shibu,” Sly’s voice had risen to the tenor range and hissed electronically. “Nor do I remember your mother. It has been years since I killed any woman face to face. Too bad.” Sly pulled back the lower barrel, cocking it. “I would have liked to know a little more before I removed you.”
Shibu rolled off of the body and kicked at the rifle knocking it straight up on the air. A long, slim projectile shot up into the air and burned through the ceiling of the shack with a shower of sparks. A sharp snap sounded outside and he could see a shower of sparks falling outside the doorway.
Sly was turning quickly as Shibu rolled to his feet. The armored form brought back down the blaster and fired a stream of energy at the dark giant. Shibu launched himself to the side and out into the open air, his nose burning with the smell of ozone. Bolts of blaster fire tore through the side of the aluminum shack and he threw himself behind the corner of a nearby duracrete hovel. Shibu looked around and saw the corpse of a dead stormtrooper behind him. He grabbed the blaster rifle from the hand of the dead man and snapped off the safety. As he turned back toward the near corner, the air was suddenly filled with a snapping crackle. He jumped backwards and saw a sparking silver projectile burn through the duracrete wall and fly past him, missing by centimeters and leaving a long scorch mark along his chest.
“Nice try, you armored freak,” Shibu’s voice boomed out into the open air. “But you missed me. Now it’s my turn to fry your butt!”
He moved slowly around the rear of the duracrete hovel, listening carefully for any sign of Sly’s movements. Behind the hut was a row of cardboard dwellings and he could hear desparing chatter from within them in a number of different languages. As he came around the far corner, he raised his blaster and watched for any movement. He slid slowly along the smooth wall, the hissing of his skin against the ‘crete obscenely loud, and he turned the last corner coming around behind Sly.
But Kendal Sly was nowhere to be seen. The walls of the aluminum shack were riddled with blaster holes and deep chunk had been blasted out of the duracrete by his left side, but there was not even a footprint left in the dust to indicate where the genetic courier had stood. He scanned the blaster around the area and up toward the roof of the aluminum shack. Nothing.
A deep thud sounded from the roof of the duracrete hut and he felt something large slam into his back. He fell forward onto the blaster hard and could hear a rib snap on his left side. Suddenly, he was out of breath and gasping to claw air down his throat. Probably a punctured lung. He looked around quickly and saw that Sly had nailed him with a “lead balloon” - a metallic inflating projectile with an atificial gravitation grid built in to add inertia. He pulled himself forward and shrugged it off before blaster bolts poured down.
Shibu scrambled around the side of the aluminum shack and grabbed the stormtrooper rifle with his right hand. He fired wildly behind him and heard Sly hit the ground hard behind him somewhere. He doubted the shots had actually found their mark. His breath was wheezing loudly and the ache in his chest was spreading into an all-consuming fire. He crawled around the shack and dashed across a small clearing, footsteps sounding loudly behind him. He turned and tried to raise the rifle but the broken rib speared into him. He dropped the blaster with a shout and threw himself behind an outcropping of steel.
Blaster bolts slammed into the far side of the metal and Shibu could feel the surface of his shielding growing hot. He reached around to his rear pocket with his left hand and pulled out the flechette grenade. He had originally brought it along to make Sly suffer the same way his mother had. Now it was all that stood between him and immanent death.
Shibu pulled himself slowly up the outcropping of steel and flinched as the blaster fire suddenly cut off. He braced his legs carefully and flashed a look over the top of the covering metal. The glance showed an empty clearing. He stood to his feet slowly, his thumb poised over the activation plate of the grenade.
He scanned the clearing. Tufts of green and brown grass poked up out of the white mounds of crumbled duracrete and crimson patches of rusty soil. The far end of clearing held the aluminum walls of the metal hovel he had found Sly in, riddled with holes. To his right was another duracrete hut with nearly vertical walls with a smooth, unscarred surface. He looked down at the steel outcropping and felt his gore rising as he saw that the plasma of the blaster fire was one shot away from penetration. If Sly hadn’t stopped firing, it was likely he would be dead.
He slunk forward along the white wall of the duracrete hovel and touched the activation plate of the granade lightly, running his finger along the edges. He watched for any sign of movement and listened intently for any sound. He stifled a cough, then suddenly fell forward as his body was wracked by vomitting. He saw blood in a puddle by his feet and wiped his mouth with his grenade hand.
A sharp edge slammed into his head and stars blossomed into his visual field. He fell forward into the pool of blood and scrabbled forward. He rolled around and saw the wall of the duracrete shack extruding out into a tall armored shape. The white color washed out into the gritty brown fabric of Sly’s cloak and Kendal Sly himself came into focus, a maroon stain on the butt of his rifle. Sly brought the rifle down and aimed with a smooth motion.
Shibu slammed his finger onto the activation plate and threw the grenade as a bolt of red plasma burned through his left shoulder. As the agony arced through his body, he smiled as he watched the grenade fly. The world seemed to have slowed as shock spread across his mind. The oblong shape of the grenade tumbled as it flew, green metal shining in the sun. As it fell from the apex of its trajectory, Sly blurred into motion. The armored form dropped its rifle and swept up its cloak with both hands. Sly jumped forward and caught the explosive. The courier twirled the grenade with a smooth motion and Shibu felt bile rising in his throat as the grenade was flung back at him. A shout formed on his lips but he was unable to get it out before the weapon exploded into a cloud of razor-sharp fragments. He rolled away as quickly as he could, but the corner of the cloud caught the right side of his face.
Pain exploded in his brain as the fragments tore him apart. He screamed as his vision went black and he could feel his right eye flowing down his cheek. There was the taste of iron in his mouth and bile rising in his throat. He knew suddenly that he was dying and screamed again in fury at a universe that would deny him his revenge.
“Who are you, child?” The electronic voice of Kendal Sly sounded in his ear, held steady in a tenor range. He tried to strike out at the voice, but his body wouldn’t respond. “It’s over now. You might as well, tell me. If you do, I promise a quick, painless death.”
Shibu rumbled as fury seared his stomach. Sly would know who he was. If he couldn’t punish the murderer himself, perhaps some scrap of conscience left in the armored form would.
“My name is Shibu, son of Moli and Bigou of the planet An Toshel,” His voice rasped in his throat and he could feel the tears in his face widening with each word. “You killed my mother 8 years ago when you were after some moron stormtrooper named Loc Cotral. And you are going to burn in Hell, if I have anything to say about it.”
Shibu could hear Sly’s breath hissing loudly for several minutes. Then a cool mist foamed over his cheeks and his mind began to drift in a dreamy fog.
“Loc Cotral...” Sly’s voice had risen to an alto note. “That was a long time ago, before I began my career as a courier. You were the child, weren’t you?” Shibu could feel his pant leg being raised and an armored fingertip tracing the old blaster scar. “After almost ten years, I assumed all of the enemies I made back then were dead. I forgot that some of them needed time to grow up.”
The mist spread across his face and onto the wound in his left shoulder.
“That ship you forced me to jettison, the HOT ZONE, was very special to me,” Sly’s voice pulled away from him as the armored form stood. “It was given to me by the man who started me off on this career. Tell you what, child. We’ll call it even. I took your mother, you took my ship. You tried to kill me, I took your eye. I’ve sprayed some sealant on your wounds. You’ll live until the imperials find you.”
The fog was spreading over all of his perceptions and he struggled to stay conscious. He coughed loudly as he tried to speak. None of this made them even. Sly still needed to die. But Shibu’s body simply would not respond.
“I wish you luck, child,” Sly’s voice had risen to a soprano level and sounded like he was at the far edge of the clearing. “Don’t expect any more favors from me.”
Shibu pushed with his leg, trying to roll after the voice. But pain swept across his body and his mind flashed into darkness. The fog covered all.
A cold wet touch on his back brought Shibu back to consciousness and a full knowledge of a full spectrum of pain encompassing his entire body. He heard himself moaning and flinched away from the chill.
“Welcoming to wakefullness, sir,” The sputtering dialect of Lix’s medical droid blared in his ear. “Meds is unencouraging but restoration of conscious function positive. Now is necessity of calibration for implanted oracular appendage.”
Shibu opened his left eye and winced at the sudden pain along the right side of his face. After a moment of truly blinding pain, a large pink blur slowly resoved itself into the centauroid form of CDJ-9. The droid had three separate arms moving across differing parts of his body and he felt fairly sure that the frigid touch on his back was another of the droid’s arms. He tried to slap away the droid in frustration, but his arms were held fast by some kind of force field. He grunted as he strained against the restrictor field and the aches all along his body flared into white hot stabs.
“Relax, big guy,” The voice of Lix Firebrand sounded from behind him and he felt a soft, warm hand gently press him back into the cushioned surface of the medical bed that he was lyin on. “You’re safe for now, but you won’t be if you don’t let Seedee do his work. Sly left you in pieces and we’ve had a heck of a time putting you back together.”
Shibu rumbled his assent and watched Lix hobble around to stand in front of him. She was leaning heavily on a large steel crutch and moved slowly, as though her body were caught in a high gravity field. Her silvery eyes seemed somewhat out of focus and her hair hung in sweaty clumps. Scorch marks could be seen on the red fabric of her uniform.
“You’re not looking too good yourself,” He winced as the vibration of his voice shook loose even more pain. “What did that son of hutt do to you?”
Lix sank tiredly into a chair behind the sputtering medical droid. She waved away his concerns and sighed deeply. She suddenly seemed very old.
“Don’t worry about me, Shibu,” Her voice was husky. “There’s nothing wrong with me that a few hours of Seedee’s ministrations won’t solve. You on the other hand are lucky to be alive. You’re going to have some interesting scars to show off to the girls.”
CDJ-9 ran two of its hands across the right side of his face, raising a storm of agony. He could feel tears forming in his left eye. He could feel his arms straining against the restrictor fields.
“We barely got out of there with either of our skins intact,” Her voice cut through the pain like a shower through a forest fire. “And the warrant for your arrest has been bumped up to priority one. We can’t land on any mainline imperial world to get you into a bacta tank. So that means we had to make due with whatever wizardry my droids could come up with.”
The vision in his right eye suddenly sputtered to life with an incredible array of colors. Lix seemed to glow white-hot and the arms of the medical droid seemed to fade into a deep blue. As he tried to adjust, the image suddenly washed out of all color. He blinked painfully before the image faded out entirely.
“Unfortunately, because of their long experience with me, most of their experience has to do with cybernetics instead of regenerative healing,” Colors burst in on his visual field as she spoke as though his right eye were actually seeing the sounds. “That means they couldn’t give you back your eye. It was shredded by that infernal flechette grenade you and Sly were playing around with.”
The image flashed back into view in his right eye and a series of diagnostic numbers scrolled across his field of view. He could see the droid’s thin fingered hand spread around the eye and could feel nanofibers digging into his flesh. The image sharpened and the colors returned to full vibrancy.
“Confirmation of optimal function, sir,” The droid pulled its hands back and flashed a digital series of lights that seemed to form a sudden smile. “Ocular hybridization maximization.”
Lix reached out of his line of sight and brough back a small hand mirror. She pulled herself to her feet with great effort and hobbled toward him. He placed her hand on his shoulder and held the mirror just out of sight.
“You eye was gone, kid,” She slowly raised the mirror as she spoke. “All we could do was use one of the extra bionic eyes we keep on board for me.”
Shibu looked at himself in the mirror and groaned involuntarily. The left side of his face looked fairly normal, aside from a few scrapes and scratches, but the right side of his face was a bloody bruised pump of flesh stitched together by nanofibers. He gasped at the lines of flesh that traced down the side of his face and along under his eye. The bloody mess brought nausea over him.
But it was the eye that was the most strange. In the left side of his face, the familiar brown iris of his eye stared out. But the left side of his face held a silvered shining orb. The droid eye gazed out at him coldly, the mechanism spinning as it maintained a constant focus. The bionic implant even seemed in sharper focus when examined with its own functions.
Fury burned in his gut as he examined the mess Sly had made of his face. First he had taken his mother, and with her his childhood, now the genetic courier had taken his eye, and with it any chance at a normal life. He could feel his fists clenching and unclenching in the restrictor field and struggled to hold himself still. Any movement would only injure him more and extend the time until he could wreak his revenge upon Kendal Sly.
“You might as well get comfortable, big guy,” Lix hobbled toward the front of the ship and out of his sight. “We’re destined to spend a lot of time together. The MORNING STAR has been plastered across the Imperial HoloNet along with our faces. If we make any attempt to get near Foli there’ll be more imperials on our backs than worms in a hutt.”
Shibu could feel his stomach twisting with anger as he relaxed back onto the medical bed and SeeDee sputtered forward to work on him some more. Images of Kendal Sly being torn apart by a bothan sabretooth flashed across his mind and he smiled.
“Don’t worry about it, Lix,” Other fantasies rolled through his mind as he rumbled out the words, each image bloodier than the last. “Our business with Sly isn’t done yet anyway. He’s one up on both of us. We owe him a lot more than a birthday card now. As soon as we can both stand on our own, I think its time to teach Sly the old rule.”
“What rule is that?” Lix’s voice sounded from behind him. He assumed she was working at the navigator station.
“Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth,” His voice boomed in the quiet of the bridge. “And a life for a life.”
