The Rise of Pulsar Company/Chapter 3

CHAPTER THREE: CLUBBED TO DEATH

Nax tossed the DL-44 power packs up in the air, and caught each of them as they fell back to the ground. He’d already gotten most of the food for the next few weeks, and had already picked up some fresh ammo for Kyra’s ’44, more than what she would realistically need, but like Dad always said, “Better overstocked and loaded down on ammo than to run dry in a firefight.” in his heavy Concord Dawn accent, even heavier than Nax’s.

A sudden pang of sadness hit Nax, but he shook it off. He’d intended to leave Tatooine in the first place, but now it was better to just forget all of it happened when he did leave, and just have it be one bad memory. Even still, Nax clearly hadn’t fully gotten over the attack. Maybe he never would. He didn’t know.

As he turned into the bazaar, Nax spotted a large crowd of people around Thel’s stall, shouting angrily. Rodians, Humans, Twi’leks, Trandoshans, even a few Wookies were all in the mass of bodies. Nax rolled his eyes, and put his thumb under the shotgun’s sling, ready to pull it off at a moment’s notice and ready his weapon, but he was still more or less at ease.

The closer he got, the clearer the shouting became, and the puzzle pieces of what they were angry about slowly began to match together.

“I want a refund!” one of the Humans yelled, raising his fist in anger, and his Wookie companion roared.

“Your ammo dessstroyed my best ssslugthrower!” a Trandoshan hissed, holding up two parts of a broken slug rifle. The entire receiver was split in two, straight down the middle, clearly slagged and melted around the part where the hammer normally was in a slug rifle. Bad handload, maybe?

Whatever the case, Nax pressed on into the crowd, and he managed to get a good look at Thel trying his hardest at damage control. “Please! Calm down! I know I sold bad ammo!” he apologized profusely, and that only seemed to make the crowd angrier. “I’ll rebuild any damaged weapons for free!”

The crowd was still angry, bordering on rioting, until a seven man Stormtrooper patrol came up, and the lead officer shot into the air with an SE-14. “Clear the area immediately, or you’ll all be going to jail!” he shouted with a considerable amount of authority in his voice, like he was used to dealing with this exact situation before.

The effect was almost immediate; the crowd stopped yelling, and were now looking at each other, and over at the Stormtrooper patrol. A few Humans and a Twi’lek charged the Stormtroopers, damaged weapons being used as blunt weapons, but they were quickly put down on the ground with swift CQC moves and thrown into stuncuffs, and the crowd started to disperse, deciding it wasn’t worth it to resist.

The crowd had disappeared into the background of Mos Eisley, and the Stormtroopers were hauling the people that resisted away to the garrison, so Nax took that as his cue to finally talk to Thel. “Bad ammo, huh?” he smirked. “How’d that happen?” Nax asked as he ribbed Thel jokingly.

Thel looked over at the departing Stormtroopers, and then back to Nax. “Bad death sticks is my guess.” he replied, his voice lowered just in case.

It took longer than Nax would have liked to admit for that sentence to process. “…Wait, what?” he finally responded, dumbfounded.

“…Huh?”

“You… made slugthrower ammo with death sticks?” Nax pressed.

Thel blinked a few times, and his eyes suddenly went wide. “Oh, you’re talking about… yeah, no, not ACTUAL death sticks. You can’t make ammo with those.” Thel clarified.

Nax squinted his eyes at his friend. “So… what’re you talking about, then?”

Thel huffed, as if he expected Nax to know this instinctively. “I’m talking about byproducts of Tibanna refinement. It’s all the trash that gets thrown out in the refining process, and I just call ‘em death sticks cause the tubes they come in look kinda similar to the junk in death sticks.”

He cleared his throat, and prepared to explain. “Tibanna by itself is too strong for regular blasters that aren’t designed with it in mind, and the refined gas is incompatible with propellant, but all of the waste? That all works in slugthrowers.” he smiled at himself, before leaning down onto his table. “I came up with a custom hand load for slugs that combines the Tibanna waste with regular propellant. I’m not gonna bore you with the details, but it’s a stronger mix than anything I know of, since it’s got a higher velocity, less drop, and more penetration. Only problem is…”

“…It’s unstable?” Nax interjected.

Thel gave Nax finger guns. “Exactly. You have to get the mix just right, otherwise, the whole thing shits the bed. Too little, and it’ll just misfire. Too much, and the whole gun explodes in your face.”

Nax looked surprised. It was, admittedly, a novel concept, however laserbrained it seemed. “So.” Nax suddenly said. “How did you upset that crowd?”

His friend suddenly looked nervous, and he scratched the back of his neck. “Well, when I figured out how to make them, I took out a big loan from someone I really shouldn’t have, and I was so excited by the potential profit when I was making the ammo, I kind of… well… messed up.” he eeked out, looking like he was about to die from embarrassment.

Nax went stone faced. “You better not have taken a loan from who I think you did.” he said, disappointment reigning over his tone.

Thel sighed. “I did.”

Nax looked like he was about to go ballistic, but restrained himself, and he took a deep breath. “So, what do you do now?”

Thel bit his lip, and he looked around. “…Well, I’ve got another shipment of the stuff coming in today. I know what I did wrong, so I’m gonna make a new batch that should actually work. I’ll sell that off, pay my debt, and go back to selling my regular stock.”

Nax sucked his lower lip in and nodded. “Sounds like you’ve got a plan then, Thel. Need any help?” he offered.

Thel rolled his head to the side. “Eh, what the hell? I don’t expect anything to go wrong, but having some backup couldn’t hurt. I’ll give you some of the slugs as payment.”

“Sure.” Nax replied, and they walked off towards the speeder. He needed more ammo anyways, and while he did need credits, he didn’t feel like pressing his friend on credits for something as simple as this.

They both hopped in, and Thel moved some of the stuff that was sitting in the passenger seat away to get comfortable, and the turbine engines roared to life, lifting the speeder off the ground, and giving the two friends a jolt in their seats from how sudden it was. Nax glanced over at Thel. “Where to?” he asked.

“Docking bay twenty two. It’s coming in on a YT-1300, same guy I bought it from last time.” Thel loudly said, although Nax could only just barely hear him.

Nax put the pedal down, and the speeder took off towards the docking bay. “Didn’t you say the stuff was bad earlier?” he half yelled over the roaring engines.

“I meant that I screwed the mixture up! The stuff itself was fine!”

Nax continued to drive in silence for several minutes, before he spoke up again. “How’d you even find out how to make this stuff?”

Thel laughed suspiciously. “Well, believe it or not, I found out from a shady looking guy in a back alley! Tested it as soon as I got home, left a huge hole in my wall!”

“You did what!?” Nax retorted. Thel wasn’t always the smartest, but to take an unstable and untested hand-loading recipe and then willingly make it, and then use it in your own home? That was an entirely new level of stupid, even by Thel’s standards.

Thel laughed harder. “Yeah! Believe it or not, I don’t really care, but it works!” he paused, and then laughed again. “You’d think the Imperials would be all over this kind of thing, especially with all those rebels popping up lately!”

Nax paused. “The Empire has a rebel problem? How’d that happen?”

Thel looked over at him like he was stupid. “Yeah! They’re not organized from what everyone can tell, but they started popping up after some kind of transmission that came from Lothal around… I dunno, a year ago? It was a call to rebellion or something stupid like that.”

Nax smiled and shrugged. “Hey, I don’t really care, that just means more bounties to bring in!”

Thel laughed as they pulled up on Docking Bay 22, and he jumped out before the speeder had powered down, nearly getting his foot caught. Nax jumped out after him, and they both walked inside. The general interior of the docking bay was identical to bay ninety four from yesterday. Steps leading up to a sort of buffer room inside between the landing pad and the outside, with a second, larger door leading to the central ring. Only difference was the interior was stripped of any sort of furniture, barring a few lights.

As they approached the big door, it opened automatically, revealing a nearly mint condition YT-1300. On the ground, directly below the two “fangs” of the 1300, was a human in a leather jacket with a wide brimmed hat, leaning on a repulsorsled that had three crates on it. The crates, while not particularly tall, stretched the entire length of the sled. The man looked up at the pair, and then tipped his hat. “If I’d known that you’d want more of this junk so soon, I’d have stocked up!” he said with a laugh.

Thel fished out a credit chip and handed it over to the man. “Yeah, well, I didn’t prepare for the possibility that I’d mess up, so now I’m paying the price for it. Thirty thousand creds, like we discussed.” he said, and the man took the credits, putting them into his jacket.

He then leaned over, and noticed Nax. “Who’s this?”

Thel glanced back at his friend. “Oh, him? That’s Nax, the friend that got his brother and helped me chase those Tuskens away from my home a few years ago.” he gestured. “Nax, this is Gavin.”

Gavin tipped his hat. “Howdy.” he greeted. Nax just waved back. “Glad to finally meet you, Nax. Any friend of Thel’s is a friend of mine. Specially one that’ll shoot Tuskens without blinking.” Gavin said, giving a friendly smile. Nax gave a nod of acknowledgement, but didn’t say anything otherwise.

Gavin suddenly cracked his knuckles. “Well, Thel, I’d love to catch up with you, but I need to get going. Later.” he waved behind him as he headed up the 1300’s ramp. Thel grabbed the repulsorsled, and started taking it back to the landspeeder, with Nax taking up the rear, holding on to the back of the sled.

The pair brought the sled behind the X-34, and then used the onboard gravlink to attach it to the speeder so that it wouldn’t go flying off. Thel and Nax then both made sure that the crates were secured properly to the sled, and then they hopped in, taking off toward Thel’s house in Mos Eisley.

“So, who was that?” Nax shouted.

“You remember that mellow kid who kind of just existed whenever you came over when were younger?” Thel responded, and Nax had to dig through his memories a bit to try and remember who he was referring to.

“…I think, yeah. What about him?”

“That was Gavin. He and I were good friends, he ended up getting his own ship, now he smuggles for me. I’ve got him on call when I need him.”

Nax had to shield his eyes from the glare of the twin suns. “That was him? He didn’t seem anywhere close to that.”

Thel laughed and looked over at his friend. “Well, owing a lot of debts changes people, and Gavin was worse about it than I am.”

Nax shrugged nonchalantly, and continued driving towards Thel’s house.

--

The pair entered the house trough the front door, and the lights kicked on, revealing a dirty, messy living room. There were notes strewn all over the walls, weapon parts lying around, and spent slugs and blaster packs all over the floor. Not to mention the considerable amount of weapon crates and cases on all of the furniture, enough to arm a platoon, by Nax’s guess, and the distinct smell of propellant in the air.

Thel and Nax went back outside, and started to bring the crates in, one by one. It wasn’t a tough job, since the Tibanna waste inside was incredibly light, but they were both being very slow about it so as to not accidentally blow themselves up or something. When all the crates were inside, Nax powered down the repulsorsled, and headed into the house to see Thel already opening one of the crates, holding a tube of multicolored liquid. “I see why you call this stuff death sticks now.” he commented idly. Thel ignored him and pushed the boxes over to an ammo loading bench near the kitchen.

He turned a work light on, and then grabbed a beaker full of propellant, setting it on the bench. Thel then shook the tube of Tibanna sludge briefly, and tapped it twice, probably to clear any air bubbles. Thel then took the cap off of the tube, and carefully poured it into the beaker of propellant, before sniffing a few times. A terrible, burning smell slowly made its way to Nax’s nose, and he covered it to try and block it out. “The hell is that smell?” he asked.

“That’s the smell of the mixture working.” Thel replied as he grabbed a spoon and began to stir the mixture together, before suddenly stopping. I almost forgot to mention, this stuff doesn’t work on shotguns. No idea why, but it just doesn’t. You want it for your dad’s Aug2?”

Nax shrugged. “Sure.”

About twenty minutes had passed, and Thel finally finished making the custom ammo for the Aug2, using spare slugs, casings, and primers he had lying around the house.

While Thel worked, neither of them had heard the slowly growing crowd outside the door, and neither had any time to react when they came rushing in. Nax was the first to get clubbed, and Thel could only turn and see a Rodian charging him, before he was beaten over the head with a Gaderffii stick, and knocked out instantly.

--

Nax felt someone punch him upside the head, right in the jaw. His eyes shot open, and he found himself in a dark room, probably a basement, where the only source of light was a single bulb in the middle of the room that barely illuminated a slumped over Thel, and a Rodian on his right.

With what little light there was, Nax could see that the Rodian had light green skin with spots of dark green occasionally marking his face; a sign of age, and he had longer antennae. The Rodian was also carrying a Gaderffii stick, smacking the club end in his palm menacingly. “Good… you’re awake.” a soothing, sultry, feminine voice said in his ear. A sudden sense of calm washed over him, and he couldn’t help but feel like he was at peace. Like everything was going to be all right. That was despite Nax’s natural instincts screaming at him to get the hell out of there, and even if he wanted to, which he didn’t, he couldn’t, as his arms and legs were tied with rope.

A finger traced along his jawline as a woman with long, bright blue hair and light pink skin came into view, the light barely illuminating her thin figure. ''“So sorry about the rude awakening, hon.” ''she teased, before kneeling down to reveal her cleavage through her thin purple dress. ''“But now that you’re awake, we can have some fun.”'' she continued, sitting down in Nax’s lap.

The woman cupped Nax’s face, and gently turned his head to face her, locking eyes as she did so. ''“I know you want me, so let’s make a deal. All you have to do to get this…”'' she leaned in close, pointing at herself. “…is to tell me where you keep the girl.” she finished, giving Nax a kiss on the cheek to try and show she was genuine.

Nax had spaced out long ago, and only when the woman was crawling over him did he realize he was supposed to answer. “Oh, sure… uh, I keep her at…” he mumbled, and the woman got closer.

“Go on.” she whispered sultrily into his ear.

Nax stopped speaking to try and think where he did keep the girl. However, his thought process was interrupted by the Rodian pulling the woman off of him and pointing a large slug pistol in his face. “This is taking too long.” the Rodian said with a heavy lisp. “Tell us where you keep the girl, and we might let you live.”

Nax immediately snapped back to reality. Whatever effect had been cast on him immediately went away. “Do you know what this is, boy?” the Rodian asked, jamming the pistol into Nax’s face. “It’s a Czerka Arms 6-10Aug3 Hunting Pistol, strong enough to rip your head off if I pull the trigger.” he said, pulling the pistol back, but keeping it aimed at Nax’s head. “All you have to do so I don’t kill you, is to give up her location.”

Nax stared up at the Rodian. “Yeah, sure, she’s…” he purposefully droned on. “…up your ass and around the corner.” he said, giving a smug grin to the Rodian.

The slug pistol’s hammer was suddenly cocked. “Last chance, comedian.”

Nax’s grin intensified. “Stick it where the suns don’t shine, asshole!”

The Rodian seemed to roll his eyes. “Have it your way.” he commented, annoyed, and pulled the trigger. Nax shut his eyes, and there was a loud explosion, and he felt something sharp scrape across his face.

But he was still alive.

There was an awful ringing in his ear, and Nax opened one eye to see the Rodian stumbling around, clutching the stump where his hand had been. The woman was off of Nax, visibly berating and beating the Rodian, and she dragged him into the darkness, although he felt vibrations from her stomps getting higher, until they stopped.

So they were in a basement.

Nax felt something else. Something wet, dripping down his face, right below his right eye, where that thing had scraped his face earlier. He reached out with his tongue awkwardly, and managed to lap some of it up. It had a metallic taste to it, like iron.

Blood.

Nax tried to think on how to get out of this situation. It was incredibly dark, and he didn’t see any obvious means of escape. It’s not like he could think straight anyways, what with that terrible ringing in his ear. He tried to move his hands, but they were bound tight with some kind of rope, same with his feet.

Squinting his eyes at Thel, he tried to focus on his friend. He was slumped over, either unconscious, asleep, or hopefully not, dead. Nax swore under his breath, although he couldn’t even hear himself. Choosing to continue his search for anything to cut the rope, he looked to the right, away from the light, and shut his left eye to let the right one adjust to the darkness. Slowly, he could see more of the room being revealed. From what he could tell, it was mostly crates and boxes, nothing he could use to cut the rope.

Turning to the left, Nax repeated the process, and found something more promising; a broken water pipe. It wasn’t leaking, but there were jagged edges where the pipe had burst, right about where his hands were tied on the chair. Perfect.

Glancing over at Thel, Nax saw him twitch, and then look up. “…ey gone?” he asked in a hushed tone, and Nax noticed that the white noise was gone now, too.

“Pretty sure. You okay?”

There was a grunt, and Nax heard Thel shifting around. “Aside from my killer headache and the fact that I’m tied up? I’m doing fantastic.” he replied sarcastically.

Nax glanced back over at the burst pipe, which wasn’t visible anymore, since his eyes had re-adjusted to the light. “They interrogate you?”

There was a dry, quiet laugh. “Hell no. I played dead, suckers bought it. First timers always do.”

“…What happened to me back there? It was like I wasn’t in control of my own body or thoughts. I almost gave up Kyra’s location, too, but that Rodian beat me back to reality.”

Thel was briefly confused, and then realized what Nax was talking about. “It was the woman. She’s a Zeltron, they emit some kind of pheromones that make people like them more. She must have been using them on you to seduce you into giving her up.”

Disappointed at his own failure to resist the Zeltron’s charms, he sighed, and started trying to move the chair towards the pipe, carefully testing it to see what he could get away with. After a brief trial and error period, he figured out how to get the chair to move without scraping across the floor. By tilting the chair forward, and then rotating it on an angle, he could slowly inch his way over to the pipe, and get himself in a position to start cutting.

Thel looked over at his friend, and then returned to looking at the floor, playing dead. Nax ignored him, and pressed the chair up against the pipe, briefly feeling around for the jagged edges. Quickly finding where they were in the darkness, he carefully positioned his arms so that the pieces of metal protruding from the pipe were position to cut the rope, and, making sure that his wrists wouldn’t be slit, began to quickly saw the rope apart.

The pipe started to shake as soon as he began sawing, crashing against the sandstone in the hole it went up through. Nax immediately stopped and looked up, pressing his head against the pipe to try and stabilize it, and began sawing again, slowly this time. The pipe strained against the pressure, but the smashing and crashing had effectively stopped, and Nax, after a brief period, finally cut the rope with an audible snap, and it fell to the ground. Thel looked over as Nax kneeled over, and quickly undid the ropes around his legs. They, too, fell off.

Carefully getting behind Thel, he undid his binds, and Thel immediately started rubbing his wrists. “We got a game plan?” he asked quietly.

Nax moved down to Thel’s legs. “Look for our gear first.” he said as he undid the leg bondage.

Thel stood up. “And then?”

“We fight our way out.”

Their conversation was cut short by footsteps upstairs, and Thel quickly ran over to the light as quietly as he could, and literally ripped the light from its wire, killing the only source of visibility in the room. Both of them hid near where the stairwell was, ready to attack whoever was coming down. The door to the main floor opened and then shut. “..Stupid fragging Rodian, boss’ll have his head…” a heavy, masculine, gravelly voice mumbled angrily. Whoever it was, they were getting close, until the pair heard his bare feet step on the sandstone floor. “The ‘ell? Why’s it so dark down ‘ere?” he said, before they heard the sound of ruffling clothes.

There was the distinct sound of a lighter being opened, and a small orange flame appeared, revealing the face of a Weequay, but not much more. “The light go out or sommat?” he said to himself. The flame extended outwards, away from his face, and he started waving it around, trying to shine a light on where Nax and Thel used to be. He noticed Thel’s empty chair, and then extended the lighter down to see the untied ropes. Walking over to where Nax’s chair should have been, he only said one thing.

“Sithspit.”

The Weequay tried to run away, but Nax and Thel simultaneously punched him in the face, knocking him out cold. The pair quickly grabbed the Weequay to prevent him from hitting the ground hard, and instead set him down gently. Nax grabbed the lighter, and began rifling through the Weequay’s jacket. Inside, aside from a personal datapad and some spare credits, which he pocketed, were two small holsters around the upper torso of the jacket. Nax grabbed them and opened them, revealing two EC-17 holdout blasters. Far from ideal, but they’d need to take what they can get. Nax also grabbed a combat knife, and raised it over the Weequay’s throat, before slamming it down to the base and into his neck, killing him instantly.

“No witnesses.” said flatly, looking up at Thel, offering him an EC-17, which he took. Both of them stood up, and started moving up the stairs, keeping their blasters at the ready. The door, evidently, had a non-standard sensor, as it detected them much sooner than it should have, and opened automatically, revealing a human with his back turned in what looked like a kitchen. The pair quickly raised their blasters and shot him in the back of the head, alerting everyone in the house to their presence.

Dashing forward and into cover behind a knocked over table, they heard shouting in the confusion, and multiple people running around. Two Weequay ran into the kitchen from a doorway on the left, armed with proper blasters. Nax and Thel fired three shots into the closest Weequay, two to the body and one to the head, dropping him, before the second one had the sense to get into cover, taking a couple blind, unaimed shots as he went. All three of which went through the middle of the table, but didn’t hit Nax or Thel. Nax kept the blaster trained on the doorway as he reached down and grabbed the man’s blaster pistol, a stock DL-44. Nax tossed Thel the EC-17, which he caught midair, and Nax pressed down on the DL-44’s trigger. A red glow appeared around the muzzle, and the gun started vibrating, with the glow slowly growing, until it grew no more.

Taking hold of the DL-44 with both hands, he let go of the trigger, and a large blaster bolt went into the doorway, bouncing off at an angle, before there was a yell, and the sound of a body hitting the floor. Nax and Thel pushed forward, peeking the corner. The hallway seemed to be clear, so they moved in, with Thel dropping the EC-17s for a T21 rifle. A third Weequay jumped out as they were halfway across the hall, and caught Nax in the left shoulder with a blaster bolt, with Thel responding by shooting him in the head once, eviscerating it instantly. Nax tossed the DL-44 into his left hand and clutched his shoulder with his right hand. Thel quickly looked him over, before Nax moved ahead to an L shaped corner, and peeked around the corner.

About to move in, Thel stopped Nax, and waved at him to take up the rear. Nax nodded, and Thel moved in, T21 raised for possible contact. They proceeded to sweep the house, searching everything except for the front entrance without incident, and were prepared to breach the entrance. Thel gave a quick countdown, and both of them ran in, sweeping the room. Right in the center was the Rodian from downstairs, his stump bandaged, holding the Zeltron slave in an arm lock, and pointing a new blaster pistol at her head. She was visibly scared, and resisting the much taller Rodian, although with minimal effect.

“Tell me where you’re keeping the girl,” he said in a low, angry tone of voice. “and I won’t kill this one.” Thel and Nax raised their weapons, and the Zeltron flinched, while the Rodian pressed the blaster further into her head. “Five seconds.”

Nax and Thel slowly put their fingers on their triggers.

“Four.”

Both of them took aim.

“Three.”

The pair took in a deep breath.

“Two.”

Both of them shot at the same time, dropping the Rodian to the ground. The Zeltron fell back in fear, and rapidly pushed the dead Rodian’s limbs off of her. She huddled into a fetal position, scared. Nax walked up to her and raised the DL-44 to her face, ready to fire, and she looked back up at him.

Something inside Nax clicked. In her eyes, he saw the same look of fear that Kyra had last night. He then noticed the shock collar around her neck, and suddenly, everything made sense. Hesitant to pull the trigger, he raised the blaster away, although the Zeltron was still scared out of her mind.

Nax felt a tap on his shoulder, and he looked over at Thel. “No witnesses, remember?”

He looked back down at the Zeltron. “She’s a slave. Look, shock collar. Seen a few before, same design.” he said, tapping it carefully, so as to not set it off.

“…Sithspit. What do we do with her?”

Tears started to flow from her eyes. “Please, don’t kill me! They forced me to come down here, to seduce you!” she pointed at Nax. “I’m a slave, like Kyra. They know how us Zeltrons are, so they forced me down here to try and get you to tell them where she is!”

The simple fact that she knew Kyra’s name caught Nax’s attention. “How did you-?”

The Zeltron’s tears stopped, and she started quietly sobbing. “I was her cellmate. I helped her escape the ship we were on. I don’t know what they were going to do to her, but they beat her harder than any other slave.” she hid her face in her knees. “…even harder than the Wookies.”

Nax and Thel stared at each other, unsure of what to do. Suddenly, her head shot up to look at them. “Please, you have to believe me!”

Nax pursed his lips, and then grimaced at the pain in his shoulder, before putting some pressure on it. “I… don’t know. Very few would use their comrade as a meat shield like that, but then again… “ he wandered. “Thel, I don’t want to risk bringing her to Kyra. Would you do me a favor and keep her at your place?” he asked.

Thel looked at him incredulously. “You want me to risk my ass for this?”

“It’d mean a hell of a lot to me.”

Thel pursed his lips, and looked down at the Zeltron. He exhaled, and then picked her up and brought her to her feet with a yelp. “T-thank you! You won’t regret this, I swear!” she thanked. “I-if you talk to Kyra, mention my name to her. She’ll back me up, honest!”

“And your name is…?” Nax inquired, waving his hand in a “go on” type of gesture.

“It’s Lexi, and, uh, your weapons are in the corner there.” Lexi pointed to a footlocker in the corner of the room. Nax headed over, opened it, and took out his bandolier, shotgun, and datapad. He mentally made a note to never ever record the location of anyone like Kyra in the future, not that he ever did in the first place. Nax also grabbed Thel’s DC-15s pistol, and tossed it to him, which he caught and put in a holster. Slinging the shotgun over his shoulder and covering the bleeding cut, the three of them walked out.

The suns were just about to go down. They’d had been out a lot longer than they initially suspected. Regardless of time lost, the three of them headed towards Thel’s house, with Nax intent on going back home.

--

Nax finally pulled in to the garage, powered down the speeder, and hopped out. Lexi had been left at Thel’s under strict watch, and Nax headed back on his own. Luckily, nobody took his speeder or the stuff inside, but he didn’t really feel like putting it away now. He felt like he’d just been trampled by an entire herd of banthas, and would much rather sort everything in the morning.

As he walked downstairs, he noticed that the lights were still on. Kyra must have forgotten to turn them off or something. Whatever.

A sudden pain shot through his shoulder, and Nax gasped, leaning against the wall and holding down on it to put some pressure on. Rubbing against the wall, he shut his eyes and started grunting, trying to get rid of the pain. Nax could sort of hear footsteps in front of him, and he opened one eye to see Kyra walking around the corner from the living room. “Hey, Na…” she started, and then stopped as she noticed the blast mark on his shoulder, the dripping blood, and Nax’s half bloodied face.

Dropping whatever she was holding instantly, she ran forward, grabbed Nax, and dragged him into the living room, before pushing him onto the couch on his back with surprising strength. He looked up to see Kyra dashing back down the hall, heard her stop, turn a sink on for a few seconds, turned it off, and ran back in with a wet towel. She kneeled over where Nax was laying and immediately started wiping away furiously at the bloody area, occasionally pulling the towel back to check for any spots she had missed. She stopped, set the towel aside, and ran further back into the house, into the bathroom, before coming back with a bacta patch, a bandage roll, and some scissors. She took the patch out of its wrap and placed it over the cut. Maybe it’d heal into a nice scar.

Immediately taking Nax’s duster and shirt off without saying a word, revealing the burned and red skin underneath, Kyra opened the package for the bandages, pulling them out, and began wrapping Nax’s upper arm and shoulder, albeit poorly, but she did her best. About half of the bandage was left when she finished wrapping, and she snipped the end off, setting it in the packaging. Kyra and Nax both stared at each other.

“Thought I told you to stay in bed.” Nax chuckled weakly.

Kyra rolled her eyes and ignored him. “What happened to you? You were gone for the whole day and you coming back looking like… this.”

“Well, I helped Thel for some ammo, got kidnapped, almost gave your location up unwillingly, almost got shot, broke out, killed a few guys, DID get shot, wiped the laserbrains that kidnapped me out, and saved a slave.”

Kyra sighed, and picked Nax up, throwing his arm over her shoulder, and carrying him to his room, setting him in bed on his right side. Nax looked up at Kyra. “Hey, Kyra?”

“Hmm?”

“Do you know any Zeltrons named Lexi?”

Kyra’s eyes widened. “Yeah, why? Did you find her?” Nax nodded, and Kyra took a step back, shocked. “Where is she? Is she okay?” she asked frantically.

“She’s fine. Thel has her. I didn’t bring her here because I didn’t think she was trustworthy. The last thing I want is a leak, and I’d actually have just killed her outright if she didn’t mention you by name. Can’t afford to have any leaks left behind.” he said, and Kyra brushed some hair out of her face, relieved.

“What did she tell you?”

“Just that they beat you harder than they beat the Wookies, that you were her cellmate, and that she helped you escape. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to bed.”

With that, Nax turned the light off, and immediately fell asleep. Kyra actually felt like collapsing right then and there, so she just kneeled down and rested her head against the mattress, falling asleep with him.

--

TK-421, TK-205, TK-743, and TK-068 all stacked up against the door to the abandoned building. They’d been all off duty when the call came in that there’d been a shooting at the place, and since no other troopers were available, they got stuck with this blue milk run. “Stack up.” 421’s voice cracked through the vocoder.

“ROE?” 205 asked, opposite 421.

“Set blasters to stun. Gaffi wants live targets for interrogation. Next best thing is datapads, evidence, and bodies for forensics.”

“Copy, Actual.”

068 put his free hand on 205’s shoulder, and 743 did the same to 421. “Breaching in five.”

All four of them switched their E-11 flashlights on.

“Four.”

205 prepped a sonic grenade.

“Three.”

Their grips tightened on their blasters.

“Two.”

Everyone tensed up.

“One!”

421 tricked the door and caused it to open, and 205 tossed the sonic grenade in, the door shutting behind it. They heard the nullified squeal of the grenade going off, and went in, blasters raised and set for stun. They flashed their lights around the darkened room. “Clear!” 421 announced.

“Clear.” the other three said.

“Eyes and ears open, people! Keep your guns up for probable contact.” 421 motioned for everyone to spread out across the room.

There was the sound of plastoid colliding with something fleshy. “Found something, sir.” 743 said, shining his light on whatever he had just found. 421 looked over, and saw the outline of a Rodian. Dead. “Two blaster shots, judging by the penetration, I’d say a DL-44 and a…T21? Half the skull is missing on one side. Hand’s also poorly bandaged.” he shined the light further away, revealing a dropped DH-17 blaster and a discarded T21. “Yep, T21.” he said as he shined the light in a different direction. “Looks like a pool of blood, not like bugface over here.” he led the flashlight away, revealing a blood trail. “Someone was bleeding out, looks like.”

“Search the body.” 421 commanded, and 205 raised something from a footlocker.

“Found the DL-44!” he said, pleased with himself.

“Set it back where you found it.”

“Yessir.” 205 obeyed, carefully setting the blaster back where it was.

743 searched the Rodian’s body, and pulled out a datapad. He turned it on and flicked through it. “Well?” 421 insisted.

“It’s this Rodian’s personal log. Seems that he and his buddies were all employed by a slaver, or pirate captain. Something like that. Mentions a missing slave girl that their boss is incredibly fixated on, and he goes on at length about a “Zeltron whore” they were forced to have with them to… seduce the person the girl was spotted with into giving up her location, looks like.”

421 leaned over. “Anything else?”

“Mentions their ship and captain by name. The captain is Allo Lostur, and the ship is called the Cranky Bantha.”

421 would have looked surprised if it weren’t for the helmet covering his face. “Allo Lostur is a wanted Imperial fugitive with a death sentence in forty star systems. Gaffi will want to see this. Stow the datapad, we’re continuing the search.” he motioned to the door that led to the rest of the building. 421 shined his light at the base, and spotted the blood trail leading back that way.

The four man fireteam followed the blood trail, wary, alert, and weapons raised. They came to a long corridor, with a headless body and two discarded blasters at the corner. A single Defender blaster pistol was by his hands. The four of them cautiously approached, and noted the leathery skin. Weequay.

They turned to the left and saw the blood trail continuing down the hall and to the right, with another Weequay body slumped up against the wall. Continuing to move through the hall, they inched up to the body. Two EC-17 blasters were at his side, and looked like they had been thrown to the ground. The dead Weequay’s fingers also looked like they had been holding on to a longblaster, most likely the T21 from earlier. 421 shined his light on the wall in front of him, and noticed a blast mark on an angled surface.

They proceeded into the kitchen, following the blood trail and carefully stepping over yet another Weequay corpse. Flanking around a table with several holes in it, they noticed a dead human, face down, and the blood trail leading down into the basement. Forming up, they carefully crept down stairs, trying not to make a sound. 743 shined his flashlight into an opening, lighting up several boxes, a chair, and another dead Weequay in a pool of his own blood. Around the base of the chair were two sets of rope, not tied to anything. The four men moved to check the body.

421 put two fingers around his throat. “Stabbed through the throat, must have been to the base. Probably cut the brain off from the rest of the body, killed him quick.”

068 shined his light in the corner. “Sir?” he asked, trying to get 421’s attention.

421 looked over and saw a broken water pipe, and a chair leaned up against it. There was some more rope on the floor, except one piece looked shredded in half. 421 then looked down near the first chair, and saw the pieces of a broken slug pistol, some green bloody chunks, and then a small red pool of blood that matched with the rest of the trail. The trail led to the water pipe, and wasn’t straight like earlier, more like it was going in half circles.

“I’m pretty sure we can find out what happened here. Whoever was kidnapped must have been getting seduced by the Zeltron, the Rodian got impatient and tried to shoot them, the gun exploded and blew his hand off, a chunk of metal cut into the guy who left his blood everywhere, he moved his chair to the pipe, cut the rope, freed himself, ambushed the Weequay, killed him, and shot his way out.”

“What about the Zeltron?”

421 rolled his head around. “Probably got her out of there. Either that, or she ran off. Anyways, let’s get this stuff set for hauling to the garrison. I’ll call in a speeder.”

--

Kaz pressed down on her commlink. “Boss, we checked in with Team Two.”

“And?” Lostur said impatiently.

“All members are dead. Got 'ere just as the Imps started hauling the bodies away, only just finished searching the place.”

Kaz heard Lostur suck in air. ''“And you DIDN’T engage them?”'' he seethed.

Holding her forehead in her hand, she sighed. “You can either have the girl and her little “guardian” on board soon, or you can have another team dead.” she retorted.

Lostur exhaled loud enough for the commlink to pick it up. ''“Fine, fair point. What about the Zeltron they had with them?”''

“'idn’t see her getting hauled away by the Imps, and she wasn’t inside. Probably still alive. 'ant us to look for her?”

Lostur snorted. ''“No, I don’t care about her. She’s not as important as the girl. As a matter of fact, if you see her, kill her.”''

“Got it, boss. We also managed to nab a blood sample, probably from Nax, but no datapads.”

A sigh came from the other end of the commlink. ''“It’ll have to do. Get it tested first thing tomorrow.” ''With that, the comm clicked off, and Kaz put her hand on the blaster she was carrying. She motioned for Bolthead and Dav to follow her back to the base.

--

TK-421 walked in to Gaffi’s office and saluted, before handing his report in. He immediately took it, saluted back, and began scanning it. “Six bodies, one missing Zeltron, one or more missing kidnap victims with at least one wounded, and multiple weapons seized…” he mumbled, before his eyes widened. “…You found a datapad that named their commander and ship?”

421 nodded, helmet still on. “Yes, sir,” his vocoder cracked. “Their commander is a Weequay named Allo Lostur, and their command ship is apparently a CR90 called the Cranky Bantha. I’m sure you’re familiar with them.”

Gaffi grimaced internally, but outwardly showed no emotion. “Very much so. Where is the datapad now?”

“Should be in the evidence locker, sir.”

“Bring it to me. In the meantime, I’ll have forensics do a run of the weapons and the blood sample you took. Dismissed.”

TK-421 saluted and marched out of the room, while Gaffi sat back down and pondered his thoughts.

Allo Lostur.

The Cranky Bantha.

He’d thought the day would never come where he would have to hear those names again.

The memories of that accursed ship came flooding back, enveloping his mind like a Tatooine dust storm. His thoughts raced at the possibility of a repeat, but he pushed them aside. He was weak then, but now?

Now he had the advantage.

Just then, one of the stormtroopers guarding the evidence locker came in and handed him the datapad, before Gaffi dismissed him. He’d need to have a little chat with Imperial Intelligence later, but in the meantime, he flicked through the datapad, taking in every piece of information he could about what had changed with the Bantha, her crew, and the man in charge over the past 17 years.