The Rise of Pulsar Company/Chapter 2

Nax found himself in the living room, directly across from Trax. His face was blurry and nearly unrecognizable, but he instinctively knew it was Trax.

He didn’t even need to think to know he was dreaming, so he just sat back in the chair, and waited for the shooting to start. Sure enough, it did, and he found himself involuntarily running up the stairs, shotgun in hand, like he was on a maglev rail. He chased after Trax and ran outside, and they both immediately started shooting.

The group shot back, but Trax wasn’t shot instantly like he was in reality, and they didn’t immediately run off. Instead, they whiffed their shots, and then the speeders came around with the vaporators on back, one circling the pair clockwise, and the other, counter-clockwise. As the first speeder came close, he racked another shell, took aim, and fired. Time stopped, and he got a good look at the guy hanging off the side in the muzzle flash.

It was the Trandoshan, the one from the garrison. He gave Nax a savage, evil grin, and then time returned to normal. The pellets from the shotgun seemingly phased through him, and the speeder passed behind Nax. He then heard Kyra scream, and turned to see them making away with Kyra, and Trax was nowhere to be seen.

A speeder bike appeared right next to Nax, engine on idle. He hopped on, and gunned it towards the escaping speeders, the engine roaring with ferocious intensity. Nax managed to get on the tail of the rear speeder, and through the moonlight of Tatooine’s three moons, he could see Kyra being held by the Trandoshan, dangling off the side of the speeder. Nax got close, close enough to the point that he was practically in their turbines, and leaned to the side Kyra was dangling off, arm outstretched.

“..et go o..e, you bas…!” was all Nax could hear Kyra yell over the screaming of the turbines. He then saw her shadow reach back, and then sucker punch the Trandoshan in the face. He recoiled briefly, and then hissed at her, earning a blaster bolt to his face for the trouble. Both the Trandoshan and Kyra tumbled out and onto the sand. Nax managed to grab her mid tumble, and she shook the dead Trandoshan’s grip, using the free weight to sling herself onto the speeder. She wrapped her left arm around Nax’s torso, and then aimed the DL-44 at the engine of the rear landspeeder. The muzzle began to glow a bright red, and Nax felt the air start to heat up.

Kyra’s arm jerked upwards as a large bolt shot out of the barrel and directly hit the landspeeder’s turbines, causing an explosion. The landspeeder veered and swerved from side to side, and then crashed directly in front of the speeder bike.

-

Nax’s eyes shot open, but he didn’t jump up. He just calmly got out of bed like every other day.

Having to rewatch your family die almost every single night didn’t make for the most pleasant experience, but Kyra not only replacing Trax, but her living through the dream threw Nax for a pretty big loop.

As he walked out, he saw Kyra poke her head around the corner. “Hey, Nax!” she beamed, evidently in brighter spirits after Nax taught her what he knew about handling a blaster last night. “Made you some eggs for breakfast.”

“Thanks.”

She closed her eyes and smiled. “Not a problem! It’s my way of saying thanks!” she happily said, before opening her eyes, and her expression changed to a more neutral one. “By the way, I had a really weird dream last night.”

Nax raised an eyebrow out of curiosity. “Why? What made it weird?” he asked, turning the corner with Kyra.

“Well, you were there, and there was someone else I didn’t recognize. Both of you were in the living room, and I apparently wasn’t visible to you two. Nothing I did caught your attention, and then the next thing I know, I’m outside with the other guy in a firefight, and then I get grabbed by that Trandoshan that the patrol shot, the one up at the garrison,” she said, taking Nax to the kitchen table.

“And then I show up on a speederbike, you punch him and shoot him, I grab you after you fall off, and then you shoot the engines of the speeder out?” Nax interrupted.

Kyra cocked her head sideways, dumbfounded. “How did you-?”

“Had the same dream.” Nax replied nonchalantly, and Kyra scratched her head in confusion as Nax went to go eat.

-

“Is this some sort of joke?” Thel asked, inspecting the DC-15S. On his table was a disassembled DP-23 shotgun, the DH-17, a DLT-19, an older DC-17 pistol, an SE-14, a Defender, and an ELG-3A.

“Does it look like one?” Nax replied, arms crossed.

Thel’s jaw slacked and he stared at Nax, dumbfounded at his rationale. “You stun one of my customers, arrest them, take their weapon that I personally made for them and intend on selling it back to me?!”

“…Yes?” Nax asked, not sure why he needed to clarify his intentions, or justify his position, for that matter.

Thel put his face in both of his hands and sighed. “…Nax, do you have any idea how slagbrained you sound right now?”

Nax rolled his eyes. “Your stock seems to think it’s a great idea.” he said, gesturing to the otherwise empty tables and racks.

Thel briefly looked around and sighed again. “…How much did you want for these again?”

“Three thousand credits for all of them.”

“Twenty two hundred for everything except for the Defender and Elgee. Holdout blasters are hard to sell.” He offered, and then noticed Nax considering his options. “Take it or leave it.”

Nax shrugged. “Deal.” he responded, and Thel fished some credits out of his pocket, handing them over to Nax. In response, he set the Elgee and the Defender back in the bag, and took the credits.

Nax had already turned to leave with Kyra, when they were approached by a short, portly man, obviously someone who hasn’t been in Mos Eisley for more than ten seconds. He was balding, and had a small moustache under his nose, and he had some sort of fancy suit on. He was also evidently unarmed. This guy was either incredibly brave, or incredibly stupid. “Excuse me, friend, you wouldn’t happen to be a mercenary for hire, would you?” he asked. His voice wasn’t necessarily horrible to listen to, but his accent was certainly more posh and regal. Not exactly the kind of person you would expect to be on a backwater like Tatooine willingly. He suddenly stood up straight. “Gah, where are my manners?” he saluted. “I am Lorn Ulgo, of House Ulgo.”

Nax raised an eyebrow. “…House Ulgo?” he inquired, unfamiliar with the name.

Lorn sighed and shook his head. “I’m not surprised you haven’t heard of us.” he cleared his throat. “House Ulgo is, or rather, was one of the Great Houses of Alderaan. We’ve fallen on hard times as of late, but I assure you that our core values are sti-“

Nax interrupted him, putting his right hand on his hip. “Not to be rude, but I don’t really care about your noble house or whatever it is, I was just asking what it was. Now, did you have a job, or no?”

Lorn was briefly stunned, blinked a few times, and then regained his composure. “Right! My apologies. As I was saying, House Ulgo isn’t doing well. I was sent out to Tatooine by my superiors to handle a shipment of weapons we were supposed to receive.” he then scratched the back of his head, nervous. “And, well, my bodyguards seem to have disappeared, and our deal is supposed to happen in around… half an hour?” he said.

“…I see. How much is the pay?”

“Provided my deal goes smoothly? Three thousand credits. If it doesn’t, I’ll up it to forty five hundred as a danger bonus.”

Nax looked at Kyra. “Shouldn’t be too hard. You in?”

Kyra nodded, opting to remain silent just in case one of the slavers was nearby and heard her.

“Excellent! Now, you wouldn’t happen to have a speeder, would you?”

Nax motioned for Kyra and Lorn to follow him. “Yeah, this way.” he said, heading around the corner where the speeder was.

Kyra got in the back right next to R5, positioning herself against the newly installed makeshift guardrails, while Lorn took her place in the passenger seat. She was a bit unprepared for when the speeder took off, and covered her ears because of how close she was to the turbines.

Nax half-looked at Lorn, keeping one eye on the street and another on Lorn. “Where to?”

“Docking bay ninety-four is where the meeting place is supposed to take place. They’ll be offloading the shipment from a YT series freighter.” Lorn stated, pointing in the general direction of docking bay 94.

“There’s a lot of YT series freighters out there. Do you know the specific model?”

Lorn rolled that around in his head for a bit. “I don’t believe I was told, just that it was a YT series.”

Awesome.

“Anything specific you need us to do?” Nax asked, hoping to pry any more details from Lorn.

“I’ll just need you two to flank me. This should be a very clean cut-job compared to what you’re used to.”

That was reassuring. Maybe.

Nax shrugged and turned his attention back to the streets.

“This is a weapons shipment, right?” Kyra asked, sounding confused.

Lorn looked back at her. “Yes, that it is.”

Kyra cocked her head to the side. “…I thought Alderaanians avoided war? What does an Alderaanian house need with a weapons shipment?”

Lorn smiled and laughed. “Oh, my dear, House Ulgo is nothing like the other Great Houses. While they’ve grown passive, even softer over the years, House Ulgo hasn’t changed since the days of the Mandalorian Wars. We still take pride in military service, with many of our members serving in the Stormtrooper Corps and the Imperial Navy, many of them with distinction. We’ve managed to secure a deal with the Imperial military that allows us to train our members for a year, before shipping them out for specialized training.” he explained with a surprising amount of up-frontedness for what one would assume to be highly secretive information. “That said, Imperial Bureaucracy being what it is, sometimes we have to make do with… ‘unofficial’ means of acquiring training equipment. In those very rare cases, members like myself are sent out to make a transaction with the less friendly types in this galaxy of ours.” he continued, revealing even more of what were presumably incredibly well guarded secrets with surprising willingness.

Kyra just leaned her head on R5, and the astromech cooed in response.

-

“This is the place.” Lorn said, and Nax pulled up near the stairs. All three of them got out, barring R5, who stayed behind. The astromech complained, but Nax ignored him, following Lorn up the stairs, forming a V formation with Kyra to his right.

They entered the docking bay, and passed through the entry alcove. The big hangar door that was usually in the Mos Eisley docking bays was already open, and in the center was a YT-2400 freighter painted a deep crimson, with gunmetal grey trimming. The starboard command pod had the separated windows replaced with one clear window to increase visibility, and a lot of the hull plating between the command pod and the rest of the ship seemed to have been stripped away. The main portion of the ship also had more than a few examples of what could be considered nose art, mostly of Twi’lek and Mirialan slave girls, but what also looked like a few kill tallies. On the underside of the hull, there were various symbols that Nax recognized as the symbols of the long since dead Confederacy of Independent Systems and the defunct Galactic Republic. His attention was diverted from the hull to the loading ramp, which began to open up, and a man wearing a brown leather jacket and long blue pants with short, wavy brown hair came down.

“You’re late.” he chastised, his voice carrying a certain amount of swagger in it. Probably a smuggler.

Lorn shook his head. “Yes, yes, I’m aware. There was a… complication.”

“That complication better not involve the Empire and you snitching.” he snarled.

Lorn waved his hand in a dismissive fashion. “No, nothing like that.”

The man rolled his eyes. “Whatever. Do you have our credits?”

“Yes, twenty five thousand, as discussed previously.”

The probable smuggler pressed down on the commlink on his arm. “Bring out the merchandise.” he spoke into it, and shortly after, four human men came down with repulsorsleds carrying multiple crates each, probably of weapons. They set the crates in front of the trio.

“Do you mind if I examine the weapons?” Lorn asked. The smuggler looked back at his crew, and then made a dismissive hand gesture, which Lorn took as “go ahead,” so he popped the top of one of the crates off. He pulled out an E-11, and held it, examining it, looking over every single detail on the weapon. He briefly looked over the other weapons in the case, and, evidently satisfied, set the E-11 back inside, popping the top back on.

Lorn fished through his suit, and pulled out a credit stick. The captain reached out to grab it, but before he took it, one of his crewmates elbowed him. “Ey, boss, innat that one slave girl that the big boss wants?” he said through a heavily accented voice, pointing at Kyra. “She’s got alla de same clothes that wotserface told em she had.”

Nax and Kyra both tensed up, keeping their weapons in quick reach. They had a real bad feeling about this, and could smell it about to get ugly.

The smuggler looked Kyra over, and then got closer to Lorn. “Tell you what, Lorn. Hand her over to me,” he pointed to Kyra. “And I’ll let you keep your credits.” As if to enforce his position in the matter, his men readied their weapons, but didn’t point them at the trio. Their fingers were clearly itchy on the trigger though, judging by how antsy and jumpy they were acting.

Lorn turned to look at Kyra, and saw just how tense she was, even through her mask. He then looked over at Nax, who was silently judging Lorn’s decision. Lorn put the credit stick back in his suit, and the smuggler seemed satisfied, relaxing.

…until Lorn grabbed a hidden blaster, grabbed the smuggler, and started using him as a human shield, all in one swift maneuver, with such speed and grace that betrayed his weight. “Sorry, friends! Slavery’s not something we Ulgos pride ourselves on!” he shouted, and then opened fire. Kyra and Nax both drew their weapons, and started shooting along with Lorn.

Nax hit the leftmost guy dead on in the torso, all of the slug pellets connecting, causing him to stumble to the ground and collapse. He racked another shell, and switched targets to the one directly to his right. A red bolt from his blaster pistol shot towards Lorn, and slammed into the smuggler captain’s body. Lorn responded by flicking his blaster pistol and returning fire, sending several blue bolts his way, killing him with a few well placed shots.

Nax then turned around to face the two on his right, and saw Kyra shoot three shots towards the one to her left. Two hit the man in the lungs, causing him to stumble back, while the third scuffed his face. A fourth shot ended his life. The fourth guy made the smart decision to run away, and by now was at the ramp, running up. Kyra and Lorn managed to shoot him in the leg, causing him to fall, but he quickly picked himself up and closed the ramp, rendering pursuit impossible.

The telltale sound of the YT-series’ engines turning on suddenly drowned out any of the noise in the spaceport, and the 2400 started to take off. As it turned around, the engines came to full blast, knocking several of the crates over, and blowing the trio away from where they were standing, until the 2400 was far enough away for the engines to not have any backblast effects anymore.

Nax rubbed his head and picked himself up, no worse for wear than before. He got up, grabbed his shotgun, and ran to Kyra, helping her up. When she was on her feet, they both turned to look at Lorn, who was shooting at the escaping smuggler captain, who was running away with a limp. When he was around a corner, Lorn didn’t pursue, instead opting to keep facing the corner he ran around, blaster at the ready, just in case he came back.

He didn’t.

Lorn raised his blaster, pointing the barrel at the air, but not pulling the trigger. He then looked over at the crates, and, seemingly relieved that the weapons weren’t damaged, turned to the pair, holding out a credit chip. “Here you go, friends! Forty-five hundred credits, as discussed!” he smiled warmly.

Nax took the credit chip. “…Thanks.” he said, setting the chip inside his duster. “Do you need any help getting these crates hidden? Imperials could come looking for ‘em.” he gestured to the slew of suspicious and highly illegal crates.

“No need, Imperial patrols won’t be here for another hour, and my transport will be long gone by then.”

Right, nobles have connections. Probably paid the Imperials off.

Nax and Kyra were about to leave, but Lorn called out, “Wait,” he said, “What’s your name?”

Nax had totally forgotten to introduce himself earlier. Bad business, that. “Nax Strag.”

Lorn smiled and nodded. “You have my thanks, Mr. Strag.”

Nax felt like asking him to drop the formalities, but he was just being polite, probably, so he didn’t.

-

“W-w-well sir, they took us by surprise. I panicked and ran for my life, I’m sure you understand.” the crew member nervously said, tugging at his shirt collar.

Lostur felt like a vein was about to pop. “Oh, I understand. You’re a coward. Not only that, but you left an asset far more valuable than yourself behind. Now, do you understand what I do to cowards in my crew, scrapbrain?” he threatened, although the smuggler didn’t seem to pick up on the threat.

“N-no, sir…”

Lostur drew his slug pistol and shot once, the slug entering the man’s skull through the front, and sending gray matter out the back, dropping him dead instantly. “Someone toss this coward’s body out the airlock! And clean the mess up, while you’re at it!” he shouted. On cue, multiple slaves appeared from seemingly nowhere, and began ferrying the body away. Two slaves stayed behind and began to clean the blood and brains from the dirty bridge floor.

His Twi’lek slave ran her fingers along his face, cooing as she did so. Lostur grabbed her hand forcefully. “No.” was all he said, and the Twi’lek retracted her hand, knowing better than to disobey her master. Sex wasn’t on his day plan; he was focused on far more important things, like the retrieval of his property, which was going poorly right now.

He tapped on his commlink, and a connection was established to the diminished fourth ground team. “Boss.” a rough and scratchy, but still distinctly feminine voice sounded out.

“Kaz.” Lostur replied flatly. “Bit of a changeup in your job. Dav and his men were double-crossed by that noble from Alderaan they were dealing with. One of the cowards he worked with ran away and left him to fend for himself.”

“You take care of him?”

“Take a guess.” Lostur said, disinterested. A hoarse, dry laugh came from the other end of the comm. “That said, Dav is apparently alive.”

Kaz snickered loud enough for the commlink to pick it up. ''“So, whaddya want us to do? Kill ‘im?”''

Lostur rolled his eyes in annoyance. “No.”

''“Idn’t ‘e a loose end?”''

“Not yet. He should still be in Mos Eisley. From what the coward told me, after Dav and his men nabbed his guards, the noble went and hired some mercs.”

“And?”

“One of the mercs matches your description of my missing property.” he seethed. “Find Dav, shake whatever information you can from him, and then force him to help you. If he refuses, remind him of what I’ll personally do to him if he comes back up without her.”

''“Got it. They were at docking bay ninety four, right?”''

“Yes.”

The commlink clicked off to signal the connection had been cut.

Lostur rubbed his temples to provide some semblance of catharsis. The sheer incompetence of his crew was becoming incredibly evident. Even though Foss’ men weren’t part of his crew per se, they were under contract, and as such, were obligated to do as he demanded, unless they didn’t mind losing their heads, literally. As such, that meant that Dav needed to work with Kaz and whatshisface if he valued living.

It boggled his mind at how just one escaped slave girl could be so difficult to capture.

Lostur’s thought process was interrupted by a familiar, intoxicating smell. “Whoever’s smoking our stock of death sticks better quit it, before I put a slug through their brain!” he shouted menacingly, and heard a scrunching sound, before the smell went away.

-

Kaz tapped her distracted partner’s shoulder. “Hey, Bolthead, quit staring at Jawa asses, we’ve got work to do.” she said condescendingly.

Bolthead arched his back to look at her. “You mean we didn’t have work before?” he snarked.

Kaz smacked him. “Shut it. We need to go near docking bay ninety four.”

Bolthead rubbed his cheek. “Why, we leaving?” he asked fairly innocently. Kaz smacked him again. “That wasn’t necessary!” he shouted, upset at the physical abuse he was receiving from his “friend.”

Kaz snickered. “Just felt like smacking you.” she said as her partner got up, rubbing his face from the slaps. “No, Dav and his men got doublecrossed. Dav’s apparently alive, and the Boss says he has some more information on that girl we’re looking for.”

“Why not just look for her like how we’ve been doing?” Bolthead asked, as if that wasn’t the most obvious thing in the galaxy.

Kaz turned to him, annoyed. “Because we’ve been running around like headless Eopies with no info on her other than what we saw the other day, and the Boss said Dav has to help us look for her. I’d be much more comfortable with Dav than the piece of trash Slev that we used to have.”

Bolthead nodded. “…That’s actually not all that bad of a plan.”

Kaz rolled her eyes. “’Course it’s not, cause you didn’t have a hand in it.”

Bolthead raised a finger to try and retort, but Kaz shot him an evil glare, and he lowered it, keeping his mouth shut for his own safety.

-

Dav Foss stumbled into an alleyway, clutching at his wounds. He’d taken a few bad blaster shots, from his own men no less, and they hurt like hell. Being a contracted smuggler was NOT worth it if this was what he could expect most of the time. He did see Lancer get on board the ship and fly away, but he didn’t have much faith that the others were alive. Most of his friends; gone in the blink of an eye, just like that.

Dav leaned up against a wall and sat down, holding his stomach in pain, before partially taking his shirt off to see how bad the damage was. Around half of his torso was marked by three scorchmarks, the skin and nerves in the immediate area burned and dead, no feeling left in them, while everything around the three wounds was practically screaming in pain. He clutched the wounds, trying to subdue the pain, to no effect.

What he wouldn’t give for a bacta salve right about now.

“Having trouble there, Foss?” Kaz suddenly said to his left.

Dav turned his head to look at her, and she was dangling a medpack in front of his face. He weakly tried to grab it from her, but she casually pulled her arm back. “Nice try, Dav, but no.” Dav looked up at her, and she was smugly smirking down at the unfortunate smuggler. “I’ll give you this if you tell me about the mercenaries the noble had.”

Under normal circumstances, Dav would shoot her for asking to reveal client information, but seeing as how not only was the job set up by Lostur and not himself, but he was also double-crossed, he didn’t really care. “Fine.” he choked out.

“Smart move. How many mercs were there?”

“Just two. The girl, and a man.”

Bolthead suddenly got close to Kaz. “A man? She was alone when we found her at the garrison.” he said, and Kaz smacked him. “Barring the droid, I mean.”

“Describe the man.” Kaz commanded.

Dav scratched his head, before clutching his stomach again. “He was tall, probably a full head taller than any of us. Pale, strong facial features, black hair and a stubble. Think he had heterowhatsit, too.”

“’Heterowhatsit’?” Bolthead asked.

“Heterochromia. ‘e’s got eyes that are different colors.”

“Oh.” Bolthead said, and preemptively winced in preparation for Kaz to smack him, but that never came.

“…uh, what else…” Dav droned on. “Oh! Right! He had some wide brimmed hat and a duster, carried around one of those sideways shotguns, too. The ones that look like those Araykd shotguns, like the one Slev had.”

Kaz looked at Bolthead, and then back at Dav. “What about the girl?”

Dav winced at the pain briefly. “Same clothes she had when you found her. Had a DL-44 though, looked modified.”

Bolthead cocked his head slightly. “Did you get a good look at it?”

Kaz smacked him again. “Of course ‘e didn’t, you moron! ‘e was getting shot at! Looking at someone’s gun wouldn’t be at the top of anyone’s list in that situation!” she shouted, smacking Bolthead a second time for good measure.

Dav doubled over in pain, trying to hold his screaming back. “Speaking of…” he coughed, “…getting shot.”

Kaz rolled her eyes as she pushed Dav on his back, taking his shirt off to reveal the wounds. She opened the medpack and took out a salve and some bandages, squirting the salve onto her hand. It smelled like bantha droppings, but she didn’t really care. Bolthead started retching, though a quick glare from Kaz put an end to that. She smeared the salve onto Dav’s torso, and he winced from the pain, but didn’t complain otherwise. After about two minutes, the salve had been applied to the wounds, and Dav smelled worse than he did before. “Arch your back.” Kaz commanded, and Dav obeyed. Kaz then grabbed the bandages, and started wrapping his torso up to keep the salve in place. When she was done, she handed Dav his shirt back, which he took and put back on.

Dav briefly coughed, “Guess I’ll be heading back to the Bantha, then.” he said, already sounding better than before, before getting up, about to walk off.

Kaz grabbed his arm, and he glanced at her. “No, you won’t be.” she said maliciously. “The boss says you’re stuck with us for the foreseeable future.” Dav tried to break away from her, but her grip didn’t budge. “You know what’ll happen if you try and go back without the girl, Foss. Don’t test us.” Kaz threatened.

Dav sighed. “Sithspit.” he said dejectedly, and Kaz released her grip. Dav didn’t run, so she picked up everything and set it all back inside the medpack.

Bolthead looked hesitant to speak, seeing as how Kaz kept slapping him for the smallest of offenses, but against his better judgement, he spoke. “Hey, Kaz.” he asked as they were walking out of the alleyway. “Why’s the boss so fixated on catching this one girl? She doesn’t seem all that special to me.”

Kaz shrugged, not making eye contact with him. “’ell if I know. Maybe she’s worth a lot of credits to the right people.” she said casually.

“Maybe he wants to screw her brains out?” Dav suggested.

Kaz laughed. “Knowing him, that’s probably the case.”

Bolthead pushed his fingers together nevously. “…So, where are we going now?”

Kaz glanced back at him. “Chalmun’s.”

“Why?”

Kaz stared at him, as if he were an idiot. “For a drink.” she said condescendingly.

-

The trio walked into Chalmun’s through the front entrance, and almost immediately, Dav was tackled by a woman. Bolthead and Kaz both reached for their weapons, but stopped short when they realized Dav wasn’t being attacked. Rather, he was being hugged. “Dav, I missed you!” she said gleefully.

Dav struggled against her grip. “Allura… let go…” he gasped, and the woman, apparently known as Allura, let go of Dav, giving him a kiss on the cheek before she did. Allura was a thin woman of average height and thin build, with long brown hair, with a long, white, and rather revealing dress on. Not revealing in the sense that she looked like a prostitute, but it was certainly lewd.

She smiled innocently at Dav. “Where’ve you been?”

Dav scratched the back of his neck nervously. “Working.” he hesitantly said, although Allura didn’t seem to notice.

Allura noticed Bolthead and Kaz, and turned her head to the side to get a closer look at the pair. “Who are these two?” she asked.

Dav glanced back at Kaz. “These two? They work for my employer. We’re actually looking for someone, and I was hoping to run into you.”

Allura’s eyes widened. “…Really, now? Who’re you looking for?” she asked, brushing some hair out of her face.

“A woman, about my height. Bright blue eyes, fair skin, long white hair. Probably had rags on, looks like she doesn’t really belong on Tatooine. You seen her?”

Allura looked around briefly, and her face contorted as she tried to remember anyone who looked like that. “Hrm…” she mumbled. “I… think I have? Two days ago, a woman came in that looked like the person you’re talking about. I didn’t pay her much mind, but she did have the rags and long white hair. Maybe it’s the same person?” she half shrugged.

“Did you see her leave?” Bolthead asked, and Kaz restrained herself from smacking him.

Allura put her hand on her hip, and raised her other hand, snapping her fingers together rapidly, making a few clicking noises with her mouth as she thought. “I’m pretty sure she left with… Nax, I think his name was? He’s a bounty hunter, frequents the cantina. Only spoke to him once, though. Tall, black hair, wears a longcoat and wide brimmed hat. Hard to miss him if you see him.”

Dav glanced at Kaz. “Same guy.” he mouthed to her.

Suddenly, a group of Ithorians came through the door, and bumped into the trio. They shouted at them in their native tongue, and barged their way through. Allura bowed her head. “I should probably be going now. See you soon, Dav!” she yelled as she walked out the door.

Bolthead walked up behind Dav. “Who was that?” he asked.

Dav glanced at him from over his shoulder. “One of my girlfriends.” Dav casually said, putting emphasis on the plural.

Kaz looked at him with disdain. “Glad to see being a manwhore hasn’t gone out of style with you smugglers.” she mocked, rolling her eyes.

Dav shot a glare back at her, although she wasn’t intimidated.

-

Nax was about to fall asleep, having more or less finished the day’s work. Kyra was in her room, already fast asleep. In the past two days alone, they had accumulated eighteen thousand credits, including what he had before he found Kyra. Maybe he was wrong about it taking longer to get that starfighter. If jobs kept coming in at the rate they had been with the amount of credits they were getting from them, they’d be out of here before the end of the month. Hell, he could actually probably just buy a YT-1300 in a few days, take Kyra, R5, and Z-3PO, and leave this hellhole of a planet forever. Then again, freighters were heavy, bulky, and hard to maneuver, unlike that starfighter he had his eye on.

His mind drifted on to that weapons deal earlier. Nax wasn’t as concerned with the fact that a noble was dealing in weapons, but rather that the smuggler captain had escaped. Loose end or not, that was probably another body out looking for him and Kyra. Not to mention, he had seen his face, so now he would be targeted as well.

Nax’s thoughts were interrupted by Kyra suddenly screaming. In a flash, he went from his bed, to Kyra’s room, kneeling at her side. She was writhing around in pain, clutching her stomach. Nax managed to hold her down and get her to look at him. “What’s wrong?” Nax asked, panicked.

“Bruises!” Kyra managed to yell in between grunts and restrained yells, clearly panicked. “They beat me on the ship!” she managed to get out, before going into a long, barely restrained scream, gritting her teeth. “Must’ve reopened or something, I don’t know!” she yelled, tears starting to flow from her eyes from the pain.

“Let me see.” Nax said, moving to undo her sleeping robes to see what was wrong. Kyra instinctively swatted his hands away out of fear, and possibly mistrust. He looked down at her, locking eyes. “Kyra. Don’t.” he said calmly, trying to seem as non-threatening as possible.

Kyra swatted his hands away again. “No!” she shouted, obviously distressed. “I don’t want to get beaten again!” she screamed, hysterical.

“…Kyra, I can’t help you if I don’t know how bad it is. I promise to not hurt you.” Nax said, maintaining his calm tone of voice. “Please.” he begged.

Kyra slowly calmed down, her breathing returning more or less to normal, although she was still clutching her stomach in pain. The lack of a response didn’t ease Nax up, but her behavior otherwise seemed to signal that she was okay with Nax taking a look, so he moved to take the robe off again. Kyra tensed up, but didn’t offer any sort of resistance, so he undid the robe and fully removed it, revealing her heavily bruised body. She gasped at the cold air suddenly touching her bruises, and Nax began to look at them.

“Don’t see any blast marks… hmm… no cuts, either.” Nax mumbled as he looked at her wounds. Kyra had suddenly went silent, and Nax looked up to see her staring intently at him, biting down on the pillow to muffle her screaming. “Sit here, I’ll go get some bandages.” he said, before running into the bathroom across the hall. Above the sink was the medical cabinet, and he rifled through it, trying to find where the roll of bandages was. He found it and grabbed a pair of scissors, and ran back into Kyra’s room. He cut the package open and grabbed one end of the roll, and immediately started wrapping Kyra’s torso up. The bacta contained inside the cloth would seep into her skin, and over time, would heal the bruises. As he wrapped, Nax had to occasionally pick Kyra up to get the bandage around her body fully, to which she would audibly complain, but it wasn’t screaming like earlier, more like wincing, with the occasional muffled “oh” and “ah” coming from her.

He finished wrapping her torso up, the bandage running out just below her covered breasts, which also seemed to be where the bruises ended.

Convenient.

Nax snipped off the end of the bandage, tossing it, and Kyra let go of the pillow, taking in a deep breath of air. “You have no idea how painful that was.” she said, elated beyond belief.

Nax put his right arm over his right leg, kneeling. “Still hurt?”

Kyra half nodded. “…Little bit. It’s just a stinging feeling now.”

Nax breathed a sigh of relief. “You should have told me about your bruises sooner.” he advised. “I’d have patched you up on the spot.”

Kyra sighed. “I didn’t because, well, they… weren’t like this before. I don’t know how they got this bad. I’m sure I was shot earlier, but I didn’t feel any immediate pain, so I thought I was fine…” she trailed off. “Even then, I still wasn’t sure if you were for real, or if you were going to…” she gulped, “…beat me.”

Nax blinked twice at the mere notion that he would do anything like that, before handing her the sleeping robes back, which she slipped into. He exhaled, and then looked at Kyra. “I don’t want you moving from this bed for the next few days.”

Kyra’s eyes widened. “But-“ she protested.

“Not a step out of bed. I mean it.”

Kyra’s head fell into her pillow, defeated, and Nax left her room quietly.

-

Kaz dragged Bolthead and Dav out of Chalmun’s by the collar, smacking them both upside the head for getting blackout drunk on the job. There’s a 'very 'fine line between having a drink, and destroying your fragging liver in a single night, and this pair of reject jokers went flying over it through hyperspace and straight into a sun. If she had her way, she’d plant a slug in both of their skulls and be done with it, but she didn’t get her way. Instead, she had to work with them until they found the girl, and that meant she had to put up with shit like this.

As she dragged her dead weight into a two story abandoned building near the cantina, her commlink beeped in her ear, so she pressed down on it, throwing Bolthead and Dav to the ground as she did so. “Kaz speaking.”

“Kaz.” Lostur’s voice growled through the commlink. “''I’d like a progress report, if you’d be so kind.” ''he maliciously threatened.

“Found Dav, patched him up after shaking him down.”

“''…And what did you find out?''”

“Well, according to one of Dav’s girlfriends,” Kaz heard a roar of laughter on the other end, “She was seen leaving Chalmun’s a few days ago with a bounty hunter named Nax. She didn’t give a last name, but his description matches one of the bodyguards that noble hired, alongside the girl.”

Kaz heard Lostur spit a drink out. “She WHAT?!” he yelled.

“She was one of the noble’s bodyg-“

''“I heard you the first time, moron!''” he snapped, before Kaz heard him exhale over the comms in frustration. “''…If she was a bodyguard, she probably knows how to shoot. Bounty hunter might’ve given her some basic pointers. Great. Anything else?”''

“He frequents Chalmun’s, according to Dav’s girlfriend. That’s all we’ve got.”

“''I want you to keep tabs on the cantina, then. If you as much as hear a hint that he’s in the area, go after him, no hesitation.''” he said, hatred and malice filling his voice. “''That said, now that I have a name, I’m going to call in some favors, see if I can’t figure out where this piece of trash lives.''” Lostur seethed, before the commlink shut off on his end.

As soon as Lostur’s voice went away from the commlink, Kaz felt someone grabbing at her legs. “…Hnngh, Allura… you have such nice… haah…” Dav moaned in his drunken stupor. Kaz immediately kneed him in the face, and woke him up fully. Dav jumped straight up, half in a defensive CQC pose, half holding his nose in pain. “Son of a- what the hell was that for?” he shouted angrily at Kaz.

Bolthead wasn’t woken up by the racket, and he just slumped over, for all intents and purposes, he was basically dead to the galaxy. “Felt like doing it.” Kaz snarked, and Dav readied himself to punch her. “You’re on watch.” she dictated authoritatively, pushing a blaster into Dav’s hands. “Keep an eye on the cantina. You see our friend or the boss’ property walk into that cantina, you come to me immediately. Otherwise, I couldn’t give less of a shit if Yoda himself walked in there.” Kaz said, before walking off further back into the abandoned building.

Bolthead opened one eye and lowered his voice. “She gone?” he asked hesitantly, hoping she wasn’t in earshot.

Dav looked down at him from a chair near the window. “Yeah.” Dav said, his voice incredibly nasally from having to pinch down on his nose.

Bolthead rolled his eyes. “Man, what a pain she is.” he said, frustration oozing and dripping from his words. Dav just raised an eyebrow out of curiosity.

“I wouldn’t know.” Dav casually replied, staring out the window.

Bolthead looked dumbfounded briefly, before it suddenly hit him. “Right, you’re new, aren’t you?”

“Ish. Signed out a contract with Lostur for a three month employment period, I dunno, two weeks ago?” Dav paused. “Yeah, two weeks ago sounds about right.”

“Man, if you’re that new, you don’t know how nasty Kaz can get.”

Bolthead then launched into a lengthy tirade about Kaz’s general behavior. Notable examples include her seemingly random urge to beat Bolthead for no real reason, her willingness to shoot comrades on multiple occasions, and several personal accounts of petty theft. While it wasn’t always coherent or sane, Dav kept his ear open for the partially drunk Bolthead. Although the more he actually went on, the less sane and more deranged and drunk Bolthead seemed. Eventually, he passed out, granting Dav at least a few hours of silence.

-

Kyra’s eyes fluttered open to stare at the sandstone wall. She tried to sit up, but her bandaged state vehemently disagreed with her, and she was forced to lay back down due to the sudden feeling of being stung by a thousand insects. She sighed, and rolled over to see a small portable table with some things on it, as well as R5 staring expectantly at her.

Her vision was still blurry, so she rubbed her eyes to try and clear it. When it did eventually clear, she saw what was actually on the table. One was a small box with two latches on the front and a note on top that read “For Kyra,” in the same Aurebesh scratch as on the graves of Nax’s brother and father. Sitting next to the box was a small, square electronic device plugged in to a wall socket, with a pan on top.

R5 cheerily beeped, as if to say “good morning!” to her.

Kyra yawned and stretched her arms in bed. “Morning, Arfive.” she said, tired, yet oddly at peace despite her… episode last night.

Arfive beeped and wobbled, and then a hologram of Nax suddenly appeared next to Kyra, albeit covered in the blue filter all holograms seemed to have in the galaxy.

“Hey, Kyra,” the hologram said, staring blankly at the wall. “I’m having Arfive record this message for you, ‘cause by the time you get up, I’ll be gone. I shouldn’t be gone for more than a few hours. I’ll be out in Mos Eisley getting food and more ammo, so I left you some breakfast in that box by your bed, plus I dug my dad’s old hot plate out for you to reheat it on, IF you need to.” the hologram coughed. “Also, I set the ’44 under your bed, just in case you need it.”

The hologram of Nax glitched out, and Arfive started making a series of frustrated beeps as he kept trying to rewind it, but eventually gave up. “-emember what I told you, Kyra. Stay. In. Bed. I mean it.” it finished, before disappearing.

Kyra yawned again, and pulled the box over, releasing the latches. She felt the heat pouring out from the box, washing over her body. Kyra reached in, and pulled out a plate of scrambled eggs, still warm. “Must’ve left not too long ago.” she thought, digging in.

As Kyra ate, she could still feel the bandages hugging her torso, and her mind invariably wandered to what Nax had done for her. He had not only accepted a total stranger into his home, but fed her, gave her clothes and a safe place to sleep in, given her a job and a way off the planet, trained her on how to properly use a blaster to defend herself, and even given her medical attention. It was all so jarring for her.

She went from waking up on a slaver ship, stripped of her humanity, being beaten, assaulted, and starved, probably about to be sold off to some backwater crimelord, never to be seen again, to living in relative comfort and safety with Nax, and a way to get off Tatooine in reach. She was practically a queen now, compared to how she was a few days ago.

Kyra knew she owed Nax a huge debt for saving her, she just didn’t know how to repay it once they got off Tatooine.