Chapter Eleven

The first loss came not two minutes after the first collar was removed and her first squad of slaves moved out.

No, calling them slaves was wrong. She had just freed them, after all. Freedom fighters, maybe.

She had had HK-47 explain that they would be lead by her bugs. Her range didn’t cover the entire palace, but it was a near thing. A few swarming fly-things, some sand scorpions leading on the ground and using their twin stingers as pointers. Enough that she could keep an eye on what was going on.

Still, she lost five of her freedom fighters in a narrow corridor when a device fell from the ceiling and opened fire on them, putting more lasers downrange than their five blasters combined and killing all of them.

Talyor had lost people before, had led some astray, had used living things as cannon fodder since she was fifteen, but never like that.

She swallowed and focused harder. “We lost the group that went down the north-eastern corridor. Five down to some sort of turret in the ceiling,” she said.

“Assessment: A small price to pay for such valuable information.”

Her bugs across the palace started looking for more of those turrets. She found plenty. Her squads of freedom fighters all came to a stop as she barred their path with bugs. There was no way for her to write a message for them to be careful or to shoot at the ceiling.

“HK, I need messengers. Four of them,” she said, even as she raised her new arm and four gnat like bugs landed on its fingers. “They’ll have to follow these and tell my squads that there are concealed turrets in the ceiling. I need a new group to head to the north eastern corridor to retrieve the lost blasters and take out that turret.”

“Comment: Understood. I will retrieve unwilling volunteers now.”

She nodded and went back to focusing as HK-47 relayed her wants. There were hundreds of slaves in the palace, and only so many blasters to go around. More than half of them were in two or three rooms, with only a few guards to keep them safe. The sickly, the infirm.

The rest were spreading out on her directions, though some were proving a little hotheaded. Even with her insects to distract the adversaries they met in the corridors her freedom fighters were fighting an uphill battle.

Her troops didn’t have armour, were poorly armed, and weren’t all that fast to move. But, as she guided one squad behind a group of enemies pinning down another of her squads and watched them tear into their enemies undefending backs, she knew that she had some advantages that were quickly proving better than any number of extra blasters.

“Statement: Task complete, master,” HK-47 said.

Taylor nodded and let her bugs fly over to the waiting messengers to guide them. “Good. I need three more sent to squad seven down near the kitchens. The Gamoreans there are dead. They have weapons waiting.”

“Comment: Most excellent, master.”

She nodded even as the first messenger arrived, relayed her message, then started running to the next group. She watched in satisfaction as her freedom fighters moved into the next corridor, already aiming at an undeployed turret

When the weapon dropped from the ceiling, it was to be met with a hail of blasterfire.

“A few more minutes, HK, and we’ll be watching Nimas squirm,” Taylor said.

***

Modern blasters made a very distinct sound. It was high pitched enough that even with the thick walls of the palace around them they could clearly hear the whine of lasers being fired, the scream of plasma cutting off as it hit something and the burst-pops of walls being carved into by near-misses.

He recognized all those sounds from holos and recordings and even a few live fire demonstrations.

But Sib Nark had never been shot at before.

This entire situation was utterly unacceptable.

He was, essentially, a diplomat from the Trade Federation, here to purchase unfortunate Falleen citizens in order to further cement ties between the Federation and the Falleen government. His only guards were some battle droids and a few retainers who were shaking in their boots. The likelihood that they would hit anything other than their own toes with their blasters was higher than his chances at the Coruscanti Grand Lottery.

Nimas, meanwhile, was roaring and shouting, huge, fat arms waving around as she demanded more guards kill the rebelling slaves and that the bounty hunters who had been enjoying her hospitality start doing something.

It was perhaps not the best place to be, he reasoned. Standing tall in the middle of his little group, Sib Nark tried to present the image of a Neimoidian who was in control of himself. He was not going to allow any situation to strip him of his civility.

The shooting stopped.

Everyone, even Nimas, paused to listen as the constant whining of blasters echoed off into nothing.

For a moment he wondered if they had won, if the slaves had been subdued. So he looked towards the great entrance into Nimas’ throne room, expecting a victorious bounty hunter to walk in, or some of those filthy Gamoreans to squeal their victory.

A single scorpion walked down the middle of the path. It was dragging a bundle tied between its twin tails. The cloth scraped along the ground, collecting sand and dust.

“You, go see what that is!” Nimas ordered, waving a few of her guards over.

The Gamoreans lumbered over to the scorpion, hefting their crude axes by their sides.

“Let’s move back,” Sib Nark said. He had a bad feeling about that creature.

His retinue moved deeper into the shadows of one of the alcoves along the walls. Their battle droids stood by the entrance, blasters pointing towards the door and Sib Nark’s companions quaked in their boots behind them.

The Gamoreans near the scorpion talked to each other in deep grunts before one of them shrugged, raised his axe, and brought it chopping down onto the scorpion.

It splattered grotesquely, bits of chitin and black blood splattering on the ground.

The pig men laughed, soon joined by the others around Nimas.

“What’s in the sack?” the Hutt asked. She wasn’t laughing at all.

One of the Gamoreans took the bundle, shook off the bits of scorpion still tied to it, and unfolded it. He grunted something in his barbatic tongue.

“The kind Gamorrean just claimed that the device found within the sack is a thermal detonator,” Nimas’ protocol droid said.

The room went deadly quiet for a second.

The sack started to beep, faster and faster.

Sib Nark gave up all pretenses of civility and jumped behind a table. His retinue, the idiots, stood in place and screamed.

The shouting and panic was almost enough to drown out the increasingly loud beeps. Then the beeping stopped, replaced by a single low tone.

Warmth. A heat that washed across his skin and made the twin suns of Tatooine feel like mere torches in comparison. The air roared, pushing Nimas against the far wall of the alcove. the table he had hidden behind crushing him. Things shifted just as quickly and he found himself rolling towards the centre of the room, stopping just outside the alcove.

There was a fiery crackle as some of the curtains along the sides of the room burned and filled the air with a haze black smoke. Groans echoed in the darkness, most coming from around Nimas’ throne where the fat slug was still resting even as soot and burns covered her skin.

Sib Nark panted and rolled onto his back. His hearts were thudding in his chest and he felt as if his bowels were about to empty themselves. But he was a proud merchant and businessman, this lying about on the ground was not for him.

Adding a groan of his own to the cacophony he stood up and dusted off his robes while taking in the room. The thermal detonator had done a number on it, leaving a deep crater near the entrance and a few scour marks where the Gamoreans had been.

Other than that, and a few dozen burns shared across all the poor fools too close for their own good, the room was surprisingly intact. Nimas was regaining her composure, or perhaps lack thereof, his retinue were climbing back onto their feet save for one battle droids that had collapsed and stayed that way.

“I will kill them!” Nimas roared. “I will kill all of them. They will die in my pits and I will eat their filthy flesh!”

Most everyone was back on their feet. Some still looking dazed by the attack, but quickly coming to their senses. The detonation had sent them reeling, but it was too small, too weak to really destroy the massive throne room. A small mercy.

The bounty hunters were the first to notice the two figures standing in the entrance. Blasters rose, aliens of all sorts tensed and the room grew quiet again.

Sib Nark took a few steps back, seeking cover in his alcove once more. If this was the next attack by the slaves it would be best if he were not in their line of fire.

“Greetings: My master, Darth Khepri, wishes to formally greet you, the great Nimas, and inquire about the reception of her latest gift,” a droid’s monotonous voice asked.

One of the two figures was a tall, heavily built droid. At first glance it was a protocol droid, but Sib Nark had sold enough equipment of the sort that he recognized the assassin for what it was. The heavy blaster rifle casually held by its side and the blaster pistols clamps to its legs certainly helped.

The other figure was a girl child, a human or human-adjacent. She was thin, dressed in a coat that was far too large for her and that hung off her shoulders like a cape. Blue goggles reflected the few remaining lights in the room and, if Sib Nark wasn’t mistaken, bugs were crawling over her entire body and swarming around her in a cloud that made it hard to see any more details than that. She had two mismatched blasters in hand, held easily by her side.

“Darth Khepri?” Nimas asked. “What is the meaning of this? Who sent you? Was it those filthy lizards?”

“Statement: I am afraid that your death will only ever be blamed on your own slimey back, oh great Nimas. You should have known better than to anger my master.”

“Your...” the slug’s eyes narrowed. “Sith,” she accused.

Sib Nark took another step back into the shadows of his alcove. The girl looked his way for a moment, just a glance and a flash of blue visors in the growing swarm. He felt a cold shiver down his back.

“Kill them, kill them both!” Nimas roared.

The girl was rolling aside even before the first blaster fired. She dropped one of her blasters and pulled a cylindre from her jacket, letting it roll across the floor as she crouched then rolled in the opposite direction to pick up her discarded blaster.

Sib Nark cringed back, expecting another explosion. He was rewarded, instead, with a thick wall of purple smoke that poured out of the canister she had tossed. It was only when she got back to her feet, rolled around a few stray and blind shots, and raised both arms that she started firing back.

The bounty hunters around Nimas began to fall, first those that didn’t move, then the Gamoreans charging into the smoke.

The robot opened fire, each shot roaring with the distinct sounds of an overcharged blaster. Durasteel tables were blasted apart and the blasts that hit the walls sent chunks of sandstone flying across the room.

The bounty hunter’s constant barrages slowed down as the smoke spread. They couldn’t see their target and she obviously had no trouble taking shots at them from within the smoke.

In the short lull, he heard feet tapping against the ground, as if someone was running towards the guards around Nimas, but that was insane.

Then the smoke began to clear, pulled away by the room’s already taxed ventilation. The girl was standing in the circle of Nimas’ guards and guests, but their blasters were pointing in all the wrong directions. There was a moment’s confusion before those around her opened fire on their friends across the room.

Sib Nark had seen enough. He ducked back into his alcove, flinching when a stray blast hit the wall above his corner or when the bang of a stun grenade went off in the room.

He covered his head, and began to prey.

***