A/N: Posted by request of Bighead98.
Prologue
"Average. That's what she sounds like."
"With respect, sir, finish reading the file."
"Come on Mark, look at it! Average marksmanship, average stamina, average piloting. I'll grant you she's got pretty decent scores for explosives, but still, average. I don't think she's the one for this."
"Finish the file, sir, and you'll know why I want her in on this. She scored outstanding on voice modulation and disguises, and above all, she's the best liar I've ever seen. I want her."
"If you're that sure, then fine, take her. But that means this is your op, and I'm not going to stand in the way of the fallout. If this all blows up, it's on your head."
"Done. Thank you, sir."
"Alright Mark, you got what you wanted, now get out of here and send this poor sucker to that miserable ball of mud and let's see if this Maren Fornak is as good as you think she is."
—
"I'll be honest kid; you're the best I've ever seen."
Garik Darsten acknowledged the compliment with a nod but didn't allow himself to smile over his drink. Whatever the experienced Bounty Hunter across the table from him might say, he was still on trial, still being tested. He wouldn't consider himself "in" until the man had spent some credits, had invested in him. Only then would he start to feel secure.
A little secure, at any rate.
"I want you. Take a week or so to get your things in order, then take the shuttle to meet up with me and the rest of the team." The grizzled bounty hunter slipped a shuttle pass from his pocket and slid it across the table, glancing back and forth at the tables on either side of them to check for any watchers. "Good luck, kid. I'll see you there."
Chapter 1: New Beginnings
Maren Fornak knew she'd entered Nal Hutta airspace when the shuttle's air scoops started choking on the planet's polluted atmosphere. She took a slow, calming breath and tried to ignore the smell of body odor that had slowly intermingled with the underlying smell of old cleaning solvent during the twenty-hour shuttle flight. Almost there.
Twenty minutes later the dilapidated shuttle settled onto the landing pad of Jiguuna spaceport with a hydraulic wheeze. Maren closed her eyes and leaned back the full 15 centimeters her economy seat allowed to review her task while the front passengers started the slow, groan-filled process of disentangling themselves and their luggage.
Her job was simple enough in concept, though she was afraid it would prove anything but in practice. Win over the local Hutt's loyalty, if they had such a thing, to the Empire to try to tip the balance during the truce with the Republic.
Easy, Maren. One step at a time, just like in training.
Right. Except this wasn't training. One wrong move and she'd be dead in the streets.
Don't think about it. Just think about the next step and do it.
Okay. Step one. Get off this void-cursed shuttle.
She extricated herself from the safety buckles and climbed to her feet as a space cleared in the narrow walkway. The overhead bin popped open and she hauled out her small bag and slung it over her shoulder, then joined the shuffling line to the front.
They inched along their way until, at last, she stepped out of the shuttle and into the light. Or rather, into the yellowish smog. Outside of the shuttle and its wheezy air conditioning system the pollution hit her full force - the air burned in her throat, all the way down to her lungs, while her eyes watered. And that was to say nothing of the smell, which was somewhere between mildew and rot. Or maybe it was a combination?
Maren shrugged off the thought and focused on the more immediately important things. The landing pad itself was nothing better than a giant slab of ferrocrete. An impressive number of spacecraft were laid out haphazardly across the pad, most of them small, all of them fast, which hinted rather strongly at their occupations. Beyond the pad lay a rough approximation of nature, if painted with a yellow-tinted brush. The trees stood tall, but most of the leaves hung limply, as if the simple act of survival had exhausted them. The underbrush looked healthy enough, except that here and there through gaps she could make out that they hid what might charitably be called a bog, though in truth it approached a full-on swamp.
To the left, however, was something very different. An entire palace complex was positioned carefully on the only big chunk of solid ground, apart from the landing pad, within sight, but was it ever big. Big, and unlike anything Maren had ever seen.
The entire complex was surrounded by a massive wall, with curiously bulbous guard towers at regular intervals, topped by sun shades. Behind them she could see the tips of the palace buildings themselves, huge, rounded things, all of them brown and lined with lights far away enough that the nasty soup of atmosphere made them glitter.
She pulled her attention away from the distant buildings that were her destination and back down to the shuttle. Nervous looking guards stood by the arms crate, carefully distributing back everyone's weapons. Maren picked up her blaster rifle without anything so crass as an inspection or ID check and followed the trail of people hiking towards the palace. Really, there was nowhere else to go. In fact, the only people she could that weren't headed to the palace were headed away from it to the landing pads, and she couldn't help but notice that they looked around constantly, and more than one face was filled with absolute relief to be leaving.
All in all, not exactly what Maren would have called homey.
…
Garik Darsten leaned up against the shuttle while waiting for his blaster pistol to be returned and did his best not to hack up a lung. The air burned his eyes, nose, and mouth, and it didn't stop there. It irritated any exposed skin it could find, like he had a rash all over his body.
Certainly not his most glorious entrance to a planet.
The shuttle guard handed him his blaster pistol and he staggered after the other passengers towards what could only be the Palace of Nem'ro the Hutt, the giant slug whose palace housed the team he'd crossed half the galaxy to join up with. Assuming he survived that far of a walk.
He marched on. The firm ground of the landing pads quickly gave way to something closer to mud, though there were standing puddles of yellowish water every few meters that splashed the muck all over his boots with every step. And even more frequent than they were the guards stationed along the path between the shuttle and the spaceport, though it was unclear whether they were guarding against sentients or beasts. Or both.
The atmosphere was so oppressive that the shuttle passengers, despite their obvious relief to be out of the confines of the shuttle only minutes ago, walked hunched over, close together, heads down. Garik glanced right and left at the grim faces, determined just to make it to the Palace. No, that was not him. He was different. He pulled himself upright, making his shoulders relax, and forced himself to walk normally. The others spared him a glance, shrugged, and walked on. It didn't make one bit of difference to them, but it made a world of difference to Garik.
He wasn't here just to survive. This was his chance to thrive.
At last they made it through the lone entrance, a gap in the massively fortified wall between two exceptionally large guard towers watching down, automated turrets tracking everyone as they struggled to make their way inside.
So this was Jiguuna. The streets were more or less dry as they wound their way crazily between the swarm of market stalls and ramshackle huts that had been built up between the squat, round structures of the palace itself. Blasters shots echoed out from that maze of chaos with surprising regularity for such a carefully guarded city.
Well, there was nothing else for it but to keep going. It wasn't like there was anywhere else for him to go. He loosened the blaster pistol in its holster at his hip and set off in what he fervently hoped was the right direction to find the cantina to meet up with Braden and the rest of his team.
…
Maren slipped away from the line of newcomers among the huts and paused to get her bearings from the maps she'd memorized. Her contact lived near here, an Arcona named Jheeg. She nodded to herself as the confusing warren of huts and market stalls clicked into place around her.
She was close.
With her hand hovering over her blaster pistol, she set off. The sounds of violence weren't all that far away, though who would be fighting in Jiguuna proper she had no idea. Fortunately she made it to Jheeg's slightly larger hut without running into any trouble. She knocked the correct pattern onto his door, and a few moments later it cracked open just enough for her to slip inside.
It took a few moments for her eyes to adjust to the dark and take in her official contact for this mission. Jheeg had the curiously wide, flat head of his people, with big green eyes that never seemed to blink enough. The eyes were a relief. She was half afraid they would be the gold of an Arconan trapped in spice addiction.
Jheeg was taking in the newcomer much as she examined him, and Maren wondered what he saw. His species weren't exactly known for their eyesight. He could probably tell that she was of just about average height. Her physique wasn't exactly impressive, though it hid a wiry strength maintained through a disciplined work-out regimen. What he might not have seen, however, was that she'd cut her hair a little shorter, just long enough for a bit of a ponytail at the back, and died it a dull brown that didn't quite match her eyes.
It was all carefully done to make her blend into the background and avoid attention. Unfortunately, that didn't exactly inspire others with confidence when they saw her. She didn't expect any problems from Jheeg, what with Intelligence keeping a close watch on their new agent, but it was best to make sure of things now.
"You must be Jheeg."
The arconan nodded and replied in his native language. "You. You are here softly, from the Empire. I have your new identity." He stepped over to the table which dominated the main room and punched a complicated code into the desk's built-in display terminal. A small panel slid open and he handed her the small pouch it had contained. "All of the information is here."
"Good. Any problems on your end?"
Maren's focus sharpened as she saw how he shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Nervous, uneasy.
"Only one concern. I arranged tribute for Nem'ro, gifts imported from the Empire, but there was . . . interference, at the spaceport."
Maren merely arched an eyebrow.
"Gang steals from docks. Dangerous men, unaware of us. Nem'ro's tribute taken. I could not risk confronting them. Tracked where the the tribute is held. All information on datapad."
She kept her face blank, hiding both the irritation and the nervousness that danced inside her. Problems already. Yes, but she would deal with them. One thing at a time. "I'll take care of it."
…
The Poison Pit Cantina wasn't much to look at. It was squat, like just about everything on Hutta. It lacked the smoothness of the hutt palace, and the neon lights didn't exactly make up for that. Still, they'd obviously gone to some expense to get legitimate air scrubbers, which was why Garik Darsten was taking his first easy breaths since arriving on the planet. Unfortunately, the air scrubbers couldn't do much about the smell. His boots reeked, and the rest of him hadn't fared much better after that little hike. For better or for worse, that didn't make him stand out much from the crowd.
Garik stepped out of the lounge hall with its Pazaak tables and other games of chance and back into the rear hallway. Room seven, lucky number seven, where are . . . there you are.
He knocked on the door. There was a bit of shuffling from inside, then, "Enter!"
The newly minted bounty hunter glanced up and down the hall, put his hand on his blaster, took one last, deep breath, and pushed open the door.
There were three people in the room, all pointing weapons at him. His eyes darted across them. On the far left was a girl, young. On the right was a giant nikto leveling something closer to a cannon than a blaster rifle. And in the middle an aging human, hair cut so short he was practically bald, with enough worry lines to make him seem even older than he was. Braden.
"Check fire, it's him."
Braden put action to his words and slipped his blaster into its holster with the easy smoothness of long practice before walking up to him with a smile that was just as smooth. "Everyone, the main attraction has arrived. Team, this is the man we're pinning our hopes on. Best shot I've ever seen and nerves of steel. Great Hunt material if I've ever seen it." He gave Garik a wink and half turned to introduce the others. "This is Mako, a little genius I picked up on Nar Shadaa. She provides intel and tech."
Mako nodded, and Garik took the time to get a better look. As he'd seen, she was young, olive complexion, with dark brown chin-length hair pulled back and twisted into thick strands, which made her bright brown eyes stand out. She also sported some cybernetic implants around her left eye, all the more impressive considering how easy they were to miss. Whoever had done that had known their business, and it obviously hadn't come cheep.
She eyed him critically up and down, taking in the mud stains and worn jacket over a faded shirt and pants. "I hope you're as good as the old man says."
Braden grabbed his shoulder and turned him towards the spiny nikto. "The big bruiser here is Jory. He does the heavy lifting and provides security here for our base of operations."
Well, Braden knew how to talk, that much was certain. He certainly wouldn't have called a rented cantina room a base of operations. It did have a nice ring to it, though. Made it all sound a little more official, a little more real.
Jory nodded politely and spoke with a light, almost whimsical tone at odds with his huge size. "Greetings. I am at your disposal. Feel free to make us all incredibly wealthy and famous."
Garik couldn't quite hide the half-smile that crept onto his face. A joke about the odds against them, but an optimistic one. He was going to like this guy.
"And that's the group. The refresher's through that door there, and your bed is the far one against the wall. Go ahead and get yourself cleaned up, we'll still be here when you're done."
Braden smiled that easy smile again, but Garik knew the score. They may be relying on him, but that didn't mean he wasn't still on trial. This was first impression time, after all.
"Actually Braden, why don't we get right to work? There's time for the rest later."
Braden nodded approvingly as Garik slid behind the table where Jory had set down his monster blaster rifle and had resumed cleaning a more normally proportioned one. "Down to business then. As you know, we're here because the Great Hunt has been called. Little Mako here," he nodded towards Mako, who looked up from her portable computer terminal and stuck her tongue out at him, "is a rabid fan of hunt history, and even she doesn't know exactly what the hunt entails."
Mako took her cue. "It's a closely guarded secret among the hunters who have participated, and they've managed to keep it because not all that many of them survive." She said it unflinchingly, Garik noticed. "Everyone in the galaxy knows the names of the winners, though."
Braden cut back in. "Exactly. Every winner of the Great Hunt has gone on to massive glory and riches - which is why we're here."
Garik nodded. "What's our first move?"
"The first move is to get into the Hunt itself." That was Mako, who moved over to join them at the table. "There are two ways in. One is to be a Mandalorian. They have their own selection process, though nobody knows much about it, and their selections go in unchallenged. Then there's the rest of us - the freelancers. For us to get in, you have to get sponsored by one of a few dozen influential crime lords."
Braden nodded. "Exactly. And one of those just happens to be Nem'ro the Hutt, the ruler of Jiguuna." He grinned. "And I've got just enough pull in this stinking little town to get you an introduction. Mako's been working on making you quite the reputation, but that can only take you so far. Nem'ro will want to see evidence, which is why we've been working up a target for you to take down. The tricky part, however, will be finding him. Mako?"
"Right, so here's what we know about this Vexx guy . . ."
…
Night had fallen by the time Maren Fornak emerged from her tiny room at the Poison Pit Cantina. She'd have preferred another cantina, one less . . . obvious; unfortunately, it was the obvious place to stay for a reason - it was the only option. The daylight hours hadn't gone to waste, however. She'd carefully swept the room for bugs, noting their locations but keeping them intact, for the moment. It wouldn't do to knock them out without a reason, when they'd only replace them with newer, and better, versions anyways. Then she'd studied her cover story in detail, memorizing it as carefully as she could. She was supposed to be the Red Blade, a helpfully mysterious character somewhere between a mercenary and a bounty hunter that was somewhere way out on the Rim at the moment. She was here to enjoy some time in the palace, but she'd at least have to try to make some credits on the side to make that stand up. But the only way to make Nem'ro at least tacitly believe she was in fact the Blade was to bring those gifts - effectively a bribe, though even one as corrupted as Nem'ro probably didn't think of it that way. And for that, she had to get her bribe back.
Which was why she found herself skulking through the slimy streets of Jiguuna at two in the morning, watching the same building she'd been staring at for the past half-hour. She'd studied the satellite imagery of Jiguuna included in her briefing packet as closely as she could and had taken as close a look as she dared in the daylight, but the time for reconnaissance was over. It was time to make her move.
She calmed her breathing as her heart started to race. Easy there, Maren. This isn't some Republic stronghold, it's just a few crooks, and you've practiced this kind of thing enough times to do it in your sleep.
All of which was mostly true. Still, this was for real, and for the very first time.
Don't think about that. Focus. Two story house, though the top floor is only one room. Two rooms off the main room where the stairs are. Odds are that the package is at the top, the most secure area. Now let's move.
She slipped out of the secluded alley she'd set up in and moved quickly and quietly to the sealed door. After a careful glance up and down the deserted street she pulled her scanner from it's place at the back of her belt and slowly moved it across the doorway, watching the display intently. There. An alarm system. Cheap, but effective. Fortunately, cheap didn't cut it against Imperial training, and it was the work of a moment to crack open the key-pad and detach the priming mechanism. Then it was only a matter of hooking up her datapad and waiting while the slicing programs did their work.
Whoever had written those programs had known their business, and it was only a few moments later that the door unlocked with a click that sounded way too loud. Maren froze, blaster pistol half-drawn, and listened furiously. The seconds ticked past with aching slowness, and no noise came from inside, no alarms wailed.
Well, so far so good. But now came the scary part.
Her scanner hadn't been good enough to track body heat through the walls. She had a pretty good idea of how many there were from Jheeg's and her own careful watch, but where they were now . . . she'd just have to figure that out as it came. Which went against every lesson she'd ever learned at the Academy, but there it was.
The door creaked gently as she eased it open and peaked inside. The darkness was near total, and she took a moment to let her eyes adjust. Her breathing was loud in her hears, but beyond that . . . nothing. Okay.
She crept inside, keeping half an eye her scanner. She was inside those thick walls now, and they showed . . . nothing. Oh they were here all right, but almost all of them seemed to be horizontal at the moment. Alright. So far, so good.
The only downside was that one of them was upstairs. She took a deep, slow breath, then headed up the stairs. Thankfully, this door was left ajar. The room wasn't that big, and most of it was filled with mid-sized shipping containers. And there was the guard. She felt herself relax marginally when she saw him, arms folded, head drooped, and snoring gently at the desk. And beyond him . . . she checked the scanner, pointing it at the various shipping containers, aaaaaand yes! There it was.
Maren slipped through the door and tiptoed past the guard, carefully grabbed the container, and was back in the alley within thirty seconds. Her first mission a success.
Focus, Maren. It's gone well so far, but you're not done yet.
She kept one hand clamped over the shipping container and the other firmly on her blaster pistol as she made her way carefully through the darkness towards the safehouse. She was so focused on her surroundings she couldn't quite suppress the crooked smile that broke out on her face. She'd been on Hutta for less than a standard day and she'd already become a criminal. Maybe it was something in the air?