Chapter 6

It was suicide, but they did it anyway. Facing a rancor with nothing but a handful of grenades and a vial of some foul-smelling chemicals was climbing dangerously near levels of insanity that Asan wouldn't dare to risk, but watching the incredible beast blowing itself to pieces was just satisfying enough to justify the risk. The exclamations of the Vulkars guarding the sewer entrance dimmed his excitement, and Mission tensed at his side.

"What now?" she whispered.

Now that was the question. From what she had told him about the Vulkar base, which amounted to basic layouts that the Beks had stolen from their computers, there could easily be as many as a hundred Vulkars inside. If this wasn't their main base of operations then they probably didn't have a full garrison. A hundred was pushing the larger end of criminal gangs, but it appeared that the Vulkars had friends in high places, likely in the Exchange given their preferred trade, so it wasn't impossible. With one hundred potential opponents, the task that he'd been given was beginning to look more and more dauting, but Asan was up for a challenge.

The trick would be to divide their strength. Facing a hundred at once was suicide.

"You're a decent slicer," Asan observed. "If we can get you to a terminal, then you can sow chaos. Trigger alarms, overload circuits, activate automated defenses, corrupt targeting systems…"

"Yeah," Mission agreed. "But they'll figure out what's going on pretty quick if all that starts happening."

"Not if they're also dealing with an assault," Asan explained. "I'll make some noise, crack some skulls. Then when alarms start going off, they'll be forced to respond. By the time they realize they've been hacked, they will hopefully be far enough out of position that they can't respond to my movements. And you can keep watch on cameras, keep them from flanking me."

"Okay, but how do we get inside?" Mission asked.

Asan hefted the gamorrean axe, still soaked with blood. "We knock."

The pair of guards that had wandered out to investigate the rancor corpse dropped to blaster fire from Mission as Asan hugged the wall, sprinting towards the turbolift. He'd expected a barricaded checkpoint, but what he found was an empty rampart and an open door.

Mission sauntered up and into the elevator. "They never expected anyone to find this entrance, I think," she offered as Asan warily stepped up beside her. "Especially with a rancor just outside."

"Why were there guards here at all?"

"Probably watching for rakghoul," Mission shrugged.

"They could have reported in," Asan cautioned, pressing against the side of the elevator and gesturing for Mission to do the same.

It turned out that his precautions were for nothing, the door opened to reveal an empty corridor. Mission pressed a finger to her lips and touched her belt, shimmering out of view as a stealth field coalesced around her. "I'll find a terminal. Here, I can contact you through this communicator."

Asan hooked it to his shoulder and nodded. "I'll give you three minutes, then I'll start a ruckus."

He didn't have to wait that long for Mission's voice to chitter in his ear. "Got a terminal here. They don't have very good security…I'm in. Looks like you've got company on this floor. Six in the hall ahead of you, eight in what looks like an armory, and six at the front entrance. The second level has twenty or so, mostly in the swoop garage."

That was less than he had expected, but still quite a lot of opponents for two. He touched the device to activate the microphone. "What can you do from that terminal?"

"A few overloaded conduits, gas vents, and turret targeting routines," Mission answered at once. "Ready when you are."

"Okay. When you hear blaster fire, blow the circuits, but don't mess with the turrets until the turbolift starts to move," Asan whispered, proceeding down the corridor.

"Got it," Mission chirped.

The Vulkars in the hall were spread out, attending to their duties in various rooms. One of them was fixing a blaster in the first room that Asan entered, and he didn't even look up until an axe-blade was buried between his shoulder blades. At that point, it was too late for him to reach for a working rifle, and he slumped over the workbench as Assan wrenched the weapon free. He swept up the rifle, reassembled the power cell, thumbed the power. It hummed in his arms, a modified Aratech infantry model, accurate and fast. Stripping the Vulkars sidearm, he clipped that to his belt and pressed on.

In the corridor, he was recognized at once as an intruder, but the nikto that spotted him died before he could scream, blaster shots ringing down the corridor. A moment later the distant sounds of explosions and electrical discharges echoed towards him, accompanied by screams. Clearing each room, Asan advanced, exchanging shots twice.

"Three coming down the corridor," Mission advised. "Slaves have armed themselves and are attacking at the other side of the base, in the cantina."

Asan burst into the corridor right in the middle of the group of three, blowing the brains of one out the back of his head, beheading the second with his axe, and kicking the third against the wall, where he was riddled with blaster shots until he stopped twitching. The whole confrontation took less than five seconds, and when he was finished he proceeded around the corner, to a larger room.

"The men at the front have abandoned their posts, their coming towards you," Mission warned. "The turbolifts from the second level are packed full, coming down."

"Activate the turrets when they step out," Asan commanded, ducking behind crates with his rifle aimed towards the entrance. Six gangers rushed forward in disarray, weapons carried in all sorts of haphazard ways, in no discernible formation. When he opened fire they scattered, but not before three of them had been tagged, two of them killed. The third was crawling pitifully towards his fellows, groaning.

The sporadic cover available to them was mostly plastisteel cylinders and crates, likely filled with arms and armor. Asan fired at one and it exploded into green fire, consuming the man behind it instantly. The others stood up and rushed him, only to be cut down mid-step, even as they sprayed blaster bolts to cover their advance.

"Slaves are dead, the men from the armory are cutting back," Mission hissed. "The turrets decimated the group from the second floor, but I'm getting resistance now through the system. Looks like they have a slicer. You might have company pretty soon."

"Better for them to come down than to face them out of an elevator," Asan reassured her. "If you can't do anything else, then cripple the system and join me."

"Got it."

If his counts were correct, and no one from the second floor had come down, then there were only seven left. Pressing on, Asan found himself in an armory, scooping up frag grenades before posting up beside the door and peeking around. Five Vulkars were rushing down the corridor; Asan primed a grenade and rolled it forward. It was right at their feet when it went off, blowing three of them to pieces. The two at the back were stunned, and he opened fire before they could recover. A pair at the back of the hall, late-comers, returned fire, and Asan ducked back.

He heard the turbolift doors bang open. So, they had company. An elevator typically held five or six, but if they really packed it tight then there could be as many as eight.

"I'm at the front of the armory," Mission said.

"We've got ten at most at the end of this hall. Turbolift is running," Asan reported. "There's no cover, but I have grenades. When they push, we can counter."

He heard pounding footsteps. "Now."

Another grenade lobbed, a hail of blaster fire. The withering storm that met him was interrupted immediately by the ground-shaking explosion which ripped through the corridor, tearing great rends in the steel and deafening him. Turning the corner, Asan rushed forward, firing at anything that moved. Another grenade primed, he bounced it into the atrium with the turrets, motioning for Mission to come forward. She rushed ahead, watching the end of the hall.

When the grenade went off, Asan rushed past the door. "Watch the lift!" he bellowed over the ringing in his ears. Mission nodded, working her hands on the grip of her blaster. He cleared the cantina, pool, and maintenance bay, finding nothing but carnage. Fifteen to twenty bodies were strewn about in blood, most of them unarmored women and emaciated men. Slaves. Backtracking, Asan found Mission in a gunfight with a group out of the turbolift, which appeared to have stopped in place.

He joined with his final grenade, posting up beside the door. With no cover, they didn't stand a chance, and soon an eerie silence had settled over the base. Asan breathed for a moment, looked his partner over. "You good?"

"I'm not hurt," Mission reported, though she looked down at herself to reaffirm that statement.

"We can't just take that lift," Asan mused with a shake of his head. "You saw how easy it is to defend an elevator. We need energy shields; I didn't see any Vulkars with disruptors."

"I'll check the armory," Mission offered.

"Go on. They won't risk another foray down that shaft," Asan agreed.

He wasn't sure why the Beks had taken so long to defeat the Vulkars, if this base was a representative example of their abilities. What he had seen was essentially fools playing at soldiers, boys pretending to be men. The Vulkars had failed to properly respond to the situation, had moved without proper organization, and none of them had been competent with the weapons provided to them.

That was no excuse to get lazy; even a rank amateur could get in a lucky shot.

Mission returned a moment later with three energy shields and two vibroswords. The shield emitters interfered with blasters, making it difficult if not impossible to use a blaster with the shield unless it was a more expensive, hardened version of the useless weapons that were strewn throughout the base. Happy to discard the bloody axe, Asan accepted the sword and hooked a shield onto each forearm.

"You're going to get yourself shot," Mission chided, watching him prepare.

"That's what I get paid for," he replied with a savage grin. "You stay, wait for the elevator to come back down, then come on up. Might be a firefight in progress."

"Those shields are only rated for a few direct hits," the girl tried again.

Asan bent down and heaved a corpse into his arms before activating the shield emitter with a twist of his arm. "I'll improvise," he quipped, stepping over the carnage in the elevator lobby and into the lift. "See you soon."

The doors slammed shut and his heart clenched. He was locked in, but time slowed to a crawl as the turbolift hummed, gaining speed. His stomach fell, and his knees bent with its momentum. He closed his eyes, breathed. A moment of reflection passed, on the lives he'd taken that day. On the blood spilt. Then he set his jaw and stared at the closed door, felt himself slowing down. His hands trembled minutely moments before the lift came to a stop, and they didn't stop until the door had cracked and time stopped.

He was moving before it had fully opened, heaving the corpse in front of his body and shouting a wordless battle-cry as he charged headfirst into a hail of blasterfire. The shots splattered over the armor, sizzled into deceased flesh, and hissed within inches of his ears. His shield flared three times and fell in a blinding halo of white energy, but he had already activated the second, pushing away the body and drawing his sword as he lunged over a swoop bike and into a group of three desperate Vulkars.

In a single second he identified four groups of three relatively close to the elevator and a pair at the back, on a maintenance platform. Interestingly, he hadn't taken any fire from that high ground, so they must have been officers, people who preferred not to get their hands dirty. That was fine with Asan.

He drove his sword through the chest of a nikto who'd turned towards him, prepared to fire at point blank. The rifle barked and the shot went wide, ricocheted off the bike and bit into the calf of the man at Asan's left. Wrenching his sword free, reveling in the keen edge that cleaved flesh like butter, Asan cut the staggering man down and rushed in close to the last, who was fumbling with a sword at his belt. It got caught in his clumsy draw, the sheath swinging up with his arm, and Asan gutted him, wrapped the ganger in a one-arm embrace, and swung him around into the line of fire from his back.

He didn't stop to think about how he'd predicted those shots. He just moved, kicking the dead man away and scooping up a rifle. Hunkered behind the bike, he couldn't stand to fire with the constant stream of lethal fire above his head, and for the first time that day he froze.

He reached for his belt, but there were no more grenades. He sighed and blindly fired the rifle over the top of the bike, but he knew that he wasn't likely to hit anything like that.

Then the elevator pinged again, and the shooting paused. At once he swung up, took aim, and squeezed off six lethally accurate shots, mowing down two of the Vulkars to his right before they could react. As the attention returned to him, the doors opened, and Mission swung out, opening fire in an instant. With their attention suddenly split, Asan picked off the last man on the right and then there were only two barricades left.

"Cover!" Asan bellowed, suppressing the Vulkars briefly as Mission sprinted the distance. One of them rose to take potshots and took a bolt between the eyes, smoldering offal blowing out of the back of his skull as his body toppled. The others stayed down.

Asan glanced up and caught the tail end of an interaction between the officers. One of them, a human woman, was speaking animatedly, but the other had his arms crossed over his chest and shook his head.

Asan glanced back and met Mission's eyes. With his shield humming again, he hefted his sword and she nodded, unleashing hell with her blaster as he vaulted the swoop bike and took four loping steps to cross the distance. One of the Vulkars must have heard his approach because he swung up and a blaster shot pinged off the blue haze of the energy shield. There was a moment of mortal recognition in the ganger's eyes before his head was cleaved from his shoulders and a fount of blood splattered across his comrade, who barked a scream and fell on his back.

Fire from the next bike forced Asan down, but he grabbed the scrambling Vulkar by the neck of his armor and pinned him to the deck with his sword, wrenching the blade in visceral satisfaction before he shook his head and exchanged the blade for a blaster. He waited for Mission's distinctive weapon to offer its report before he stood, walking as he fired. His shield shorted the moment his blaster barked its first shot, but the Vulkars weren't watching. Then they were dead, and silence reigned in the hangar.

That is, until a voice rang out. "Most impressive. I don't think I've ever seen a Bek as competent as this, no matter how much they like to brag. Have you, Kara?"

"No," the woman's dry response followed. Asan sighed and turned, looking up at the two Vulkar officers on the raised platform.

"So, a mercenary then. I wonder what they've offered you," the twi'lek mused. "I assure you the Vulkars can do better."

Asan swung his gaze around the carnage. "You really are a heartless creature," he scoffed. "I've just killed your men."

"And it was magnificent," the man agreed. "You might call me a collector of dangerous things. Kara is the crown jewel of my retinue, but oh! the things I've seen today. I think this man might give you a run for your money, dearest."

Mission had tentatively approached. "Give us the prototype accelerator and we'll walk away," she called.

"Was I talking to you?" the man sneered. "Be silent, child."

"I think I've heard enough out of you," Asan waved his hand. "I don't take contracts from wannabe warlords on backwater dumps like Taris."

"Yet you work for Gadon Thek," the twi'lek mused. "Ah, no matter. Kara will take care of you. It is such a shame…"

Asan scoffed as the woman jumped down from the platform and drew a vibrosword. She was tall, but not as tall as him, not as strong. She moved with a dancer's grace, a predator's gait. Her eyes were locked on his own, but he was not intimidated. A part of him admired her, desired her, and even as he drew his own weapon there was a small smile on his face. A strange delight was growing in him as she approached, and she must have seen his anticipation, for she slowed her advance, recognizing a fellow hunter in the man before her.

"We'll take her together," Mission whispered.

"No," Asan replied, glancing over his shoulder at the young woman. "Watch that snake, don't let him interfere."

Mission bit her lip but shrugged, and Asan rolled his shoulders, stepping away from her to engage Kara. The woman was wearing a high-end battle-suit, flexible and tough, much better than the rags he had scrounged up. Her weapon had a green tint in the blade, which marked a modified hilt. Probably a power cell and a venomous edge. At her temple, an implant glinted in the overhead light. Asan figured it for an adrenaline booster or a reflex package.

Their dance began with a simple game of footwork. He had the advantage of reach and, faced with a skilled opponent, he put it to use, managing the space between them deftly so that it would take two steps or a large lunge on her part to reach him, but only a single motion on his own. Recognizing this, she was forced to step away, reset the distance, and engage again, setting a new tempo. She moved quickly, adjusting the angle of her blade to cover his line of probable attack. It was textbook swordsmanship.

He struck first with a high lunge, extending his arm and twisting his blade around her parry. She punched the hilt of her sword away from her body, barely deflecting the seeking point of his blade, then countered with a slash from her extended wrist. Asan followed her sword blade up without losing contact, buffed it away and cut low. She jumped up and away, driving her sword down in a thrust that would have taken the back of his neck if he had not circled his sword up into a high guard, catching her weapon again with a dull rasp.

In the bind, he turned her sword and scraped into a thrust. She turned her wrist over, caught his weapon on her guard, and pressed close. Asan took hold of her wrist with his left hand and yanked her around, upsetting her perfect balance. Then he threw an elbow into the side of her head, directly on her implant, where the skull was slightly weakened. Her head snapped back with the force and she staggered two steps. He followed, slashing down over his right shoulder. She blocked, barely, countered into a lunge that he slapped away with his hand.

He drove the hilt of his vibrosword into her jaw, felt teeth and bone give way, and kicked her away. She rolled for about a meter and jumped up, spitting blood. Then she came back, attacking high, aiming for his face. He didn't even move to block, spotting the feint, and deflected the true blow to his chest, letting her momentum bring her closer. She stopped just shy of three feet, still carrying forward, left hand flashing now with a glint of steel, but he caught her wrist before the dagger could strike true. Swinging around, he laughed and kicked her knee out from beneath her, tossing her out onto the floor in front of him, drawing her out with a twist of his hips. She cried out as her shoulder bent uncomfortably and her back arched up, her face turned away.

"Come on now," he purred, still holding her wrist. His boot came down on the back of her shoulder and she grunted as he pressed down. "Is that all?"

With a roar she wrenched her arm down, cracking the shoulder out of joint, but giving her the room required to roll onto her back, sword lancing up. Asan released her arm and jumped back, but the blade skittered across his chest, cutting through his flimsy armor and scratching him in a shallow cut over his sternum. His eyes flashed, and he snarled as the pain crashed down his spine, and Kara laughed.

"All fun and games," she cackled. "Until someone gets hurt!"

"Get up!" he roared, leveling his blade at her chest. The woman rose, left arm held gingerly across her stomach. But she fell into her stance, held her weapon ready.

This time there was no footwork. Just an overwhelming assault as he walked forward steadily, attacking in a downward slash that rattled her entire arm and shoulders, followed by a thrust that forced her to spin to the side. He pressed, deflecting her counter, blades skittering together, and the point of her poisoned sword came within inches of his face before he pushed it away, twisted her wrist, and disarmed her with a flourish. The vibrosword tumbled away, still shining in the hangar's light.

Kara's eyes were closed the moment his weapon buried itself in her chest, piercing her expensive armor like it was nothing, crunching through her sternum, clipping her heart and forcing its way through her left lung. Asan gripped her shoulder, still walking forward when her eyes snapped open and she looked into his eyes again, like she had done at the beginning. His blow carried them another two steps before she staggered, and he carried her to the floor.

"Oh!" she whimpered, a grimace of fear and pain on her face.

"Shh," Asan breathed. A sequence of blaster shots rang out behind him, but he didn't look away from her face. Her right hand gripped his left, then pushed against his shoulder before settling in a weak scrape across his cheek.

Her lips parted but there was no air. Her dark eyes were bright with life and terror…then her back arched and she laid still. Asan shuddered with a sudden chill, breathed a sigh, and stood up, pulling his blade free and eying the shining crimson blade.

Mission was standing over the twi'lek's motionless body at the base of the platform.

"He was going to shoot you," she whispered.

Asan walked slowly towards her, feeling a strange chill on his skin. "It's okay," he answered, and Mission looked up at him, lips parted, face flushed.

"I…I almost didn't see him. I was watching you fight," she confessed in a rush. "I don't know what I would have done if I'd let him shoot you in the back!"

"Hey, that didn't happen," Asan soothed at once. "Let's get this damned swoop part and get out of here."

Mission nodded, biting her lip. "That…it looked personal, that fight. Did you know her?"

"What?" Asan blinked. "No, of course not. I just…I respected her talent."

"It was beautiful," Mission exclaimed. "Almost like a dance. Do you think…do you think you could teach me?"

"Sure, I guess," Asan shrugged, walking down one of the corridors. "It's really not a game, though. I hope you saw that, as well."

Mission shuddered. "I mean…she's dead."

"Yes…yes she is," Asan agreed softly. "Now what does this damn thing look like?"