Chapter 6
Nutmeg choked. This was Zara Ward?! She was here? She couldn't have been any older than Nutmeg and she was this wanted? The other girl, who she assumed to be Leiva was probably only about sixteen. They were just kids.
Nutmeg couldn't hold back her astonishment. "You're Zara Ward?!" she exclaimed, realizing her mistake a moment too late.
Leiva stepped in front of Zara, suspicion and panic clouding her gaze. At about five' nine she towered over Nutmeg's height of four' two. "You've heard of us." she questioned.
"I heard that you two were wanted a few days ago," she said thinking fast. "I didn't think much of it, but I didn't realize that you were so young." It was technically the truth, but it would make it sound as if she weren't looking for them.
Leiva let the tension release from her body and seemed to have calmed down a bit. "Sorry," she said. "I've just been a little on edge lately. My name's Leiva."
"Hi there," Nutmeg exclaimed.
"Well you all seem to be getting along fine!" Bellum (who Nutmeg may or may not have forgotten was there) exclaimed. "I'll be leaving then! Have fun! Try not to kill each other..."
Zara laughed at Bellum's remark. She and Leiva seemed to know him pretty well. Maybe their 'contact' wasn't lying about them working with pirates every so often, just about their location.
"So…" Nutmeg said trying to start up a conversation. "Why are you guys on Florrum?" She decided she would try to find out some information about them to make it easier for her and Axle to capture them.
"Business," Leiva said. "What about you?"
"I'm here visiting with- my- er uncle."
"Hmm. What did you say your name was?" Leiva asked. It was too late to go back to being Riley, Axle's niece, so she may as well answer honestly.
"I'm Nutmeg."
"Nice to meet you."
"You too."
"So," Leiva began obviously trying to start a conversation as well. "Where you from?" She asked.
"Diversus."
"Hey come on kid can you help me out with this?!" came Axle's voice from a bit far off.
"Coming uncle!" Nutmeg called back, hoping that Axle would go with it.
"I've got to go." she stated
"Alright well see you around," said Leiva.
"Bye."
Nutmeg walked towards the door and waved goodbye to Zara who had been lingering towards the back of the room. She walked out and closed the door behind her. She had begun to walk away when a few words caught her ear from inside. Nutmeg had always had acute hearing. She considered it an aptitude of her's.
It was Zara's voice. "Leiva, I've got a bad feeling about her."
"What? Why?"she heard Leiva reply, sounding panicked again.
"I just have a bad feeling about why she's really here."
"Alright I trust you."
Nutmeg dashed towards Bellum's quarters. How could Zara possibly have known about them looking for them?! No matter. All that mattered was that her and Axle acted quickly. She opened the door and almost ran head first into Axle.
"Uncle?" he asked.
"Axle, Leiva and Zara are here!"
"Wait what?!" he exclaimed.
"I just met them and they know that I can't be trusted."
"Kid, what do you mean you met them? And how do they already not trust you?!"
"I mean that Bellum just introduced me to them and I have no idea how they knew, but I overheard Zara saying that she had a bad feeling about me."
"Alright, kid," said Axle. "I've got a plan so just go with it alright."
Axle abruptly yanked Nutmeg up by her arm.
"Hey!"
"Like I said, just go with it." he said
He dragged Nutmeg to where she told him their quarters were. He knocked on the door and waited. A few seconds later, there came a rushed response.
"Now's not a great time! Please come back later." said Leiva's voice
"It's important." said Axle.
"Really not the time." said Leiva again.
"Aright," muttered Axle. "Doing this the hard way then it seems," he said pulling out a blaster pistol.
He held up three fingers, two, then one. At zero, he shot, then kicked open the door, but at the same time the sound of shattering glass came from inside. They burst in a moment too late. It seemed that Leiva and Zara had broken a window and had made their escape.
"Damnit!" Axle swore. "Come on."
"Just curious," Nutmeg asked. "What was the plan?"
"Well I was going to say that I had caught you eavesdropping and turn you into them, but obviously that didn't work.
It was only a first story window, so they could easily climb out, and climb out they did. The pursuit began. Leiva and Zara were ducking behind various things that would block them from Axle's line of fire. They looked to be making their way towards the shipyard where the Shadow and probably their ship was parked.
As predicted a ship took off from the yard a few minutes later, with the Shadow in close pursuit. The moment they left the ground the enemy ship began to fire at them. Which meant that Nutmeg either had to pilot or gun. She had never been able to operate the blasters on a ship, so pilot it was.
"Axle move!" she shouted at Axle who was currently piloting.
He got up and dashed to the guns without a word.
Nutmeg had only ever flown in a battle one other time and she had almost gotten her and Axle both killed. Hopefully this time they had better luck.
She steered the ship upwards until she executed a banking turn around the enemy ship, giving Axle the opportunity to fire. Two red bolts shot towards the enemy ship, but it steered right, out of the way.
The enemy ship retaliated with a series of shots headed their way. Nutmeg swerved out of the way sharply, causing many loose objects to slide across the Shadow, as well as Nutmeg to almost fall out of her seat.
"Careful up there kid!" Axle called.
"Sorry," she called back.
The enemy ship had begun to drive the Shadow down, but Nutmeg responded with a risky move on her part. She hadn't really thought about it until it was happening, but soon enough the Shadow was charging straight upwards directly towards the sky. There would either be a head on collision or one of them would have to get the heck out of the way.
"Kid!" Axle yelled nervously.
They both ended up getting the heck out of the way, Nutmeg still had the advantage of being above them. She got into the perfect position for Axle to fire while the enemy ship was still recovering from the tight turn.
Two more blaster bolts struck the ship in its starboard engine, enough to take it to the ground quickly, without its passengers getting too hurt.
The enemy ship crashed down back on Florrum's surface and the Shadow landed right next to it.
"Nice flying kid!" Axle exclaimed proudly. "You didn't almost kill us this time!" he beamed. Axle was acting underwhelmed, but Nutmeg knew he was impressed and that made her beam back.
They boarded the enemy ship, sneaking silently through the hallways. The ship looked to belong to the pirates and not Leiva and Zara.
Nutmeg didn't have a weapon which made her feel vulnerable. She looked around a little bit to see if she could find something, when she came across a strange object. It looked like an unusual sort of bow without any string. It looked to be made of metal, but carried none of the weight that she'd expect a metal bow to possess. It had a tint of rust color all over it, but it was perfectly smooth without a trace of rust. She pulled back on what looked to be a grip of some sort where a string should have been and two beams of bright purple plasma shot out from each end of the handle connecting to each end of the bow.
"Wow," she whispered.
She found if she squeezed the handle, another bolt of plasma shot out from the handle with a sharp tip, forming an arrow. Even if she had no idea how to use the weapon, having it made her feel more secure.
Nutmeg walked back over to Axle and showed him her find. He seemed in awe of the weapon. Apparently they were extremely rare and they were called energy bows.
Her and Axle continued to creep through the ship looking for their targets. Nutmeg with her energy bow and Axle with his blaster. The clang of metal from a short distance away scared the living daylights out of Nutmeg, but at least now they knew where at least one of them were. They followed the noise to what looked to be a dead ended hallway, but Axle seemed to know exactly what was going on.
Nutmeg looked at him questioningly. Axle pointed down towards the floor. There must be storage compartments, Nutmeg realized. Which meant that they had them cornered. Nutmeg pointed her bow at the compartment and she got ready for Axle to pry it open. Axle lifted of the top and the were both greeted with two blasters pointed at them.
Axle looked shocked. Not about the blasters of course. Even Nutmeg had known that they would have weapons. He was probably shocked about their young age.
"Kid," Axle said addressing Nutmeg not taking his eyes off their prisoners. "You didn't tell me they were this young."
"I didn't think it mattered."
Axle lowered his blaster. Nutmeg gawked at him.
"Nutmeg, you know I don't hurt kids."
It had completely slipped her mind. Unlike most bounty hunters Axle had what he liked to call a code of honor. For one he didn't unnecessarily kill. Two he didn't demand outrageous amounts of credits wherever he went. Three he wouldn't hurt kids, anyone under seventeen even if it meant losing money.
Nutmeg lowered her energy bow and let the grip slowly travel back towards the bow, which seemed to be how to turn it off.
Leiva and Zara still looked suspicious, especially Leiva and who could blame them. Nutmeg would be too. The bad part though was that they hadn't lowered their weapons.
"Look," Axle said to them. "Do want a ride on our ship?" The two of them remained silent. "If we really wanted to kill you, turn you in or whatever. It wouldn't be all that hard to do right here and now. You do realize that don't you?"
"So let me get this straight," Leiva said flatly. "You chase us, shoot us down, corner us, and all of a sudden you're our friend and we're supposed to trust you? Did I forget anything?" she said staring holes through Axle.
"Alright fine." Axle said. "We'll leave then, but just know if you decide to shoot me in the back I am still armed."
He turned around and walked away leaving Nutmeg alone with them. "I'm just going to-" She turned around and quickly followed Axle.
After she caught up with him, she muttered "Are we really doing this?"
"Yes" Axle replied. "You know that I stick to my rules kid."
"Alright, I know" Nutmeg complied. She never had understood why he felt so strongly about sticking to that one particular rule, but he did, and she wasn't about to start an argument about it.
They were about to board the Shadow when Nutmeg heard Leiva's voice from behind her. "Wait." she said. Nutmeg and Axle turned around to see Leiva and Zara standing there. "We wouldn't mind getting a ride to Coracant" she said.
"If you insist," smirked Axle. "The Shadow's the biggest piece of shit, you'll ever ride on, but it's a hell of a ship, that's for sure."
Axle had a strange relationship with the Shadow. His pet name for it was 'My flying piece of wonderful garbage' because The Shadow had a tendency to break down…. A Lot, but when it was functioning correctly, It ran smooth, silent, fast and sneaky.
The four of them boarded the Shadow. Leiva still looked suspicious of the two of them, but Zara seemed to be warming up to Nutmeg a bit.
"Hi." she said to Nutmeg.
"Hi"
"So is your name really Nutmeg, or was that just your fake name?" Zara asked.
"It's really my name." she replied. There was a long pause before Nutmeg decided to ask the question that had been tugging at her curiosity since she had first met Zara and Leiva. "How did you two get so wanted in the first place?"
"It's a long story." she replied.
"It's a long ride." There was another long pause.
"When Leiva was thirteen she ran away from home. Four years before, her mother had abused her, verbally and physically. She still has the scars. When she ran away her mother was desperate to find her. Days after she left, Leiva found me. I was living on the deepest darkest levels of Coracant with my mother. We had been living off the few credits that my mother's good friend Narri could supply us with. She stayed with us for a couple weeks before her mother found us. She shot my mother for trying to protect her. We got away, but Leiva's never forgiven herself for letting my mother die. She tells herself that if she wasn't there, if she hadn't run away, if she had just given herself up, than my mother would have lived."
Nutmeg felt her heart break, at Zara's story. It was horrible, what Leiva's mother had done. She almost couldn't believe it.
"Since then her mother has looked and looked for us. After a while she hired bounty hunters, then when they came back empty handed time after time, she got the Hutt Clan involved,in order to attract a bigger and better crowd. Remember when Leiva said she had been on edge lately? Lately has meant the last three years."
Nutmeg was mortified at the story. She felt tears stinging the corners of her eyes. She barely even knew Zara, but somehow she felt like she really understood her. Nutmeg couldn't help herself. She could feel the very sorrow that resided in Zara. Nutmeg embraced her and she felt Zara's sadness melt away like ice on Tatooine.
"Sorry," Nutmeg said releasing her.
"Don't worry about it," She replied.
Nutmeg walked into the bridge to see Axle and Leiva having a debate about the Shadow, Leiva claiming that the ship was a piece of shit and Axle defending it saying that it was a good ship, even though a lot of Leiva's claims, he's quoted before word for word. That's when Nutmeg noticed that they hadn't even left the planet's surface yet.
"Is there a problem?" asked Nutmeg. She looked at Leiva, but she didn't see her the same way she did before, now that Nutmeg knew what she had suffered through.
"Your stupid ship has broken down." she stated. Not again, Nutmeg thought.
"Hey, it may not work all the time, but when it does, it really works. Admit it. Plus you've seen it in action."
"I don't think your victory should be entirely credited to the ship. I will admit, you're not an entirely horrible pilot."
"You're right I'm not," Axle began. "But neither is she."
"You're the one who was flying?" Leiva asked looking at Nutmeg astounded. "How old are you, nine?"
"Eight," Nutmeg replied.
Leiva whistled in response. "Not bad."
Nutmeg beamed at the praise.
Awhile later after they got the Shadow repaired, with help from Bellum and part of his crew, they finally made their way to hyperspace. Coracant was all the way back in the core, a long way away from the outer rim so the ride would be taking a few hours.
After they dropped off Leiva and Zara on Coracant, Nutmeg and Axle went back to Northern Diversus. They landed in the usual clearing, but instead of taking their piece-of-junk-speeder, they were just going to walk the way back to the house. It was a beautiful night.
Nutmeg had always felt a special bond towards night. She loved going outside once the sun had set. She sometimes got lost gazing into the depths of the stars. She never quite understood why, but she knew that there were a lot of thing she had never understood about herself and maybe never would.
She took a deep breath of the cool August night air. "Hey Axle?" Nutmeg asked
"Yeah?"
"What did you think about Zara and Leiva?"
"Zara seemed like a sweet kid" he said. He paused. "Leiva seemed…"
"What?" Nutmeg asked.
"She just seemed kinda, I don't know, weird I guess."
"What do you mean, weird? What's wrong with that?"
"Weird isn't what I meant. She seemed nice, but it pretty obvious she has some serious anxiety and seems a little depressed, even if she tries to hide it." There was a pause. "Sorry, you're a little young for me to be talking to you about this kind of thing."
"Oh come on I'm mature," Nutmeg protested.
"That, I can't deny. You're only eight, but your mind is older."
Axle was cut short by the sound of a huge blaster bolt. They both spun around to where the sound had come from. In the air there was an Amaxine shuttle. There was a stream of smoke coming from the end of it as it plummeted through the air. The smoke was replaced by fire, which illuminated the night sky orange. Just then did she realize that they ship was now steering left… right towards Nutmeg and Axle.
