Polstoria's Post, Bostoni Sector, Imperial City
When the hunters made their way to Polstoria's refueling post, they found that they weren't the only ones interested in the post owner's death. As their repulsor bus pulled up to the building, Vhetin saw that the area was swarming with Imperial Security Force speeders and shocktroopers in white-red armor had cordoned off the area.
Jay stared through the window, her face pulling down in a scowl as she saw the Imperials. "It looks like the Imperials have taken an interest in the post. What're the chances they've chased away the kidnappers?"
"Or accidentally ruined the security footage?" Ge'tal added. "These guys are masters of screwing up crime scenes."
"Don't worry," Kalyn said. "I can handle this."
"And how are you going to do that?" the red-armored Mando said skeptically. "Wave your pistol and take everyone hostage?"
"No, smartass," Farnmir said, glaring at him. "For your information, I happen to be in good standing with the Bostoni Gang, which has infiltrated the local ISF forces. All these guys have to do is report to the Bostoni bosses that I'm asking to get in and we'll have the entire place to ourselves."
"It's the reason I decided to bring Farnmir on in the first place," Vhetin said from his seat in front of them. He turned back to them and said, "That means when we get on the ground, follow her lead."
"Glad someone's finally agreeing to listen to me," Kalyn said as the bus glided down to the landing dock. The doors opened up and she calmly hopped off the bus and strode toward the line of shocktroopers.
"Hi there," she said, folding her arms. One of the troopers, his armor adorned with a tangle of bright red stripes that signified him as a member of local law enforcement, held up a hand.
"I'm sorry ma'am," the trooper said, his voice sounding gravely and threatening over his vocoder. "This is a restricted area. No civilians are allowed to enter this facility."
"I believe your superiors will think differently."
The trooper's contoured faceplate angled down slightly in confusion. "What?"
"Tell your supervisor that Kalyn Farnmir is here and that she wants full access to the refueling post."
"I don't think-"
"Tell him," Farnmir pressed, her tone and gaze leaving no room for argument. Vhetin found that one of her most redeeming qualities as a hunter; as cunning as she could be, she was strong-willed and would let little get in between her and her objective. It was the single-minded outlook of an experienced hunter.
The trooper jumped slightly at her tone, then turned away and put a hand against his earpiece. As Vhetin and the others followed, he heard the trooper saying, "Yes sir. Yes. Yes sir. Affirmative."
He faced Kalyn again with a sigh, then motioned over his shoulder and sighed, "You can go in. The supervisor is expecting you."
The troopers grudgingly moved aside to allow the hunters through. They'd only taken a few steps inside when a tall, thin man in his mid-thirties jogged toward them. He had a big grin on his face as he called, "Dear Kalyn! How are you my girl?"
Kalyn embraced the man warmly as he kissed her cheek and said, "It's good to see you. It's been a long time."
"Vasi," she greeted him as he held her at arm's length. "It's so good to see you."
She turned to the other hunters and said, "This is Vasi Muldoon, one of the Bostoni overlords. He's in charge of-"
"Ah ah," the man interrupted with a grin. "Please refrain from discussing my... private business in public, would you please Kalyn?"
"Oh right. Guys, Muldoon is the Imperial Security Force supervisor for this sector. He oversees all the homicide cases that are assigned to his precinct."
"Look," Vhetin said impatiently, "we don't mean to be any trouble. We're just here to poke around and take a look at the security footage."
"If you guys haven't screwed up the crime scene already," Ge'tal muttered. Jay elbowed him in the ribs and he fell silent.
"Of course," Muldoon said with a smile. He gestured to the small rectangular refueling post and said, "Follow me."
As he led them toward the post Vhetin asked, "What did your security forces find?"
"We were called in yesterday when Polstoria was reported missing. Naturally, we came in as quickly as we could. Polstoria is - was - one of our greatest assets."
"He was a mole inside Bloody Dawn," Vhetin guessed.
"Exactly, and he was an expert at evading Sekha's notice while giving us invaluable information about her business. Gave us a head's up every time she went on the warpath."
A depressed look flashed across his face and he quietly said, "Good man. Damn shame he's dead."
"Anything unusual about the crime scene?" Ge'tal inquired. Vhetin had told him about his strange experience while using psychometry and the armored beings that had kidnapped Kestra. He was probably on the lookout for anything suspicious.
"Actually yes," Muldoon said, frowning. "The security footage you mentioned? There is none."
Shuk'orok howled and Jay said, "What? Come again?"
"You don't think we checked the cam footage?" Muldoon said. "The footage is fine up until twenty-two-hundred hours, where it all washes out into static. It stays that way for ten minutes, when it comes back just fine... showing Polstoria dead on the floor."
"Sounds like the work of our kidnappers," Jay murmured to Ge'tal. Vhetin turned his head toward them slightly, then focused on Muldoon again.
"We've picked up no footprints, no fingerprints, no ion residue from departing ships..." He shook his head and sighed, "It's like there was no one even here."
"If it's okay with you," Vhetin said, "I'd like to take a look at the crime scene myself."
He shook his head. "I don't really think that you're going to be able to find anything more than our security force has."
Vhetin narrowed his eyes behind his helmet and said, "Let me be the judge of that."
It was raining again when Vhetin closed the door behind him ten minutes later, letting out a quiet sigh as he did.
"Well?" Jay asked him. "What did you find?"
"I wasn't attacked when I used psychometry," he murmured, "so it's a start."
"What about Polstoria?" Ge'tal asked.
Vhetin shook his head. "It was definitely our armored assassins."
Jay leaned past him and peeked through the door. She paused when she saw a deep pool of blood that spread across the entire room. She turned away, deciding it was probably better not to know.
"So now what?" Ge'tal asked. "Did you manage to find out where these guys came from?"
"No," Vhetin said. "The armored man didn't talk much. All I was able to find out is that he referred to himself as a 'Stalker'."
"Doesn't sound good," Ge'tal said as they headed back to Kalyn and Muldoon. "What do you think it means?"
"I think it means we have to be extra careful," he said. "Based on what we know already, I'm guessing these guys are specialist assassins."
Jay noticed that most of the ISF speeders and shocktrooper guards had disappeared, and Muldoon was talking into his comlink as they approached.
"No, I don't care about the paperwork," he was saying. "I want this case closed. I don't care if you have to pull every detective in the precinct!"
"He seems strangely invested in his job," Jay observed quietly. "For a crime lord, I mean."
"Don't let your stereotypes give you the wrong impression about Muldoon," Kalyn said. "He loves his job as a supervisor. He just used his position in the Bostoni crime family to get him the job in the first place."
"Does the ISF have any clue who these assassins are?" Vhetin asked. "They have to have some guess."
"Their best guess is black-ops mercenaries based out of Uba Four," Kalyn said. "That would correspond with Vhetin's claim that their armor looked like a mix of Ubese designs."
"That makes sense... I guess," Jay frowned and nodded, staring distractedly at a point behind Kalyn's shoulder. She couldn't be sure, but she thought she saw...
Ge'tal noticed her gaze and put a hand on her shoulder, shaking it gently. "Hey," he said. "You all right? You looked like you were about to fall asleep on us."
"Huh?" She shook her head, then rubbed her eyes and said, "Oh, uh... nothing. I just thought I saw something."
"What?" Vhetin said, turning his gaze slowly toward her.
"Nothing," she said. "Just a heat wave."
He stared at her for a moment, then turned back to Muldoon. The supervisor deactivated the comlink and turned to them.
"I'm afraid that I'm going to have to escort you off the premises," he said. "The local commissioner thinks that if there's any chance of the culprits returning to the scene of the crime, it would be best if there's a surveillance team waiting. He doesn't want civilians getting hurt."
"This crime scene is cold," Vhetin said. "The murder happened more than a week ago."
"Nevertheless," the supervisor sighed, "even I have my orders. If you'd follow me, I'll escort you to your-"
He was suddenly cut off as a glowing bar of scarlet light erupted from his chest. He stared at it with eyes wide in horror, then slumped to the ground as a dark figure melted out of thin air behind him.
"Vasi!" Kalyn cried, moving to catch the man as he fell. Another figure appeared in front of her and slashed his scarlet blade across her chest. She leaned back just in time and the blade just barely glanced against her chest plate.
"Stalkers! Down!" Vhetin shouted, pulling his saber pike from his backpack and igniting the blade.
Ge'tal put a hand on Jay's shoulder and shoved her to the ground, pulling his rifle from its sling over his shoulder. Jay got to her knees and pulled her pistol, firing rapidly at the assassin towering over Kalyn. The Stalker brought his saber up and batted the yellow bolts out of the air, sending them ricocheting off into the rain.
She let out a shout of frustration and said, "I can't hit him! He's too fast!"
Kalyn scrambled to her feet and pulled her own silver-plated pistol. She snapped her arms up and fired at the Stalker as well. He moved to block the shots, but in doing so lowered his guard. Jay's blaster shots hit him in the back, tearing through his armor and sending him sprawling face-first onto the duracrete.
Vhetin cursed loudly as he brought his saber pike up to block a vicious downstroke from another Stalker, driven onto his back by the force of the attack. He shoved the armored man away and planted his combat boot in his opponent's armored gut. Jay quickly picked him off with a well-placed shot to the chest. There were now only four assassins left.
Kalyn was busy dragging Muldoon's body out of the fighting area, while Ge'tal and Shuk'orok were pinned down behind a collection of fuel barrels by two of the Stalkers.
Jay instantly scrambled to her feet, pulling her short vibroblade from her boot and sprinting toward one of the armored men. She leaped onto his back, catching the Stalker in a tight headlock and putting her blade against his neck.
"Drop your weapon," she snapped.
But he didn't respond. Instead he pulled back and slammed the hilt of his saber into Jay's forehead. She lost her grip and fell onto her back. She scrambled back, trying frantically to get out of reach of the man's lightsaber.
He spun toward her and unleashed a storm of blue-white lightning from his hands. The lightning enveloped her, crackling up and down her limbs. Pure agony ripped through her body, making her arch her back and scream. She writhed on the ground as sparks popped and skittered across the ground.
Suddenly the pain stopped and she looked to see Vhetin standing in front of her, saber pike raised. The lightning was dancing along the bright blue blade of his lightsaber before disappearing into smoke.
"Get out of the way!" he shouted to her, taking a step forward.
She nodded and scrambled to her feet, staggering away as her muscles seized up and her jacket smoked. She leaned against the wall and gagged as the acrid tinge of burnt skin filled her nostrils.
Vhetin, meanwhile, took another labored step forward, sending the lightning flashing back toward the Stalker. The assassin let out an enraged roar as the lightning slowly rebounded up his own arms. The storm began to glow white-hot as the Stalker was turned into a conduit, with energy steadily flowing in and out of his body.
Then, with a tremendous explosion, the two were thrown apart with the force of a small grenade. The Stalker was thrown back into the fuel barrels, where Ge'tal and Shuk'orok quickly dispatched him. Vhetin went flying back into the wall, hitting about six feet up and bouncing off. He crumpled into a heap and didn't move again.
Seeing her partner's predicament, Jay quickly regained her bearings and sprinted toward him.
"Are you okay?" she said, putting a hand on his shoulder. He didn't reply.
One of the three remaining Stalkers noticed them and stepped forward, igniting a scarlet lightsaber. Jay snapped her pistol up and fired at him three times, but he deflected the shots easily.
She looked around for something, anything that could help her, and her gaze fell on Vhetin's fallen saber pike. As the Stalker drew closer, staring at her calmly through the T-slit visor of his helmet, she sprinted toward the weapon and scooped it up.
It was surprisingly light and weighted in the center to allow for faster maneuvering. She wrapped her fingers tightly around the black shaft and searched for the button to activate the lightsaber blade.
Too late: the Stalker broke into a run, raising his saber over his helmeted head and letting out a nightmarish war cry. Instinctively Jay brought the pike up, placing the shaft horizontally between herself and the glowing red blade.
The blade hit the pike shaft with a shower of sparks, and the Stalker pushed down with all his strength, trying to overpower her with sheer strength. She slowly began to relent under the assassin's superior strength.
Come on... she thought in panic, her eyes raking over the saber pike for some kind of activation stud. Come on! He turns this damn thing on somehow!
She finally found it! A small red button near her left hand. She hit it with her thumb and the blue blade sprang to life with a snap-hiss.
The Stalker seemed surprised by the suddenly active blade, but pushed down against the staff even harder.
"Someone!" she shouted, straining as the red blade slowly descended toward her head. "I need help!"
She heard a muffled whump whump whump, then the Stalker was slammed bodily off his feet by two meters of angry Wookiee. The man screamed as Shuk'orok tackled him around the waist, driving them both to the ground. The black-furred Wookiee rose over the assassin's limp form and slammed his huge fists into his chest. He pulled back and roared, then slammed his fists down again, crushing the Stalker's interlocking chest plates - and most of his chest.
Shuk'orok clambered to his feet and let out a roar. Then he lumbered over and helped Jay up as well.
"I'm fine," she said, leaning on the activated saber pike. "Thanks for helping me out."
He shook his head and barked, gesturing toward Ge'tal, who was single-handedly fending off the final two Stalkers with his twin pistols. A flurry of blaster bolts ricocheted off the two scarlet sabers, impacting into the walls and ceiling.
"I'll help him out," Jay said, getting the gist of what the Wookiee was telling her. "Just see if Vhetin's okay!"
Then she sprinted toward the two Stalkers, hefting Vhetin's saber pike between her hands. Ge'tal had been pressed back against the wall, firing frantically as the two assassins slowly approached regardless.
She snapped back her arm and brought the glowing blue blade across one Stalker's back, leaving a bright orange-white burn mark in his armor. The assassin screamed and crumpled to his knees, letting out a weak wheeze before twitching and going still.
The final Stalker halted, slowly lowering his lightsaber. Jay and Ge'tal penned him in. She leveled the lit saber pike at him and said, "Drop your weapon. Hands on your head."
He just stared at them.
Ge'tal brandished his rifle and shouted, "Now!"
The man deactivated his saber and stared at them. He hooked the weapon to his belt and snarled, "Your skills are impressive. No ordinary bounty hunters would be able to neutralize my Stalker team with such skill and efficiency."
"Um... thanks?" Jay glanced at Ge'tal, then said, "Where did you take Kestra?"
"My team may have been decimated," the man said, his voice echoing slightly within the confines of his helmet, "but I am no fool. You did not seriously believe it would be so easy to extract information from a Sith?"
"A Sith?" Ge'tal said. "The Sith are extinct. You're lying."
In the blink of an eye, the Stalker yanked his saber from his belt and ignited the blade.
"Does this say I'm lying?" he shouted. "Does this say that the Sith are extinct?!"
"Don't," Jay said warningly, raising the blade of Vhetin's saber pike. "Put it down."
"You think this is over. But you do not understand the gravity of this situation."
His gaze roved between the two hunters, then he said, "Young Kestra will fall. The Dark Side is too powerful for a young girl to withstand. Far too powerful."
Then he simply disappeared.
Jay blinked and stared at the spot where he'd stood. One minute he'd been standing there in all his nightmarish splendor, then he'd simply melted away into thin air. She looked over to Ge'tal and said, "Did you just see that?"
He stared at the empty air in front of him through his helmet's T-visor, then leaned back and said, "I... I'm not sure what just happened. Maybe a... cloaking device?"
"For organics? Doesn't the radiation thrown off by those things make them too dangerous?"
"That guy didn't really look like he cared," Ge'tal sighed, slowly lowering his rifle. "It looked like he had a trace of that radiation poisoning already."
From behind them Shuk'orok howled, drawing their attention back to the present. Jay looked over her shoulder to see Vhetin slowly raising himself onto his hands and knees. Kalyn was kneeling next to Muldoon's body, slowly closing his eyes.
Jay knelt next to her partner, putting a hand on his shoulder. "You okay?"
He nodded and coughed, holding a hand to his side. "Yeah. I... was unconscious there for a bit but I don't think there was any lasting damage. Is everyone else okay?"
"Muldoon is dead," Kalyn said, sniffing quietly as she drew closer. She brushed her soaked hair out of her face, then said, "But it looks like one of those Stalkers is still breathing."
"What?" Jay said, turning in the direction of her gaze. Sure enough, one of the Stalkers was crawling across the floor, groaning as he held one mechanical hand to the deep saber burn in his back.
She turned back to Vhetin and said, "You sure you're okay?"
He nodded, bracing a hand against the wall. "I'm fine. Just don't let him get away."
She nodded and handed him his saber pike. Then she jogged over to the Stalker and planted a boot in his back, drawing her pistol and aiming it at his helmeted head.
"Where are you going?" she asked him.
He groaned as she put more weight on the wound on his back, then spat, "You... you will never stop the Stalkers, bounty hunter filth."
She knelt next to him and put her knee between his shoulder blades. Once she was sure he wasn't going to pull anything, she pulled a pair of stun cuffs from her belt and locked his mechanical arms behind his back. She noticed with a slight shiver that there were half-foot razor blades sprouting from his durasteel fingers.
"Okay buddy," she said, hauling him to his feet, "we're going to have a little talk. And you're going to tell us exactly what you did with Kestra."
From the personal journal of Cin Vhetin
I saw another HoloNet report the other day about Kestra. Apparently she took a corrupt Imperial Senator hostage and turned him over to Jabba the Hutt. The report didn't say as much, but I recognize her handiwork. After all, it's only slightly different from my own, seeing as how I helped train her.
What bothered me was that the report said that the Senator's security forces managed to shoot the assailant twice in the back and chased her across Vulpter for six days before she lost them. I wonder why she didn't come to me for help?
I know she would probably be too proud to accept help from me - or anyone for that matter - but why wouldn't she at least call me and tell me that she was all right? For all her talk that she sees me as a big brother, she sure doesn't seem to show it.
Maybe... I don't know. It almost seems like she's taking a leaf out of my book. If I was in the same position, I can't honestly say that I'd go to her for help. But I'm borderline sociopathic and Kestra is a normal fourteen year old. Well, not quite, considering that she's working as a bounty huntress at such a young age.
But there's a difference between her and me, isn't there? I hope she isn't displaying the same signs of social detachment that I feel.
I hope I didn't teach her to ruin her life like I ruined mine.
