Doctor Tunbaoth marched through the brightly lit halls on the five hundredth floor of Galactic General Hospital, Coruscant's finest medical facility, shadowed by a plethora of young new interns. He was chief of staff and somehow the loathsome duty of shepherding the new blood around had fallen upon his narrow, sloping shoulders. It was truly a cruel galaxy indeed. To his annoyance, some of them rubbernecked and ogled as they passed orderlies pushing sentients of all species on gurneys and hoverchairs through the wings, but most of them managed to keep a simulacrum of professionalism about them.
"On a given day, this hospital will treat roughly two hundred million patients," he was saying in an officious voice. "Most of them will be seen for trivial matters requiring care specialized to their species, but a good portion of them are admitted to the OR where they receive treatment from the finest surgeons in the galaxy—" They rounded a corner into one of the facility's hundreds of post-operative wards where physicians where making the rounds, following up on their recent patients. "Like Doctor Riscan here," he finished.
At that, a scrawny man in his late twenties standing over a Bith snapped his head up from the chart he'd been studying. His curly brown hair shimmered under the bright light of the overhead glow lamps and he had a ruddy complexion that contrasted sharply with his white coat. "I beg your pardon Doctor?" he asked guilelessly, placing the chart back in its place on the patient's bed.
"Just extolling your virtues to the new batch of interns, my boy," Tunbaoth chuckled, slipping his hands into the pockets of his coat, his middle-aged paunch shaking as he did so. "Finest trauma surgeon on the planet, if I do say so myself."
Riscan blushed, looked down to hide a boyish smile as he shuffled his feet nervously. "You're too generous, sir."
"Nonsense, you're simply too modest." Turning to his captive audience, the senior physician explained, "Graduated medical school in the top three percent of his class, finished his residency and fellowship in a record two years, made chief surgeon in another three. He's published several papers in the Core World Medial Journal on new techniques that he pioneered and has saved the lives of countless beings from across the galaxy. It won't be long before he has my job!" Tunbaoth chuckled as Riscan blushed again, then turned to continue the walkthrough. Over his shoulder, he said, "If any of you want to go far in this career, I suggest affixing yourselves to his rising star."
###
It became apparent to Ganhuff that he was awake when he concluded that no fevered dream brought on by the absence of spice in his system could produce a hangover quite like the one he was experiencing then. Opening his eyes to the narrowest cracks he could manage he waited for his vision to focus enough that he looked straight up at a dull durasteel ceiling. Lifting his head slowly, trying to avoid exacerbating the throbbing maelstrom within his skull, he looked about the tiny cell, at the bare floor, narrowly spaced bars with a food slot at the bottom, and the narrow cot on which he lay. "Indeed," he croaked, throat parched, as he laid his head back down, "this is a fitting place for a wretch such as me."
He heard a door hiss open somewhere down the corridor and opened one bloodshot eye for a peek. A Twi'lek female stepped into view, slightly obscured by the prison bars. She had violet skin, golden eyes, and delicate features. "Pardon me darling," Ganhuff choked out. "You seem familiar somehow, have we met before?" He had a feeling.
She held a tray of steaming food and a cup of transparent liquid, presumably water, which she knelt down and pushed through the slot at the base of the door. The scent wafting his way made his stomach growl and he realized how ravenous he felt; glitterstim tended to suppress his appetite as well as his desire for sleep. "Darling, you're a lifesaver," he said, rolling off the cot and lifting the tray with shaky hands, downing half the water first.
She backed away from the bars and turned to go, but held fast when he said, "I'm not angry with you." He was playing a hunch. "You're just trying to get by, same as I was."
"How did—" she began, brows shooting up in surprise.
He swallowed a mouthful of bread and grinned. You just told me yourself, beautiful. Aloud, he asked, "Didn't the warrant mention I'm psychic?" He let out a low chuckle and the woman rolled her eyes, leaving in a huff. With a tight smile, Ganhuff continued his meal.
###
Buruk kicked his feet up on the Bes'uliik's control panel, perfectly content. A hundred thousand in the bank, he thought, smiling as he watched the hypnotic spiral of hyperspace through the viewport. At last, things are going my way. After he dropped off Riscan with the Judicials on Coruscant, he'd pay a few bribes, ask some questions in the lower city, and get locations on a few of his wayward Jedi. Easy as uj cake. All seemed right with the galaxy.
The lifttube hissed open behind him and he asked, "How's our bounty holding up?"
"Starting to shake a little," Lynli answered, sitting next to him in the copilot seat and crossing one leg over the other. "He guessed it was me that set him up on the train."
"No worries," Buruk replied, ignoring the disappointment in her tone. "If he starts raving like a dinii, just give him a jab with a sedative dart."
"Are you sure we should be turning him in?" she asked, twirling one lekku around her fingertip. "He seems pretty harmless."
"What's got in your head?" he asked. "You forget about the twenty three people he killed or something?"
She peered at him from the corner of her eye and said, "Well he's just so handsome and charming. It's so hard to find a civilized man way out here on the Outer Rim."
Buruk's brow furrowed. "Hey, I'm plenty civilized," he shot back defensively.
"Pfft, please," she laughed. "You're impolite, coarse, and have appalling manners."
He sat up in his chair, jabbing a thumb toward his chest. "I'll have you know I've got great manners."
"Good, then you can prove it the next time you take me out for a fancy dinner."
Buruk opened his mouth to respond, closed it, and turned back to the control panel, muttering, "Chayaik…"
Suddenly the Bes'uliik shuddered violently, sharply decelerating and throwing them forward in their seats. Alarms screamed and metal shrieked in their ears as the hyperspace tunnel collapsed into individual stars. "Osik!" Buruk hissed, hands flying over the control panel. "Something's pulled us out of hyperspace; I need you down in the engine room, now!" Lynli leapt to her feet and ran for the lifttube, nearly losing her balance as the ship rocked with another impact. "We're taking fire, shields are at seventy percent!"
As the tube hissed closed behind him, a gruff, familiar voice called through the comm, "Hello Kelborn."
Buruk's head snapped in the direction of the aft sensors and his heart sank as he spotted the Doomtreader hanging off their starboard stern. "Montross," he hissed.
"Good eye, kid," the other Mandalorian chuckled. "I know we called a truce back on Ord Mantell, but you're carrying something I want."
"Over my dead body, sha'buir," Buruk snarled.
Montross just laughed. "Just what I wanted to hear. Goodbye, Death Watch Brat."
Buruk threw the Bes'uliik through a series of loops and rolls, inwardly cursing himself. Why'd I have to go and say a thing like that? He rolled out to port, then reversed direction as a red warning indicator lit up on the board, throwing the ship to starboard, barely evading a concussion missile that went soaring ahead from beneath him.
Climbing sharply, he armed his ion cannon turret and sprayed a swath of sapphire energy directly behind him, trying to discourage pursuit. Montross wasn't shaken so easily and continued to fire, raking laser bolts across his tail. Come on, hurry up, Buruk thought at Lynli, mentally urging her to direct full shield power astern.
At last his prayers were answered and he let out a whoop of joy as the aft shield returned to full power. Opening up on the throttle, he punched in a set of coordinates from the navicomputer and yanked back on the hyperdrive lever. Nothing happened. "Haar'chak!" he snarled, bouncing a fist off the control panel. At least I've still got shields, he thought, vectoring toward a nearby asteroid field.
Buruk's relief soon turned to dread, however, when his rival opened fire with a pair of heavy cannons that cut right through the aft shields and melted the armor on his ship's engine cowlings. "Shab, he must have solar ionization cannons on that thing! Why won't the manda give me a break?"
Darting into the cloud of rocks, he wove through the narrow spaces between asteroids at break neck speed, sometimes narrowly avoiding being pulverized as they collided with each other, throwing off great chucks that became deadly projectiles. The larger Doomtreader had a devil of a time slipping through the asteroid field after the Bes'uliik but continued to take pot shots at it; another blast from Montross' cannons turned Buruk's ion cannons to slag, along with his shield generator.
Now without any protection from the looming asteroids, it appeared that his desperate attempt to lose the pursuer would prove suicidal. Another hit knocked out his sensors, the light panels shattering from the vibration. Blind and naked, not good. Desperately, Buruk turned his warhead launcher aft and fired a spread of proton torpedoes at the nearest asteroid, emptying the magazine and shattering the rock into a dozen pieces that hurtled in all directions, creating a screen between him and Montross.
While his pursuer was distracted, Buruk dove toward one of the larger asteroids, its jagged surface rushing up toward him with sickening speed as he rolled over into a deep, narrow canyon in its craggy face. Slowing his ship, he inched along the chasm, searching for a suitable cave to take refuge in; their only hope now was to go to ground and make repairs.
###
Lynli was up to her elbows in the engine, trying to splice cables to bypass the shield generator's damaged power core. A spark jumped and she let out a yelp, sticking a singed finger in her mouth when the ship shuddered like it ran into something, throwing her roughly against the bulkhead. "Owww," she whined, tenderly rubbing a bruised lekku. Keying the shipboard comm unit on the wall, she asked, "Who's flying this thing anyway?"
"Sorry for the rough landing," Buruk apologized. "We're in a cave in the middle of an asteroid field. Weapons are gone and sensors are fried. Also deck two has a hull breach so it looks like you're stuck down there with Riscan."
Lynli grimaced at that. "Well, how about something to lower your spirits?" she asked sarcastically.
"Just give me the short of it," Buruk insisted impatiently.
"Shield generator's had its core melted, the hyperdrive's leaking…" Inspecting the main engines, she added, "And the engines are pretty much shot after that last jolt."
"Perfect," he sighed. "How long?"
"I don't even know if it can be done," she answered.
"I'm shutting down everything but the essential systems so we'll be without comm. My armor can hold pressure so I'll get to work on the hull breach."
"I'll see what I can do down here, just keep your fingers crossed."
###
"Signature lost," the Hell's Anvil's onboard computer informed her captain in an infuriatingly calm feminine voice.
Montross let out a frustrated roar, slamming the palm of his large right hand against a display console. "That shabla little brat couldn't just disappear!" Suspended from the ceiling, his chair swiveled about the blood lit cockpit at the touch of a button. "He must be hiding somewhere," he muttered to himself.
"Probability that target ship is concealing itself within an asteroid: eighty-seven point three five two percent," the computer added.
Leaning back in his seat, Montross crossed his arms over his barrel chest and ordered, "Determine his most likely hiding place and plot a course there."
###
Buruk was in the main corridor of deck two, his armor sealed against the vacuum within, welding durasteel plates over the ragged gashes that ran lengthwise in the bulkhead where the atmosphere had escaped. His T-shaped visor polarized automatically, protecting his eyes from the blinding flash of the laser welder as it soundlessly sealed the hull breach. He knew Lynli would do everything she could but he needed the Bes'uliik space-worthy fast; there was no telling how long it would be before Montross found them.
Finishing the first breach, he pounded a gloved fist experimentally against the plate and muttered to himself, "What it's worth…" Turning carefully in the weightless corridor, he hefted the welder and another plate, and floated forward to the next hole. His breath seemed deafening within his helmet in the depressurized compartment.
He barely noticed the vibration thrumming through the hull. It began softly at first; steadily growing closer, more intense, until the whole ship shuddered and Buruk had to brace himself to keep from flying down the hallway. Blast, Montross must be carpet bombing the asteroid, he thought, hanging onto a support strut as if his life depended on it. The shock waves became violent; the Doomtreader must have been passing directly overhead, delivering its deadly payload. Must be thermal dets or proton bombs he's dropping. Going to try and spook us out.
###
Lynli had been busting her knuckles for an hour trying to return some semblance of life to the shield generator. She'd rewired so many components that the engine room resembled a spider's web, making it difficult to move about. She wouldn't know if it had worked until they powered the ship up and with that attacking ship probably still hanging around that would be dangerous. Thunder rumbled far off in the distance.
Through the open door she heard Riscan's voice feebly say, "It can't be raining… there's not a cloud in the sky…"
She looked up from her work and blinked. He was right; it couldn't have been thunder she'd just heard. The sound came again, closer this time, and she could feel the ship vibrating. Then realization struck her. "He's dropping bombs on us!" she gasped. The sky seemed to open up, explosions rocking the ship as if it were a toy. Thunder clap after thunder clap detonated overhead, rattling her teeth within her skull as she tried to brace herself against the impacts. Even over the din she could still here the sound of rocks tumbling down from the cave ceiling onto the ship, clanging like gongs as the maelstrom continued.
Slowly, agonizingly, the bombing receded into the distance until once again all was quiet. Lynli went to her room, a cell she'd converted into living space, and retrieved her ear bud comlink. Keying it, she snapped, "I thought you said the Guild had rules against killing other bounty hunters."
After a short pause, Buruk replied, "Montross doesn't play by anybody's rules."
"Wonderful. If he doesn't find us, it'll be because this whole cave came down on our heads."
"It's possible," he conceded, then cut the transmission.
Stepping out into the corridor, she leaned against the bulkhead and sank down to a sitting position, tucking her knees up under her chin. She didn't want to die down here, in a cave, lost in the middle of deep space, cowering like an animal in the dark. She'd cowered most of her life. These were probably their final moments and that heartless mercenary up there probably wouldn't even take the time to try and comfort her.
"Hello?" Riscan called weakly from his cell. "Is someone other than myself still alive on this ship?"
Lynli got up shakily and sat down in front of his cell. "What do you want?" she asked.
He was lying on his cot, hands resting behind his head and one ankle propped up on his raised knee. "Just thought you might want to talk, darling. There's something mighty dreadful going on outside it seems, with all the sharp twisting and shaking this ship's been doing recently."
"We were attacked by another bounty hunter," she told him. "It seems you're a popular man, Ganhuff Riscan."
"Well, I have taken pride in considering myself rather desirable in the past," he admitted. "But of course those were different times."
"For the life of me, I can't figure out how someone like you ends up wanted for mass murder."
"Maybe you just don't understand the criminal mind," he offered flatly.
She perched her chin on her fist. "Maybe you're just not the type that does something like that, spice addict or not."
He sat up, then, and swung his legs off the bed. He was shaking uncontrollably now, clearly feeling the effects of withdrawal. He slid down to the floor and squatted in front of the bars, looking at her as if she was a priest and he sat in some kind of morbid confessional. "Twenty three counts of manslaughter," he corrected her, a distant look in his bloodshot hazel eyes. The dark circles had disappeared with the forced sleep he'd gone through, but his skin was clammy; his brow glistened with sweat, making his brown curls stick to his scalp.
"Forgive me if I sound arrogant, but I was once considered by my peers to be rather brilliant. I was the top trauma surgeon at Galactic General Hospital, consulted for two other facilities, and contributed regularly to the Core World Medical Journal. It was a lot of responsibility for one man to handle."
As he spoke, Lynli listened hard, trying to determine any hint that he was lying. To her amazement, she couldn't; he was totally sincere.
"It started with ryll kor; it's a medicinal drug, so it was readily available to me in the hospital's stores. My nerves were a cheap blanket, quickly fraying before my very eyes; I needed something to take the edge off before I simply collapsed under all that pressure. Eventually I was hooked."
He paused and his eyes darted skyward as the rumbling began to return, coming ever closer until they were shaking wildly, tumbling about, holding onto the cell bars for dear life as the bombs fell, breaking more of the cave ceiling free. Then, just as quickly as it had come, it passed again, fading off into the distance. They stared at the ceiling for several heartbeats until Lynli looked back at the doctor and asked, "What happened?"
"Were I betting man," he replied absently, "and by all accounts I am indeed, I'd say someone were intent on our destruction…"
Lynli frowned. "I meant what happened to you," she clarified.
"Well, after about a thirty six hour stint in the OR, I went and got myself a dose of ryll kor. An hour later I was recalled from my apartment. There had been a nasty speeder accident; several DOAs and a number of serious injuries. Twenty three people I worked on that evening died… Not from the accident… but because I prescribed the wrong dosage of painkiller. I was stripped of my license and charged with twenty three counts of manslaughter. I didn't want to go through the shame of a trial so I ran.
"I couldn't afford to buy ryll kor; it was far too valuable and I'd lost access to my finances, so I turned to gambling and glitterstim, which was considerably cheaper. I went wherever I could find both in great enough supply, where I could hopefully avoid whatever Judicials or bounty hunters the Republic set on me." The corner of his mouth turned up in a self-deprecating smile. "Clearly I was mistaken."
"That's awful Riscan," Lynli whispered, gripping the bars of his cell as she peered in at him.
"Please darling, there's no need to be so formal under such circumstances," he smiled warmly at her, placing a hand gently over hers. "Just call my Ganhuff."
Before she could respond, Buruk's voice piped in her ear, "Lynli, I've sealed the breach; you can start pumping atmo back onto deck two."
"Aye-aye, cap'n," she sighed, pulling away from his warm touch and heading back to the engine room.
###
Buruk returned to the cockpit while deck two pressurized. Tossing his helmet aside, he began doffing his armor; the temperature had risen considerably so he stripped down to his shorts, tossing aside his sweaty jumpsuit. "Lynli, what's going on with climate control?" he asked over the shipboard comm as he wiped his glistening forehead.
After a minute or two she responded, "Engines are leaking coolant. I can stop the leak but it'll just slow the heat buildup."
"Just do it," he ordered, kneeling down on the deck and unfastening a panel from the side of the control board. An acrid smell wafted out and, peering inside, he discovered most of the wire bundles were blackened, completely fried. A quick check showed most had lost continuity and Buruk resigned himself to several hours lying on his back, halfway inside the tiny crevice, cursing silently as he tried to rewire the damaged components.
Shabla aruetyc Montross, he thought, splicing cables together, a pair of cutters gripped precariously in one slick hand and a glowrod strapped to his head. Kyr'adyc, n'jate, dar'manda, mir'osik… Ni or'parguuri kaysh! Ke'ramaanar!
The rumbling explosions began to build again, coming steadily closer as he worked. "Haar'chak," he muttered, bracing himself for the tremors to come. Soon the Bes'uliik was again quaking violently, the bombs falling overhead shaking the asteroid like the fist of an angry god. More debris showered the hull, clanging down along the durasteel armor.
Something flashed and Buruk was showered with sparks, white hot little embers dancing across his bare skin, making him wince and grit his teeth against the pain. Then the cockpit went black before the glowlamps were replaced with blood-red emergency lighting. "Osik" he snarled. If this keeps up we're going to end up buried or broken beyond repair.
Once again the thunderous explosions receded into the distance, leaving only the sound of clattering rubble and a ringing in Buruk's ears as he returned to his rewiring, making sure nothing else was damaged in the last pass. Tenacious chakaar, that Montross, he thought absently, sweat pouring down his face.
Scooting out of the control board, he keyed his comlink and asked, "Lynli, is the hyperdrive patched up?"
"Fifty-fifty shot of it working or blowing sky high," she replied through clenched teeth.
"We need to get out of here while we still can and put space between us and that dar'manda Siit'ad out there; let me know when it's sixty-forty." He thought he heard her giggle over the channel, then added, "If anyone can get this baby crawling, it's you."
###
Hours had gone by. Montross slammed a fist against the cockpit's display console, shaking with undirected rage. He'd dropped so much ordnance on that asteroid, there wasn't a centimeter of its craggy surface left uncratered. Still, Kelborn refused to be flushed out. Replacing all those bombs, even if he got the bounty on Riscan, Montross wouldn't break even. He didn't even care about the credits anymore; he'd satisfy his anger on Riscan, the Death Watch Brat, and anyone else aboard if he found them.
"Probability that ship has been destroyed: eighty seven point two three two percent," piped the cool female voice of the Hell's Anvil.
"You win this time, Kelborn," Montross muttered grudgingly, vectoring away from the asteroid he'd been pummeling and headed out of the field. "Save a place for me in Hell."
###
"That's it, go!" Lynli called through the comm.
Flipping switches, Buruk replied, "Hang on to something ad'ike, it's about to get rough!" The engines sputtered to life, thrumming through the hull with soothing vibrations. My baby's still alive, he thought with a relieved sigh.
Kicking on the repulserlifts, he eased her back out of the cave and cut in the main drive, shooting out of the canyon at top speed into the asteroid field. Dodging left and right between the enormous rocks, he spotted Montross' Doomtreader waiting just outside. Shab, should've waited longer. Seconds later he was through the field and soared over the other ship's head, running for the navicomputer's preloaded coordinates.
Montross brought his ship around and opened fire, emerald daggers of energy lancing after them, nipping at their heels. Buruk slewed the ship to port, a burst of cannon fire barely grazing the hull. Come on, come on… he urged the ship as he watched the coordinates approach, painfully slow. The Bes'uliik shuddered as they took a hit, then another, the engines groaning as they labored to keep functioning.
At last they were in place. Keying the comm, Buruk called, "I don't have time to kill you Montross, but I'm sure somebody will!" With that, he punched the hyperdrive, the stars elongated then collapsed, and with a flicker of pseudomotion, they were away.
Hours later, they arrived in the nearest inhabited system.
The gas giant Bespin spun against the backdrop of stars like a jewel, its tibanna clouds swirling serenely. The Bes'uliik was in a bad way, limping and sputtering all the way down to Cloud City, until its engines finally died on the landing pad. Buruk could hear the pops and ticks from the cockpit as they cooled in the high altitude as he cycled the airlock open, then sat back in his seat and laid a warm, sweaty hand on the control panel, as if comforting a dying pet. There, there, he thought numbly.