Chapter 44
Alright, 2017 is the year guys. Things are going to HAPPEN! Cheers and enjoy.
Why did plans always go awry?
Not once since Torian had met Raidre did anything ever go as planned.
Not. A single. Time.
And it wasn't for lack of planning. Every time they took a job, they would spend days, sometimes weeks doing recon, they would formulate a plan and then execute.
But every time, some unknown element would get in the way and ruin everything.
Torian's hand reached for air as his cable failed and Raidre fell.
She fell into the pit with hundreds of dangerous and aggravated Rattataki.
"Kriffing, haran." Torian whispered as he lunged forward.
"ARE YOU CRAZY!?"
Artvish hung onto Torian's legs. Akaavi helped him and together they pulled a struggling Torian back to his feet.
Raidre had, like a Nexu, landed on her feet.
Torian leveled his blind rage, but Akaavi held up a hand before that emotion could find an outlet.
"We don't have any more cable, we are out of fuel. Think."
Raidre's voice crackled, her sparse batteries were dying. "I'll be fine, Torian."
Torian growled. "Don't lie to me!"
For a moment, nobody moved. Raidre sighed. "Ah,shit… I've been spotted."
They looked at Raidre, who looked to the crowd. They had begun to advance towards her. Raidre began to shed her gear as she stepped away backwards.
"I'm cutting the fat, keeping what I got for comms and guants. You know how to find me."
Torian watched her run as Artvish and Akaavi held him back.
"Come on, the sooner we get back, the sooner we can come back to get her!"
Torian growled as he let Akaavi's logic sway him. But he burned. He burned with the rage of his constant failures.
Raidre watched them walk towards her. She threw off gloves, thighs, shoulders and chest. She shed her helmet last just as they began to jog. Once she said what she had to say to Torian, she dropped her Buy'ce and ran. Her comm link went to her lips as she pulled her guants from her back pocket where they lived and as soon as they were on and she had her comm link securely in her hands, she picked up her pace and ran full tilt to give herself distance from her pursuers.
It had been so long since she had such bad odds stacked against her, but she never forgot. She had been a pit fighter on Nar Shadaa, that's why Braiden had contacted her. Because no matter who she faced in the pits, she always took down her target. It hadn't always been that way, but that was 'need to know' and Braiden hadn't needed to know.
She knew.
She would never forget.
Starting Bounty Hunting had been rough. Not knowing what she was doing, she owed people. Owed them a lot. And they hadn't been particularly nice.
She'd had a choice to make. Pay it off with her body, or find another way. She had burned her face to make sure she would be forced to find another way.
Her 'other way' had come when she was put in a pit and told to fight or die.
She fought.
She always fought.
And she would always fight.
She ran as a bunch of maximum security prisoners ran after her. How long had they been in here? Power had been down for a while, but how long had it been? When had these people last eaten, or bribed a guard to spend time with a woman?
She didn't want to wait and find out.
With her mind in the right frame of mind, she ran through the cramp, ignoring the pain in her shoulder.
Inhale through nostrils, exhale through lips, she chanted to drown out the gnaw of anxiety that chased her along with the prisoners.
Mako landed and before she could even make it to the Brig, Torian was already halfway through getting on his second Kit. She frowned as her pace slowed. She was counting when her feet stopped at the third to last step to the hanger bay.
"Where's Raidre?"
Torian and the two strangers greeted her with silence and looked away from her. Mako frowned. Torian looked up as he grabbed extra blaster cells and dets. Mako's eyes widened as she saw just how much ammo Torian was packing.
"What happened?" she asked as her voice became a smidge shriller.
Torian continued to pack and change Kits. The Zabrak female sighed and rolled her eyes as the men stayed silent.
She unwrapped her arms and finally answered Mako. "We were separated-"
"What?!" Mako shrieked as anxiety ebbed off of her in waves.
Torian finally looked up at Mako's cry. "Going to get her."
Mako grabbed the bridge of her nose. "Right, Gault is out there, he was looking for you, he might already be on her trail."
The human male looked up. "Could we borrow some things? I think Torian could use a hand."
Mako frowned. "And who are you two?" she growled.
The human male pointed a thumb towards himself. "Artvish-" He then made a sweeping gesture towards the tall and intimidating Zabrak lady. "This is Akaavi Spar. Your crew rescued us. We owe you. Let us borrow some stuff and we'll pay you back."
Torian finished loading and began to walk away. Mako ran after him. "Uh, hello? What do I do with the strays?"
Torian paused in the middle of pulling his helmet on. "They're good. Let them help."
Mako sighed as Torian grabbed his speeder and raced off. Mako turned and looked at her two new guests.
"Alright… What do you need?"
Gault had been racing along one of the many fault lines of the prison when he saw below what could only be described as a charge. Or at least it looked like one until he caught who was leading them.
"What in the-"
Gault halted the speeder and pulled out his blaster rifle to place the scope to his right eye. "I'd know that mess of hair anywhere!"
Sure enough, just as soon as he spotted her, he cursed to confirm that the lady running for her life followed by at least 60 angry Rattataki was none other than the Boss.
Gault let his rifle fall on its sling and revved up his speeder. He raced along the edges following behind Raidre. He pulled his comm link out.
"MAKO!"
Crackle and Mako came on. "What? What's going on?"
"Lock on my coordinates. Boss is running from a mob of fans. Damn, look at that girl go!"
It took Gault a moment to catch up to them, and that's when he saw how she was covered in sweat and losing steam. "Mako, where the haran is Torian, there are 60 of them!"
"Coordinates locked, sending them to him right now. He's en route and inbound is 2 minutes."
"Oh, wow. Okay then. Let me thin the herd. "
Gault raced ahead by twenty meters. He parked the speeder facing the oncoming mob and raised the blaster rifle to his right eye.
He sucked in his breath, as much as his lungs could hold.
He sighted the oncoming Rattataki and began shooting. Gault aimed for between the eyes with his scope at 50% of its magnification range. With every approaching step, his accuracy faltered. Speed was the name of the game.
Gault began to shoot as he let his breath go.
Raidre saw a flash of red overhead but couldn't afford to slow her pace or she would be caught. Two, maybe three seconds later she heard the blaster fire and could smell the discharge.
In fact, she lost count how many times he shot.
"Got you, Boss!" Raidre heard through her comm link in her left hand.
She chanced a glance behind her and she saw that not only had Gault come to her aid, but he had decimated the Rattataki. Raidre spun around and gave Gault a shout of victory before continuing to run for her life as a couple of her pursuers made it past Gault's onslaught.
"Damn! They're breaking through. Tor, where are you?!"
"Inbound, 30 seconds." Mako responded in Gault's ear.
That's when the first pair of Rattataki decided they would take their chances and try to give Gault a go. A larger man, grabbed a lady Rattataki and threw her up to where Gault was perched.
"Woah! That's my cue to go."
Gault revved up his speeder and began to chase after Raidre just as the Rattataki lady had finished climbing up to his spot.
"Mako, tell him to hurry up already, or there won't be anything left for him to save the Boss from."
Gault chuckled to himself as he sped to find Raidre.
The Rattataki split into two groups. Group one, smaller and made up of the quick and nimble sped after the Devaronian on the speedster, while the bigger guys kept chasing the red head. No one noticed the speedsters kicking up all the debris from the back. The Rattataki had not thought to assign a Vanguard.
Torian's Buy'ce glowed like the ice around him as he leaned into his speedster and pulled out his techstaff. It sputtered to life as he turned the electrical discharge on and up to full.
They didn't have a chance.
Torian came charging in and electrocuted the ones at the back to death, sending them flying, fried at their faster comrades. It didn't take long for them to surround Torian, but it also meant that now only half a dozen kept running after Raidre.
She could handle that.
Torian stopped the speeder as they boxed him in with makeshift weapons. He dismounted and the techstaff sparkled as it hit its full charge.
Time did what it always does when it became mixed with adrenaline.
They charged from all around. Torian laid down suppression fire in front and swung the staff at his rear. Three men were struck and were dead before they fell to the ground, one even caught fire; dehydrated. Those that hadn't been hit by the blaster fires from before hit Torian right then. The first one bounced off Torian's armor as he hit the Mandalorian much like hitting an old wall. Torian shot him once in the face and moved onto the next four. A single swing and they all went down, but that's when the staff had had enough and it finally gave out, blackened and sputtering as the electricals gave a final spark of life before being extinguished.
Torian put the staff back on its magnetic harness and pulled his blaster to his chest. He shot to kill and every shot counted since he had maxed out the blaster charges on his custom rifle.
The cell hit empty fast.
But the bodies had begun to pile around him.
Torian let the blaster go back to its magnetic spot on his back plate and he pulled his tech staff back out. There were still more Rattataki to put down. A circular arc at head level, and then Torian took a step forward. A downward swing, mid-level arc, low kick, tumble forward and upward arc.
He lost count of his foes and lost touch with time.
The only thing that counted was quick execution, he had somewhere to be.
Torian spun around, panting, sweat hitting his eyes in his Buy'ce. No one moved, no one got up anymore. Her surveyed one final time before making it back to his speeder. He got on, fired it up, quickly changed the blaster cell on his rifle and kept going.
Raidre ran, but it was getting hotter and darker and she was running out of energy and place to run. Her comm link crackled.
"Vanguard neutralized. On route, Mako, coordinates."
Mako cleared her throat. "Due east 3 clicks."
"Wow, Raidre, that has to be a record for you!" Chimed in Gault. "Don't worry about me, I got these guys under control."
The comm link went silent and Raidre continued to move ahead even though by now she was certain that she had made her way into one of the geothermal systems. If she had any breath to spare she would have cursed her stupidity.
She was running towards lava.
Gault was running out of track on which to run his speeder, but he didn't like how little room the Rattataki were giving him.
He just hated it when he had to get his clothes dirty.
Gault groaned as he took a tight turn to bring his speeder to a screeching halt and opened fire. Blaster rifles like his were not made for suppression fire, but that's what dets were good for. With one hand, he emptied a blaster cell on his foes as she pulled a det out from his belt with his left hand.
He threw the det.
Det landed right during his enemies, who didn't even notice because they were busy getting shot at.
3. 2. 1.
Gault threw himself off of his speedster just as the det went off. Shrapnel flew everywhere and the explosion threw old pieces of ferrocrete all over the place. Gault let the ringing in his ears die down before looking out.
There was nothing left of the ledge he had rode all the way out here. And nothing left of his enemies either. . . And nothing left of his speedster either.
"Kriffing haran!"
Gault watched Torian speed by just at that moment. Mako crackled alive in his comm link. "Now what?"
Gault sighed. "Speedsters trashed. I need pick up."
Mako sighed. "Lucky for you, they should be there any minute?"
Gault frowned. "They? They who, exactly?"
"Some smuggler with his Zabrak girlfriend. "
Gault sighed. "Oh, thank goodness, it's someone who owes us!"
"Where'd the girl go?"
"No clue, Vedryt, why is it so hot in here?"
"Shut up, you a-holes! This place echoes!"
The two first men looked at their shorter companion.
The first one who had many facial tattoos and piercings. "Hey, where is everyone else?"
The other two shrugged. "Probs got lost or decided she wasn't worth the exercise."
The third one scoffed. "She better be worth the exercise!"
The first two brought fingers to their lips and hissed. "SHHH!"
The third guy clasped both hands on his lips and nodded. "Sorry."
Raidre watched as they began to skulk about the geothermal room from where she perched in darkness. She held both her hands over her mouth as she still struggled to catch her breath, her throat raw from running, her tongue tasting blood. As the three Rattataki skulked into her hiding spot, she held her breath and began to climb higher still.
Torian had run around the entire sector twice now, but they still couldn't locate Raidre. He felt like fire itself as he barely contained his ire. Akaavi came around just then.
"Nothing."
Artvish came back with Gault riding behind him. The two men looked awkward and Gault wouldn't stop whining about it. But Artvish made it plenty clear that no one was going to get close to his lady but him.
"No dice, Tor. "
Torian growled to himself in his helmet as his anger began to give way to fear. "Mako, anything?"
Mako sighed through the comm link. "I'm sorry, I haven't stopped pinging her, but nothing is coming back, wherever she is, it's nowhere where my signal can reach her."
They all looked at each other as the same exact idea dawned on them. "Geothermals!"
They all spurred on their speeders as they followed Akaavi's map to the nearest geothermal regulator.
Vedryt punched that scared face as hard as he could, and the girl spat blood, her face already swollen, left eye completely shut.
"Hey… Vedryt, don't kill her-"
"WHY NOT?!" Vedryt cut off. "She killed Kuwrac! That might not mean much to you, but he was my brother! By blood!"
The shorter Rattataki winced. "Yea…"
Vedryt pulled away from the girl and pulled out her pair of fancy gloves, he waved it in his companion's face. "She crushed his neck, head popped clean off, didya forget that part, Vrak?"
Vrak's eyes fell to his shoes as he shook his head. "No."
Vedryt nodded and pulled the gloves back into his back pocket. He turned back to the red head. Tied to a railing overlooking one of the lava vents of the geothermal regulator site, she didn't look like much. Tall and too big to be called pretty, but then again, it's hard to be pretty when your face is all messed up. Vedryt punched her again, but she never cried out, which pissed him off even more.
"Alright, let's do what we chased her for."
Vrak perked up and approached to help Vedryt move Raidre.
"Oh, hey chums, fancy meeting you two here."
The two Rattataki turned at the sound of a Republic Smuggler. Artvish stood in the doorway and as they turned to look at him he finally got a good look at Raidre. Poor girl. He didn't let his sympathy show on his face as he continued to smile at the two men in front of him. His comm link on so everyone could hear what he was saying, as he stalled for time to let his comrades find him.
"You know, that girl has a hell of a bounty on her, she'd fetch a really good price, but she's wanted alive, chums."
The two men now gave Artvish curious looks. They looked between each other. Artvish knew that look. It usually came right before someone tried to double cross him, and also right before he shot them.
Artvish also didn't happen to be stupid.
If he touched these guys, Torian would probably explode. Poor guy needed and outlet, and when he saw what these animals had done to his girl.
It would be ugly.
Artvish kept his hand close to his blaster regardless, he shrugged before his audience had a chance to decide. "We could split the spoils. 3 of us so we could split it evenly. How about it?"
The taller of the two straightened up, no longer perched to attack. "We did all the work."
His companion was about to second him when Artvish wagged a finger at them. "Tut, tut. Chums, how do you think this girl got her? No one crashes on Belsavis."
The two Rattataki frowned. But that is also when the comm link crackled.
"Artvish, inbound."
Artvish cursed and the two Rattataki jumped him. Artvish was thrown back and he shielded his face just in time to guard from a savage takedown. The shorter man kicked his comm link away and Artvish faintly registered that it rolled and fell down to the lava that was being used to heat the facilities maybe 500 meters below.
Artvish was given a moment of reprieve and he took his opening. He wrapped his legs around the arm of the Rattataki above him and he crossed his legs around it so that his feet cradled his opponent's head as he arm-bared him. With a dry motion, Artvish pulled the Rattataki's head down and made it bounce like a ball off of the quadanium steel of the grates below them. The shorter guy cried out as his companion and began to run after Artvish.
Artvish made quick work of getting away as he realized his blaster was not on his person anymore. He ran for it just outside of the doors back the way he came to get it.
That's when he noticed that his pursuer wasn't running after him, but away.
The door made a thick and dull sound as it slammed shut. Artvish could hear his heart pounding and Torian's footsteps as he charged in. Artvish began to look around, feverish as it dawned on him how this place must get its power. He looked everywhere for instruction as the instruments around them began to come to life. He paid Torian beating the Rattataki no mind.
That's when he found the main console with a set of windows that were covered. He pressed a button and the blinders came away. The Rattataki trapped inside banged on the window, tears in his eyes and fear plain on his face, while Raidre hung limply still tied to a railing. Torian froze, rage all but forgotten.
"What's going on."
Artvish's mouth felt dry. "I think he locked the door."
Torian spared a single glance at Artvish before he went for the door. He pulled at it, but it would not move. He slammed at it and it would not budge. Artvish backed away and cover himself as Torian fired three missiles at the door. His ears rung and still the Mandalorian stood at the door, undeterred by the heat, or noise or shrapnel.
He stared at the door.
Akaavi and Gault came in just then.
"What the haran, Torian?!"
Akaavi gasped. She never gasped. Gault must have known that it was serious because he stopped asking questions and looked around. His eyes looked very pale against his red skin.
"We need to get her out!"
Torian kept staring at the door. He looked back at Gault. "How?"
Gault's mouth sealed shut. Torian had spoken so quiet and low it had barely been audible. Gault ran to Torian and pulled out an ion blaster. "You still got your carbonite freezer?"
Torian perked up and pulled it out. Gault nodded. "Good, gonna fire this thing and hope it fries the circuits, if it doesn't we'll break the door's hinges."
Artvish gulped. "Guys. Hurry."
The Rattataki had stopped pounding and was grasping his throat. Steam began to waft off both him and Raidre.
Torian had never worked faster or better with Gault. The ion blaster fried the circuits, but it fried them shut. Both he and Gault began chipping away at the doors hinges as fast as they could to get the damn thing open.
It took too long and the other Rattataki had passed out by the time Torian pushed the door open. Gault held his breath and covered his face as he ran in to get Raidre. The soles of his shoes melted with every step as he got to her. He fired his blaster to break her chains and carried her out to the sounds of the lava roiling beneath him. He came back out and Torian pushed the door closed.
Akaavi began to check Raidre's vitals, and once she realized that Raidre wasn't breathing nor had a heartbeat, she began resuscitation. Gault looked to the window, the lava had begun to rise at high speeds. Torian pulled the door shut, but the men knew they had destroyed the mechanism that would shut the door to get at Raidre.
Artvish began to punch all buttons that pertained to safety and backup protocols. Gault sighed. "No good, we killed the door."
Torian grunted as he pulled the door fully shut and held it with the aid of his kit. Gault's lips set in a hard line. Artvish shook his head.
"No, no no…"
Both Artvish and Gault stared at Torian as the lava rose. They silently watched Torian, knowing that the heat must be burning him, but unable to help since neither wore full armor or hydraulic joints to boot. Akaavi kept at her work to resuscitate Raidre.
"Burns suck." Artvish whispered as he could not look away from the silent Torian.
Gault nodded as he pulled out all the spare med supplies he had on his person. "They sure do. Tor, you good?"
"Good." was all Torian said.
Raidre gasped after what seemed like a very long time of silence. Akaavi used all the med supplies Mako had passed her. She chuckled nervously. "I had wondered why Mako had given me so much, now I know why."
Gault never looked away from Torian as the lava began to recede. "Yea, we're good like that."
Artvish whistled. "He's going to be a lobster after this."
Gault growled. "If he's not already dead."
He went over to the Mandalorian and the moment he touched his armor he pulled his hands away, burnt.
"Torian, damn you!"
Gault grabbed Torian's Buy'ce and pulled it off along with the first layer of his palm. Left handed, Gault inject Torian with all the kolto he had.
And he prayed, if there was anyone out there, Gault prayed to them all.
