Hutt Space
Xhorta System
Xhorta, swamp covered sole planet of the Xhorta System
Deadly Dreams, massive vice den operated by Meego the Hutt
The crowd beneath the rail gave out a great roar but none on the mezzanine paid it any heed. Tico stood with her knees slightly built and on the balls of her feet with the Wookie standing between her and Agent Sluka. Sal turned her back to Agent Sluka and carefully eyed the three humans in bounty hunter armor.
"You must be Meego's lieutenant, Tico," Agent Sluka said as a simple statement of fact.
The Wookie let out a roar.
"Keep your mouth shut and speak when spoken to," snapped one of the humans behind Agent Sluka and Sal. "You have no authority here and no one will find your corpse."
Tico laughed.
"Calm down, Yucabban," she snapped at the Wookie, then turned her attention back to Agent Sluka. "I was disappointed when I saw the Astral Voyager land," she began. "I'd hoped that Marrik would've kept himself away a little longer." She looked at Agent Sluka and then at Sal behind him. "He too busy to do business with me himself? He have to send a couple of his ISB lackeys in to do it for him while he sits in his shuttle?"
"Not too busy," Agent Sluka began.
"Too dead," Sal finished for him, speaking through her loudspeaker.
"Well isn't that a pleasant turn of events," Tico laughed. "He get himself killed chasing down that spice dream, the Morkai Anomaly?" Tico glanced Agent Sluka and Sal over, quickly dismissing both of them. "No one has seen the blade of the Unnamed King since that damn Cerean killed Dmitri," Tico snapped back. "That's all Marrik talked about. He knew the Cerean and wanted to find him so that he could take the blade for himself. Marrik's ambitions extended beyond being a servant to the Emperor."
"We've seen it," Sal answered as she stepped forward. "We found the blade of the Unnamed King and went to the Anomaly." Sal pulled back the edge of her robes, revealing the hilt beneath. A Shoto hilt. The lightsaber of the Unnamed King.
"That thing doesn't belong to you," Tico snapped as she stepped forward.
"Oh really?" Sal snapped back.
Tico placed a hand upon her lightsaber hilt. "Marrik didn't deserve it and neither do you." She removed her lightsaber from her belt and lit it. A hum filled the mezzanine as a purple plasma beam grew from the hilt. She stepped back with her right foot, giving Sal a profile.
The Wookie roared and raised its spiked club, waiting to swing at Agent Sluka.
"Easy Yucabban," Tico sternly said. "As long as he stays out of it, leaving it just to me and whoever this little girl is, you will not interfere."
The Wookie snarled a response and stepped back, lowering its club.
Sal simultaneously stepped back with her right foot, giving a profile to Tico, and drew the Unnamed King's lightsaber. A blade of white plasma sprang into being, its hum matching that of Tico's blade. Tico's mouth opened in shock. "I've walked the Anomaly and there I spoke to the Spirits of the Tribes," Sal said through her loudspeaker.
"That's all superstition," Tico snapped back.
"A duel," Sal snapped. "Like King Dmitri and King Mavon. And I will spare your life like King Dmitri spared that of King Mavon."
A fire lit in Tico's eyes. "You will spare my life?" she snapped back. "I will win this duel, but I will not spare yours. I will cut you in half and feed you to the mudcrabs fighting down there in the ring," Tico added as she pointed back over her shoulder, past the railing.
"Enough talk," Sal snapped back. "Let's do this."
Sal glided forward, faster than Tico weighed down by her armor, and struck from overtop her head, lightsaber grasped in both her hands. Tico blocked high with two hands, white plasma meeting purple, then sidestepped to her right, following with a two-handed undercut. Sal quickly slid to her right, drawing back her white blade, allowing the purple blade to freely flow past her. Each looked to her left at the other, offering a profile, with the railing to their side and each holding her lightsaber high in two hands.
The crowd beneath became silent.
Sal slid forward with an undercut, passing to the left of Tico, who slid to the right, her back to the railing, avoiding the blow. The crowd cheered.
Tico quickly returned with a double-handed power strike from overtop. Purple blade met white as Sal blocked high, then stepped back. Tico pressed forward, another overhand strike. White met purple as it was blocked again with Sal sliding back, flowing like water. Again and again, Tico followed through. Again and again, Sal blocked high, white blade stopping purple, as the three armored guards fanned out to give the women room.
Tico struck overhead and Sal blocked the oncoming purple blade one more time, this time holding her hilt in only her right hand. Tico pressed down hard, yet Sal's arm did not give. She reached forward with her left and Tico was pushed back two meters by an unseen force. Tico retained her balance but her concentration dropped for a moment and her jaw dropped in shock.
The moment was all Sal needed.
She reversed the flow and came after Tico with a double overhand strike. White met purple as Tico blocked and retreated. But, where Sal retreated fluidly, Tico was uneven. Sal came overhand again, and purple blocked white...barely. Another overhand that nearly met its mark and another block as Tico retreated, half stumbling over her feet as she neared the railing. Sal came strong with a cut that got inside the block and struck the hilt beneath the Tico's purple blade. The purple blade vanished as the broken lightsaber fell to the floor.
Tico went up into the air.
A blast of air from Tico's jet pack caught Sal for a moment, blowing her robes about. Tico flew over the rail, facing Sal but almost lying on her back as she did. She hovered and the crowd beneath her grew silent. Sal ran toward the rail where Tico floated beyond as the flying woman drew her blaster. Sal ran to the rail and leapt.
Her foot stepped onto the top of the rail and she sprang into the openness beyond.
Tico fired her blaster but Sal's white blade deflected the bolt. Tico jetted to her left. Sal passed by and landed upon the top of a light fixture held up by a chain hanging from the ceiling. The fixture absorbed her momentum and swung out completely over the middle of the open space.
Sal looked down.
Beneath her, in the center ring, was an opening that exposed the water and mud of the swamp beneath. And in that opening were two mudcrabs, giant crustacean-like creatures. Each had a shell covered body with two pincers on segmented legs, one pincer smaller than the other, as well as a multitude of segmented legs on each side of its body. A body that ended in a segmented armored tail that ended in a fan. Each was squaring off against the other, ignoring the fight above them.
The light Sal was holding onto began to swing back, but toward the railing instead of toward Tico. She simply willed the light to change direction and it did. It swung directly toward Tico who now had a vibroknife in her hand opposite the blaster. Tico activated her jet and accelerated toward Sal who crouched on the light in readiness.
Tico's jet fired and she rapidly changed altitude, passing over Sal as she did, and cutting the chain in two with her vibroknife.
Sal sprang from the light as it dropped. Sprang up and caught the remaining chain hanging from the ceiling with her left arm, holding the still blazing white lightsaber in her right. Sal yanked on the chain hurling herself across the divide.
She slammed into Tico and grabbed hold of her torso with one arm, lightsaber in the other, face to face with her opponent in the air over the mudcrabs.
A moment later, Sal cut the jetpack straps loose from Tico's armor with her lightsaber and took a bit of the woman's armor with it. The jet blasted away from Tico's back and they fell together. Fell into the open pit with the mudcrabs. Sal climbed to her feet in the ankle-deep water and noticed Tico was stuck in the mud, wearing her armor.
A giant pincer came down at Sal's head.
She leapt to the side and then looked for the Unnamed King's lightsaber but did not see it. "Damn!" she screamed out loud. The mudcrab skittered around as the other tried to get past it, then looked down at Sal and Tico who was climbing to her feet. Sal reached out.
The pincer came down again at Tico's head.
Sal felt it, felt the Force, and the Unnamed King's lightsaber flew into her hand from underneath the water. White plasma blazed into life and passed through the mudcrab's pincer. The mudcrab backpedaled and ran into the second one. They both turned to square against each other. Sal reached down and grabbed Tico then leapt with her out of the pit, landing on the deck as the watchers scattered.
She dropped Tico and stepped back; lightsaber still ablaze. "Do you yield?"
Tico raised to one knee and looked up at Sal. "I know when I've been beaten. Good fight," she added as she stood tall. A chunk of Tico's breastplate was missing from when Sal struck loose the jetpack and bare skin was showing beneath. Bare skin showing a purple avian.
"You are one of the Corvus Flyers?" Sal asked as he mouth widened into a smile.
"Yes," Tico replied. "By the way you talked about Dmitri and Gisald, I'm guessing you are a Horned Serpent."
"Nope," Sal replied. "I was an Alinde Cat." She reached inside her robe, and spread it wide, along with the shirt beneath, exposing her right breast. Exposing the tattoos of the Five Tribes with the ancient Tython feline on top. "Now, I'm all Five Tribes," she added. Sal glanced back over her shoulder and up onto the mezzanine. Agent Sluka stood there, clapping loudly with Yucabban standing beside him. "And he is all five too. We both passed the trials of the Unnamed King's temple." Tico glanced up at Agent Sluka and then back at Sal. "He's Dmitri's son and I'm Mavon's daughter."
"That's some news I'm going to need to send back to Corvus," Tico said.
"Well, I'd like for you to fill us in one that safehouse here the Inquisitor was renting through Meego's operation," Sal answered. "After that, I'd like to go to Corvus myself and check some things out there."
"That can be arranged," Tico answered.