The Job
"This is probably a bad idea."
Cal lowers the binoculars from his eyes, ducking back down behind the ridge of craggy stone where Anna and Greez are hiding with their bellies to the ground.
"Do you have a better plan?" Anna folds her arms over her chest—an impressive feat when she's lying on the ground, to be sure.
"Not really," Cal admits with a sigh. "But you have to feel it, too. This reeks of a trap."
Anna pushes herself to her feet and takes the binoculars from him, ignoring the sense of dread still sitting in a tangle at the bottom of her stomach. Peeking over the ridge, she aims the lens toward the collection of squat sandstone houses in the valley below, setting the view to thermal mode with the twist of a knob. Two spots of faint yellow pop out of the sea of cool blue, both within the dome of the main dwelling.
Well, it's certainly not an army.
"What do you see, kid?" Greez hisses from behind her.
"Looks like there's two of them," she mutters, sweeping the binoculars over the rest of the buildings and abandoned moisture-farming machinery. She lingers on the three entrances through the circular stone wall marking the farm's borders before lowering the binoculars and crawling back down to Cal and Greez. "They have a couple of droids guarding the entrances. Some clunky old off-brand models. I doubt they even shoot straight."
"See, it'll be easy," Greez whispers. "We go down there blasters blazing, fry their security, and send them packing with their tails between their legs. Job done, be back at the Mantis in time for a good night's sleep."
BD-1 chirps enthusiastically.
"What if those are bounty hunters or elite mercs? With jetpacks?" Cal waves his blaster in the air—a standard-issue stormtrooper sidearm he grabbed at random from the cargo hold. "I don't like the idea of fighting two of those with nothing but this."
"Jetpacks?" Anna laughs incredulously. "There isn't a mob in the galaxy that would spend that kind of cred just to scare some defenseless villagers into line. Honestly, I'm willing to bet those guys are here for some kind of rite of initiation. Antagonize fifteen villagers to become a full-fledged member of the gang, kind of thing."
"I hope you're right," Cal says ruefully, scrutinizing his blaster one more time before rolling off the ground and into a crouch. "Alright, let's just get this over with."
They fasten their masks in unison—Cal and Greez with their respirators, and Anna with a coarse fabric scarf that she winds over her mouth and nose. She always has something covering her face now, and she barely even feels the weight of the cloth against her skin. Even out here, there's a chance someone could recognize them, and that's not a chance they can ever afford to take.
Of course, there's something else that can incriminate them so much more easily than their faces ever could.
She slides a hand down the side of her jacket, feeling the slight bulge where it conceals the lightsaber at her hip. She doesn't need to look to know that Cal has his, too, hidden under the coarse tatters of the burlap poncho draped over his shoulders.
As much as she tries to deny it, the irrational side of her is whispering that it just seems too easy. The fact is, neither of them had the heart to leave their lightsabers behind, despite the inherent risk of carrying them. That has to be a premonition in and of itself.
She keeps her eyes on the back of Greez's jacket as she follows him down the stony slope toward the outskirts of the farm, careful not to knock any rocks loose on the way. A thin veil of dust hangs in the air, casting soft auras around the perimeter lights and screening out the stars. The archway of the farm entrance is blocked by a door made of brown, crusted steel.
It'll take much more than a simple wall to stop Anna of Arendelle now, though.
The air goes still around her as she winds back for the jump. She tenses her legs and dashes forward, throwing herself upward like she's seen Cal do so many times. Calm falls over her in the moment of the leap, then she's grasping onto the edge of the wall, pulling herself over with a strength she's barely gotten used to. Cal lands beside her with his signature front-flip. When their eyes meet, she has to stifle a laugh.
"Show-off," she whispers.
"Hey, a little help?" Greez hisses up from the ground.
Cal reaches down and opens his palm. An invisible force hoists the Latero up within reach of Cal's hand. Greez shudders as Cal pulls him up onto the wall beside them.
"I hate it when you do that," he grumbles. "It ain't natural."
A mechanical whirring sound from the other side of the wall has them freezing in their motions. A spindly droid with too many arms trundles toward the gate beneath them on mismatched wheels, ocular sensors winking sporadically on the sides of its cylindrical head.
"Tres-trespasser," it intones in a garbled voice, jabbing an arm into the scomp port on the wall. The door under the archway starts sinking into the ground with a groan.
It must think they're on the other side of the wall. From the way its head rotates, it doesn't look like it's even capable of looking up.
Cal catches Anna's eye. She nods once. Letting herself slip off the lip of the wall, she lands softly in the sand behind the droid. The machine whirls as Cal and Greez land around her with muted thuds, its red eyes winking faster in aggression.
"Hostiles detected."
"Thanks for opening the door," Greez drawls, squeezing off a shot straight into its head.
The pasty sandstone walls of the huts around them are painted brilliant red and blue by Cal and Anna's follow-up shots. The droid only manages a single shot of its own that flies harmlessly into the sky before it's reduced to a flaming heap of blackened scrap.
She almost feels bad for the thing.
"That oughta wake them up," Greez chuckles, twirling his blaster and turning to walk toward the larger building at the end of the path.
Anna and Cal fan out on either side of the street, blasters still raised. A soft wind carries the smoke from the blaze forward, ruffling her hair as the inky wisps part around her body. A second droid rounds the corner, only to be immediately put down by a hail of blaster fire.
She takes a moment to blow smoke off the end of her pistol barrel. This must be how those protagonists in the action vids must feel.
BD-1 chirps a short message.
"They're coming out," Cal announces, raising his blaster back to eye level. "Be ready."
They make it three-quarters of the way to the homestead before the door slides open with the screech of poorly-greased rails.
"What the crink is going on here?" a gravelly voice bellows, reverberating off hard walls. The hulking shadow of a male Klatooinian steps from the doorway, emerging into the street and squinting in the dim yellow light. "Who are you?" he sneers at Greez, showing the sharp points of his underbite.
"You fellas ain't wanted in this town anymore," Greez states tonelessly. "We're the eviction notice."
The Klatooinian sneers again, on the verge of launching into another tirade when he's interrupted by a meaty hand landing on his shoulder from behind. A second Klatooinian emerges from the shadows of the doorway, wearing a sleeveless vest that leaves the veiny, reptilian flesh of his arms bare. In his other hand, the newcomer drags a massive rotary blaster cannon.
"You and what army, little man?" he grins sardonically, hefting the cannon with a chuckle like crushed gravel. "Boss says this town is his now, and when Sorc Tormo says something's his, you better believe it."
Anna's eyes widen as a tickle of unease crawls up her spine. When she takes a closer look at the second Klatooinian, she almost laughs out loud at the absurdity of the situation. Here, right in front of her, halfway across the galaxy from where they last met, stands none other than Klarg.
Greez and Cal look a lot tenser now.
"Look, we don't want to cause trouble with the Brood, but you've antagonized the people of Feles township enough," Cal says evenly from behind the barrel of his blaster. "Walk away, or this gets ugly."
Klarg sniffs the air and growls deep in his chest. His yellow eyes sweep over Anna and for a tense instant she thinks she sees a flicker of recognition. Instead, his gaze settles on Greez.
"What's a Latero doing on Tatooine?" Narrowing his eyes, he takes a lumbering step forward. "Hey, do I know you?"
Not good.
"Can't say we didn't warn you," Anna mutters, raising her pistol.
Cal's eyes flit frantically toward her, but her finger is already on the trigger. Maybe she should have flipped the setting on her blaster to stun, but she doesn't. The bolt of red plasma carves through the flesh of Klarg's forearm, making him drop the cannon with a roar of pain. She aims a shot at his thigh before he has a chance to take another step, drawing out a second scream and sending him to the street. The other Klatooinian quickly raises his hands as Greez and Cal advance on him.
"Hey, alright, we're going, we're going!" he shouts as he backs around where Klarg is doubled over in the dust. "I didn't sign up for this shavit!"
Klarg, unfortunately, has much thicker skin.
"Oh no you don't!" he spits, a string of saliva running down the corner of his mouth as he glares defiantly up at Anna, clutching his arm. "Sorc Tormo always has the last laugh!"
A crash sounds from somewhere further down the path. Tremors run through the ground as heavy mechanical footsteps echo from beyond the opaque dust. Anna, Greez, and Cal all turn in unison to stare in the direction of the sound.
"Is that…" Anna asks haltingly.
"Bounty droid," Cal says through his teeth.
"Just our luck," Greez mutters, whirling on Klarg with his blaster. "You screwed up, pal."
The Klatooinian replies with a toothy grin. "Take cover, little man."
The whine of an electric motor cuts through the air an instant before strobing flashes of blaster fire scream out from the alley to their left. Greez dives to the dirt as bolts of plasma carve a trail of tiny craters across the street behind him, sending up plumes of rock dust that sting Anna's eyes. The glare of the perimeter lights gleam off the dull edges of a hulking rectangular silhouette striding toward them through the gloom.
"Looks like it's time to get paid," booms a thick, modulated voice.
"Don't let it scan you!" Cal yells, dashing to Greez's side and helping him to his feet.
The walking refrigerator of a murder machine continues to advance, peering through the dust with a single white eye as it sweeps its cannon arm this way and that. Anna fires three times at an arm, a leg, and the torso. The bolts ricochet off the armour plating as if she were throwing pebbles.
"Come here, little girl. Let's see what your head is worth," the droid rasps, fixing its blazing eye on her. Crouching slightly, it angles its shoulder and charges.
Man, she hates these things.
She throws herself aside as the droid thunders past with bone-shattering momentum, steadying herself with a palm to the ground as she watches it take a chunk out of the nearest building with its enormous fist. The torso swivels a full 180 degrees to face her again, projecting a grid of green lasers out of a hole beneath its eye. Taking a breath, she pushes with her hands and mind, sending a cloud of sand into the air between her and the bounty droid and momentarily obscuring it from view. Klarg might have too few functioning brain cells to recognize them with their faces covered, but it won't matter if this droid gets a lock on any of them with its bounty scanner.
Cal rushes up beside her, a hand hovering over the lightsaber at his belt.
"I'm ending this," he states grimly.
"No!" Anna tackles him to the ground as another volley of cannon fire whizzes through the space where they were standing.
"What are you doing?" Cal throws her off with a scowl.
"Listen—look out!" she shouts over her shoulder.
Halfway down the street, Greez takes a dive behind the nearest building as the spot where he was standing is raked by scorching plasma.
"This'll be a big payday," the droid laughs gutturally.
Anna grabs onto Cal's wrist as he reaches for his lightsaber a second time.
"What happened to laying low?" she hisses. "I can deal with the droid. I know where the weak spots are."
"Laying low?" Cal sputters, yanking his arm free. "Mission failed, I think! The farm is exploding!"
"Farms blow up all the time," Anna retorts. The bounty droid bathes her in its floodlights as she scrambles to her feet, shielding her eyes from the glare. "Just cover me!"
The droid's scanner flickers back to life, but this time she holds her ground. Squeezing one eye shut, she raises her pistol. The first shot goes high, ricocheting into the dark. The second finds its mark, and the laser grid winks out with a shower of sparks. The droid lets out a foghorn bellow, the five barrels of its wrist-mounted revolver cannon whirring up to speed as it points its arm toward her. Cal's blaster bolts glance off its shoulder, but it doesn't even seem to notice.
As the first bolts leave the cannon barrel, Anna closes her eyes. Time slows to a standstill.
The Force is her ally. She can do this.
Dashing forward, she throws herself into a slide, ducking under the beam of plasma rounds as they carve through the air centimeters above her head. Loose locks of hair spilling from the confines of her scarf sizzle as they're singed to a crisp. The droid pivots and strikes down at her with its other fist. Rolling out of the slide, she springs up into the air, feeling the wind of the blow buffet her coat as she flips over the droid's swing.
"Up close and personal!" the machine gutters, wrenching its hand from the crater it created in the street. "Just how I like it."
She should be terrified, but she doesn't give herself time to think. Trust in the Force. As the droid rotates and throws a backhand toward her, she coaxes the quicksilver in a gossamer web around its body, weaving loops upon loops until it's completely entangled. One of Cal's tricks. The droid's servo motors scream as they strain to break free from their invisible shackles. Sweat beads on Anna's forehead.
She can't keep this up. It's now or never.
Scrambling forward, she scales her opponent's frozen arm up to its massive torso. She's serviced bounty droids before—there's usually a maintenance panel that leads straight to the central processor, located about three-quarters of the way up the droid's back on the left-hand side. Unfortunately, the panel on this droid is locked with a heavy security bolt. Clenching her teeth, she fires her pistol point blank. The first shot ricochets. The second makes a dent. The third widens the hole. The fourth heats the metal red. The fifth snaps the lock and sends it pinging to the ground—just as the droid breaks free of the Force-slow with an enraged roar. For an instant, she's confused by why she's flying through the air, then the hard stone of the nearest building wall smashes into her back hard enough to convince her that her lungs have been removed through her throat.
"Stupid girl," she hears through the sound of the blood rushing in her ears. With the edges of her vision closing in, she sees the bounty droid turn to train its cannon squarely on her chest.
"Hey!" yells a familiar voice.
There's a sound like a muted thunderclap. The droid staggers forward on unsteady legs before whirling and training its gun on Cal instead. Through the space between the droid's legs, Anna can see Cal going for his lightsaber. Pushing herself off the ground, she gives her head a shake to clear it.
Bad idea. At least the pain wakes her up.
Just as the droid's cannon spins up, she shoves at the air with her free hand, sending a blast of her own toward the droid's back. She dashes forward as it staggers, throwing herself onto the back of its rectangular body with a flying leap. The droid pitches forward in slow motion, legs flailing as it topples to the street with a long groan. Immediately, it tries to roll over and throw her off again, but she holds on with white knuckles, even as her shoulder joints scream in protest.
"Stupid girl!" the droid bellows.
The maintenance panel flaps just above her on squeaky hinges. With a cry of exertion, she grabs onto a protruding bit of droid-back and pulls herself level with it. She can see the fist-sized metal sphere of the bounty droid's brain sitting inside the cavity, flashing with indicator lights.
"You're even uglier on the inside," she growls, taking aim with her blaster.
The smell of melted circuitry fills the air, and the droid crashes limply to the ground, its floodlights flickering out like a dying candle. For a moment, Anna and Cal just stare at each other, breathing hard. Slowly, Cal retrieves his hand from beneath the edge of his poncho.
"You're telling me I've been hacking these things to pieces for three years," he mutters, "when this whole time they had a convenient off button on their backs?"
"Guess you never had to use these on Bracca, huh?" Anna laughs dazedly. Out of habit, she ejects the heat sink out the side of her blaster, watching it sizzle in the dry night air.
"They wouldn't let me near the droids. My foreman was a droid, did I ever tell you that?"
"Guys, is it dead? It's dead, right?" Greez shuffles back into view from his hiding spot several meters down the street, clutching his blaster in one of his trembling hands. Seeing the mass of unmoving machine under Anna's feet, he straightens up and dusts off his shoulders. "Man, I hate those things."
"Wait a minute." Cal walks around the felled bounty droid, his posture tensing again. "Where'd those other goons go?"
Anna and Greez turn in unison to an empty street. A dull whine not unlike the sound of a landspeeder motor sounds far in the distance.
"Shavit," Greez mutters.
The main street through Feles township is unusually quiet the next morning. A sizable portion of the population probably heard the ruckus coming from the old moisture farm on the outskirts of town the night before—and for those who hadn't, the sight of the hulking bounty droid that the strange newcomers are currently pulling down the center of the road on a sagging cargo gurney is more than enough to send landspeeders swerving down side streets and children ducking back into their homes.
Anna glances around at the myriad of curious and cautious faces staring at them from the surrounding buildings, her shoulders tense. There's no wind today, and the air tastes stale through her threadbare scarf.
"Did we have to do this so… obviously?" she grumbles.
"Can't have Herita backing out on the deal," Greez mutters back. "We need that money to fix the Mantis. She ain't making another trip through hyperspace without her fin."
Murmurs drift to her ears, some hopeful, some fearful.
"Is that… a bounty droid?"
"Guess those gangsters got what they had coming to them."
"Finally, we can stop sleeping with blasters under our pillows."
"This marks trouble, I'm telling you."
"What if these people are worse?"
She grimaces. The townspeople aren't the real danger. Brood bounty hunters will be after them like flies to a corpse once Klarg gets word out about last night—giant flies, with jetpacks. The sooner they can disappear, the better.
"I'm thinking another trip through hyperspace might be a real good idea," she says out the side of her mouth.
"You and me both, kid." Greez sighs. "One step at a time, eh?"
The gaping maw of an entrance to the Wandering Sandfly looms in front of them, the banners seeming even more tattered without wind to carry them. Greez punches the button to open the door, and Anna lets out a small sigh of relief as cooler air rushes over her from inside.
"What the kriff is this, Mudd?" a disgruntled voice rasps from down the stairs. Herita hobbles up to ground level on all fours, leveling a small blaster pistol in one foot-hand as she approaches. "Not another step! You ain't bringing that thing into my establishment."
A human and a Twi'lek come up behind her, wielding blasters of their own.
"Whoa, whoa, hey, this whole thing was your idea, remember?" Greez raises two of his hands, gesturing toward the droid with the others. "We drove off the goons and took care of their ugly bodyguard, see? Just give us the money, and we'll be on our way."
The Twi'lek shifts. "Herita… you sent them? Do you know what you've done?" He glances toward Greez and Anna, licking his lips nervously. "We have two rules on Tatooine! Don't fuck with the Hutts, and don't fuck with the Haxion Brood."
The screech of a firing blaster stuns him into silence.
"Shut up," Herita barks, her smoking blaster still pointed to the ceiling. She takes a long breath as she lowers the gun. "I didn't think they were Haxion Brood," she says in a lower voice. "This is bad."
"Cut the bullshit," Greez growls. "Should have thought this through before you offered us the job. Do you have the money or not?"
Slowly, grudgingly, the Dug reaches into one pocket of her baggy pants, fishing out a stack of translucent blue chips. She drops them into Greez's hands with a look of disdain. The Latero shakes his head stiffly.
"This ain't enough."
"Are you threatening me, Latero?" Herita huffs, sounding more exhausted than angry. "It's all I got. Take it and go. Don't come back."
"Wait!" Anna calls as the Dug begins to turn. "It doesn't have to be money."
Herita's companions raise their weapons warily as Anna takes a step forward. The bartender eyes Anna over her shoulder with a raised eyebrow.
"Look, we don't want to be here either, but our ship's damaged," Anna pushes on. "If you could spare us some parts and pit droids, we'll be out of your hair a lot quicker. Pardon the expression." She glances at the Dug's smooth, scaly head.
Herita stares back at her for a long moment.
"You're new to this aren't you, Little Miss Arrel," she finally states. Sighing, she turns toward the scruffy-looking human man accompanying the Twi'lek. "Ori, think you can spare a couple pit droids for my friends here?"
Ori scowls. "And if I say no?"
"Wasn't a request," Herita waves dismissively. "Have them sent to Mister Mudd's ship at your earliest convenience."
"Fine." Ori folds his muscular arms. "You owe me one."
"You owe me more," Herita retorts irritably. She gives Anna one final glance. "Take my advice, girl. Get the hell out of Feles township."
"That's the plan," Anna answers—but the door of the tavern is already sliding shut in front of her face.
"Well, this is a mess," Cal grumbles, idly flipping a coin of Calamari Flan as he leans back on the lounge couch.
The dining table behind him is occupied by two piles of currency: dull, metallic peggats beside glistening, translucent Flan. It's more money than Anna's ever held—but, then again, she's never had to foot the maintenance bills for a repurposed luxury yacht during her years as a stowaway. She turns over a peggat in her hand, feeling its weight. What ridiculous amounts of ion fuel must be used just to lug money around the galaxy?
"How are we for money now?" she asks Greez.
Greez exhales, flapping his lips. "Should be enough for another month of supplies, give or take."
"We'd better buy quick if we want to buy here," Cal pipes. "We're getting off this rock as soon as this thing can fly again."
As if in response, metallic scratching and thumping echoes through the ceiling.
"I really hope those droids aren't screwing stuff up worse," Greez says in a low voice. "You couldn't have asked for a real mechanic instead?"
"What, and have that Ori guy working on the Mantis himself?" Anna snorts. "He sure seemed friendly."
BD-1 hops up onto the back of the couch, chirping something about a flight plan. With the amount of time Anna spends around the friendly droid, she's picked up a little binary, though it's still not nearly enough to hold a conversation.
"There's an idea," Cal answers. "BD says we don't have to leave the planet. We could go find another town to hide in—this planet's littered with them."
"Could go somewhere controlled by the Hutts," Greez muses. "Use the gang feud to our advantage."
"Would save a heck of a lot of fuel…" Cal drops off as he lets the coin slip out of his hands. His shoulders are suddenly tense. He locks eyes with Anna, and a cold, all-too-familiar sense of dread creeps up her spine.
"How long are these repairs gonna be?" she asks curtly.
"Shouldn't be too long." Greez raises an eyebrow. "Those DUM units work pretty quick. Ori said they'd be done by sundown. Why?"
Anna backs from the table, her hand already reaching for her blaster as Cal leaps up from the couch in a swift motion.
"Okay guys, what's happening?" Greez glances slowly between the two of them. "You're starting to freak me out."
"We don't have until sundown," Cal states matter-of-factly.
A blast rocks the floor of the lounge as every light in the ship winks out simultaneously.