A day earlier, Raine Whispers was back on Correlia. Their substantial pay, from the weapon heist, had earned them a short break from bounty hunting, and they had instead been playing concerts at cantinas, for the fun of it. Even though human musicians were rare (Bith being far more sensitive to notes and pitches) Raine was able to enjoy minor spotlights, without anyone recognising them. People tended not to recognise celebrities in public, when they weren't using their real names. In fact, many people thought Raine was a Raine Whispers fan, trying to start a cover band, but they enjoyed Raine's music, nonetheless.
Raine was relaxing in a cantina, after a successful show, when a beeping from their coat caught their attention. They produced a circular communication device, and activated it, producing a hologram of a familiar Mandalorian helmet.
"Whispers." Hunter greeted, cordially. "We have another job for you."
"I'm listening…" Raine replied, intrigued. The last mission Hunter gave them had been a lot of fun, and their credits were starting to run out.
"There's a Correlian senator who's in danger of stumbling upon our plans. We need him removed."
Raine frowned resentfully. "I'm not an assassin, Mando. I know I'm no beacon of virtue, but I don't wanna kill anyone."
"Relax, bounty hunter." Hunter replied. "I'm using the word 'removed' in the literal sense. Just tie him up and shove him in a box somewhere he won't be found for a couple of days. I trust your moral compass will allow that?"
"Fine." Raine conceded. "Who's the target?"
"Go to the coordinates I'm sending you." Hunter said, his helmet looking down slightly, as he typed. "We're dispatching a drop pod with the full details, along with some specialist equipment you'll need."
Although they resented the implication that their own gadgets wouldn't be enough, Raine didn't say anything, and accepted the job. After they finished their drink, Raine went outside and rode their speeder bike through the city's densely populated centre, and then then through increasingly sparse slums, until eventually, they found a massive industrial complex, stretching as far as the eye could see, completely abandoned, save for the occasional Jawa, rummaging through the ruins.
Places like this were common on worlds like Correlia. The industry had once relied on valuable ores and minerals in the ground. Towering around Raine, were the chimneys of vast smelting and processing plants, which were interconnected by vast tubes for channelling water, and even liquid metals. The planet had been bled dry millenia ago, though, and now, places like this were ghost towns.
Raine only had a moment to take in the eerie silence, before a metallic pod fell from the sky, and crashed into the roof of a building, denting it, just shy of breaking through to the inside. With the aid of their hover boots, Raine flew to the pod, and arrived, just as the doors hissed open. Raine had been expecting a data pad, some computer spikes and key cards, maybe even a small droid. What they weren't expecting was the pod's sole content to be an assassin droid. Its eyes lit up red, and alarm bells sounded in Raine's head just in time for them to leap backwards, as it reached out to grab them.
Sliding back on the balls of their feet, Raine produced a laser pistol with a flourish, and fired a dozen shots into the droid's head. The droid was completely undamaged, in fact, it gave no reaction to the blaster fire whatsoever, as it climbed from the pod and marched towards its prey.
Raine turned to run, but in the same moment, the droid lunged towards them and grabbed hold of their wrist. With its other hand, the droid raised, and activated a red lightsaber, like an executioner's axe.
With a panicked shriek, Raine plunged their hand back into their jacket and threw an EMP grenade at the droid's feet. The resulting explosion of blue sparks caused the droid to stumble slightly, and release Raine's wrist, but shockingly, it didn't deactivate. A small mercy was that the droid's lightsaber was shut down by the blast.
Raine sprinted away from the droid as fast as their legs would carry them, and leapt from the roof of the building, only realising once they were in mid-air, that their jet boots had also been temporarily shut down by the EMP.
Raine fell painfully onto a thick industrial pipe, just about managing to grab hold of it before they slid off, even as the droid came crashing down behind them, causing it to shudder and fall several feet. Raine tried to scramble to their feet, but the droid grabbed the collar of their coat. Without missing a beat, Raine shrugged their arms out of the garment and ran. As they fled, Raine studied their blaster, muttering a prayer under their breath, and tapping it impatiently. Not a second too soon, the light on the blaster illuminated, indicating that it had recovered from the EMP, and a split second before the droid threw Raine's jacket aside, Raine aimed over their shoulder, and shot at it, triggering one of their remaining grenades, and engulfing the droid in smoke and flames.
Raine continued to run along the now far more ricketty pipe, casting the occasional look over their shoulder. While the droid was still obscured by smoke, a glaring red blade pieced the shroud, before slashing downwards, slicing the pipe in two, sending Raine's half plunging downwards, and the bounty hunter falling on their face, and sliding helplessly back towards the droid.
Raine threw themself from the pipe, and discovered, to their relief, that their boots had reactivated too. They flew, in a desperate bid to get as far away from the assassin droid as possible. Behind them, they heard the hiss of the droid's lightsaber reactivating, and then the repeated, increasingly loud hum of the weapon, as it was thrown towards them. Raine span around in the air, and then practically somersaulted in a bid to avoid the unpredictable blade. While they managed to avoid serious injury, the red blade grazed the sole of Raine's left boot, killing the thrusters, and painfully burning the bounty hunter's foot.
Raine spiralled downwards, through the industrial complex, just about managing to use their functional boot to avoid the intercrossing pipes, and hit the floor of the industrial undercroft at a non-lethal speed, but still landing painfully, and rolling across the rocky floor.
Raine knew they didn't have time to rest. Sure enough, the droid came falling after her, hitting the ground with a thud, and recalling its lightsaber with an electromagnetic palm.
Raine had fallen far enough away to buy themself a few seconds as the droid approached, and they used it to consider countermeasures. As they wracked their brain, they thought of the last time a machine had been employed against them, and how they had escaped that dilemma. "Almost any mechanism can be tripped by soundwaves." They had told Eda, after disabling Lillith's handcuffs. "If you know the exact right frequency."
By now Raine had figured out that the droid must have been made of Beskar, but surely its processor couldn't be? That would have to be made from a more vulnerable, less conductive material, likely with its own power source, which was why it had only stumbled slightly, when hit by the EMP.
Raine pulled their whistle from their pocket, and blew a supersonic note, Raine had used to interfere with droids in the past, then they tried another, and then a third. The droid reacted to none of them. Of course this was hopeless. There were hundreds of frequencies Raine could try. To know the correct one, they would have to see a thorough scan of the droid.
Raine scrambled to their feet and ran again. This level of the industrial complex was mostly made up of mining operations. Sites would drill minerals out of the ground, and send them upwards, to be refined. Of course, removing the ground under a building was never a great idea, but in a planet-wide city, compromises (along with enormous support beams) had to be made.
With the droid hot on their heels, Raine ran to the lip of a gigantic quarry, which they narrowly avoided falling into. The enormous, cone-shaped hole in the ground was stricken with inactive drills, and overlooked by a small control room. Raine felt a glimmer of hope. The site must have equipment for scanning the ground for mineral deposits. Perhaps that equipment could be repurposed to scan the droid?
Raine needed to get to the control room, but if the droid followed them directly there, they'd never have enough time. Bereft of their smoke grenades, Raine looked around for inspiration. Their eyes went upwards, and fell on a fire-suppression system overhead. Praying the system was still operational, Raine fired a laser shot skywards, puncturing a pipe, and engulfing the space between them and the droid in freezing vapour.
The droid marched onwards, its target obscured, invisible on both regular cameras and heat vision, thanks to the icy cloud. It emerged on the other side, overlooking the quarry, and Raine Whispers nowhere to be seen. It slowly reattached its lightsaber to its wrist, and began to patrol the quarry, maximising every sensor for any sign of the bounty hunter.
In the control room, Raine curled into a ball, squeezing their eyes shut, praying to themself, and listening for metallic footsteps. Once they were convinced that they had shaken the droid, for however short a time, they rolled onto their knees, and lifted themself as high as they dared, so they could reach the control room console. They engaged the system's power, and it spluttered to life, each beep and whir making Raine flinch in fear.
Eventually, a display of the quarry came up on the screen, displaying the location of the droid. It was walking, terrifyingly close by, looking in all directions. At Raine's command, several probes, built into the quarry walls, began to turn, honing their equipment on the assassin. As predicted, the droid's Beskar shell was difficult to penetrate, even for a scanner. Raine would have their information, but it would take far longer than they were comfortable with.
As Raine worked, a techno-service droid, a small, imp-like device, that had been lying motionless in the corner of the room, slowly stirred to life, in response to their presence. Its eyes slid in and out of focus, and its limbs struggled overcome a thin layer of rust, but eventually, it managed to climb to its feet, with a rusty squeak, that caught Raine's attention, a second too late.
"Hello there!" The small droid said, loud enough to disturb the entire quarry. "I'm so glad to see you! It's been so long since I've had a colleague!"
Raine's blood turned cold as they heard the stomping of rapid footsteps heading their way. If they stayed put, the assassin droid would destroy the control equipment, and kill Raine shortly after. Their only chance was to lure it away.
"Droid!" They urgently barked at the techno-service droid. "Watch the screen and send the scan results to my data pad!"
"Aye aye!" The droid agreed, with a jovial salute that made it clear it didn't understand the urgency of the situation.
Raine jumped into the empty window pane of the control room, and saw the assassin approaching.
"Hey! Look at me! Over here!" Raine cried, before leaping from the room and falling, slowing their descent with a few careful blasts of their remaining rocket boot, and just about managing to land on their feet.
The assassin droid marched briskly towards them, this time taking a military laser rifle from its back. It fired a flurry of laser bolts that Raine jumped clear of, before ducking and rolling clear of the next. Before the droid inevitably riddled Raine with laser burns, the bounty hunter drew their pistol and shot back, and clearly they were the better shot. Raine's blast flew directly down the barrel of the droid's rifle, destroying it in an instant.
With both the droid and Raine running out of usable weapons, it was quickly becoming a matter of who could run faster, and that was a competition Raine would quickly lose. As they ran, with the assassin charging after them, the techno-service droid called from the control room, "Sir? Or… or madam? I'm sorry, which do you prefer?"
"Is the scan finished!?" Raine irritably shouted back.
"Yes, that's what I was…"
"SEND THE RESULTS!" Raine bellowed.
"Alright… no need to shout…"
A small device in Raine's pocket pinged to announce the incoming information. Raine pulled the device out and activated the screen, but the second their eyes landed on the diagram, they felt metal fingers close around their upper arm, and pull them to a halt, sending the data pad flying from their hand, and cracking on the ground.
Raine looked up at the droid looming over them, lightsaber raised once again, then Raine looked up higher, and felt a glimmer of hope, amongst their despair. Raine drew their blaster and fired. The bolt flew past the assassin's head, and struck a drill, embedded in the quarry wall above it. With a crumbling of stone, the drill fell and landed violently on the droid, with a crash, and a cloud of dust. The droid released Raine's wrist just in time for them to dive to safety. They scrambled for their device on the ground and desperately tapped on the cracked screen.
"Come on come on come on!" They pleaded, until it mercifully flickered back to life.
Raine poured over the technical readout of the interior of the droid's head, and its integrity and composition, then did some hasty calculations.
The droid rose to its feet again, throwing the massive drill aside, as though it was a heavy blanket. Unlike the Bat Queen, Raine had actually managed to leave a scratch or two on the droid's armour, and it almost seemed like there was resentment in its glowing red eyes, as it marched towards them.
Raine produced their whistle again, and blew. The single, shrill note echoed through the quarry as the droid stepped forwards, it looked down, then reached a deadly hand towards the terrified musician. When its digits were inches away from Raine's head, the droid froze, its eyes flickered and dimmed, and a burst of sparks flew from its neck. In what seemed like slow motion, the terrifying droid collapsed to the ground.
Raine collapsed on their back and sucked in a lengthy sigh of relief. After several minutes of physical and emotional recovery, then several more climbing back up through the complex, without their rocket boots, Raine limped across the roof of the building, towards the drop pod. They lifted up the droid's head, which they had strenuously removed, then plugged it into the pod's navcom, so they could use the droid's authorisation to retrieve the flight data, then, they initiated a call.
Of course, the idea to flee to the furthest reaches of the galaxy had crossed Raine's mind, or even sneak their way to the Mandalorian's secret base for revenge, undetected, but neither were their style. Even if it was likely to cost them their life, Raine Whispers was nothing if not dramatic.
Hunter's helmet was projected from the pod. In lieu of any facial expression, his initial silence indicated surprise to see Raine. "What are you contacting us for…?" He asked. "HOW are you contacting us!? The pod should have had unbeatable decryption…"
"Really? That's your question?" Raine asked, with an angry scowl. "I just wanted to let you know that I killed your unkillable murder-bot, and now I'm on my way to kill you. See you soon, sleemo…"
"Murder-bot!?" Hunter repeated, before Raine shot the pod's communicator with their blaster.
Raine looked up at the smog-filled sky, as though they could see the Mandalorian's secret asteroid base. Knowing the frequency that destroyed the beskar assassins was helpful, but they'd likely need more firepower if they were to enact their revenge and make it out alive.
Raine sighed, and made their way back to their bike, and their ship. There were a couple of Jedi they owed an apology to.