Chapter 4
-Life Kept Silent
An armour clad bounty hunter walked into the Twirling Twi'lek, part of a Black Sun owned cluster of night clubs and bars that made up this particular section of the Coruscant underworld. He passed through the illuminated entrance quickly and scanned the area. Several dancers teased patrons, coaxing them into giving more and more money. The shadier customers lounged in the back where it was darkest, wary of the very visible newcomer.
The bounty hunter used the infrared scanner built into his helmet to locate the creature he was looking for in the dark. Once he found the Dug, he switched to normal vision and assured himself that it was the correct one. The Dug was watching him, using his 'hands' to play with the beads on the end of a flap of skin that hung over his mouth. He continued to play with the melted looking flap until the bounty hunter loomed over him.
The Hunter casually tossed a small vial and a holocron onto the dirty table top. Quietly, the Dug picked up the vial and examined it, running a quick DNA check and raising his brow ridges questioningly at the bounty hunter.
'Has the great Fett lost his edge?' he asked with a sinister chuckle. 'Ten years ago you would have brought Kahn in alive, not in a bottle.'
The bounty hunter looked down at the Dug, his expression unreadable behind his black visor. He remained silent, not caring to explain himself to a Black Sun operative.
The Dug chuckled again, this time a hint of nervousness edging the sound. He picked up the holocron with his other 'hand' and examined it. 'A treat for Togos, no?' he asked, again receiving no reply. 'Whatever,' he continued nervously. 'I'll contact my boss and he'll send you the bounty.'
'You're going to pay me now,' the bounty hunter stated, his mechanical voice making the Dug freeze.
'Ah, yes, in due time,' the Dug said with another nervous chuckle.
The bounty hunter's hand rested lightly on the hilt of one of the blasters strapped to his thigh.
'Hm, yes,' the Dug said, thinking again about paying the dangerous Human in front of him. 'I'll uh...' he paused, showing the bounty hunter that he was reaching for a datapad. He pulled it out with one 'hand' and set it on the tabletop at the same time he pulled out a small blaster.
The Dug muttered angrily in Huttese as he fired off a shot at the bounty hunter. The shot went wild and scared one of the dancing girls, drawing the attention of the surrounding patrons.
The Dug looked up nervously at the bounty hunter as Fett, his blaster already in his palm, fired off a shot, burning the Dug's 'hand'. With a cry of pain the Dug dropped the blaster and shook his 'hand' furiously. He cringed as Fett trained the blaster on his more vital parts and quickly used his good 'hand' to transfer the credits to the bounty hunter.
Fett hesitated, using a link in his visor to check the credit amount in one of the accounts he used. Once assured that the transfer was legitimate Fett turned, keeping his eye on the 360 display in his visor, and left the cantina. Cradling his wounded limb the Dug glared at the departing bounty hunter.
'Koochoo murishani,' he muttered under his breath, turning his glare on the overly curious onlookers who quickly returned to their own business.
With a huff, the Dug pulled a small com-link out of his pocket and activated a secured frequency. He waited for several minutes before a gruff voice replied on the other end.
'Tell Togos Kahn's been, uh, disintegrated,' the Dug said quietly. There was a raspy chuckle on the other end before a short confirmation of the message and a sign off. Irritated and angry, the Dug jammed the com-link back into his pocket and sat fuming for a while before ordering another drink.
The early morning hours were dark and cool, but the sky of Coruscant was filled with hurrying cloud cars and buzzing speeders. It had been over a month since Kavan had been to the upper levels, weeks since he had left the club. Comparatively, the Coruscant morning was much quieter than the noise of the club, the sounds of the engines muffled by the expanse of sky. As Wyatt's cloud car ascended the levels, for a time, the Imperial military's, the stormtrooper's, presence grew more and more noticeable. Then, after a while, as they reached the top four levels the stormtroopers were replaced by armourless sentries, easier to look at and far less terrifying, but no less formidable. The system's single star glinted gently over the metallic horizon, illuminating the synthetically lit sky and paling the deep azure canopy.
But the military presence and the beauty of the sunrise, both unusual and normally welcomed sites for a resident of the lower levels, were lost on the anxious lover. Kavan stared straight ahead as Wyatt piloted the cloud car on the course Indis had described to him after Kahn had first taken her away. Kavan tried to clear his head, but he could not shake the uneasy knot in the pit of his stomach. The short journey seemed to take hours. When they finally arrived at Kahn's palace the sight he found frightened Kavan more than anything he had ever imagined. Cloud cars lined up outside the front of the palace, Black Sun troops swarmed around, outside, and inside, weapons drawn and on guard. The light from the rising star backdropped the dark scene, casting deep shadows across the ominous entrance.
Wyatt set the cloud car to hover across the open space, about fifty meters away from the Black Sun troops. Both occupants were silent, watching the scene intently, uncertain of what to do or think. Slowly the Human rose to his feet, instinctively and effortlessly balancing himself as the horde a the door parted to admit a dark figure. His eyes dazzled by the light from behind, it took a moment for Kavan to be able to see two distinct forms coming out of the palace. The first, a stout humanoid, seemingly the one in charge, was followed quickly by a large armoured and helmeted Hunter with a small body in his arms. Kavan immediately recognized Kn'or Bultâr, the Black Sun's most notorious Hunter. Kavan's breath caught as the Hunter stepped out of the deep shadow. The body in his arms hung limp and lifeless. Wyatt spotted the girl just as Kavan moved to exit the cloud car.
'There's nothing you can do right now, son,' Wyatt rumbled gently as his big hand took an unyielding hold on the young man's arm.
'No!' he cried, his voice quiet and broken. His dark eyes were wide with panic as he watched the Hunter pack his life into one of the covered cloud cars.
'Indie!' Kavan screamed, his choked voice echoing across the empty space to Kahn's palace.
Bultâr looked up and immediately spotted the lone cloud car. His hands, now free of the girl's body, quickly gripped the handle of his blaster. Wyatt, the silent observer to these events, slammed the cloud car out of hover and into motion, knocking the Human back into his seat as a blaster bolt hummed through their previous location.
'Go back, Wyatt!' Kavan screamed, twisting around to look back at the palace. Interrupting Wyatt's silence, Kavan looked at the large creature and commanded, 'Go back!'
'Kavan, you'll be no good to Indis dead,' Wyatt tried to explain.
Ignoring Wyatt, Kavan made a futile attempt to turn the cloud car around. Lovingly, but firmly, Wyatt grabbed the young man's shoulder and focused his beady eyes on Kavan's.
'Listen to me, boy,' he demanded. 'There's nothing you can do for her right now. You'll only get yourself killed. Bide your time. We'll come back for Indis,' he promised.
Kavan closed his eyes and turned away, tears gently streaming down his cheeks. Wyatt let him go as Kavan closed his eyes, his mind already racing with futile thoughts of an unlikely rescue. When they returned to the club, Kavan let Wyatt lead him to his room. Hardly noticing the large creature, Kavan laid down on his and Indis's bed, hugging her pillow close to his chest, wetting it with his tears.
Dreams are a haze, thick, slow-moving, and dim. They come and they go on a whim, flitting in and out of the mind with random spontaneity. But memories are different. Some linger in the mind, teasing and taunting. Others are lost in the currents of time. And the rest remain solid, constantly reopening wounds of the past. A single flicker of light or a slight gleam of passion behind the eyes can reawaken latent memories. Sometimes a memory is stubbornly locked in a half blocked passageway that takes a fuse to blast its path clear. Once those doors of history are reopened, the current of time is reversed, and the carrier is unwillingly rushed to the past to relive old terrors and feel their pain anew.
It was his eyes, the cold black eyes filled with arrogant strength and unbridled desire, that started the chain. It was the T-shaped visor and the blank gaze of the bounty hunter that lit the fuse. Indis was swept away into her own unconsciousness to face the past she wanted only to forget.
A small child ran through the rain soaked alleyways of the smuggler's moon. She ran with no direction, no other purpose than to get away. Her cheeks were soaked with salt and rain and her eyes burned red. As she fell she tried to keep the thin blanket around her shoulders, tried to cover all that was left of her innocence.
The child heard a voice behind her call out her name, but mindlessly she continued to run. Her bare feet bled as shards of thermasteel and glass splinters dug into their soles. The panic inside her exploded as she felt two hands take hold of her and force her to stop.
'Indie! It's me,' the owner of the hands said. A boy only a few years older than she, spun the girl around to get her attention.
'Let me go!' the girl screamed, repeating herself over and over as she looked wildly around her with blind eyes. 'Let me go!' she screamed again, beating at the boy's chest until he released her and she fell to the filthy ground. She laid there in a heap, the blanket that barely covered her torn and soaked, shivering in the damp cold, her body heaving with desperate sobs.
'Indie, what happened?' the boy asked gently, kneeling next to the girl and placing a loving hand on her shoulder. The girl looked up at him, her wide blue eyes still dazed and frightened. 'Indie...'
From the end of the alley the children heard a siren and the pounding of heavy feet.
'Keep going,' a deep masculine voice ordered. 'I'll check down here.'
Finally overcome with panic and fear, the girl fainted. The boy looked down at his friend, his own dark eyes growing wide as he checked to make sure she was still alive.
A set of heavy footsteps pounded down the alley, scaring off the small creatures and denizens of the narrow passage. Soon the light from a glowstick fell across the boy's haunched form, and the footsteps stopped. The boy looked up at a heavily armed and armoured mercenary as he hugged his friend's body to himself.
'Outta the way, kid,' the mercenary growled, shoving the boy back and forcing him away from the girl.
The boy smacked solidly against the far wall of the alley, his head exploding in a burst of white hot pain. He slumped over, trying to shake the fog from his head as the mercenary tried to rouse the tiny girl.
'Please, sir,' the boy begged, struggling to his feet and hurrying toward the man. 'Please, my sister's sick. Just leave us alone!'
Callously the man shoved the boy back but he returned again, this time clinging to the mercenary's arm, screaming and begging the man to leave them alone. Frustrated, the mercenary backhanded the boy, again sending him against the far wall. This time prepared for the coming impact the boy rolled onto his side, aiming his newly acquired weapon at its former owner. Wordlessly he fired the blaster, nearly missing his target but knocking the mercenary away from the girl nonetheless. The big man slammed against the wall of the alley at the same time drawing a second blaster.
His hands visibly shaking, the boy struggled to get a good aim at the mercenary as he fired again. The mercenary dropped to his knee, clutching his shoulder and looking up in shock at the boy. He realized, too late, his mistake in brushing the boy off so quickly. The mercenary's green eyes met the boy's as the child fired a third time, the bolt burning through the mercenary's skull and killing him instantly.
Still trembling, the boy held onto the blaster as he knelt beside his friend. She was conscious now, the struggle with the mercenary hardly having any effect on her physically, though she was still sobbing and shaking from before.
'Indie,' he whispered. The girl looked up blankly at him. 'Indie, come on, let's go.' He helped the battered child to her feet and wrapped what was left of the blanket around her bare body. Quickly, the children ran down the rest of the alleyway and through several more before halting. Before them was one of the few semi-open areas in the run down lower levels of Nar Shaddaa which the local residents labeled the Plaza.
The Plaza was reminiscent of an open air market, only it was hardly open and the merchandise was hardly legal, for the most part.
'Kavan,' the girl whispered, tugging on her friend's sleeve and shaking her head.
The boy looked at her and then searched the Plaza in the dim light. He spotted a familiar face behind one of the stands, Korin, a Rodian merchant specializing in whatever his customer needed.
'Wait here,' the boy whispered, pushing his friend gently back into the shadows and stepping boldly into the Plaza. Ignoring the shouts and calls from the merchants selling their products, the boy made his way directly to Korin's stand and stood on his toes to see above the counter.
'Well, well,' the Rodian hummed with what could be considered the Rodian equivalent of a grin. 'If it isn't my good buddy, Kavin.'
The boy ignored the Rodian's mispronunciation of his name and quickly stated his business.
'That all, kid?' Korin asked contemptuously.
The boy nodded prompting a high pitched laugh from Korin. 'Well, for the merchandise and for wasting my time, it's gonna cost ya' something extra.'
'I don't have anything extra,' the boy said, wishing for the thousandth time that he was an adult or at least able to see over a merchant's table.
The Rodian sneered. 'Well, what do you have, kid?'
The boy reached in his pocket and pulled out its contents, a small insect with an elongated body wiggling its antennae and a mini-holoprojector. The Rodian flicked the insect aside and picked up the small devise. The boy's eyes drifted over to the wounded insect, and he quickly reclaimed and pocketed it. Fiddling with the holoprojector the Rodian was eventually able to activate it, producing a dim distorted image of a young man and woman holding a small baby. With a huff Korin deactivated and pocketed the device.
'I guess this'll do,' he sighed, reaching behind him and pulling out a bundle. Handing it over to the small boy he proceeded in shooing him away. 'Now get out of here before I change my mind.'
The boy held the bundle protectively under his arm, and, dodging larger occupants of the Plaza, ran swiftly to where he had left his friend.
'Here,' the boy said, handing the bundle over to the girl who opened it up into a too large pair of pants and dress length tunic.
'But your holoproj, your family,' the girl objected. 'It's all you-'
The boy cut her off. 'Just put the cloths on and lets get out of here.'
The girl reluctantly complied, and, in less than a minute, they were running again, this time toward the nearest spaceport.
Indis woke slowly, her head throbbing with white-hot pain and her heart aching with memory. She blinked her eyes open cautiously, the dim light surrounding her sending shots of pain through her retinas and into her already pounding head. She raised her hand to her head as she tried to right herself into a sitting position. Her muscles responded to her commands slowly, sluggishly. She dimly remembered the bounty hunter and being shot, yet she was still alive.
Stun bolt, she concluded, finally managing to sit up and instantly regretting it.
Indis moaned as her body swayed to the side, her head swimming in a sea of darkness. Rubbing the back of her neck she looked around her. In a sickening moment she realized that she did not know where she was. The hard bench she was seated on took up most of the tiny room. The door across from her comprised nearly the entire wall. The floor was smooth and cold under her bare feet as she stood up. Again her body swooned and she had to catch herself against one of the walls. She reached out to touch the cold thermasteel door and was awarded no reaction for her efforts. Panic edging her consciousness Indis tried digging her nails into the seam of the door and prying it apart only to find she was too weak to even get a grip on it. Frustrated she smacked her palm against the door. To her surprise the seam started to part, slowly at first, as if the door was unused or worn down from neglect. She backed away as far as she could, her knees catching on the hard bench against the far wall. Steadying herself against the corner of the room she watched as the door open, revealing two burly guards and a stout man in between them.
The stout man grinned, his eyes boasting the look of an overzealous predator. 'So you're Kre Kahn's mistress.' He nodded, his eyes scanning every curve of her small body, taking in every wiry muscle, every inch of her exposed skin. Still wearing the thin blue dress, Indis knew little of her body was left to the stout man's imagination.
'Not bad,' the man said after a long uncomfortable stretch. 'A perfect prize for Master Togos.'
Indis gritted her teeth, fully understanding what was happening and determined to fight it tooth and nail. The stout man exited the room, leaving the two guards to 'escort' Indis to whatever destination he had in mind.
Indis narrowed her eyes at the guards as they approached her. Their eyes were hungry, full of eager lust and terrible desire. Even the way they moved set of warning alarms in Indis, bringing her body and mind to full alert. With a grin the first guard reached out to take hold of her. Before his hand even touched her Indis had him on the ground, stunned and wounded. Though surprised, the other guard quickly defended himself from the ferocious attack of the captive. By that time the stout man had fled down the hall, calling for someone to save him from the small woman.
Indis managed to down the last guard and took off running through the halls, heading opposite the way that the stout man fled. She passed no one, but she did not stop long enough to think about it. Nor did she care if she was running deeper into the heart of the citadel. She only knew that, at that moment, she was free and she was going to do her best to remain that way.
But her moment of freedom was short-lived. In her flight she neglected to pause to look around corners when she passed them or turned. Living this mistake, she ran headlong into an armoured Hunter, Kn'or Bultâr, and the infamous head of the Black Sun, San Togos. Gathering her wits and fighting the rush of black that narrowed her vision, Indis turned and tried to flee but was stopped by the gloved hand of the Hunter grabbing a fistful of her hair. She cried out as she was pulled backward. She struggled to stay conscious as Butâr's strong arm wrapped around her waist, holding her against him.
'What is this?' The Black Sun head asked, mildly irritated at the concept of a scantily clad woman running loose in his fortress. He slowly circled Indis, stopping directly in front of her and raising his eyebrow questioningly at Bultâr.
The response came from a mechanically altered voice thick with a heavy accent. 'Kahn's mistress. We found her in his room.'
'Ah,' Togos said, his voice edging on annoyance. 'So that explains why she was running free in my halls.'
'Whoever is responsible for this will be dealt with, Master Togos,' Bultâr promised. 'I will see to it personally.'
'See that you do.' Togos's crisp reply left no room for argument or misstep. Even a deadly being like Bultâr would not dare to cross the man who had single handedly resurrected the Black Sun. 'In the mean time,' he continued, starting to walk away then pausing and looking back at the captive, 'put her away where she won't get loose again.'
Bultâr bowed his head in compliance. 'Yes, Master Togos,' he responded to the receding form of his employer.