Dark Knight Over The Empire Chapter 4.
By Carycomic
THE OUTER RIM TERRITORIES
(THREE DAYS LATER)
"Bridge to Lord Vader. Bridge to Lord Vader."
The second most feared man in the Empire opened his comm-link. "Vader, here. What is it, captain?"
"We've reached the edge of the Y'toub System, Milord. We are now in geosynchronous orbit of its outermost planet."
"Excellent." He then turned off the comm-link before turning to look around the shuttle bay. "Now, where is. . .?"
Vader's half-aloud muttering was cut off by the being he now saw before him. But, the awkward pause lasted only a moment.
"Rek'oj! I chose you for this mission because of your people's reputation as discrete providers of hard-to-get merchandise (like valuable information). What is the meaning of this?!"
Like most of his bird-like race, Rek'oj had feathery green hair and chalk-white skin. But, where the rest of them had beautifully-colored eyes of red, green, or blue, his were more like pitch-black. The polar opposite, one might say, of an Arkanian's eyes! Yet, it was not his epidermal appearance that Vader was questioning, so much as the Ayrou's choice of wardrobe. More specifically; a purple trenchcoat, with matching slacks and a flat-crowned, round-brimmed hat.
"Merely hiding in plain sight, Milord. After all; people are less likely to suspect me of being an Imperial spy, if I resemble the caricature of one from a children's holovid!"
Vader snorted in blatantly derisive disagreement. But, this was neither the time nor the place to argue the point. "Board your shuttle, and contact me when you've landed."
Rek'oj momentarily doffed his hat as he gave an exaggerated bow. "As you command, Milord."
Five minutes later, the shuttle in question (which bore an uncomfortable resemblance to an albino mynock) departed from the belly of the Imperial Star Destroyer. Yet, even as it did so, another vessel was already landing on the Smugglers' Moon ahead of it.
"Calling Spaceport Control Tower. Calling Spaceport Control Tower. This is the Tappratine (Munto-Codru registry) requesting clearance to land. Over?"
"We read you, Tappratine. You may touch down in Docking Bay THX-1138. And, welcome to Nar Shadaa! Over."
"Acknowledged, Tower. This is Tappratine; over and out."
"OK, Red," Bruce remarked: "You heard them. Begin deceleration procedures."
Whereupon, the astromech droid (officially known as R5-D4) telemetrically split the wings of the Tappratine in half! Even though doing so made the wings look more like a capital "x" from the Galactic Basic alphabet, as opposed to the four wings of the avian mammal the sleek black spacecraft had been named for.
In any event, the Tappratine landed in the aforementioned docking bay, as requested. Following which, the cockpit's transparisteel lid slowly lifted upward. Thereby allowing Bruce to leap out.
"Full security while I'm out, Red."
The beeps and whistles which followed were translated into Basic upon the face of the new, miniaturized style of interpretron he wore on his left wrist. And Bruce actually laughed!
"I know you weren't manufactured yesterday. I just like to constantly reassure myself that your audioreceptors are functioning properly!"
He laughed again at the unrepeatable nature of the translation before opening the outer door of the docking bay. That way, the first thing any other beings on this side of the spaceport would glimpse. . .would be a deadly serious expression on his face.
He was still wearing that expression when he entered the Multi-Ale' Inn. A drinking establishment owned by what most of its patrons perceived to be a short human with straggly black hair, a hook nose, and a fetish for wearing a transparisteel monocle on his right eye. But, who was actually a Baolsar named Oswaldo Cobblepotzzo!
He simply kept his antenna-palps hidden, so he could discretely listen in on some of his customers' various conversations. A fact that Bruce reminded him (in an equally discrete whisper) was not a _total_ secret from everyone else.
"Still bugging your customers' drinks with those waterproofed comm-links disguised as umbrellas?"
Oswaldo grinned: "Well, well, well! Bane Malone; long time/no see. What'll you have? Saurin brandy, fresh from Durkteel?"
Bruce shook his head. "Vine-caf. Cream; no sugar."
"Ah! A business trip."
Bruce nodded: "Is Drakvaar around?"
"As a matter of fact, yes!" He used his hook nose to point at a nearby table, where the Kubaz in question sat talking to a canid sapient.
A well-armed canid, wearing a green bomber jacket, at that.
"Who's the poor man's Shistavanen?"
Oswaldo chuckled. "Gnort Gneesmacher. A Ranth/Lasat mixed-blood who usually hunts bounty for the Slavers Syndicate. But, today, he just got back from hunting big game. . .on Duro."
"Duro?" echoed Bruce: "That mudball's more polluted than Nar Shadaa and Engtu, put together. What kind of big game would even a real Wolfie find to hunt, there?"
Oswaldo shrugged as he began to pour the vine-caf into Bruce's cup.
"The main ingredient of fefze beetle paste, I imagine. It's Drakvaar's favorite!"
It was, at this moment, that trouble started brewing. For that was when the Ambush Bugs- -an all-insectoid swoop gang, composed of delinquent male Noehons led by an outcast Bartokk- -arrived on the scene. And, if there was one race of vertebrates they hated more than humans, it was. . .
. . .the insectivorous Kubaz.
So, when the Bartokk spotted Drakvaar, it immediately went over to the latter's table.
"What are you doing here, murderer?" it demanded in heavily-accented Basic.
Drakvaar looked up at the Bartok, before he started speaking into the klunky, old-style interpretron on his left wrist.
"Murder-er?" came the halting, time-delay translation: "That-is-fun-ny-com-ing-from-you. Go! Be-fore-I-have-my-new-friend-teach-you-less-on."
The Bartokk only had to turn its head part way to its left, in order for the Noehons to immediately swarm around him.
"He'll need more friends of his own, before I take orders from your kind. Larva-killer!"
Everyone at the surrounding tables began to stand up and move toward the corners of the bar farthest from the increasingly heated discussion. Prompting Gnort Gneesmacher to finally chime in with his two proverbial milli-creds. "I'm trying to discuss some business in private, here. So, why don't the lot of you get lost?"
The Bartokk gave his species' equivalent of a chuckle. "Is this the part where you add '. . .or else?' Well, I will save you trouble! Or else, what?"
Gneesmacher did not even bother to verbally respond. He just drew his side-arm, with blazing speed, and (to everyone else's amazement). . .
. . .the Bartokk was shrunken down to less than a centimeter tall by a strange beam of bluish-white light!
For what felt like an eternity no one moved or spoke. They just stared in undisguised astonishment. That is until Drakvaar shot out an impossibly long and sticky tongue, and captured the Bartokk with it. Following which, there was several seconds of surprisingly loud crunching, preceding Drakvaar burping, excusing himself, and then adding, "Yum! Tastes-like-ibbot!"
That proved the straw that broke the bantha's back. The Noehons promptly ran outside and took to the air as fast their swoops could go! Five minutes later, Drakvaar and Gneesmacher left the bar, as well. Although, they took separate directions once they were outside.
Gneesmacher flew off in an airspeeder that had a female Twi'lek in the right front passenger seat. Seconds afterward, he wound up being followed by a black-haired human female wearing a purple-and-black costume, with a purple mask and matching cape. And, her pursuit was made possible by the Bartokk's swoop (seeing as how it no longer needed the illegally modified speeder bike).
Drakvaar, however, was followed by a male Ayrou in a flamboyantly purple outfit of his own. The both of them proceeding on foot.
His curiosity aroused by what he had witnessed, Bruce flipped a milli-cred after first finding an obscure spot in back of the Multi-Ale' Inn, near the employees' entrance.
"Heads," he muttered. "I follow the girl."
He then whispered something into his mini-interpretron. "Drop facade of Malone. Set time-delay activation of aerial stealth mode for one half-minute." Whereupon, the image of bounty hunter Bane "the Matchless" Malone disappeared. To be briefly replaced by that of the Hawk-Batman, prior to his becoming both airborne. . . and holographically invisible.
tbc
