(A/N: I'm ashamed to admit that I've never actually read the Star Wars novel with Mako Spince in it, so I'm pretty much just using the name. On further reflection, though, I'm not certain that he's been butchered that badly… how would an opportunistic rich-boy expulsed from the Imperial Academy have turned out in a universe with no Han Solo?)
26: Desert Palace
"I'm sorry, Yomi," Kagura said anxiously. "I didn't think it would go like that."
"Forget it," the Valerian snapped, shaking her head, "We shouldn't have expected anything else. Tomo's just another grubby smuggler to them; she did the job she was hired for, so why should they care anymore?"
"But… but she…" Kagura punched the wall next to her. "Damn it! Hasn't Kurosawa ever heard of gratitude? And you know Tomo was gonna try and join us when we got back, you know it!"
"But her intentions don't matter…"
"What, are you taking their side?"
"No!" Yomi was furious at the suggestion. "But what were you expecting? That Princess Kaori herself would volunteer to dress up as a bounty hunter, sneak in there and mount a daring rescue?"
"Of course not! That would be ridiculous! But I at least thought… damn."
"I never pegged you as an idealist, Kagura."
"If I wasn't some kind of idealist, what would I be doing in this Rebellion?"
"Point."
"What should we tell Mr. Sakaki to do, though?"
"Well, whatever you guys decide to do, I'm going after Tomo," Yomi said grimly. "I'll arrange something with him."
"But you can't leave the Armada. You'll get shot down."
"I'll think of something."
"You'll think of something? Have fun getting blasted six ways to—!"
"Ms. Kagura! There you are!" Kaori seemed to appear from nowhere and grab her arm. "Come here, we need somebody to critique for us."
"Wha-? Critique?"
Yomi almost didn't notice that she was also being propelled along by Chihiro. The woman was practically invisible! "Wait, what do you need me for?"
"Demographics," Chihiro answered vaguely.
Their captors led them to a small, unused room, empty except for a small figure standing under a sheet. "I feel like an idiot," Chiyo complained, "Couldn't we just…?"
"Hush!" Kaori said. "Okay, you two ready?"
"Sure," Kagura replied uncertainly. "What is all this?"
"I guess," Yomi agreed. Living with Tomo for years had taught her to resign herself to things like this, after all. The enthusiasm of others, no matter how irrational, never left a dent in her.
"Okay!" the Princess held out her hand. "I, Kaori…"
"…and I, Chihiro," the former spy continued, "Present you with…"
And they flung the sheet off. Now, no force in the galaxy could have made Chiyo-chan look imposing, but after their determined ministrations, she was certainly looking something. She wore a long, charcoal gray jacket that somehow magnified her without looking too large on her, open over simple black clothes that had an… agile look to them. Fingerless gloves provided an air of- if not dangerousness- at least competence. The only spot of color on her was a rebel insignia in red on the jacket's sleeve.
Yomi blinked.
Kagura blinked.
"Well?" Kaori asked. "What do you guys think?"
"Uh…" Kagura rubbed her eyes. It was an intangible feeling that closed on her throat like a vise; an impossible aura that the young woman before her was radiating, an aura of… inspiration. Just standing in the room with her made Kagura feel like she could take on the entire Imperial Navy with just a space-suit and a knife. "Um, not bad."
"How did you…" Yomi seemed to be cringing away from her. "Do that?"
"Is something wrong Ms. Yomi?" Chiyo asked, oblivious to the effect she was projecting. "Are you okay?"
"You should have seen the penguin costume," Chihiro started, but held off when Chiyo shuddered at the memory. "I mean, if we could use cuteness as a weapon…"
"A penguin costume?"
"Oh, we got carried away. Don't worry, we didn't actually make it. Princess, we should go get more testers."
"Let's! But first… any comments?"
Yomi threw her hands in the air. Kagura put a finger to her chin and said, "The pigtails have to go."
Chiyo put her hands over them. "But I like them."
"They're not very intimidating."
"But I don't want to be intimidating…" Chiyo's eyes were wide. Yomi stared at her for a long moment, then suddenly exploded. "Goddammit, you're just too cute!" She stormed away, leaving everyone but Kagura bewildered in her wake.
"She's been like that lately," the soldier explained. "But then, you'd be too if your best friend was frozen in a block of carbonite somewhere and you didn't know if she were alive or dead and you just needed a little help to save them…" this last was said staring pointedly at Kaori.
And how did the Princess respond in the face of such blatant insubordination? "Let's… let's go find those subjects, Ms. Chihiro."
"Sure."
The two of them left the room quickly
"I never would've been able to do that before," Kagura looked after them thoughtfully. "Tomo must've been a bad influence on me. Are you doing okay, Chiyo-chan?"
"Of course not," she answered pleasantly, "I'm pretty far from okay."
"I wouldn't be okay either to if they were talking about stuffing me in a penguin costume." The girl sighed and sat in the chair Kaori had vacated, leaning back and closing her eyes. After a few minutes, Kagura became uncomfortable and spoke up. "Sorry. That was kind of a dumbass thing to say, huh?"
"It's okay. You're only human."
"I, uh, I got you something while we were waiting for you on Thyferra."
"Oh?"
"It's… er, a wooden sword. You know, the best souvenir for any occasion. I thought you'd like having an alternative to slashing people with a lightsaber. I'm not sure beating them up is much nicer, but… heh."
Chiyo turned back and smiled softly. "Thank you, Ms. Kagura. If you don't mind though, I seriously, honestly, genuinely would like to be alone for a while."
Kagura didn't understand why the other felt the need to add so many qualifiers; she'd have been convinced just by the tone of voice. In fact, she was suddenly uneasy, and not for a reason that was easy to pin down. Chiyo showed no sign of the terrible rage from earlier, or indeed, any unpleasant emotion, but…
"Right. Okay, I'll see you later."
Once she was out in the Katana's corridors again, she turned the whole situation over in her mind. Tomo frozen, Yomi in angst over it, Chiyo generally weirding out, Sakaki dead, Kaori alienated (for a while, anyway)… and suddenly, she came to a decision.
Kagura grabbed the shoulder of a passing crewman. "You look like you're off duty…"
"Yeah," he answered, amiably enough, "What…?"
"Well, let me tell you something. I'm sick of it all. I'm sick of all these twisted emotions and intangible forces and life-and-death decisions and everybody freaking out and nothing getting solved, so you know what?" She didn't give him a chance to answer. "I'm going to go get the crimson ale Tomo had hidden on her ship and I'm going to get so thoroughly blasted that my great-great-grandkids won't be able to see straight. Wanna come?"
"Sorry, I… crimson ale, did you say?"
Kaori and Chihiro had brought in more testers, but for some reason, their heart didn't seem to be in it anymore. Once they'd gauged reactions from a fairly wide group, the three of them sat down and conferred.
"Okay, you did this stuff for the Imperials. What's next on our 'Instant Hero' checklist?" Kaori asked. "Exploits, right?"
"Yeah," Chihiro rested her chin on a fist and looked at Chiyo. "What we'd do in the Empire is pick out a few battles they'd been at and inflate their roles, but she's too young to have done much."
"That is a problem… think we'll have to go out and make some exploits?"
"That, or just make them up here."
"But…"
Chiyo raised her voice timidly. "I think I have an idea."
And so our narrative returns to desolate Tatooine.
The fortress/hideout of Mako Spince was the inverted mullet of criminal establishments. That is to say, it was a "party out front, business in the back" sort of place. The inner reaches of his sanctum were clean, state-of-the art offices and laboratories, staffed by people who took their work as seriously as he did.
The front, however…
Unable to afford the usual army of professional, suited, sunglass-sporting minions, he was forced to rely on a slightly… grimier sort. Mercenaries, bounty-hunters and simple goons that, no matter how kind fate was to them, would never ascend from that station due to a lack of intelligence, motivation or both. Such types, of course, needed to be entertained.
The ambiance of the place was similar to that of the cantinas in town, but much, much more so. The Feng Shui here had an ugly stick and an endless supply of those "ill-fated" cards to go around.
Mr. Spince occasionally stopped by to see how his employees were doing, and even more occasionally enjoyed a drink alongside them. Nothing wrong with building goodwill with the peons, after all. And should any of the grimier sort decide to try and rub him out, they'd find that his hover chair (the man's legs had been injured irreparably some years before) had a shield generator and a built-in blaster.
He knew who was who fairly well, which is why he noticed when the newcomer arrived. They wore the armor of a fellow named Bouush, he saw, but there was obviously a woman under it… and a rather well put-together one if he did say so himself. And who did she drag behind her but Koyomi Mizuhara, manacled and showing that she had the sullen, defeated glare of prisoners the galaxy over down to a science?
"Aiy! Who let you--?" the door guard was blaster-whipped to the ground.
Hmm… there were several ways to handle this situation. Mako Spince threw out a hand, forestalling his other guards from attacking. "(I'll handle this,)" he called, and fearlessly rolled forth to address the interloper. "(What can I do for you, Miss?)"
"Oh… um…" the woman obviously wasn't up on her Alderanian Trade. "I… (Bounty on her. Is it good?)"
"(I actually didn't have one on Koyomi, here. But you know, she was a thorn in my side too, so perhaps we can work something out.)"
"(I'd like. Um… that. I would, yes.)"
"(It seems your Alderanian Trade isn't what it should be.)"
"(Sorry.)"
"(Don't worry about it. So do you mind telling me how you came by Bouush's armor?)"
"(I killed him… er… and I took it from him.)"
"(How about that. I'm not sure whether I should congratulate you or feed you to the Rancor.)"
"The RANCOR!" a lizard-monkey shrieked from his shoulder. "Ah Ha HA HA Ha Ha!"
"(There it is again!)" Mako cried, pointing after the irritating creature as it jumped from his shoulder and scampered across the top of some shelves. A dozen blasters rose to the occasion, but only one actually spoke. BLAOW! Little bits of monkey lizard ended up in a dozen drinks, but nobody noticed amid the roar of laughter and the following round of congratulatory toasts.
The stranger whirled her blaster on her finger and holstered it.
"(You're my kind of murdering scum!)" Mako commended. "(Why don't you take our friend to the holding cells, and we'll talk about payment later.)"
She groped for a reply for a few seconds, then settled for a thumbs up and an enthusiastic, "Yayy!" Oh, well. It took all kinds.
Drip… drip… drip… drip…
Yomi leaned against the bars of her cell and casually stuck a hand between them, moving her arm up and down experimentally. "Yep." She quickly moved her hands through the cargo pockets that festooned her tan pants- these shockingly unprofessional guards assumed the bounty hunter had already searched her and just didn't bother. Everything was there. "Good."
Drip… drip… drip… drip…
She sat down and threaded her hands behind her head. There was nothing to do now but wait… and hopefully not imagine all the terrible fates a man like Mako Spince would have for her. Don't get scared now! Yomi had set this task for herself, and damned if she wasn't going to see it through!
Still, she kind of hoped Mako wouldn't get around to dealing with her that day.
"Doesn't it get to you, lady?"
Yomi glanced over and saw that the fellow in the cell across from her was leaning through his bars to talk to her. "What?"
"That damn dripping! I've been trying to figure out where it's coming from for weeks!"
"Oh, I'd forgotten about it."
"Already? Jeez, lady, you must have a lot of practice tuning out annoying noises."
"You have no idea."
"Feel sorry for ya, though…"
Yomi sat up. "Why?"
"Spince there doesn't get a lot of pretty ladies through here. Likes to have fun with 'em, you know? He'll probably stick you in this gold-plated bikini and chain you to his hoverchair until he gets bored and feeds you to the Rancor."
"I'd strangle him with that damn chain," she growled.
The man put his hands in the air, still leaning through his bars. "Just a prediction. You'd probably be too skinny in a bikini anyway."
"Too skinny?" Yomi asked, looking down at herself in disbelief.
"Well, I mean, you're not exactly a Valerian there, if you know what I mean." Yomi's lip twitched. "I don't know if you'd be to his taste. Stand up, why dontcha?" With a mental shrug, she complied. "Hmm… I'm still not sure. Maybe if you took of your shirt…?"
"Tell you what," Yomi said sweetly, lacing her fingers through the bars. "Why don't you stick your head out a little farther and I will?" He leaned forward eagerly. "DOUBLE CHOP!!"
When the guard came, she said he'd hit his head on the ceiling trying to escape.
All right! Kagura thought to herself happily. Phase I of 'Operation Moron Rescue' is complete! She'd been careful to vanish into the general throng instead of returning to talk to Mako. Since he had Yomi, he probably wouldn't go to too great an effort to find "Bouush" in the hopes that he could get off without paying her.
It didn't take her long to find the block of carbonite, either. If you were victorious over an adversary as annoying as Captain Takino, wouldn't you want to put her on display? Thankfully, her form was fully concealed beneath the block's smooth surface. A set of sensor goggles were chained to a peg next to it in case anyone wanted a look at the infamous smuggler… Kagura had considered, but the thought honestly turned her stomach.
As the soldier contemplated her next move, she noticed a small cloaked figure retreating away from her down the hall. It turned the corner and vanished; all she saw of it was a snatch of orange hair. Wait a second! Chiyo-chan's not supposed to be here yet!
She ran after it, but the figure was gone. Worried now, she returned to the common room… and made it just in time for the show.
Was Chiyo nervous? It would have been better to ask if the twin suns overhead were a little bright. She advanced towards the fortress's mighty doors, jacket billowing in the wind but failing to make her feel any bigger. Kagura's wooden sword was across her back, but it would be a lie to say she wouldn't have felt better with a lightsaber. The sidearm on her belt made her even more uneasy, if that was possible.
But if all went well, she wouldn't have to use either.
Step one- the door guards. Or "guard" as the case may be; his partner was inside pressing an icepack to his head from the blaster-whipping Kagura had given him. He was perhaps 2 meters tall, heavily built, and at complete ease as he leaned on his rifle and smoked a cigarette.
"Excuse me?" she said.
He didn't react.
"P- ah, pardon me?" she tried again.
"Get lost," he replied in a friendly enough tone. "Don't have time for kids."
This was not what Chiyo wanted to hear. "No, listen to me. My friends went in there and I have to see them. Let me through."
"Forget it. Go and play somewhere, you're not getting through this door."
She gestured at him. "Yes, I am."
Pfft! He thought to himself as she walked on by, Stupid little brat thinks she can mind-trick me! I'll show her what… uh… who am I gonna show? The guard scratched his head. It was the darndest thing, but for a moment he could have sworn he was talking to someone.
Well, that went well enough. Though she felt a little bad about manipulating people like that… still, it wasn't like she'd hurt him or anything. But then, where did you draw the line on such thing? Before she could consider further, Chiyo stepped around the corner into the common room and all thought was driven from her mind.
As she attuned herself to the Force, Chiyo became more sensitive to other people's thoughts and emotions. It was nothing like the Jedi mind-reading of legend, but she could pick up on things that others would completely miss… but then, what about things that were completely obvious?
The tough, vicious, hard-living aura of that room hit her in the face like a brick wall as she entered, almost driving her away before she could control herself. Chiyo stood in the entryway unnoticed, scanning the milling thugs for a familiar suit of armor. Shoot! Where's Ms. Kagura? Hasn't she found Ms. Tomo yet?
At the center of the cavernous hall, a band started playing. She turned at the sound, suddenly face to face with the other door guard, still clutching the icepack to his face. "Aah!"
"Aiy! Who let you-?" he managed before the panicked girl drubbed him with the wooden sword and he dropped like a sack of bricks. As if somebody had flicked a magic switch, everybody in the whole room stopped what they were doing and stared at her. Even the band lowered their instruments.
People getting beaten up was hardly a new occurrence here, but it wasn't often that Mako's guards that were on the receiving end. Twice in one day? That was a record. Chiyo quickly stuck the sword in her belt and put her hands out non-threateningly. "Um…" she said, giggling nervously. "H-hello…"
Mako Spince pulled on his goatee, mind working rapidly. Short, orange-red hair in pigtails, fair complexion… and was that a rebel insignia on her arm? And what kind of child would walk into a place like this, anyway? There was only one explanation… "(Don't do anything, guys, this could be fun,)" he said to the men about him, then addressed her. "Shove off, child! We don't serve milk and cookies here."
"I am not a child," she replied, suddenly growing a little backbone. My, but these young folks were predictable. The criminals all shared a good laugh, sitting back to let their boss resolve this situation. Most had a pretty good idea of where this was going. "I'm here for Captain Takino, please?"
"Huh. (Can you believe this? She wants me to give up Takino!)"
The girl called back. "(We can speak Alderanian Trade, if you like!)"
"Basic's fine. Come down here, where I can see you."
Watching in every direction, Chiyo moved carefully down towards Spince. The men parted around her politely enough; none that she could sense were even considering moving against her. Their amusement disturbed her a little, but then, she had to admit that a 13-year-old girl trying to face down a dreaded crimelord was a little funny.
As her feet clanked across a grating, Spince suddenly said, "Ah! So it is you… Chiyo Mihama. You have no idea how convenient it is that you stopped by. Did you know that Darth Nochichi put out a two-hundred-and-thirty-million credit bounty on your head?"
"What?" That was more credits than would ever pass through Chiyo's hands in her whole life, or indeed, the lives of most anybody in that room. There was a bit of shifting and muttering, but fortunately, nobody got the bright idea to try and collect on it.
"Isn't it great how you're always the last one to learn about these things? You know, I don't think I'm going to give you Takino. And really, 230 mil isn't a whole lot to an organization like mine, so I can afford not to turn you in. What would you say if I were to completely blow you off?"
"I'd say that that could be a mistake," Chiyo reached for the wooden sword, forgetting for a moment that it wouldn't block blasters.
"That's too bad," Mako said casually, and hit a button on the arm of his chair. The grating opened beneath Chiyo's feet and she dropped like a rock into the pit of the Rancor, that dreadful monster imported from a far off world to deal with unwanted visitors and incompetent employees!
(Yes, the exclamation point is necessary. Stop kidding yourself.)
An appreciative roar rose from the spectators. Nobody noticed "Bouush" in the back putting a hand over her visor.
There followed an expectant silence, but no screams came from the chamber below, no clatter of massive claws on stone or rending of flesh. Mako hummed up to the edge of the pit and peered down. "What's going on down there?"
"It… it, ah… doesn't want to eat me!" Chiyo called up.
"What?" The crimelord squinted into the dimness below, but he couldn't make anything out. "What do you mean, it doesn't want to eat you?"
"It seems to… um, like me."
He considered that. Fair enough; he had almost felt bad dropping her down there. A sort of built-in sense that such amazingly cute things shouldn't be rent into tiny pieces and eaten, he supposed, though it was surprising that the Rancor had such sensibilities. "Fine then. Get outta there and we'll talk."
He pressed another control, and in the pit, a small door opened for Chiyo to leave. She gave the Rancor one last pat on the nose and entered the narrow corridor beyond… where her danger sense went off just as the door slammed behind her. Oh, the men had laughed when Mako installed his Jedi Trap.
He was glad it was paying off now- artificial gravity generators were expensive.
Chiyo tried to step forward, but the floor suddenly became the ceiling and she fell. Then one of the walls became the floor. She tried to move along that wall before the opposite wall finally got its turn. When Mako finally bored of his game of Jedi squash, ports in the walls opened and a mild narcotic gas seeped into the hall.
So failed Plan A. The insensate Jedi was slung over a tough's shoulder and tossed into a cell, happily humming 'Time Pavement.' It seemed that Mako was stuck on the idea of feeding her to something, and it happened that there was a creature in the desert that was much less of a picky eater…
Yomi saw this development from her own cell and steeled herself. Come nightfall, her turn would be up.
Most of Spince's employees had gone home or turned in by the time Yomi made her move. With grace and stealth that would have had her Valerian brethren staring openmouthed, she picked the lock of her cell and left a trail of unsuspecting or unconscious guards towards where Kagura had found the carbonite block.
She too ignored the sensor goggles, instead examining the controls beneath their pegs. It was the standard setup for a carbonite cell for a living creature… in four seconds she had started it "defrosting."
Almost instantly, the block had vanished and Tomo was pitching limply out of its frame. Catching her was an unpleasant shock; she was as cold as death, smelling faintly of clay, dry, but her hair and clothes were matted down. And worst of all, she had no pulse.
"Tomo! Tomo, wake up!" Yomi shook her, starting to panic. "Hey! Stupid!"
Suddenly, her friend drew a great, shuddering breath, eyes fluttering. Tomo began coughing ferociously on Tatooine's baking, dusty air. "S…so hot!" she gasped, "Did I die? Am I in Hell?"
"Of course not!" Yomi snapped, so relieved she almost felt like crying.
"Yomi! But if you're here, this must be Hell!"
"You idiot! And quiet down, they'll hear you."
Tomo was still shaking, but that was to be expected after a physical trauma like carbonite freezing. Yomi put her arms around her. "Moron! I don't need to be held!" Tomo gritted, even as she clutched Yomi back. "Wh… but why…? Oh, my God! I… I can't see! Yomi, what…?"
"Shh… it's normal. It'll come back, don't worry."
"But Yomi…!" she whined childishly.
"Don't worry, Tomo… You'll be fine. I'll protect you." Yomi started to help her friend up, but came to a halt when she felt the mouth of a blaster against the back of her head. "How sweet," Ohyama sneered.
