Star Wars: Return of the Sith

18: Zairina

By Nanaki

226 A.B.Y.

Eighteen year old Zairina Danar quietly stepped into the cockpit of the No Escape, the ship she shared with her husband, Jerin. The No Escape was an old MandalMotors freighter, basically cylindrical in shape, with the cockpit in the very front. Its weapons and engines had received some upgrades from the stock model, but given their young age and relative lack of money, not a whole lot. They generally had to rely on Jerin's superior piloting skills to get the job done. Most people were surprised by the relatively humble state of their ship. Jerin was descended directly from Boba Fett, and his parents were incredibly wealthy. In spite of that, or more likely because of it, Jerin was determined to make his own way in life, not relying on anyone else, just as his famous Fett ancestors had done.

As Zairina had suspected, Jerin was asleep in the pilot's seat, snoring loudly. When they had first gotten married, this habit had annoyed her, as it seemed like Jerin was trying to avoid sharing the same bed with her. By now she understood that he wasn't trying to avoid her at all. Jerin had suffered from insomnia in his youth and still had a somewhat erratic sleep schedule, a problem not helped at all by their tendency to visit over a dozen worlds in any given month. As a result, Jerin tended to keep doing whatever he was doing until he literally couldn't stay awake anymore, at which point he simply fell asleep wherever he was.

Zairina heard a soft whirring as she walked up to the controls, and saw that Arfive's photoreceptor had turned to regard her. She nodded at him, and he made no other noise. Checking the displays in front, she saw that they were on course, still several hours out from their destination. Zairina idly brushed away a stray strand of hair from her eyes, thinking for the millionth time that she should cut her hair short again. But she wouldn't, because Jerin loved her hair long, so she kept it far longer than was convenient for someone who frequently wore an armored helmet.

She saw Jerin's datapad on the floor under the pilot's seat, and decided to see what he'd been up to before falling asleep. As the datapad's dark screen lit up, she saw that he'd been shopping for upgraded deflector shields on the HoloNet. She also noted that the systems he'd been looking at were way out of their price range, but Jerin was never very concerned with what was actually possible when it came to what he wanted. Zairina turned to regard her snoring husband with affection.

She couldn't remember how they had first met, simply because she was too young to remember. All their lives, their parents had been neighbors on Mandalore. Due to their semi-nomadic lifestyle, they frequently went long stretches without seeing each other, but both families always came home eventually. As far back as she could remember, Jerin had been brave but not reckless, tough yet kind. Like all young Mando'ade, he had been shooting blasters pretty much from the moment he learned to walk, yet he wasn't completely obsessed with weapons the way many of their people were.

However, Zairina hadn't really been impressed by Jerin until the boys in their general age group had started hitting puberty. Aside from being somewhat hairier and smellier than they had been, they were exactly the same people as before, as far as she could tell, but they acted like they had completely grown up overnight. They talked and joked about sex constantly, and liked to aggressively irritate any girls unfortunate enough to cross their path. Never mind that these were tough as nails Mando girls who wouldn't hesitate to punch an irritating boy right in the nose, they went ahead anyway. Of course, Zairina understood now that they were just desperate for female attention, but the poor goons had no idea how to get any positive female attention, so they settled for negative. At the time though, they had made her seriously contemplate joining some kind of religious order that required a vow of celibacy.

Except Jerin never really went in for that stuff. He didn't seem to be bothered by his friends that did, but he never actually joined in the juvenile antics. He remained the same nice guy he had been. Hairier and smellier, sure, but still nice. Eventually, Zairina had asked Jerin to pretend to be her boyfriend, just so the other boys would leave her alone. Teenage hormones being what they were, though, it wasn't long until the fake relationship turned real. That was when Jerin had dropped a bombshell and revealed that he didn't just like her, he was very, very in love. However, being romantic outside of marriage was a serious taboo in Mandalorian culture, which was a bit of a problem for two teenagers whose parents would definitely think they were too young to get married.

For nearly two years, they did their best to be good and had a largely platonic relationship, never progressing past an occasional peck on the cheek. Then, on Jerin's sixteenth birthday, his father helped him with the down payment on his own ship, the No Escape. A ship which included two bedrooms. Not long after, Zairina's father had caught them together under the sheets and pointed a large blaster in Jerin's face. Zairina would never forget how calm Jerin looked as her father ranted about how wrong it was to do that sort of thing if you weren't married, to which Jerin simply responded that he would have gladly married her years ago if the parents would have allowed it. After that, it was hard for her father to come up with any justifiable reason not to let her get married, even if she was only fifteen. As for Jerin's parents, they figured that if he was old enough for his own ship, he was old enough for a wife to share it with.

Now, a little over three years later, Zairina had to admit that they had been crazy to get married so young, even if it was less unusual for Mando'ade than it would be in most cultures. Still, it looked like it was going to work out. For every time that she looked at Jerin and thought, 'Okay, I've had enough of you for a while,' there were ten times where she thought, 'Boy, am I glad Jerin's here.' He was always gentle and affectionate with her, even as he remained tough as nails when dealing with the dangerous galaxy they lived in. Even if they had ended up together somewhat by default, she didn't think they would still be together if they weren't right for each other.

At that thought, Jerin snored so loud that he woke himself up, suddenly sitting bolt upright in the pilot's seat. He blinked in confusion at the swirling colors of hyperspace that filled his field of vision, then idly wiped away some drool from the corner of his mouth, before he finally spotted Zairina in his peripheral vision. "Oh, looks like I didn't make it to bed again, huh?" He asked a bit sheepishly.

"Don't worry, I'm done trying to cure you of that habit." She shrugged.

"What time is it?" He asked as he stretched out, and a pop came from his neck.

"Depends on your frame of reference." Jerin couldn't help but smile a bit at her unhelpful response. She loved to give vague answers to precise questions. "I was asleep for about seven hours."

Before Jerin could reply, an insistent beeping came from his controls, indicating a call coming over the HoloNet. He calmly hit the button to answer. "This is Jerin Danar on the No Escape, what can I do for you?"

"Jerin, you utter idiot." He recognized the voice of Marus Wojek, their contact at the Bounty Hunters' Guild. They weren't officially members of the guild, but they tried not to burn any bridges there, either.

"Okay, this could be a lot of people I know," Jerin answered, an impish grin on his face. "You're going to have to be more specific."

"Jerin, you know karking well who this is!" Marus' gravelly voice replied. "Do you have any idea whose property you stole last week?"

"Last week?" Jerin's eyebrows knitted in genuine confusion, and he turned to Zairina, who just shrugged. "The only people we tangled with last week were some stupid thugs calling themselves the 'Red Star Pirates'."

"Yeah, that's them. Do you have any idea who they work for?" Marus demanded.

"No one with any sense, I assume." Jerin shrugged. "They were stupid enough to try to rob a cargo ship that we were guarding, after all."

Jerin heard a long sigh on the other end of the line. "Yeah, that sounds about right. That's not the way they're telling it, though. They're saying you attacked them without provocation and stole their cargo."

"So what if they are?" Jerin frowned. "A bunch of thugs who actually call themselves pirates probably aren't going to take us to court."

"They work for Clan Desilijic." Marus finally got to the important part.

"Wait a second." Zairina leaned forward to cut in. "Since when do Hutt guards bother to operate under a false identity?"

"Apparently Gadran the Hutt just likes the sound of 'Red Star Pirates'." Marus responded. "He thinks it makes them sound like Black Sun, or something."

"Wait a minute... Gadran the Hutt?" Jerin wondered out loud. "He's not even a power player within Clan Desilijic, and Clan Desilijic hasn't been a power player at the galactic level in over two hundred years. What exactly are we supposed to be worried about here?"

"Two hundred years isn't all that long to a Hutt." Marus reminded him. "Even if they're not on top of the heap right now, the Desilijics still have a ton of money. I hear Gadran is thinking about using that money to put a bounty out on you two."

"So what if he does?" Jerin didn't sound arrogant, just confused.

"If he does, he'll spend enough to get the job done, trust me on that." Marus sounded grave. "You need to talk to him and get this straightened out as soon as possible."

"All right Marus, we will." Zairina responded before Jerin could argue. "Even though we're the victims here."

"Hey, blaming the victim is a time-honored Hutt tradition, you know that." A trace of humor could finally be heard in Marus' voice. "Let me know how it goes." With that, he cut the connection.

.

After breakfast, a long sanisteam together, and half an hour of talking to various underlings, Jerin and Zairina finally found themselves talking to a hologram of Gadran the Hutt. "Anyway, Gadran, we just wanted to emphasize that we meant no offense to you." Zairina, always the more diplomatic of the two, was explaining.

"And?" Gadran prompted, clearly not giving a kark.

"And we want to do something to make it up to you." Jerin responded, doing his best not to sound angry.

"Even though it was your men who caused the whole incident." Zairina gently reminded him. "We don't want to be on the bad side of a powerful Hutt."

"Only a fool would want that." Gadran sounded a little less cranky now.

"Right." Jerin agreed. "So we want to offer to do a job for you, free of charge. With a few restrictions."

"Restrictions?" Gadran grumbled.

"Well, we don't do assassinations." Zairina explained. "Or kidnappings. But if someone's stolen something from you, or not paid what they owe you, well, that's more in our line of work."

Gadran waved that aside. "I have plenty of slaves who can do that sort of thing for me."

"Look, this is a peace offering, for something that wasn't even our fault." Jerin couldn't hide his irritation any more. "If you really want to reject it, that's fine by us. We won't lose any sleep over it."

Gadran glared at him in silence for several seconds before responding. "No, you really won't, will you? All right, there may be something you can do for me. Meet up with my men at Bothawui in three days. I'll send the time and coordinates." With that, he abruptly cut the transmission.

Jerin turned to Zairina. "Um, did that go well, or not so much?"

"I really don't know." She admitted. "I guess we'll find out soon."

.

Three days later, the No Escape pulled into the main docking bay of a nondescript space station above Bothawui. Gadran had been pretty vague on what exactly they were going to be doing, and Jerin was afraid he was going to ask them to steal information from the Bothans, which was a nearly impossible task for any non-Bothan. They were renowned as the best spies in the galaxy for a reason, after all. Truth be told, Jerin was much more nervous about having the Bothans mad at them than the Hutts. He was prepared to refuse to do the job, if need be.

Still, they wanted to make a good impression, so he and Zairina walked down the boarding ramp in "full kit". No rocket packs, since they were inside, but otherwise, decked out with as many weapons and tricks as it was possible to cram into their armor. Zairina was in her usual dark yellow armor with grey trim, while Jerin's was mostly grey with green trim. The colors were meant to evoke both Jango and Boba Fett, but Zairina kept telling him that it didn't really work for that purpose.

They were met at the entrance to the docking bay by a gruff looking Weequay with a jagged scar across his right eye, though the eye itself was undamaged. He couldn't have been a more stereotypical Hutt thug if he'd tried. "You two the Danars?" He grumbled.

"You expecting a different pair of Mandalorians?" Jerin responded.

"Can't say that I am." He shrugged indifferently. "Follow me, and I'll explain what we're doing here." He led them into a long, dimly lit corridor.

"Have you been working for Gadran long?" Jerin asked idly.

The Weequay turned back to look at Jerin in surprise, apparently not expecting an armored bounty hunter to show any personal interest in him. "Gadran specifically, no. But I've been working for Clan Desilijic pretty much my whole life." He answered.

"Have you ever worked under Treso the Hutt?" Jerin knew a few beings who had, and it never hurt to discover you had a common friend with someone you were working with. Treso was even younger than Gadran, but he was a rising star within Clan Desilijic, and had proven to be exceptionally intelligent when it came to business, even by Hutt standards.

"Nah, I'm not so fortunate." The Weequay answered. They had reached the end of the corridor, and he stood aside, gesturing for Jerin and Zairina to go first.

Jerin continued the conversation as he did. "Well maybe after this, we can- You've gotta be kidding me."

Zairina bumped into Jerin as he suddenly stopped walking forward. "What? Oh, come on! Seriously?!" They had emerged into a mostly empty cargo storage area lined with catwalks about twenty five feet above the floor, and the catwalks were filled with at least two dozen Hutt thugs, all pointing blasters at them. Jerin spun around while drawing his blaster, intending to shoot their Weequay escort to keep him from shutting the door behind them, but he was too late. The door was already shut, and the light on the control panel was out, suggesting the Weequay had probably shot the controls from the other side. "Um... What are they waiting for?" Zairina wondered. Her hand was resting on her blaster, but she hadn't drawn it yet, not wanting to provoke the horde they were facing.

"I don't know, but let's at least try talking." Jerin stepped forward a few paces, keeping his blaster pointed at the floor. He'd gone over what he would say in a situation like this in his head more than once. "Hey guys!" He called out, waving with his empty hand. "I don't know what exactly your Hutt master has told you, but I guarantee you, he doesn't give a kark if you die here. Trust me when I tell you, you don't want to fight two Mandalorians in full armor. So just walk away, and we'll forget this happened."

Up on the catwalk, a protocol droid Jerin hadn't noticed until now turned to a hulking Gamorrean with an especially large repeating blaster. "Voice recognition confirmed. It is Jerin Danar."

"Light 'em up, boys!" The Gamorrean barked. Every thug in the room began firing eagerly, though only about a third of them bothered to aim properly first. Weighed down in full armor, Jerin and Zairina didn't manage to jump out of the way of all the blaster bolts, but they didn't need to. Their armor was made of genuine beskar'gam, one of the toughest alloys in the galaxy. Barring a lucky hit to a vulnerable spot like the shoulder or knee, they could absorb hundreds of blaster bolts before they'd actually be in trouble. The Hutt underlings probably thought this was going to be a simple execution, since there were so many of them, but they were in for a rude awakening.

Jerin kicked things off by hurling a concussion grenade up to the catwalk on the left side of the room as he jumped forward. Zairina mirrored his move, only heading to the right. Jerin then noticed that their enemies hadn't bothered to clear the area of cover, as there were half a dozen large metal crates scattered around the floor. They probably thought that the catwalks gave them a wide enough field of fire that they didn't need to, but even partial cover was much better than no cover at all. Jerin kept up the momentum from his jump by somersaulting forward, coming up with his back against the nearest crate. He quickly wondered if the crates were actually filled with explosives, but decided they were too big for that. They would take out everyone in the room, if they were.

Then, the concussion grenades went off. Most of the thugs had managed to get clear of the actual blasts, but the catwalks on the sides of the room were effectively cut in half, and Jerin could hear howls of pain caused by shards of flying metal even above the continuing rain of blaster bolts. Behind another crate on the other side of the room, Zairina gestured up at the central catwalk with her left arm, and Jerin knew exactly what she had planned. He instantly drew his second blaster with his left hand, then popped up from cover and began firing as rapidly as possible at the remaining intact catwalk. As the thugs in that area scattered, Zairina launched her grappling cable and quickly ascended, then she charged forward, using the nearest enemies as cover from the others, while shooting at those others at the same time.

Jerin suddenly felt an intense burning in his left armpit, and nearly dropped the blaster from his left hand. But he quickly realized that his left trigger finger was still managing to fire the blaster, so he must have just been grazed. He forced himself to ignore the pain, and turned to the left, looking for the enemy who apparently knew what part of a Mandalorian it was actually effective to shoot at. His head was forced back a bit as a blaster bolt impacted into the forehead of his helmet, then he heard a distinct, heavy thud.

Turning back to the right, he saw that Zairina had either fallen or been forced off the center catwalk, and was now lying motionless on the floor. Without hesitating, Jerin charged forward, firing as fast as he could at the cluster of enemies that had started to regroup now that Zairina was no longer attacking them. Reaching Zairina, he scooped her up with his right arm, even though she weighed well over two hundred pounds in full armor, then pulled her back behind the nearest crate, firing with his burning left arm all the while. "Rina, talk to me." He gently shook her with his right arm, even as he shot at a Rodian armed with what looked like a sniper rifle. "Come on, I need you to wake up now." Not for the sake of rejoining the fight. Jerin knew that he was on his own in that regard. But after a fall from that height, she would almost certainly have a concussion, and internal bleeding was a possibility. If she didn't wake up on her own by the time this fight was over, finding a medical droid would be his top priority.

Then, in a relative lull in the fighting when only two of the thugs were shooting at him, Jerin took a moment to look down at her, and saw the smoldering hole in her helmet's visor. But... that didn't even make sense! The "visors" in Mandalorian helmets hadn't been literal visors for thousands of years. That would give an enemy a pretty obvious target in a firefight, after all. They were sensor packages styled to look like ancient Mandalorian visors, that was all. They protected the head just as well as the rest of the helmet did. Maybe a starfighter's laser cannons could shoot through a beskar'gam helmet with a single shot, but there was no way these hand blasters could. Unless... If several shots had converged on nearly the same spot at the same time, that might have done it. The odds of that happening were astronomically low, but Jerin couldn't deny the evidence that was right in front of him.

He also realized that these thoughts were his brain's way of avoiding the real issue: His wife wasn't going to wake up again, now or ever. And with that realization, his whole world went red.

.

"Throw off those useless trappings.
Some things can only be seen...
...when you've lost everything." - Record of Lodoss War, Opening Theme Song

.

(Nanaki's note: This time around, I want to respond to a few reviews. First to warfolomei, who left a metric ton of reviews back in 2011. The only real criticism in them was, "The whole ''killer asteroid'' seems a bit out of place.. or a bit early than it should be..." Maybe so, but I'd ask you to compare it with the Death Star in the original film. After all, the audience first saw the Death Star quite a while before the main characters did, aside from Leia. I look at this as being similar. Also, when did I imply it was a "killer asteroid"? Sure, it's full of Sith, so logic would dictate that it's quite deadly, but as far as I've described it so far, it's pretty much just a space colony.

To Pokybyte, I didn't mean to imply that the Expanded Universe was a perfect masterpiece that couldn't possibly be improved upon. It definitely had its fair share of ideas that were stupid, implausible, or just didn't feel very Star Wars. While I find the Yuuzhan Vong as a species to be fascinating, the whole New Jedi Order series was pretty much nonstop doom and gloom. Still, for long stretches at a time, the Expanded Universe was quite simply the only place to go for new Star Wars material, and I think it deserved more respect for that reason alone. You're right though, that a movie set in the EU probably would have been poorly received. Although I still think movie adaptations of the Thrawn trilogy could be pretty great...

At any rate, I think I'm finally getting back into some kind of rhythm, writing-wise, so look for another new chapter before long.)