"What is he paying you, merc? Our employer can pay you much more if you help bring him in!"
"He pays us enough! We, his kin, fellow Mandalorians in arms, shall begin the next great crusade!"
I've heard enough out of this aruetiise fool
I dropped a smoke grenade in front of us, allowing my fellows to scatter to cover behind merchant stalls. My weapon systems, on voice command, then began firing at respective targets through the dense, gray smoke. My knee pad rocket dart launchers unloaded with LTL stun darts, immediately KOing two of the mercs. My wrist rocket launcher also fired off a stun rocket, KOing a third hostile. My suit's weapon systems expended for the moment, I lunged to cover behind a merchant's stall. That was three targets we could question after the fight.
"Watch your fire, we don't want civilian casualties!" Irkchik yelled out to us as he hid behind cover.
"If they're stupid enough to stay then it's not our fault!" Terran shouted back. He and Munshaan began moving around on the right to flank the mercenaries. They 'crouch ran' under the tops of merchant stalls, as blaster fire ripped overhead.
The smoke still covered us, but it also meant Palscho and Irkchik had no way of spotting targets. It was on me to give covering fire for the other two as they flanked. Peering out the side of a stall, I used my helmet's tracker to pinpoint targets through the smoke. The mercenaries didn't care about collateral damage; they were standing and indiscriminately firing into the smoke cloud, not caring if they killed us or civilians. Switching my rifle's selector switch to 'burst,' I aimed and fired, picking off two mercs in quick succession. That startled the rest of them enough to get into cover before I could take down a third. I flicked the selector switch to 'semi' to save ammunition, and laid down suppressive fire across their whole front to pin them down.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
"What the hell was that?!" Gorman exclaimed. Sitting in the main hold of the freighter, Gorman could hear the sound of blaster fire from off in the distance. It was well outside the docking bay, for sure.
Suuvarsh picked up his long rifle, yelled something in Ubese, and pointed out the loading ramp. Gorman stood up to argue. "We have to protect the ship! We don't know what's happening out there!"
The Ubese replied with something snappy, which Gorman's Chev ears could barely understand. Before he could reply, Suuvarsh was already heading down the loading ramp. Gorman grabbed his weapon and swore. "Blast, here we go again!"
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
As the smoke began to clear, Palscho and Irkchik finally brought their weight in to the fight. Palscho's double barreled rifle, and the Saurin's slug pistol added to my blaster rifle to help suppress the mercs. Even so, they managed to get off a few pot shots, and escalated return fire forced us back into cover. We had lost fire superiority, for the moment.
My helmet's tracker alerted me to Terran and Munshaan, who had rounded about on the right flank and began opening fire on the mercs from their angle. I primed a flash grenade and tossed it for the left flank, so the other two hunters wouldn't be affected by the blast. Blaster fire continued erupting over our heads as we waited for it to go off.
"Grenade!" I heard one of the mercs yell. My helmet's tracker alerted me to a few of them scattering. Palscho, Irkchik and myself blind fired in their direction, hoping to catch at least one of them as they ran.
Once the flash grenade went off, I directed the Ithorian and Saurin, with a knife hand, to flank left. I popped up out of cover and gave covering fire, but I didn't have a shot. Most of the mercs were staggering on the ground. Still, their blaster fire had ceased. On the far end of the bazaar, behind the mercs, I saw Gorman and Suuvarsh had shown up, and picked off a few mercs who were trying to flee. On the right flank, Terran and Munshaan were executing struggling mercs with double-taps. I left my cover to regroup with the others, and found the three mercs I had KOed with stun agents. On the left flank, Irkchik and Palscho were stun cuffing live mercs.
Assessing my other hunters, I saw none of them were wounded, fortunately. We didn't have time to slow down. While Gorman and Suuvarsh were checking the surrounding area, Terran and Munshaan finished their last victim. Whatever. I looked at the array of bodies, and found one live one still left. The Shi'ido, wearing a gray robe. He was wounded, bleeding out. One of Irkchik's slugs had ripped right through his right arm, nearly severing it from his body. His brachial artery was gushing blood, fast. He didn't have much time left. For that matter, neither did we if we didn't get what we needed to know. There wasn't much medically I could do to prolong his life to question him. I crouched next to him, and began ripping away sections of his gray robe, exposing his bloodied arm.
"What…what are you..." He asked, in a daze.
He was fading fast. With the wad of robe I ripped from his arm, I applied a tourniquet four inches above the wound to cut off circulation. I twisted it tight to stop the artery from gushing, but it wouldn't save his life. He would die. No matter. Munshaan noticed this and questioned me.
"He's one of them, Fett! Just kill him!" The Stereb snapped. I turned quickly to look at him.
"He has information we need!" I shouted back. Munshaan and Terran were trying my patience. Their attitude was going to get them killed, either by Cassus and his minions, or by me. We'd just have to see. I looked back down at the Shi'ido.
"You…you saved my-"
"You have information I require. Tell me what I need to know, or I can let you die. Your choice, mercenary." I replied, setting a hand on his arm. He tensed up.
He hesitated for a moment. "I…could tell you nothing."