There had been fighting on the port premises. The security booth at the entrance was nearly gone, driven through with a speeder. The speeder had found its end not ten meters away, its charred bones still polluting the air with the odor of burned cheap plasteel.

They met no one — not by the booth, not by the control building. The docking tower remained unchecked, but it was silent and there was no way he would climb all that way up.

"I'd prefer being shot at," the Pyke said as he followed Amasr into the control building. Broken glass crunched under his boots.

"We're not out of the woods yet. You may get your wish."

Internally, though, he agreed. It was too quiet. He doubted the local thugs could be lying in ambush here — they lacked patience to wait for so long before showing their big toys off.

It was on the fourth floor where they found a comlink. The fighting either hadn't got so high up or the combatants had needed communication stronger than their hate or their self-preservation was.

Amasr didn't like it. It was too lucky. Felt like he just spent all he'd had left.

He was about to spend even more: an operator picked up after just four tones.

"Give me Fardalla's compound," Amasr said.

"And who's that?" the voice replied. Amasr thought this was his luck's extent: the station must've been captured by the rebels.

"I work for him," he still said.

The operator remained quiet for a good while. Then he said, "Putting you through."

This time, he had to wait for more than ten tones before someone answered.

"Call your master," he said then.

"A second."

The connection was poor. Maybe Fardalla's tech was suppressing all communication, not just Imperial.

"What's taking them so long?" Teso asked. Amasr didn't answer.

When finally another voice came through, it was not the Hutt's.

"Where is your master?" Amasr asked.

"At the stadium. Where are you?"

"My brother around?"

"No."

Now he recognized the captain's voice.

"Is that you, Grundo?"

"Sure am. Man, I can't believe I'm talking to you. Is anybody else there?"

Amasr raised his eyes at the Pyke.

"Your men died."

"And Sumbakiri?"

Amasr hesitated. "He's here with me."

"Ooooh, that's a fucking relief. We lost your signal shortly before the game started. Oh, fuck. We heard gunfire reports. I don't even know what I'd tell Fardalla if the Pyke died. Where are you at?"

"The cargo spaceport."

"Alright. We'll be there soon. Sit tight."

"Those rebels had some big guns."

"Yeah. They tend to."

Grundo hung up.

"So this little adventure ends," said the Pyke. "Well, I'll still have to find the words for my boys' families, but… I guess we made it."

"Keep your guard up. They are not here yet."

"My guard is always up, friend. It always is."

Amasr walked to the window. It bore several soot marks from the recent fighting. He could see the port courtyard from it. A decent shooting spot… though it was too late for shooting.

What would happen next? He had survived. It filled him with sorrow that it filled him with joy. True, dying in these streets to these yokels would have been a poor death, but no matter where he looked, he could see no better life.

"You plan on staying?" he asked Teso.

The Pyke shrugged. "For a couple of days, maybe. I'm pretty sure I'll get recalled to Oba Diah by the management."

"You didn't after the first attempt."

"We just… let's say, I downplayed it a bit. Why? Are you thinking of entering my employ?"

"I'm not a bodyguard."

"You could've fooled me. Well, my body is mostly safe. I'll make it well worth your effort. You know, Oba Diah can be bearable if you've got enough credits."

"I'm not a bodyguard."

"Oh yes. You're a hunter, aren't you? We have all kinds of things to hunt back home."

Amasr decided not to answer that.

His back still hurt, but he could feel his organism at work recuperating. He'd need to eat a lot the following week or so.

Staying alive after getting shot or clawed always felt like he'd outdone himself. Like he'd beaten some record. To keep going was just a courtesy, just a victory lap.

This didn't feel like victory.

It was absurd — that he'd even come to this place. There weren't many opportunities left in the galaxy for someone like him, but this wasn't one either. What had made him agree to Modosh's offer? Not the money, for sure. Was it the hope to relive what he once had been? Or to become something his brother was sure he was not?

The Pyke must have read his mind. "So your brother isn't coming."

"What's it to you?"

"I don't want to tread on your cultural toes again, but…"

"But what?"

"It seems to me there's little love lost between the two of you."

Amasr weighed what he should say. "He wasn't there when I called," he said. "End of story."

Submakiri shrugged.

The building was old, and whoever had built it knew what he was doing. There was no air conditioning — at least that would work — but the walls and the ceiling themselves provided some protection from the heat. The windows were made of a good grade transparisteel that blocked some of the sun's wrath.

"It shouldn't take this long," Teso complained.

"What shouldn't?"

"Grundo and his grunts getting here. It's not that far from the compound, I mean."

"It's farther than from the mansion."

"Still."

"You hear any shooting?"

The Pyke listened.

"No," he said, "I don't think I do."

"Until you do, do yourself a favor and don't worry."

He wasn't sure he could do himself this favor. That was the worst part.

They'd been waiting for about twenty minutes when a landspeeder rolled into the port. It was the same model as the one they'd ridden today, same color too. Amasr thought he should find this foreboding.

The door on the passenger side opened, and Grundo stepped out of the car. His blemished eye made him look like a gangster from a holomovie.

"It's him," the Pyke said and went towards the stairs. Amasr stopped him with a gesture and took the lead instead. His heart was uneasy, and his gut agreed with its assessment.

He took out his blaster before stepping out into the open. The heat punched him worse than the shot had. He held the gun by his thigh, but the captain noticed it, one-eyed or not.

"Take it easy," he said. "It's me."

He showed Amasr his hands — empty — yet they rested on the open speeder door that covered him.

Amasr looked at the car. "That's it?" he said. "Just two of you?"

Grundo spoke before he could finish. "My boys are all tied up at the stadium. The less of us, the harder for anyone to notice. Come on, lads, hop in."

Sumbakiri made a move, but Amasr stopped him again — close to the control building doors.

"Why aren't you busy with the rest of them?" he asked the captain.

The captain rolled his healthy eye. "Aren't you one anal motherfucker. Just like your brother. Fardalla told me to go find you boys when you didn't show up. A little 'thank you' would suffice, by the way. So what happened? How did my guys die? You didn't kill them, right?" He made a curt laugh. "So you're coming or what?"

After the coolness of the building, the heat outside was getting so insurmountable any way of ending it would be welcome. The landspeeder was about to become the most tempting thing in the entire universe, whatever awaited inside.

Teso must be thinking the same. He stepped around Amasr and stopped halfway to the car, turning back to him.

"Come on, man," he said. "Let's get it over with."

Amasr caught him when he started falling. He had no strength left to be surprised, but still some to hold the Pyke in front of him and raise the blaster.

Sumbakiri's body shook weakly when another bolt got it. The visor of his helmet felt cold against the skin. One more shot hit Amasr in the arm with which he was grabbing the Pyke, but he didn't let him go.

His own blaster started coughing out more heat. He saw the driver's hair catch on fire and switched to the next target. The captain was already back in the car, but with the driver dead, he had to crawl behind the wheel. Amasr was onto him before Teso's body hit the ground. He shot Grundo's hand as it was clasping at the still open door on the driver's side, melting two fingers on it together. The captain cried. His other hand was inside the glovebox. Amasr shot it too.

The smell of burnt flesh filled the car interior. Only now did Amasr look around, but the captain had been honest: there was no one else coming.

"It wasn't your master, was it?" he asked Grundo. "Then who? The Empire? Or the Desilijic?"

The Weequay looked up at him, holding his smoking hands close to his chest.

"No," he shook his head, "no. The Besadii."

"Fardalla?"

"His clan. Couldn't let him make peace with the Desilijic. That was going too far. They… they bought the team. So they lost the game. They bought the gangs too."

"Wasn't too hard for them to bring in the money, right? I guess their ships aren't searched all too hard."

"They aren't." Grundo's good eye was full of fear and anger. The dead one was frozen in an eternal mockery of its owner and everything around.

"Was it you who passed the cash? To the gang leaders?"

"Me… and your brother."

Things making sense came as a belated relief.

"Any chance you'd let me go?" the captain said. "It's just Hutt politics. It's nothing to you, right? Right?"

"Nothing," Amasr echoed. Then he shot Grundo through his living eye, and Grundo had nothing living left.

He checked Teso's pulse and found none. Now he realized the captain's testimony could have stopped whatever this meant. A war against the Pykes, most likely. Maybe the Imperials joining in, too. Hell — maybe even the Besadii helping the others get rid of their troublesome cousin.

But the captain had been right. It was just Hutt politics, and it was nothing to him.

There was something, though, one last thing, that was not nothing.

He went back to the control building and made another call. Then he unloaded the Weequay's corpse from the speeder, but the smell went nowhere. It was either that or driving with the windows down, and between the stench and the heat, the choice was obvious.

Besides, it didn't smell that bad.

First he had to drive to the hotel he was staying at. From there, he could find the way alright.

There was still some debris on the sides of the avenue. He saw precious few people in the streets. Maybe everyone cared more about the game at the stadium than their revolution.

His left arm had grown numb by the time he got out of the car and hung lifelessly as if its power had been cut. Amasr didn't care.

He found Modosh on the rooftop, right where they'd met the day before Sumbakiri's arrival.

"You're here," he said.

Modosh grinned. At least he didn't laugh. "We're brothers, aren't we? You asked me, I couldn't refuse."

"You're happy?"

"Not particularly. Because when I asked you, you did refuse."

"Don't tell me it's about the money."

"It's all about the money," Modosh said. "Don't you get it? Nothing else matters in this world. It's good to spout platitudes about honor and all that when you're young, but we ain't young anymore."

"You don't believe that."

"I don't, and I don't need to. Money is one hell of a way to make me forget about that. Except, of course, I have squat thanks to you. And you, my friend, my brother, have a lot of gumption coming here."

Amasr moved to the side — slowly. His brother's eyes traced him.

"What was the plan?" Amasr asked. "To get me on the electrum job and abduct Teso from the club?"

"It would've worked beautifully. The two of us running away with the Hutt's treasure… A great end for our careers. It would've worked — if not for the 'you' factor."

"Why couldn't you tell me before you got me working security for Fardalla?"

"And since when did you care when I tell you what? It was an offer coming from your kin."

"Why not tell me before, Modosh?"

"That used to be enough!"

"You just had to flaunt what a big brother you were. No need to tell me nothing. I'll just go along with anything. Is that right?"

His brother did not respond.

Suddenly, Amasr felt tired, too tired to want to rather be somewhere else. Yet his mind kept on clicking, adding to the entropy and the heat of Kunjagi I.

"So the Besadii decided to discard Fardalla after all," he said.

"Even his aunt is fed up with him. Maybe she'll spare him, but I figure he'll have to forfeit the planet."

"So they were fine with letting you run away with the electrum? The Besadii?"

Modosh's eyes flashed. "Well," he said, "I had a fall guy, didn't I? Or I would have had one."

"That's how it is?"

"That's how it is."

Amasr stopped next to the edge of the roof.

"I want you to know that the Pyke is dead, killed by Captain Grundo."

Modosh squinted at him. "Well, I figure it doesn't matter none at this point."

"I figure so."

Modosh nodded, taking his eyes off Amasr. It was his old trick Amasr remembered well, but still Modosh was quick and his blaster bolt quicker. It hit Amasr flat in the chest, and a supernova burst open in his lungs. He held onto his pistol tight, though.

Modosh was standing with his side to him, but less than two meters away. Out of the four shots Amasr let fly, at least one had to hit him.

He watched in dull amusement as they all passed over his brother's silhouette. Modosh fired again, hitting higher than the last time only because Amasr's legs were giving out. Amasr pulled the trigger once more — more of a galvanized reaction than anything else — and now Modosh too was falling down.

The heat became visible; in fact, it became the only thing he could see, whirling in front of his eyes even when he closed them. It was orange and ochre and red and all the colors he did not know existed. He was burning, but that was par for the course. How else would he become part of this place?

His brother stepped out of the incandescent clouds — or maybe they turned into him. Amasr saw they were bound to collide, but he could do nothing about it. Then they collided, and the gas-and-dust fog cleared, leaving only the pain and the heat.

Modosh's right arm ended in a fried stump. Amasr couldn't help but feel glee: what were two heart shots against a hit on the blaster?

But Modosh's left hand was still there, and grabbing Amasr's throat. He felt the parapet with the small of his back. That was fine, though — he still had his blaster. He raised his hand and saw it was empty.

Reflexes took the wheel, and he saw his thumb claw enter Modosh's eye. Modosh growled, but that was it as far as his reaction went — he knew better than to shake his head in this situation. The grip on Amasr's throat became no laxer. Amasr pushed his thumb further down, his fingers burrowing into the skin on Modosh's head. There was an amazing clarity to this, such as he'd never know if not for nearly having succumbed to death a moment earlier. He knew he was hanging over the roof edge held by the two hands remaining to them, and he knew he would not let go.

Modosh growled again. Half his face was covered in blood, and still more was running down from the eye socket. He froze for a second, as if contemplating his next move, and then pushed at the roof with his legs, throwing himself at the parapet. Amasr felt the ground rushing towards his back, as he felt his hand inside his brother's skull and his brother's hand ripping his throat, and for the first time in his life, he felt love for his brother.