Chapter 9 Cold Durasteel
The rain poured down torrentially, and the vengeful flash of lightning streaked across the sky, casting ethereal shadows across the mud covered ground. Kaul turned away from the rain covered window that looked out into the street and walked back to the center of the recently deceased Dalledo's office. The office was once an orderly and well maintained room while Dalledo was alive, but after the Sickle Riders returned with their prize, they raided the entire building looking for everything and anything to celebrate with. Kaul approached the intricately carved wooden chronometer that sat on the mantle above the fireplace and looked it over for a moment. To any who looked at it, it appeared to just be a simple clock, but he had seen what it was really built for. He reached behind the chronometer and flipped a small well disguised switch, which unlocked a mechanism deep inside. The top half of the chronometer lifted up, revealing Dalledo's most prized possession; a two hundred year old bottle of Corellian Brandy.
Kaul removed the crystal stopper and tossed it to the ground as he took a long gulp of the alcoholic fluid. It went down smooth, and had a slight burn that brought relief to his tired bones. Now that he had a Jedi to turn in for the immense reward, he could finally retire. True, he would miss the carnage of battle, but there were cheaper, less painful ways of going about bringing suffering to others. He smirked to himself as he thought about the first opportunity for such fun; after he collected the reward, he wouldn't need any of those idiots who were carrying on like a bunch of scatter brained Gungans down in the main garage. He would find a special amount of enjoyment in ridding the galaxy from those insufferable idiots.
Leaving the disheveled office behind him, he went down the stairs to the garage, where the other gang members were gulping down cheap rotgut booze and carrying on in a boisterous annoying manner. In the corner of the garage, suspended by her bound hands, was the Twi'lek Jedi that would bring him his fortune. She was still unconscious, but breathing. Kaul was honestly impressed with that, since he had thought that he had overdosed her with the tranquilizer. He had always heard that Jedi were more resilient than others, but he had to pump her full of enough tranquilizers to put a full grown bull Bantha down.
Kaul walked over to the unconscious Jedi and looked her in the face. He frowned to himself as he thought about the long and sorted history his people had with the Jedi. But looking at this one, he really couldn't see how such weak fragile creatures could beat the best the galaxy had to offer. He had heard that the Force granted them unparalleled power and abilities, but once you took that out of the equation, they were nothing more than flesh and bone; just like anything else that could be killed.
He turned back around, now with a wide malice-filled grin, and toasted his men for their great work. It wouldn't be long now before they got their just rewards.
Across the rain soaked street, on the roof of a three story building, Randal lowered his macrobinoculars and frowned. Though his clothes were thoroughly soaked with the frigid rain that was still coming down in torrential waves that when illuminated by the flares of lightning gave an eerie resemblance to a veil of an erotic yet deadly dancer, he didn't pay the discomfort any mind. The only thing he was concentrating on was the looming building directly in front of him, and the one person he would do anything for to bring out safely. But even without the pouring rain beating down on his head, he couldn't see anything inside other than the few rooms that had a light on. He had caught a glimpse of Kual in the upper office, but he didn't have Rika with him. Through one of the thinner windows, he could barely make out a doorway where he could see the swoop gang members moving, but other than a brief glimpse of a small area, the view didn't afford much.
"You see anything?" Kayla asked, her voice shivering with the rest of her drenched body. Randal shook his head, and handed the macrobinoculars to the two squatting down beside him.
"No, but they're in there. I can see a ship on their roof, so they haven't left yet. They must be waiting out the storm in there." Randal turned away from the ledge and leaned against the small rampart and unslung the disruptor rifle from his shoulder. He checked to see if one of the massive energy shells was in the chamber and closed the breach once he confirmed it.
"So what's the plan? Or do you even have one yet?" Cal asked as he put his arm around Kayla to help her get warm. Randal gave him a sideways look, but didn't say anything at the jibe.
"How many do you think are in there?" Randal asked. Cal peered over the rampart and looked through the small window with the macrobinoculars. After looking silently for several minutes, he ducked back under the cover of the small wall and shook his head.
"It's hard to tell, but I think I saw ten or fifteen different sets of boots." Randal nodded gravely and then wiped the rain off of his face.
"I need a way to get as many of them out of there as possible," he said out loud.
"The permacrete! Maybe if you blow something up, they'll go see what it is," Kayla said as she grabbed the bag and rummaged through it for one of the charges. Randal nodded and looked back over the wall and pointed to a water tower half a block away from the enemy's base.
"That should work. I'll take one of these and set it at the base of that water tower. I'll climb that building and get to the roof of their hangout. I'll give you the sign, and then you blow that charge. When they go out to see what happened, I'll break in and go to that garage. I'm pretty sure that's where they're holding her."
"What if they don't go outside?" Kayla asked, voicing the unthought-of scenario. Randal frowned and took in a deep breath before he stood up.
"Then I'll just have to kill every last one of those sons of bitches." Randal started to head towards the staircase at the rear of their building, but Kayla remembered what she had found and jumped up.
"Oh, I found this on the ground back in the village." Kayla held out the metal cylindrical weapon and Randal took it. He looked at it for a moment and then nodded as he departed. Kayla returned to where Cal was squatting, trying to use the small rampart as a shield against the rain.
"What should we do?" she asked. Cal checked the charge pack on his rifle and then slightly shrugged.
"Well, I guess once we hear some shooting, we'll shoot down from here." Kayla nodded and waited a moment before she asked the question on both of their minds.
"You think he's going to make it?" Cal raised his brows in answer, but didn't want to say what he really thought; neither did Kayla.
Randal paused at the edge of the alley and looked across the street at the Dalledo building. From ground level, he could see some light spilling out from the back room and the occasional shadow as one of the gang members walked past the open door. After confirming that no one was keeping a look out, he ran out and across the street. With the rain beating down on the once dust covered street, puddles of thick mud were scattered everywhere. As Randal ran, he jumped over one of these and took cover behind a building's wall next to the water tower.
He quickly crammed the permacrete charge beneath one of the support structures and then went to the ladder that would take him to the roof. The metal rungs were ice cold and slippery as a Hutt's backside, but he climbed carefully and made it to the top. From there he ran to the opposite side and stopped to look at the gap between this building and Dalledo's. It wasn't too far, only a meter, but it still presented a problem.
Deciding to just go for it, Randal backed up and took off at a run and jumped. While in the air, he panicked slightly when he thought he was going to fall short, but he landed haphazardly on the roof of Dalledo's, crumbled to the ground, and then rolled violently to a stop. He cursed to himself as he picked himself up, and hoped that the rest of this little rescue operation went better than that.
Randal moved past the silent ship on the landing pad and approached the only door that would lead to the lower levels of the building. After giving the door a once over, he went over to the ledge and tried to see if he could see Cal and Kayla across the street. He caught a brief glimpse of the two huddled together looking through the macrobinoculars when a flash of lightning streaked across the sky.
Randal waved his hand into the air, but when the lightning flashed again, the two were still huddled there together. He wasn't sure if they could see him or not, and he wished that he had brought a light or a flare to signal them. It was then that he remembered Rika's lightsaber. He took the cylindrical weapon off of his belt and ignited the blue blade high above his head. As he swung the humming blade back and forth, he was surprised that the blade carried an odd momentum with it. It was only a concentrated beam of light, so it had no weight, but as it moved it seemed to want to keep going as if it did. He would have found this interesting and would have continued to experiment, but his mind was elsewhere.
Across the street, both Cal and Kayla jumped when they saw the blade of the lightsaber flashing, and both reached for the trigger mechanism. Cal let Kayla flip the switch, but when it did, nothing happened. Cal took the remote in his hand and flipped the toggle several times in a row, but still nothing happened. After banging on it a few times and still nothing from the switch, Cal looked up and across the street. When another flurry of lightning streaked across the sky, Cal threw his hands up into the air and shrugged his shoulders.
"Perfect," Randal said as he saw Cal's sign. It didn't take much to realize that the charge had failed. Disgusted with his own failure, Randal turned back around and went to the door. Unlike all the doors in the village which were ancient hinged technology, this one was a pneumatic slider. Randal was certain that it would be locked, but tried the control panel anyways. The light only flashed red a few times and the door stayed shut.
He briefly thought about trying to hotwire the circuitry, but that would take too long. There was always the disruptor, but blowing the door open would signal the gang members that he was here; something he didn't want to do just yet. As he thought about some way inside, his hand brushed Rika's lightsaber that he had reattached to his belt. He had seen Rika use it to cut through metal before, and from what he remembered it didn't make that much noise.
Randal activated the blade and held the hilt firmly as he pressed it into the locking mechanism. The feeling was an odd one indeed, as if the blade was meeting significant resistance. As he continued to push, the hilt fought against him and seemed like it wanted to twist its way out of his hand. Randal held on firmly, and once a quarter of the blade was in, something clicked and the door slid open. He then deactivated the blade and reattached it to his belt. After listening to the sounds coming from downstairs for a moment, and after confirming that no one had heard anything, he silently entered the building.
From their vantage point across the street, Randal seemed to disappear once the lightsaber was deactivated. For a moment, both Cal and Kayla leaned forward and anxiously wondered what Randal was going to do now that the distraction hadn't worked. When another streak of lightning briefly illuminated the tops of the buildings, Randal was nowhere to be seen.
"Where'd he go?" Kayla almost screamed as she dug her fingernails deep into Cal's arm as her tension level rose. Cal shook his head quickly and frantically scanned the upper floors of the building to see if he could spot Randal inside through one of the windows. Briefly, he caught a glimpse of Randal walking slowly through a room and heading towards the staircase that led down to the ground level.
"He's inside," Cal said as he lowered the macrobinoculars.
"Inside?!? With all those thugs in there? He'll be killed! Do something!" she choked out hysterically. Cal looked around with a heavy sense of helplessness resting on his shoulders. What could he do? The only plan they had failed; now there wasn't a way of drawing those swoop gang members out. In this storm, it would take something incredibly loud and noticeable to draw their attention, but now that the explosive was out of the picture, there wasn't anything he could do. But as if his prayers were answered, his eyes fell on the power converter station sitting outside of the building. If he could take that out of commission, the gang members would notice for sure.
"Hold on, I've got a plan," Cal said as he handed the macrobinoculars to Kayla and unslung his rifle from his shoulder. He took careful aim at the electrical station box, and let loose a well placed blast. The bolt hit the box square on, and ruptured the power cells within, sending a large shower of sparks flying into the air. The converter crackled for a moment, and then completely melted down with a loud shattering thud. Every light inside of Dalledo's building instantly turned off.
"You did it!" Kayla yelled happily, but Cal quickly put the rifle down and grabbed Kayla by the arm.
"Get down! They're gonna see us if we don't duck!"
Inside the building, Randal swallowed hard as he stepped into the Dalledo's dimly lit office. He could hear the music and constant chatter coming from the floor below him, but he still kept his ears open for any sound that was near him. Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he caught a glimpse of Cal or Kayla on the roof across the street, but when he looked he couldn't see anything. Then, he saw a red hot blaster bolt fly out from Cal's rifle, the flare briefly illuminating his and Kayla's faces. Randal then saw a bright flash coming from the street level just in front of the building, and then all the lights flickered off with a sudden boom. Randal smirked to himself as he continued to move to the door that opened up to the stairway.
In the garage area, everyone went silent and didn't move an inch when the power went out.
"What was that?" one of the gang members asked aloud.
"Sounded like the converter blew," another said. Kaul narrowed his brow and put his mug down on the table and willed his eyes to adjust themselves to the low light. With a flickering dull yellow light, the emergency lighting clicked on, casting oblong shadows on the ground. Kaul continued to focus on any sound he might hear, but beyond the sounds of his own men moving nervously, he couldn't hear anything. He had of course heard the loud booming sound of the converter overloading, but found it hard to believe that a storm could knock something like that out.
"Griff, take a couple of men with you and check out the converter. Kill anyone you see out there." Griff nodded happily and he left the garage, followed by five other half drunk men looking for some excitement. Those that remained inside slowly let their anxiety melt away, and went back to drinking and carrying on.
Kaul couldn't shake the feeling that something wasn't right, and walked to the entrance of the garage and looked out of the half closed doors at the pouring storm. Anyone would be a damned fool for being out in that, but he could think of one who would do so. Kaul turned back around and went back to his half empty mug, and after picking it up absent mindedly with his right hand, he got a burning feeling in the back of his mind, as if something were boring itself through him.
He started to turn around to see what it was, but he knew what to expect long before he brought him into focus. Randal Sarn stood in the doorway leading inside the building, soaked completely to the bone and dripping profusely. But what startled Kaul the most wasn't the disruptor cannon he carried in his hands, but the cold blooded look of a maniac in his eyes. Kaul had seen it plenty of times during battle; both in himself and other Death Watch members.
Kaul stared at Randal silently, giving the same bloodthirsty stare back. At first, the members of his gang didn't notice the intruder, but soon they did, and a cold chilling silence filled the room as they all stared wide eyed at the either incredibly brave or recklessly foolish man standing in the room.
Kaul slightly moved for his blaster, but Randal leveled the disruptor cannon at him with a shockingly quick speed. Randal sneered and slowly shook his head, never taking his eyes off of Kaul.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you." Kaul stared back at Randal for a moment, trying to gauge any weakness or opening that he could take advantage of. But unlike a normal person who wasn't acquainted with holding a weapon against someone's life and has a weak nerve, this Corellian wasn't showing any sign of an opening. Instead, he would have to create an opening.
"You can't win here, Sarn. Do you really think you can get the Jedi and get out of here alive? We'd cut you down long before you made it out the door."
"Maybe, but all I can tell you for certain is that you'd be dead," Randal answered coldly. Kaul slowly ran his tongue over his bottom lip and then leaned his head back to address his remaining men.
"All right, boys. He's only got six shots with that disruptor, and there's more of us in here. When he shoots, open fire on this son of a-" Randal had heard enough, and opened fire with a devastating explosion of energy laden tibanna gas, ripping a gaping hole into the abdomen of Kaul, sending his flailing remains to the floor.
At first, the remaining gang members were taken aback, both by the sudden attack and by the brutal nature of the disruptor blast. Before they could pull their weapons, Randal recovered from the recoil and fired again at one of the unlucky thugs. By the time his body hit the ground with a wet thud, the others had snapped out of their shock and were pulling their weapons out.
Taken out of their natural element of being the aggressors on those who were less inclined to defend themselves, the gang members fired wildly across the room, none of the shots coming anywhere near Randal.
Randal calmly continued to aim the cannon, and with brutal efficiency, continued to fire madly at the swoop members, savagely ending their lives with sickening wet splatters of remains as the disruptor blasts did their work.
After the third thug fell to the ground, the others that remained decided that continuing to stand and fight for their claimed prize wasn't worth dying over and they dropped their weapons and ran out of the back door.
Randal slowly lowered the cannon and briefly looked down at the carnage he had unleashed. Disruptors were one of the more rare weapons to be found in the galaxy, and even if someone had heard about them, few of those really knew what they did against an organic target. Some thought they turned their targets into ash, but compared to what they really did, ash would be a pleasant result. What they really did was completely mangle their targets as if they were mauled by a rabid gundark and spit out. Of the three thugs that lay on the ground, only two of them were even recognizable as being humanoid. The third was far less discernable. The image would have sickened even the most cold hearted being in the galaxy, but Randal mentally blocked it all out by knowing Kaul and his men would do far worse if the roles were reversed.
From behind him, he could hear the sounds of the other gang members running back, obviously alerted to the sounds of blaster fire. Randal quickly turned and raised the cannon back up to his shoulder, but didn't have to open fire. Instead, the roar of the familiar engines of the Destrier screamed from overhead, and red hot bolts of laser cannon fire rained down on the other group, cutting them down before they could enter the building.
Randal pulled his comlink from inside his jacket and called Geefive. "Thanks for the assist. Land the ship; I'm getting Rika out of here." He put the comlink back inside his still soaked jacket and then started to step over what remained of his rampage. As he was about to near Rika's unconscious form chained to a hook on the wall, a bubbling cough caught his attention.
Reeling quickly around, Randal was able to kick the unholstered blaster from Kaul's blood soaked hand. Kaul forced his eyes open and looked at Randal as he coughed dark red blood.
"We're not that much different, you and me. We'd both destroy anyone in our paths to get what we want," Kaul choked out, bloody foam gathering on his lips the entire time.
"No, we're nothing alike. You enjoy doing this sort of thing. I only did it for one reason." Kaul coughed a large chunk of what was likely part of his lung up and struggled to spit it out of his mouth. With a last ragged intake of breath, he sneered at Randal and cursed him in his own language.
"Mir'sheb aruetiise..." Randal frowned at the words, not having heard that language in a long time. He watched as Kaul's eyes glazed over, and what sliver of life that remained in him passed on.
Randal slung the disruptor over his shoulder and went to Rika. He bent down to try to look her in the face, but she was still out cold. He lifted up her chin and tried to shake her awake, but still nothing. He could see that she was still breathing, so he went about removing her from her restrained position against the wall.
She was basically hanging by her bound hands, so with a quick cut with her lightsaber, she fell freely onto Randal's waiting shoulder. He picked up her unconscious body in his arms, and made his way out of the garage and into the storm, where Geefive had landed the Destrier in the mud covered street.
When he reached the entry ramp, Cal and Kayla ran up from the other side of the street and followed him into the ship. Randal opened the door to Rika's cabin and laid her on her bunk. Cal and Kayla both looked on nervously as Randal checked her pulse and then pushed back one of her eyelids to see her dilated pupil.
"Is she going to be okay?" Kayla asked. Randal shook his head and stood up.
"She's been poisoned by something, probably a tranquilizer. I'm going to have to get her to a medic up on Ascension Station." Cal and Kayla nodded, and exited the small room before Randal left Rika lying peacefully on her bunk. The three then stood for a brief awkward moment in the main cabin. They all knew that this was farewell, but none of them knew how to say it.
"Well, you two take care now. Look out for each other, and try to stay out of trouble," Randal said with a forced smile. He meant it sincerely, but with Rika still unconscious and needing a doctor, his thoughts were going a light year a minute.
"Yeah. We can't thank the two of you enough for everything you've done," Cal said as he shook Randal's hand. Kayla bypassed Randal's offered hand and instead gave him a hug.
"You take care of her." Kayla then turned and whispered in Randal's ear only loud enough for him to hear. "And when she gets better, you tell her how you feel about her." Randal smirked and lightly shook his head.
"I have no idea what you're talking about. Now get going, and stay out of the rain." With a final wave, the young couple exited the ship and ran for the relatively dry cover of a building's awning. Randal hit the ramp controls and headed towards the cockpit. When he took his seat at the controls, Geefive whistled a concerned question. He wanted to know if Rika was all right.
"She'll be fine once we get to Ascension Station." With a quick lifting motion, the Destrier lifted off of the ground and blasted away for space.
A/N: Almost done! Just one more chapter after this, and the second story in my continuing series will be complete. Stay tuned!