Hutt Space – Nar Shaddaa
I blasted out of hyperspace over the smuggler's moon, and found myself amidst a sea of other spacecraft, all flying in and out of Nar Shaddaa. There were no organized space lanes like on Coruscant or Onderon. No, this was a free-for-all, and anyone in the way got stampeded. It gave me an idea of what it would be like walking on the planet itself. As I took the craft in, stealth generator up, I monitored open channels. A lot of it was spam advertising:
- – You have one (1) new message! : )
- Cheap flights – Find the lowest prices on flights!
- Congratulations! – YOU HAVE WON1!1!1!
- ZOMGZ! – Find the hottest deals!
- Hi there… – Somebody wants to meet you ; )
- HAWT TWI'LEKS 4 SALE! – Looking to get your nob polished?
Disgusted with this aruetii custom of bullshit, I filtered those channels and switched to local, unsecured channels. I picked up one interesting conversation. The two were speaking Basic, but in a Huttese sub-dialect. Additionally, they were both aliens. I struggled to understand it, but caught on quickly.
"I hear there was one of them Mandos in the system. You think they got out?"
"Doubtful. If that Cerean lives up to her reputation, she gets every one of them around these parts."
"I hear she keeps trinkets from all the ones she kills. Limbs, pieces of their armour. Skulls. She's sick."
"Trinkets, sure, but I heard she doesn't kill them. Gets others to do it."
"I don't blame her. Those bastards are tough to kill."
I cut the channel, satisfied. Thanks for the info, boys. Stealth field still active, I took the Basilisk in to the coordinates stored in Strask's datapad. I'm coming for you Reeko.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
A lot of folks had no idea where she had come from. She was the sort of person that just appeared, made their mark, and stayed. Everyone knew of her, but no one knew her. There's a difference. She knew it. Those beneath her only had vague ideas of her origins. Perhaps she had been a slave off world, in another corner of the galaxy, escaped, and made her way here. She accepted such assumptions from others, using such ideas as cover to hide her true origins. Still. Some people did know how and why she came to Nar Shaddaa, of all places. And why she had the guts to pursue this Mandalorian bounty.
The up and coming Cerean crimelord Reeko mused to herself, as she sat in her personal chambers. She had a glass of Sauvignon Blanc on the table beside her as she sat in her chair, while her favorite human boy toy, Magnus, knelt beside her like a loyal lap dog. She took a sip of Wine as she ran her fingers through his hair.
"Good boy, good boy." She cooed. All of her previous minions had been weak little boys, but Magnus, oh, Magnus…he was special. He remained silent as she continued. Bored for a moment, she looked about her chambers.
Her headquarters were not terribly large compared to the massive fortresses the Hutts and the Exchange constructed, but it was sufficient. Located within the side of a non-descript high rise that looked just as common as any skyscraper dotting the Vertical City, but it suited her and her outfit well. The only way in was a heavy durasteel blast door, while the windows had been removed and filled in. If she wanted to look out on Nar Shaddaa's beautiful scenery, she could go into the main chambers. Her bed sat perpendicular to the wall, and across from it was a fireplace. On the mantle above hung her war trophies – the blast helmets of at least a dozen Mandalore warriours. She grinned as she stared at them.
Sure she had to split the bounty with the Ailon, but it wasn't a bad deal considering how much the Republic was offering. And it was not herself, nor her cadre of guards that were going toe-to-toe with the Mandalorians, but the Ailon Nova Guard. They were warriours, and as much contempt as she had for ideological muscleheads like them, she respected the fact that they were a match to the Mandalorians. As she sat enjoying Magnus' company, the intercom. blared on the table beside her. Annoyed, she accepted the call after checking the ID. It was Zirel, the T'syriel who kept watch at the bottom floor.
"What? I told you not to disturb me!"
"There's someone here to see you."
"Who?"
"A Mandalorian."
"…Your joking."
"He's serious. He wants me to tell you he's coming up." Zirel said.
The line went dead as the sound of a slug fired off on the other line. Reeko shoved Magnus away, threw on clothes, picked up her blaster SMG, and went into the main chambers. The rest of her outfit – the Ishi Tib Sills, Kagan the Draag, the Aqualish Boda, and the human merc Londo – were all standing guard, armed and ready. Only one other member, another human, Marv, was absent, but he was watching over security cam tapes. Her men turned to her.
"There's a Mandalorian downstairs. He's serious." Reeko said. Her crew immediately checked their magazines, and exited to the hallway outside. To their right was the security room where Marv was, while to the left was the turbolift, and just in front of them was the winding staircase. Kagan hurried to the security room and opened it.
"Marv, Marv, we got somebody, keep a look out!" Kagan said. Marv nodded and kept watching the security cam feeds. Kagan rushed back just as the turbolift lights blinked, indicating a car was coming up. Reeko and her men took up firing positions, and as the lift doors opened, they unleashed blasterfire.
"Stop, STOP!" Reeko yelled, as Zirel's body dropped to the floor. Boda rushed over, and found Zirel dead, not surprisingly. The Mandalorian had already got him earlier, now they were just shooting a corpse. "Everyone inside! Boda, you stay!" Reeko barked. The Cerean's crew hurried back inside, locking shut the durasteel doors. The Aqualish stood guard outside.
Marv heard the commotion, but kept his attention on the feeds. Several moments later there were more sounds outside…and the deafening scream of Boda as he fell – or was thrown - over the railing. Marv picked up his blaster, checked the feed for outside the door, and saw nothing. Boda was gone. Confused, he left the room to investigate. Zirel's body was still there, but Boda was gone. Did that idiot fall over the stair railing? Marv walked over and peered down over the railing. He didn't hear the sound of the ventilation shaft above him slide away, and then as the Mandalorian reached down, grabbed Marv with his arms, picked him up and snapped his neck. The Mandalorian dropped Marv's body, slid the ventilation shaft shut, and continued up.
Sills heard something outside, and checked the backup security room within Reeko's main HQ. He viewed the feeds for outside – Boda was nowhere in sight, and Marv's dead body lay on the ground outside the door. Sills ran back into the main chambers. "Marv is dead!" Sills cried.
"Dammit! There's no way the Mandalorian is getting through the front door, Kagan and Londo, guard the terrace! Sills with me!" Reeko ordered. The Draag and the Human went outside onto the terrace, though there was hardly a view worth seeing. Reeko and Sills turned to go into the Cerean's chambers, when suddenly Londo and Kagan were suddenly fired upon from above. Slugs ripped through them, killing them. "No! Close the blast shields!" Reeko yelled. The last member of her outfit, Sills, flipped a switch on the wall nearby, and durasteel plates began rolling down to cover the terrace windows. The two immediately retreated into her personal chambers, and closed the heavy durasteel door behind them.
Reeko stood in the middle of the room, looking about the ceiling. The Mandalorian was somewhere above. Sills meanwhile circled the room, and stopped at the walls where Reeko had the windows replaced and filled in.
"I think I hear something boss…" Was all Sills got out before permacrete charges blasted open the wall, killing Sills and knocking Reeko onto her back. She quickly recovered, picked up her SMG, and looked out. Speeders whizzed by through narrow passageways, alleys that stretched for thousands of miles up between opposing skyscrapers.
Reeko looked around. Magnus had hid in the refresher room. Pussy. Annoyed, she fired out the massive gaping hole where her outside wall had been, emptying an entire magazine. "Fuck you Mandalorian! Fuck all of you, and you most of all!" Reeko yelled out. Suddenly something was thrown inside her room from outside. Flash grenade. She jumped for cover moments before it went off. As she sat up moments later, she was still disoriented. Her ear had begun to bleed. "Fucking asshole…" Reeko swore. She stopped as she felt the cold tip of a slug-thrower pressed against the back of her head, while she felt the familiar grip of a Mandalorian gauntlet around her throat.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
"Looking for me, Reeko?" I asked, as I held the Cerean in a bodyshield position.
"How did you find me Mandalorian?" Reeko asked.
"I'm asking the questions here!" I replied, gravelly toned. Her boy toy exited the refresher, and gasped as he saw his master in a precarious position. "Who's the pretty boy?"
"Magnus. Don't kill him, please."
"I'm…going to go…talk to you later sweetey…" Magnus said. I stopped him before he could leave, popping him in the leg with a slug. The pretty boy yelped like a girl and fell to the floor, clutching his wounded leg.
"You bastard!" Reeko cried.
"I didn't kill him. Your going to answer some questions for me, and if you don't I'm going to get unpleasant. Is that understood?" I asked. Reeko nodded. I glanced up and spotted all the helmets of my fallen comrades. "Why hunt my kind?"
"Because your kind took everything from me! We Cereans are a peaceful people! We never even entered the war! The Republic, the Jedi, even sent diplomatic missions to persuade us to join, and we refused! We were allowed Colony worlds in the Outer Rim, and what did your kind do? You razed them, killed everyone! My mother, my father, my brother, my sister! You took everything from me!" Reeko blurted out, as she began to cry. I went silent. There had been rumours of aruetiise hating us, but we didn't care. They were the foe. But now our enemies had won, and they were the only people to deal with now. Now those of us that survived had to come face-to-face with these sentiments…anti-Mandalorian sentiments. The consequences of our actions.
This female Cerean, Reeko, was maybe a few years older than me, we were from opposite cultures, yet somehow…we were the same. Our lives had been destroyed. Her family and everyone she knew had been destroyed by us. And my people were dead and gone. We had both been violently ejected from our respective institutions, into a galaxy we knew nothing about. She had responded to a rough galaxy by becoming rough herself…she learned to be ruthless from the people she despised, the ones who took everything she had. My people. Both our lives were meaningless. No purpose to any of it. Nothing. Both our lives were fucked.
In a moment of pity, I let Reeko go, and she fell to the floor, her head in her hands as she sobbed. I staggered, grabbed the bed post to hold myself up as everything came flooding back. Tairek being beaten and killed by a Jedi. Klaar Squad being murdered by Darius. Darius dying at my hand. Malachor. Clay getting decapitated. Turris and his men dying at my hand. Leaving Turris to die on that planet. Escaping. Mandalore, dead, at Revan's as Malachor imploded. The fleet being sucked in. All my people. Sucked into a gravity vortex. While still alive. Crushed by ships, ally and enemy alive. Mandalorians, Jedi, Republic soldiers, both ships of either fleet thrown together like ingredients in a pot of stew and melded into Malachor's surface. Buried alive.
At that moment I crashed to the ground, crying, weak, pitiful. I had nothing. I should have died with the rest of my comrades. I had no Clan to call my own, no mentor to ask questions to, no comrades. I had nothing. I was nothing. I should have crashed my Basilisk into Revan's ship. Should have put a slug in my head. Slit my wrists. Hung myself. Turned myself over to Revan, let him kill me as he killed Mandalore. Death was the only option.
No. Get up and fight.
I swallowed my cries and my tears, warily standing back up. I was breathing hard and heavy, trying to keep it together as I looked at the other two people in the room. They were just like me. Just a couple of kids looking for something. Anything. Reeko, desperately trying to pause her cries, slowly looked over at me.
"Are you going…to kill us?" Reeko asked. I said nothing, but after a few tense moments I replied.
"No." I said, hoarsely.
"Why not?...Change of heart?" Reeko asked. I slowly calmed my breathing down before replying.
"It's complicated." I said, at a loss for words.
"You don't have to be…like this. You don't have to fight and kill." Reeko said, pleading. Pleading for something, calling to something higher. What it was, I didn't know.
"I have to." I said, sucking up my tears. Mostly. Reeko shook her head.
"Do me a favor…kill me."
"Why?"
"I don't want to live….everybody I ever loved were killed. I just want to die." Reeko said. I paused. I had dropped my slug-thrower. It lay on the ground beside me. I knelt down, slowly picked it up, and walked over to her.
"If that's what you want." I said, pointing it at her forehead. Reeko looked up at me and said one last thing.
"Are you sorry?" Reeko asked. I said nothing, and instead put a slug in her head. The Cerean collapsed to the ground dead. I stood motionless for several moments, numb. I eventually holstered my weapon, and turned to leave. I stopped when I saw Magnus, still lying against the wall, clutching his wounded leg.
"Please…don't kill me." He pleaded. The thought came to mind to kill him. I thought of something else.
"I'm not going to kill you. I want you to do a favour for me. Anyone asks, tell them I died here too."
"Oh…ok."
I left without another word.
DOUGLAS FETT MISSION PORTION: COMPLETE