Chapter Seven
An enormous explosion, exacerbated by the fuel tanks of the nikto's flame thrower, filled the alley. A couple of the leading mercenaries were thrown backwards through the air. Moabis bent down and hauled a rodian to his feet.
"Idiots," Lomagar roared. "I told you the pirate was dangerous!" A couple of blaster shots rang out from the front of the alley, missing high but causing bits of duracrete to fall upon the disoriented mercenaries. Moabis fired back just as the target ducked around the corner. "Go after her," he ordered, shoving a weequay out from behind the wooden box he was using for cover.
"Squad leader," Moabis said, getting the trandoshan's attention. She nodded down the gap between the two rows of buildings that broke off from the alleyway ahead of them.
Lamagar nodded. "The rest of you go that way," he said, motioning down the main alley that the target had fired at them from.
Out on the street Half-stock was limping across the street. There was another apartment building burning, a firefighting team attempting to contain the blast. A group of onlookers, likely residents watching their homes burn, were being held back by a squad of security personnel. Half-stock glanced at them and smiled. She moved up the street and then retreated back across, on the side she had come from. Leaning against the side of a building in order to minimize her chance of being spotted, she waited until the mercenaries tailing her emerged from the alleyway. They were being slightly more cautious this time after she had blown up the nikto.
She carefully aimed her blaster and fired. But she did not fire at her enemies. Instead the shot went just above the heads of the Formos security forces. They quickly reacted, pulling out their weapons and turning round. The first thing they spotted was not Half-Stock, who immediately crouched down after firing. No, the first thing they spotted were the half-dozen strong group of heavily armed mercenaries standing near the alleyway, looking around for the wounded pirate they thought must be nearby.
"You karking sithspawn!" one of the security officers shouted, aiming his blaster at the weequay. The mercenary was slow to respond, regarding the officer with curiosity rather than the appropriate amount of fear. The officer fired, striking the weequay in the chest and killing him instantly. The other mercenaries ducked for any available cover, which was minimal, and began firing back.
Half-stock limped away as casually as she could, a grin playing across her face. If it weren't for the immense amount of pain she were in she would be laughing hysterically. She moved up the street and away from the firefight, her thoughts beginning to dwell on how she would get offworld and rejoin her crew.
Suddenly a pair of mercenaries emerged from an alleyway ahead of her, a trandoshan and a klatoonian. Half-Stock's shock at their sudden appearance slowed her reaction for barely a second. Likewise the mercenaries were distracted at the sight of their comrades engaging in a firefight down the street. They didn't realize Half-stock was next to them until she fired a shot, which struck Lomagar on his armored shoulder pad.
Lomagar was knocked off his feet but Moabis reacted swiftly. She dropped to one knee and raised her blaster rifle, which was already preset to single-fire stun mode. A blue ring of energy erupted from her blaster, striking Half-Stock just as the nautalan fired her blaster. Half-stock's shot went above Moabis' head, striking harmlessly against the wall of the building behind them.
Half-stock fell as the stun shot paralyzed her nervous system. Despite her impending unconsciousness she raised her blaster, pointing it shakily at Moabis as the klatoonian approached.
"Sleeps, pateesa," Moabis said, knocking Half-stock's blaster away with the barrel of her rifle. "You fight enough for one day." Half-stock finally closed her eyes.
Lomagar got his feet behind her, and removed his damaged shoulder pad. He threw the smoking piece of armor aside and rubbed his shoulder, which was badly burned by Half-Stock's shot. He approached Half-Stock's body angrily, raising his blaster. But before he could fire into the helpless pirate's body Moabis interfered, stepping between them.
"Hutt lord wants alive," she said.
"Lord Poualiac will get the pirate scum alive, I'll just rough 'er up a bit," Lomagar snarled.
Moabis raised her heavy duty rifle until it was level with Lomagar's midsection. "Near death. You want disobey, get back stolen lizard pride, disobey." She stepped aside, allowing Lomagar a clear shot.
The trandoshan paused, torn between simmering anger that Moabis would dare question him, and the fact that deep down he knew the broken-basic speaking klatoonian was right. "Move," he shouted, shoving Moabis aside. She raised her rifle to fire upon him but hesitated as he walked past Half-Stock's body and towards the ongoing battle between their squad and the security officers.
Moabis exhaled, releasing her pent up tension as Lomagar charged towards the officers, firing his blaster with a gleeful rage. She threw her blaster rifle around her shoulder, allowing the shoulder strap to catch it. She bent down and place her hands underneath Half-Stock's armpits. With a grunt she lifted the nautalan and deposited Half-Stock upon her shoulders. With a spare glance at the firefight and her comrades, who had apparently completely forgotten the objective they were supposed be to achieving, she began hauling the unconscious pirate towards their dropship which had landed the next block over.
oOoOo
Poualiac's flagship cast a shadow over Koravin's transport as it was towed inwards towards the hangar by the tractor beams. The ship was the size of a large frigate, incapable of standing up to an Imperial star destroyer but looming large over most civilian starships. The hull was painted a dull grey, almost like the color of stone. It was shaped like a sail-barge, with a flat underbelly and multi-level tiered superstructure on top. It even had enormous orange sails, which provided only aesthetic appeal whilst in the vacuum of space. Poualiac's kajidic family seal, a seashell with four twisting horns spiraling out from it at each corner, was painted upon the sails and on each side of the ship.
The transport was lowered onto the floor of the hanger softly before being released by the tractor beams. Two assault teams emerged from the hangar's airlock, heavy blasters in hand. They surrounded the transport, their weapons trained at the ship's closed boarding ramp. They waited silently until Poualiac himself arrived in the hangar, flanked by the neimoidian Agarma and a discolored bronze protocol droid.
Poualiac grumbled in huttese towards the transport. The protocol droid offered a translation in basic. "The mighty and all powerful Poualiac begs you to surrender and submit before his magnificence. Surrender now, or we will destroy you."
Poualiac started and glared at his protocol droid, slapping it in the back. "Surrender now, we will NOT destroy you. Poualiac's mercy is known throughout the galaxy. Surrender now and give Lord Poualiac the location of your compatriots."
The external speakers on the transports, standard equipment on security ships, crackled to life. "So...they slipped out of your slimy hands?" came Koravin's labored voice.
Poualiac roared angrily. His mercenaries responded with a smattering of blaster fire, peppering the transport. Agarma whispered something to Poualiac, who paused for a moment.
"Surrender now and we will not torture your pilot to death, the nautalan."
"Alright...I surrender," Koravin announced after a long pause. The boarding ramp slowly opened. Poualiac's eyes widened in surprise, but he ordered his mercenaries to board the transport.
"Hold on...my lord," Agarma attempted to say. Suddenly the rear of the transport exploded, showering the hangar with metallic shrapnel and fire.
The few mercenaries who survived at the edge of the blast got unsteadily to their feet, finding most of the transport a twisted pile of burning wreckage. Agarma stood and brushed her hands over her robes, finding herself almost completely unharmed. She glanced over towards her master, more than a good part of her hoping to find Poualiac dead.
But instead she found the slug-like Poualiac writhing about in pain, a piece of shrapnel sticking out of his shoulder. The protocol droid next to him had been completely sheared in half by flying debris.
Agarma reluctantly approached Poualiac, grabbing onto the piece of durasteel and swiftly removing it. The hutt roared in pain, but seemed to quickly recover.
"Go inspect the wreckage," Agarma shouted, nodding towards a couple surviving mercenaries. Poualiac reached out and grabbed her by the arm, forcing her to struggle with the Hutt until he was upright.
"I want him dead!" Poualiac shouted.
"I think he took care of that himself," Agarma said.
"I want the others dead! I want that pilot dead!"
"My lord, we should keep the pilot alive." Poualiac stared at Agarma angrily and then reached for the wristband containing the control device wrapped around her arm. Agarma swiftly grabbed the hutt's hand, preventing Poualiac from activating the execution device implanted in her chest. "My lord, if you allow me to explain. If we keep the pilot alive we can interrogate it...I mean torture it...until we learn the location of the pirate's hideout. We want to get revenge on all of them." Poualiac stared into Agarma's face, processing her argument. The Hutt seemed to relax, calmly tearing her arm away from Agarma's grasp.
"Fine," Poualiac agreed. "Do as you will. But if we don't find them I will have your head as well." The Hutt began to slither away as emergency response crew began to stream onto the hangar and get the burning wreckage that was once the security transport under control.
oOoOo
The turrets of the Blackpool Flier fired away as the last of the Hutt's DuneLizard starfighters peeled away and retreated back towards Poualiac's flagship. On the bridge Opuk and Kellash were busy managing the ship's subsystems, attempting to get several ongoing crises under control. For one thing the loading ramp in the cargo bay was stuck open, having been damaged by blaster fire when they were still trapped within Formos' spaceport. Since then the Hutt's fighters, and one security forces fighter, had scored direct hits that had penetrated the Fliers shields. Electrical systems had shorted out, but the shifa family of ishi neelabi twins had successfully rerouted power.
"We're ready for the jump to hyperspace," Kellash's deep voice announced through the ship's comm, his catfish-like whiskers twitching nervously.
"We're aboard and secure," Pleff answered through the comm from the rear of the ship. The surviving members of Koravin's team had just transferred aboard from the barely functioning security transport.
"What about the captain?" Opuk asked, who was free to fly the ship more casually after the Hutt's starfighters had retreated. Kellash stared intently at his sensor station.
"The captain's transport just entered their hangar," he answered.
"We have to help him...we can't abandon him to the Hutt," Opuk said over the comm, appealing to Pleff, who was now in charge.
"We don't have a choice," Kellash shook his head. "We can't take much more damage, and we would be hard pressed against that Hutt ship even if we still had Half-Stock and Cutter were still with us."
"He's right," Pleff said as watery streams of angry tears began running down arachnid-like face. "We have to retreat."
Suddenly there was a flash of light from within the distant hangar of Poualiac's ship. Kellash lowered his head while Opuk's many eyes widened in surprise.
"He's gone," Kellash announced. "I just hope he took that kriffing Hutt out with him."