Inej knew what would happen the moment Pekka hit that button, and she knew exactly how to use it. Pekka loved killing people: that moment, the moment when he was most relaxed, most vulnerable, she struck.

The chain in her hands felt cold as she looped it around his throat.

And then she pulled.

Hutts were flabby, but they were tough - there was a reason they were so powerful in the Outer Rim. The sheer strength it would take to asphyxiate a Hutt like Pekka to the point of death. . .

But she would do it. She had to do it. For once, not for the Rebellion, or for her friends - they seemed to be doing fine on their own.

No, this was for her.

This was for the fourteen-year-old girl sold into slavery simply because she was curious. This was for the seventeen-year-old girl, recently freed by a young and upcoming smuggler, hacking her own transmitter out of her chest and taking pleasure in the agony of it. This was for her twenty-year-old self, stuck in this nightmare again, and being blasted tired of it.

She screamed through gritted teeth. Her hands were blistered; her skin slippery with sweat; her eyes burned with the tears that gushed down her face, into the crook of her neck, under the stupid metal bikini they'd forced her in.

Tears were the lifeblood of this planet. The only water on a waterless world, the liquid the slavers drank while the enslaved suffered. But these tears weren't for them.

They, like all people, like all creation, didn't belong to them.

So she pulled. And something hard and hot and angry inside her was swelling, swelling, swelling, until the skin on her hands was rubbed raw and blood mingled with her sweat and tears.

That was all Tatooine ever saw.

Blood and sweat and blasted tears.

She hated this planet. She hated this planet, and she hated this evil, and she hated Pekka, so she pulled harder, harder, harder. . .

The strength needed the asphyxiate a Hutt was supposedly beyond the capability of a human - much less a relatively small female human, no matter what state of physical health she may keep her body in. But that seemingly indisputable fact did nothing to stop Pekka's lolling tongue from going still, his bulbous mass billowing and going slack in death.

None of his underlings had noticed yet. They were too busy dealing with her friends.

She sank onto the heels of her feet, fatigue setting in. Her arms ached, shoulders, legs, back. Her hands were on fire.

But all she felt was vicious satisfaction.

Pekka was dead.

Pekka was dead.

She laughed out loud.

But as a shift in position caused the chip between her breasts to dig in painfully, she was quickly snapped out of it. There was a cacophony of noise around her: screams, blasts, the roar of the thermal detonator still ringing in her ears. But Pekka was dead.

They'd - no, she'd - cut off the head of the snake.

Now it was time to let its body rot.

She glanced around, and watched as an Aqualish bounty hunter was sent stumbling back into her. There was a blaster at his belt.

She had no qualms about snagging it - he was bleeding out anyway - and it only took one bolt to break her chain and let her move around. A quick glance told her everything she needed to know about the room: Kaz had claimed two blasters and was dual wielding them, Jesper had somehow lost his lightsaber amidst the chaos, and Matthias and Nina had disappeared into the rancor pit.

She tensed her legs, ready to run, jump - anything. Anything.

But something caught her attention.

The woman she'd stolen the chip from - the not-a-bounty-hunter of ivory and amber - was lying motionless on the ground.

Inej crept towards her.


The fall was a short one, but Matthias, being quite a bit heavier than Nina, found himself terrified that he was going to crush her.

He didn't. Nina shoved him away - presumably with the Force - and he landed hard on his left side instead, the side of his face implanted in muck.

"Ugh."

He wasn't sure if he or Nina was the one who said it, but the sentiment stood all the same. The place stank of blood and guts and gore, as well as something more unpleasant, something like. . .

"Oh, just admit it," Nina said. "Your face says it all - and what's on your face says it even louder. It smells like shit down here."

He lifted a hand to the guck covering his face. Was that. . .?

No. He didn't want to think about it.

He looked around the room. They were apparently in a pit level, a basement of sorts, because two of its walls were gates, criss-crossed with rusted iron bars, bound shut, and through them he could see more thugs and minions leering at them through the bars, apparently oblivious to the turmoil going on upstairs.

Then one of the gates began to grind open.

Matthias swallowed. "I have a bad feeling about this."

"Agreed."

Matthias turned his gaze on her. "I could probably throw you back up to the top of the pit," he said, "if you do your thing and use the Force to help."

Nina wasn't impressed. "That would leave you down here."

Matthias held up his hands in a casualness he didn't feel; his heart was thumping in his chest. He had a really bad feeling about this. "Hey, I've played my part: I supplied the weapons Wylan built. You haven't done yours yet. Once you have, and the room above has been pacified, then you can worry about getting me out."

Nina narrowed her eyes. "You didn't do your job. You were supposed to give me two thermal detonators, not one detonator and a rock."

"We had to make the most of what resources we had. And I think you handled it spectacularly." He jerked a thumb upwards. "Now, you need to get back up there and continue handling it spectacularly. Kaz and Jesper are good, but even they can only last for so long against a crowd." He put out his hands for her to place her foot in, so he could launch her upwards.

"Inej is there to help," she grumbled, then they both stiffened at the rusted door gave another loud groan and stopped rising. There was thundering footsteps now, coming closer.

Matthias shook his head. "Just go!" He readied himself to throw. . .

"What is that?" The question slipped out unbidden.

The animal that emerged was something out of his worst nightmares. It vaguely resembled a half-skinned bull, except it was bipedal, with horns too big for its head and a mouth that couldn't control its slobbering. And its teeth. . .

Such big teeth. . .

"A rancor," Nina said. "Matthias, maybe I should-"

"Go!" He threw her upwards as he said it; unprepared, she swore fluently as she flew through the air, but landed relatively unharmed on the floor above with a massive oomph.

Then Matthias turned his attention onto the rancor.

He'd heard of it before, of course. Rancors were used in many stories as the ultimate evil, the Dark Lord's servant or thug. It fit: this one was owned by Pekka, after all, and the thing certainly looked like a thug. Matthias surveyed it as it thundered closer, considering his options.

First and foremost, his priority was to get back up to the battle; the others may need his help. And that could be done with the rancor alive or dead.

He could try and scale its side, then use that as a foothold from which to jump to the floor above, he mused, but its hide looked slick with slobber and. . . filth. The same filth his face was covered in.

He didn't particularly want to climb that, nor would he be able to hold on well with the beast bucking back and forth. He could use the beast as a stepping stool once it was dead, he supposed - if it fell to its knees, it would still be tall enough to help - but he didn't really want to kill it. Didn't want to get close to it.

He glanced behind the beast, at the gate it had come through, but that gate had already closed. The one behind him was no different; the crossbars of it might be possible for him to climb, but wall sloped from the top of the gate to the opening he was going for, and there weren't any handholds secure enough for him to grip if he wanted to go that way.

No. The only way he was going to win this was by jumping.

He glanced at the rancor again. It had stopped its approach now, and was shifting back onto its hindquarters; its front legs acted very much like arms - disgusting, slimy arms, like the shadows of jagged branches on a stormy night, reaching to rip out your throat-

The thing roared, and Matthias refused to let himself flinch.

Then it charged.

The first attack came from its leg-like arms; it tried to swat him, with extreme force, with the meaty bulk of one of them. Matthias stumbled back until he hit the wall, something digging into his back, and the tips of claws still raked his legs, sending him toppling to the ground.

He knelt there for half a second, cataloguing injuries - scraped knees, skinned shins, bruised face - before he registered what, exactly, was digging into his back.

He wasn't used to the darksaber yet, he told himself. Didn't know how to use it to any great extent, hadn't had it on him long enough for it to be second nature to reach for it in times of panic. At least, that was what he told himself as he reached for it now, even though it hadn't cost him a thought earlier when he'd automatically bundled it up and strapped it to the cloth under his back before infiltrating Pekka's palace as a guard.

The black blade seemed to suck all of the already-dim light out of the surroundings; Matthias could still see, but barely.

Barely was enough.


The mercenary - Inej had decided to stop calling her a bounty hunter when she so clearly wasn't one - remained still as she crawled closer and closer, the ebb and flow of the battle dying down a little as Nina, Jesper and Kaz found fewer and fewer people to blast. And it was that stillness that enabled her to study her in such a scrutinising way, putting every skill of deduction she'd ever learned as a spy to the ultimate test.

The woman was beautiful - human, barely older than Inej, with hard ivory skin and soft amber hair that billowed around her face in gentle waves that Inej caught herself thinking couldn't be practical in combat. Surely they'd just get in the way?

But what the woman wore was what interested her. High quality leather gear, padded enough as to almost be armoured, with a belt at her waist, full of small pockets to keep things in. Things of a similar size to the information chip Inej currently had. . .

A hand grasped her wrist and the other grasped her throat as the mercenary's eyes flew open, irises as gold as her hair. She sat up fluidly, dragging Inej's neck with her, and curled her face into a sneer.

But Inej still had one hand free. She punched that face.

The woman was clearly a good fighter - there was a way she moved that spoke of years of training - but she'd been disoriented by the blast: she glared at Inej, but only vaguely, like her eyesight wasn't good enough to see exactly who or where Inej was; her movements were weak and sloppy; her hands didn't grip as tightly as the muscles lining them suggested they could. A glance at her angry red palms was all the answer Inej needed as to why: the woman had thrown up her hands to prevent her face from being scorched off by the explosion, and now her eyesight was temporarily disabled and her hands were in agony.

Nevertheless, she put up a hell of a fight. Inej reached for the blaster she'd nicked from the pirate, but the woman reached out a hand and summoned it to her own - Force user, Inej confirmed grimly, like the yellow eyes hadn't been confirmation enough - before firing at her.

But her eyesight and aim were still off, so Inej dodged to the left, the right, then ducked, before kicking high - it was difficult in this blasted bikini, but she made do - and sending the blaster flying. She made to tackle the woman, but she turned her body last minute and Inej had to pull back suddenly; unbalanced, the mercenary took to chance to punch her side, her chest, before she caught both her arms and they were pushing each other, pushing-

"I know who you are," the mercenary whispered, a ragged glee in her voice. "You're the Wraith."

Inej just pushed harder. She shoved her knee upwards, but the woman deflected that strike and they were back to shoving again. They were almost identical in strength.

"You're the Wraith," the woman continued, "and your skill relies on your appearance being kept a secret save for a vague description and a face familiar only to people on a sorry backwater planet like this."

Inej tried to punch her in the jaw - that might get her to stop talking - but she ducked and instead jabbed Inej in the diaphragm. Winded, she fell back for a second.

"Did you notice the holocams in here, Wraith?" The woman's voice was a whisper.

Inej had. She'd seen them when she was first brought in, had worried about them, but ultimately they hadn't been her biggest worry at the time.

There were three: one directly above the rancor pit, one meant to show off Pekka and his throne in all his (now dead) bulbous glory, and one that swivelled its lens to study everyone in the room.

"I've hacked them," the mercenary continued, and then Inej moved.

It was more instinct than thought, and then she was dragging the woman round and throwing her into the wall. Where this extra strength had come from, she didn't know. Loyalty?

Loyalty, she decided, and a commitment to her cause, and also a healthy sense of self-preservation. She didn't want bounty hunters to know what she looked like.

So she sent the mercenary thumping against the wall, pressed her arm against her throat, their faces inches apart. The woman was still smiling.

"I barely even have to think," she rasped out through the little space Inej gave her to breathe, "and I can broadcast your identity for the world to see. I may have failed in my mission to maintain an alliance with Pekka the Hutt on my master's behalf, but I can give him this. He will forgive me."

"You can't do any of that if you're dead," Inej muttered, half to herself, pressing harder. Choking this woman to death would likely haunt her later - it was a more. . . hands on. . . approach than she was used to - but she would do it, if it came down to it.

The mercenary laughed. "Do you know the secret to fighting the acklay, Wraith?"

Inej only pressed harder. She'd let this woman talk for long enough.

But something was wrong. She was pushing back now, the pressure easing up on her throat, and Inej was faced with the unfortunate reality that whatever effect had left the woman in a daze earlier was now wearing off.

"The trick," she continued, voice no longer a wheeze, "is to pay attention to all of its legs."

Then something hot tore through Inej's side.

There was a blast too, but that was irrelevant right now: the blaster bolt had only skimmed the outside of her skin - the mercenary's aim must still be off - but it hurt and it was in that moment of distraction that the woman broke free and drove her fist into the wound.

Inej screamed.

She fell to her knees. "Who are you?" She was still trembling from the pain and the exertion - she'd had worse, but it hurt - and she was stalling for any time she had.

Luckily, the woman was as arrogant as she was skilled. "I am Dunyasha Lazareva, the Emperor's Hand," she declared, before her face twisted itself into a sneer. "And I could never be beaten by the likes of you."

It was a short monologue, but it was long enough. Long enough for Inej to take several deep breaths, reorient herself on her feet, then lunge.

The injury affected her speed, and Dunyasha's skill meant she avoided being tackled to the floor, but Inej had planned for that. She didn't want to tackle her.

She wanted the small blaster Dunyasha had somehow had on her this whole time - the one she'd not noticed before, the one she'd not been able to use before.

And she got it. Its hilt was solidly in her hand even as Dunyasha fled, with a final, solid kick to Inej's side to force her down on one knee again, gritting her teeth in pain. She was gone in an instant, and Inej readjusted her priorities; no doubt she'd already triggered the feed from the holocams to transmit directly to Coruscant - to the galaxy - and the wanted lists.

The moving holocam - the only one with a hope of videoing her - was repeating its rounds again. Getting closer, and closer, and-

Thunk. It was knocked clean off, fried and frazzled, by Inej's shot.

She took a deep breath in relief. Then another one. Then another one.

Force, her side hurt.

Someone was next to her. Kaz, she recognised almost immediately, because she knew him like she knew herself; Kaz was next to her, and had a hand resting on her arm, another one ready to catch her if she collapsed, though she noted that his hand was nowhere near her blaster wound.

"Inej?" His voice seemed very far away. She raised her eyes - they felt very heavy, all of a sudden - to meet his. "I heard you scream. Are you-"

Her head shot forward and she kissed him.

She pulled back almost immediately, and almost didn't notice the floundering expression, the sheer shock on his face. "Yeah," she said breathlessly, pain, worry, relief crashing down on her. She was dizzy with it all.

Kaz was here. They'd got him out.

"I'm fine."

There was a swathe of black in the corner of her vision, a humming sound that sounded a lot like a lightsaber. Had Matthias activated the darksaber? She frowned, turned to look - then all was darkness.

It was a good thing Kaz had been prepared to catch her, she mused as she went out, since if she'd hit the floor like this, it would've really hurt.