Chapter 49
Shili – Valley of the Lost
The canopy of twisted green branches rustled against the hull as the Illusionist crashed through them and touched down on the soft down. The small shuttle was Tar's pride and joy, a 'prize' he had brought with him when he had left Trandosha with his crew. Said crew, made of the other young Trandoshans, an Aki-Aki technician, and one Zabrak, the pilot, had turned the old Kiavian Starliner into a state-of-the-art smuggling freighter. Once he had joined up with Cantoni's crew, she had made it their go-to drop ship for surface operations.
The Illusionist would be their base of operations while on Shili. Already the shipboard scanners were busy, hunting for any heat signatures hiding in the thick vegetation. There were a lot. Too many. The metal deposit scanners weren't much help either. Iron ore deposits were causing magnetic interference.
All twenty members of Tar's crew had made the trip down to the valley. Apparently, they were ready for anything. Tar opened the weapons compartment and grabbed his sniper rifle from the rack. His friends were prepping their own weapons – a mixture of pistols, carbines and heavy rifles – and together they marched down the ramp behind his Ishi Tib boss. She held her two mismatched pistols tightly, swinging the sinister barrels back and forth as she hunted for a target. Thankfully, the trees remained unmoving. He had seen her shoot with unrivalled accuracy, courtesy of the mechanical eye buried in her left eye stalk.
"Lik-lik.", she barked to one of the technicians she had bought with her. "Where is that ship?"
The tall, grey-skinned Aki-aki technician regarded the readouts attached to the multiple screens he carried. Each screen was attached to the spiderish contraption attached to his back. His thoughtful eyes seemed to flicker back and forth across each screen. After maybe a minute, his mouth tentacles flopped loudly against his chest and he glanced up. The strange squeaking garble of his native tongue squawked out, and the spheroidal contraption embedded in his neck squawked the words in broken Basic. "We are quite close, Captain. A few clicks to the North-West will put us within scanning radius of where the ship should have crashed."
One of Tar's crew, a large bulky brute named Nardath, stepped forward. No one would say that Nardath was smart. He was Tar's muscle – good for brawling, not planning. That became apparent as he spoke, teeth bared angrily. "Why are we even thisss valley, Cantoni? We could just bombard this Sssenator and his lackeyssss from the Black Revenge."
"Besides bringing the full might of the entire Shili Defence Fleet on us?", the Ishi Tib glared at the man. She left the question hanging for a moment, then shook her head. "Tyrannus wants the Senator alive. We bring them in, and we get paid."
For a second, Tar felt like asking, Then why did you bother making sure they crashed here? But Cantoni had her reasons. No other members of his crew had been on the bridge when the Captain had ordered Tatsu Oniac to fire upon the Republic transport. He knew better than to share her orders. He would just needed to trust her.
After a few seconds of no one answering, the Ishi Tib snapped, "Grab your bandoliers and your powerpacks, boys and ladies! Today, we hunt for Senator Trav-iss Torn. That scumslug will be brought back ashamed and kneel before Tyrannus. But those who guard him? They will perish by our hands! Their pelts with mark our walls!"
Howls and barks rose through the trees as the pirates chortled and screeched their battle cries, grabbing all the cases in the Starliner's hold. Detonators, traps, tripwire devices and blasters – they were all in those cases. A large droid dropped from the hold, landing heavily and rotating it's head to see the surroundings. He chortled in droidspeak and removed a cannon that looked large enough to be from a starship's chasse.
Two of Tar's fellow Trandoshans grabbed speederbikes from the ship, preparing to scout ahead. Tar went to them, tapping away to link them and the bikes into the pirates shared system. Cantoni had rigged a system of chips embedded into the skin of each of her pirates. It monitored the vitals of her men. Cantoni claimed that it was so that she could monitor their vitals. Tar suspected that it was to make sure that none of her people survived to share her privileged information.
"Lane, Essspoit.", he nodded at each of the men in turn, "I wish you luck in your journey. Contact us when you find the wreckage. We will follow when we can."
The two hunters nodded, adjusting their speeder's flaps to cope better with the closely packed trees of the forest. Lane grinned, "We will, sir."
They mounted up, and were off. Tar followed them through his rifles scope as well as he could, and then they were gone. He frowned after them, and raised his head in a silent prayer, "May the Scorekeeper smile upon you, friends."
They were only a few hours into their hike, and they had made it to the top of the first ridge. When they reached a small clearing in the thick trees, Stass called a break. The little clearing was a small patch of packed dirt hidden amongst the deadfall, about twenty metres in diameter. Strewn about were a few logs and the occasional carved statuette which bent lazily forward. One had even toppled straight onto the ground.
Mark and The Lieutenant… Lawell, Stass corrected herself… lowered Luuna's stretcher to the ground, and Miriam hurried over to help the injured handmaiden sit up against the fallen statue. Trav-iss and Agatha slumped side-by-side against one of the logs, and she began to fuss over his leg wound again. Riyo, being the youngest of the survivors, seemed to still have energy to spare, and so busied herself offering their limited water and food supplies around. Ceefour and Arfive followed Talos and Stass to the edge of the clearing, a sheer drop that ended close to the forest floor again.
Which is where they could see the aft half of the Reborn Triumph. They had spotted it through the thick foliage a few times as they climbed. It sat on the other side of the valley, engines, a majority of the engine room and the hold covered in dirt and sparking with electricity.
Stass' tendrils drooped with sweat. The humidity of this valley would probably do her in well before any pirate hunting party. The path had been so overgrown, it was little more than a goat-track through the underbrush. The slippery mud, slick moss and occasional spiderweb meant that the steep climb up to the top of the ridge was a nearly silent affair. Everyone had simply focussed on the next step in front of them. Of course, the Force helped Stass, but she could not very well run ahead and leave everyone else behind.
She moved away from the edge and studied the nearest statuette. It depicted a Togrutan female, graceful lines and subtle details making it seem as though the figure was moving as you circled it. Greenish-yellow moss crawled over the lower halves of most of the figures, except for one which was so cracked the facial features were unrecognisable. She had seen artistic flair like this before. This came from Kiros, a Togrutan settlement planet a few systems over. Her eyes flicked back to the wreckage, visible behind the statue.
"What is it?", Talos asked quietly.
Stass didn't answer. Her gaze remained fixed on the distant wreck. The four large drive engines, the majority of the engineering compartment, and the main storage compartment would be there. Maybe there would even be survivors. She pulled her micro-binoculars out from her belt and switched the setting to scan for lifeforms. There were a few scattered about, though they ranged from small enough to be scavenging birds to large enough to be more of these cursed Gundarks.
"I don't know what to think.", Stass told the Senate Guard. "There might be survivors. There might not be. I want to find out…"
She trailed off. A buzz of static flashed across her scopes, and then the lifeform scanning switched back to simple magnification. She shook the tiny contraption in frustration.
"Is everything alright?", Talos asked her.
"My binocs just switched by themselves.", she explained. The shaking wasn't working so she gave the device a rough thwack.
He frowned and put out his hand to take them from her. She reluctantly handed them over, and the commando spent several minutes staring through them and cycling through the settings. Finally, he gave them back. "We need to go."
"Why?", she asked.
"That interference kept occurring at the same point.", he explained, "Sometimes that can mean that a lifeform scanner has detected another lifeform scanner. The signals interfere and then…"
He gestured at the binocs in her hand. Stass stared at the devices. "Does that mean there are survivors there?"
He shook his head. "Unfortunately, no ma'am. I looked through the regular scopes. We have trouble."
She was about to again ask for elaboration when her enhanced senses, constantly scanning the surrounding underbrush, picked up on something… a distant sound. She twisted her head to listen, tendrils whipping behind her. The distant, yet constant hum… of speederbikes.
Stass spun around to find the source of the noise. Instinctively, her lightsabre leapt from her belt to her hand. Across the clearing, Lawell and Mark saw the motion and pulled their pistols from their holsters. She gestured for the two officers to move to the far side of the clearing, closer to the track they had just climbed. She and Talos remained near the cliff, a more obvious target.
"You should probably move.", Stass said, "I'm trying to draw their attention."
"Bigger the target, bigger the distraction.", Talos bit out.
With a vicious hiss-spit, the emerald glow of her weapon filled the clearing. It was both familiar and reassuring. The weapon had been with her for a long time. Some Jedi went through their weapons like they were jogan fruit. Tress had been on his third weapon by the time she had joined him as his apprentice. But this hilt of hers would be cared for as long as she was alive.
Trav-iss and his envoy noticed her blade and instinctively grouped closer together, huddling close to the thick wall of rock that lined the far side of the clearing. The two Pantoran guards swept their blasters left and right as they attempted to find the source for the low hum. That was annoying. With a single larger target, the speeder's heavy cannons would make quick work of the envoy. And they would also be the larger target, stealing the attention from the Jedi.
The speeder's zipped into view, riding across the ridge between the wreckage and the clearing. They were modified GY-9 speeder bikes, augmented with twin blaster cannons and winches. Manning the controls were two huge Trandoshans, brothers by the looks of their dappled skin tones. Thank the Maker! Trandoshans might not focus on the largest group. Their eyes, used to searching for heat-signatures, fixed on the warmest thing in the immediate area. Stass' emerald blade. Red particle bolts erupted from the bikes as they fired.
Stass worked quickly, deflecting the bolts. Her instincts told her to dodge some of the bolts, but Talos was firing through her spinning blade, using it as a shield. While she continued sending the incoming barrage into the safety of the trees, the Guard's marksmanship sent a bolt screaming into the engines of one of the speeders. The bike coughed a stream of smoke, and the rider leapt off just as it exploded.
"I'll take him.", Talos told her, "Get the other one."
The other bike spun in a tight circle, another round of bolts hurtling towards the Senator's party. Stass sent her weapon hurtling across the clearing, and thankfully the blade deflected a few of the bolts that would have hit Trav-iss. Unfortunately, she was too late to save the twin Pantoran guards, who were flayed by the cannon's fire. She said a silent prayer for Dorin and Hoss, then focussed on the speeder. Leaping over it, she called her weapon back to her hand. The lightsaber hilt slapped into her palm, the blade slicing easily through the central steering fin. Controls locked and unable to turn, the speeder took leapt over the edge of the cliff, bouncing and spinning down the steep incline.
An animalistic scream echoed around the clearing, and she turned to see that the pilot of the first speeder was laying on his side, closer to the Senator's party than he had been a moment earlier. Blood trickled down his throat, soaking into the formerly white shirt. Rettensol's blood. The young Quarren mechanic had thrown himself before the Senator just as the Trandoshan had lunged forward, waving his handheld welding torch at the reptilian. Talos was prone on the other side of the clearing, helmet still spinning away.
The Trandoshan's skin was pocked with burning blaster holes, but he didn't seem to notice them. He did notice the searing pain from the welding torch, and his jaw had locked through Rettensol's ribcage. Blood gushed from the wound, and the Quarren mechanic went limp.
"That was a mistake.", Lawell hissed, stepping forward and levelling her blaster at the man.
Stass had to agree. She launched herself towards the Trandoshan and flung her foot out, catching the hunter across the chin. The impact drove him backwards, and he slammed into the ground, the Jedi riding his chest like a gravboard as he slid across the ground. As they came to a stop, the Trandoshan threw her off, but she nimbly landed on her feet. The heavy Rebly-7 blaster twisted off his back and he fired the weapon again and again, trying to break her defence.
Stass deflected each bolt, careful not to hit the Trandoshan anywhere vital. His weapon suddenly kaleidoscoped out and spat a buzzing net of yellow electricity at her. She rolled underneath it, reversing the grip of her blade. As she stood back up, now far closer to her enemy, she slammed the metallic hilt into the Trandoshan species weak point, a fleshy bulge of skin just beneath their jugular. There was a sharp intake of air, and the Trandoshan collapsed. Hopefully, he would be prepared to answer some questions.
What Stass couldn't know was that Cantoni had formerly been a part of the Haxion Brood. Even after leaving, she enjoyed practicing the delicate art of cybernetics. Taught to her by the infamous cybernetic surgical cult, she used the techniques as part of her illegal operation, surgically placing what she called 'nanny cams' on every one of her employees. These miniscule devices regulated the vitals and galactic position of their crew member, sending the data to her of her wrist controller.
So, when her gauntlet beeped about Espoit's heart racing, and his position had not changed for a while, she put two and two together. He had already given them the location of the shipwreck and reported no hostiles. He must have also found some unexpected resistance. No matter.
She had foreseen this occurrence and planned for it. If she hadn't, the pirate gang would have been ratted out to competitor's years earlier. Her fingers tapped at the controls and sent an encrypted signal code to the man's biochip. A death code. The uplink would fry the Trandoshan's implant and overload his system. He would die instantly. Whoever had captured him would regret it. Indeed, the readout soon read – Deceased