by Tony Russo
“What is it, Vex?” The Defel was responsible for not only for his master’s security, but for the entire slaver operation on Gabredor. When summoned to the defense of his master, very few survived to tell about his rage. Trentacal did not mind the fear surrounding his kind’s fearsome reputation either.
Vex thumbed the comlink off and turned slightly, not liking to stare too long at the pool of light that bathed his master. “One of the Z-95 patrols has spotted the wreckage of a light freighter some distance from here. The ship had come in low and fast, using some type of counter-measures to elude long-range sensors and our patrols. Whoever they were, it appears they did not want any attention.”
“Was it a ship from the New Republic?” Trentacal asked cautiously, suddenly alert.
The wraith’s eye slits narrowed as he explained. “I do not think so. They would not risk coming so deep into Alignment territory. Doing so could mean an all-out war between them. That is something the New Republic is not willing to risk. The only way to know is to interrogate the survivors. But the main lifepod from the ship was not found in the wreckage. My trackers are still searching for it.”
Trentacal slammed a meaty fist down on the armrest of his sumptuous chair. The serving girl sprang back in terror.
“Then it must be the Alignment. They’ve crossed us!”
The black head shook slowly. “I do not think it is the Pentastar Alignment either. Master Trentacal. Their resources are vast. They have no need for small strike teams. If they wanted to, they could attack with an Enforcer-class picket cruiser or something similar.”
“Then who?”
Vex’s eyes slid toward the far wall and the two figures chained silently there. The slovenly slave master sharply inhaled, understanding immediately. Whoever these intruders were, they were coming for them.
“Vex, I think you should activate the security perimeter.”
“It has already been done, master.”
“Ged it ob of me!” Lex Kempo, the mercenary’s mercenary, whined like a bantha calf as he pulled at the slimy, multi-folded creature that had fallen on his head. Brixie was trying her best to pry it off with her vibro-knife. Sully Tigereye just watched them. If the situation had heen different, he might have been amused.
“Get it off of him, Brixie,” the Trunsk unsheathed a combat vibro-axe from his weapons harness.
“I’m trying!”
“Can we go home now?” Hugo muttered as he sat on a dead log, tired and agitated.
“I’m sorry we’re boring you!” Kempo snapped. He had the creature by both hands and was forcibly pulling it off when the little beast whipped out a tail appendage and squirted a powdery jet in his face. Coughing and sneezing uncontrollably, Kempo knocked Brixie into the brush. Cutter laughed.
Tigereye swore, his patience exhausted.
“That does it. Exobiology class is now over!”
Tigereye grabbed the thing by its now-extended tail and swung. The vibro-axe removed the flailing appendage. A greenish fluid squirted over everyone. The creature flopped off Kempo’s head and expired at their feet.
Humiliation forgotten, Brixie immediately snapped open her medkit and examined the grumbling pathfinder’s head for puncture marks or other lacerations that would indicate a bite. She used a water jet to clear off his face. A quick spot test of the creature’s blood revealed that it was not inherently dangerous. Unfortunately, there was little she could do for their wallowing morale. They had been trudging through the jungle for almost a day now. Tempers were as short as grenade timers.
“I feel like a droid with a bunch of haywire receptors and a bad servo creak. Thanks kid,” Kempo wiped at his face with the moisture cloth Brixie had given him. “What was that thing?”
Tigereye considered for a moment. “I don’t know, but you’re lucky it wasn’t poisonous. I suggest the next time you hear a noise, you might want to look up as well as around.” Kempo fell quiet as he poked sympathetically at the growing welt on his forehead. Cutter continued to chuckle.
Tigereye turned his ire on the squatting demolitions expert.
“I don’t recall giving any order for a rest break, Hugo.”
“Well, you guys looked so busy fooling around with that thing that I didn’t want to disturb you.”
“Time’s short. You’re on point. I want you to scout ahead and make sure there aren’t any more surprises waiting for us.”
The frazzled-haired engineer pointed at his own chest, startled. “You want me to … scout? Sully, you know I don’t scout. I blow things up into itty-bitty pieces. Everyone in the unit says I make a poor scout.”
“Consider it a valuable life lesson. Brixie’s gotta finish checking out Kempo, and someone has to watch over her.”
Hugo rose angrily to his feet, the charges still rattling around in his camo bag. He drew a blaster pistol from a holster.
“Fine, but who’s going to watch over me?”
“Enough complaining. Scoot!”
Hugo vanished over the dead log he had been sitting on, still complaining loudly as he walked off. Tigereye shook his tired, grizzled head. Removing the map pad, he checked their current coordinates with the expected slaver encampment. They should reaching their security perimeter soon. He looked up momentarily to watch Brixie dab a medicated ointment on Kempo’s head. She was also looking at him.
“Problem?”
“No. I was just wondering,” she stumbled over her words. “I mean everyone spends so much time arguing and insulting. You don’t act exactly like what I’ve seen. You know … like professionals.”
She stopped, believing she had somehow completely insulted them. Now it was Kempo’s turn to laugh. Even Tigereye, surprisingly, was not offended.
“You’ve been watching too many entertainment holos, Brixie. Not all of us pretend to be the master merc like Kempo.”
“Who’s pretending?” Kempo interrupted, still rinsing his eyes. “Don’t let our sparring fool you any, kid. We go back a long way. Far enough back to hate each other’s guts and still be the best of chums.”
“Hugo’s your best friend?” Brixie looked confused. “But you don’t act like best friends.”
Tigereye pursed his lips. “Everyone in this company, everyone in the Red Moons that is, comes with a story. Your parents for instance. You don’t like the way the Alignment is treating them, do you?”
“My parents were both taken from their clinic and forced to work for the Alignment military as combat surgeons. It’s almost as if they’ve been locked up. I just want them back.”
“Hugo’s parents were Imperial nobility. He lived on a corporate world during the reign of the Emperor. His parents tried everything to keep him under control, including locking him up. I was treated like an animal once. I know what it’s like to be caged. When you go through life like that, sometimes you need someone to keep you in check. Hugo minds over me like I mind him.”
Kempo pulled himself to his feet and handed the salve back to her.
“Remember kid, the first rule of soldiering is to not let appearances fool you. Tigereye didn’t choose us for this team just because of our singing voices. Tigereye’s got more combat experience in his little right toe claw than most Imperial generals. Hugo can make an AT-ST dance a jig and explode with just a spanner and a thermal detonator. My job is to make sure we survive to brag about this little tale. And in case we do fall apart, Lady Brix, your job is to put the little pieces back together so I can collect my finish fee.”
Brixie felt completely embarrassed. What she had mistaken for open hostility among the three veterans was actually their way of dealing with yet another impossible situation.
Hugo Cutter’s head suddenly appeared over the log.
“Excuse me. I don’t want to interrupt your talking about me, but I think I found something.”
From a distance, the sensor mast appeared like a metal chrome ball mounted on a pole slightly taller than the surrounding vegetation. Others just like it rose approximately 2
0 meters to either side They positioned themselves almost 30 meters away from the distinct-looking sensor fence.
“Looks like we found their perimeter,” Kempo muttered quietly to Tigereye, not anxious to trip any possible acoustical pickups. Behind them, Cutter and Brixie waited anxiously.
“Or we tripped over a buried, outer perimeter line already.” Tigereye checked his own detection instruments. Despite his concern, the possibility of an outer barrier was unlikely here. The everpresent moisture and local lifeforms would make short work of almost anything made of metal or complex circuitry buried in the humus. He glanced back. “All right Hugo, you’re on.”
Cutter took off his service jacket and dumped the contents of his bag of tricks on to it. Shaped charges, broken datapads, anti-vehicle grenades, droid parts and bits of c-board and chips spilled everywhere. Kempo eyed the strange assortment with some disdain. “You’re carrying enough junk to supply Industrial Automaton.”
“Spare me,” Cutter snapped back as he set to work. Brixie watched the entire process with interest as Kempo and Tigereye took up sentry positions close by. Not even realizing she had been recruited to assist him, Cutter was asking her for tools from the tech kit and bits from the scrap pile. In minutes, a truly strange conglomeration of sensor boards, probe droid chips, scanners and communication jammers was taking shape.
“Is this going to work?” she asked.
Cutter took a moment to sit back and admire his creation with a small sense of satisfaction. “They banned me from the Imperial Engineering Academy. They laughed at me. Well, does this look like the work of a madman to you?”
Brixie stared hard at the device. Cutter looked up at her. perhaps sensing the thoughts crossing her mind. A crooked little smile formed across his lips.
“Don’t bother answering that.”
A crashing sound from the nearby bushes startled all of them into silence. Kempo growled over to them, “Keep down. Someone just set off one of my door bells.”
Tigereye pulled out a set of macrobinoculars. Keeping his view on the trail they had just come from, he waited for several long moments. He saw a brief movement and focused. Through the viewfinder, he saw a scaly head sniffing the ground. Moving the binocs slowly, he finally caught the rider wearing a camosuit to blend against the jungle backdrop. The rider was clenching a long force pike in his free hand as he examined Kempo’s “door bell,” a tree limb tied across the trail with thin cord.
“What is it?” Kempo whispered.
“Looks like a tracker. Riding some kind of two-legged reptoid.”
Kempo used the targeting sight on his stormtrooper rifle to watch the newcomer.
“I see him now. Another might be close by,” he whispered.
“Another won’t make any difference. All it takes is one report to bring the whole slaver camp down on our heads.”
“Those odds are good enough for me.” Kempo unsnapped the scabbard on his back and handed Brixie a very sharp vibro-cutlass, its blade and edges blackened for military duty. She dubiously took the weapon in her hands.
“What’s this for?”
“You get to watch my back for a change. I’ve had enough of this mud crawl.” Kempo started running toward the trees. “The rest of you take down the fence. I’ll handle the bad guys!”
“Kempo! I didn’t …” Tigereye snarled at him just as the pathfinder took off. Brixie and Cutter looked to him for guidance. “Don’t just sit there! Hugo, disarm the fence. Brixie, you cover him!” No sooner had he said that when he too had disappeared through the thick growth.
Kempo dropped to one knee as he sprang through the trees, startling the tracker and his mount. He fired the blaster rifle at short range, but missed the rider.
The rider spurred the trained reptoid and charged. The creature snapped at the open air just by his head, then tried to cleave him open with serrated feet claws. Kempo fired back, his stolen set of Imperial scout armor taking the brunt of the beast’s charge as it sent him sprawling. The impact knocked the blaster rifle out of his hands.
Poised above him, the tracker raised his force pike to strike. A howling, fur-covered missile burst from the trees, turning the tracker’s attention away. Sully Tigereye crashed against both tracker and beast, his vibro-axe swinging and connecting against the creature’s thick hide. The reptoid screamed from the terrible injury and bolted away, carrying its rider reluctantly along with it. With the tracker’s back turned to them now, Kempo picked up his fallen weapon and fired. A screaming burst of energy struck the tracker square in the back, killing him before he struck the ground. The injured reptoid, now riderless, kept on crashing loudly away through the foliage. Tigereye brandished his vibro-axe at Kempo.
“I should have let that thing take a bite out of you, if only to teach you a lesson.”
“I was doing just fine before you showed up.”
“Let me guess — you had him exactly where you wanted him,” the Trunsk snorted as he caught his breath. “Check the body. If we’re lucky, he didn’t have a chance to report in.”
“We’re never that lucky,” Kempo retorted as he headed over to the body of the dead tracker.
Hugo got to his feet, holding up the contraption. Brixie looked on, eyeing him and his spontaneous invention dubiously. He began to move slowly toward the sensor mast, fumbling for the power switches that would activate the united parts. He suddenly stopped in his tracks.
“What’s wrong?” Brixie half-whispered to him, trying to watch him and their surroundings at the same time.
“Something about this type of sensor mast.”
He took another step. A whine came from the datapad’s power coupling. The device was not used to handling the power requirements of the other components. The two and a half meter tall mast loomed over his head as he slowly approached. An expression of recognition came over Cutter. He stopped in his tracks, making quick adjustments to the components in his hands.
“Now I remember!”
“Remember what?” Brixie sputtered.
An intense beeping came from Hugo’s contraption. Before Brixie’s eyes, an alternating pattern of light began to phase from the sensor mast. She gasped as the solid-looking ground before their feet suddenly evaporated, exposing a cargo speeder-sized ditch trap. Explosives and mines lay at the bottom of the excavated pit. Hugo smirked.
“A holographic trap. Very sneaky. Very expensive. These slavers have better security than I thought. Did you see how I set the multiphase emitter to turn off the hologram?”
Brixie had been watching Hugo so intently that she almost did not hear the sound of dead leaves and underbrush being crushed behind her. She spun around, Kempo’s vibro-cutlass in her hands. A second tracker and his reptoid leered at her like predators about to pounce. A threatening rumble echoed in the sharp-toothed beast’s throat as the tracker leveled the point of his force pike at Brixie’s throat.
“Ah, Hugo?” she gulped.
The sound of a female scream cut through the jungle air like the edge of Sully Tigereye’s polished vibro-axe. The Trunsk plunged through the jungle, back toward the sensor perimeter.
Tigereye stumbled into a clearing in time to see Lex Kempo drop from the trees and fall on the tracker. The reptoid bucked underneath them as the pathfinder slapped a now familiar-looking organism on the tracker’s head. The tracker, his eyes completely covered by the filmy creature, knocked Kempo off as he swung the force pike wildly.
The whole scene looked completely ridiculous until the blinded tracker spurred the reptoid forward. A shot from Tigereye’s own heavy blaster brought the tracker down, but the creature still charged into and over a shrieking Brixie.
“Brixie!” Tigereye bellowed, leaping forward.
The beast suddenly became quiet and rolled away from the startled girl in a heap — Kempo’s vibro-cutlass buried up to its hilt in its scaly chest. She looked more terrified than hurt as Tigereye ran up to her.
“Are you okay?”
She gulped once and
fought to bring her fear under control.
“Yes … yes I’m fine.”
Even Cutter was stunned as he looked up at the tree branch where Kempo had jumped from.
“And I thought I was crazy,” he muttered.
Kempo had gotten to his feet. Brixie watched him for some time, trying to think of some way to thank him without sounding petty. Shrugging the incident away, the pathfinder turned his back to her and retrieved his vibro-cutlass. He then moved to the body of the fallen tracker, switching off his comlink. Exhaling hard, Brixie collected her medkit and gear, not desiring to look on the scene anymore.
In the meantime, Cutter and Tigereye had turned their attention the disarmed sensor mast and the exposed pit trap.
“Can we go around it?” Tigereye had exchanged his vibro-axe for the map locator. Cutter triumphantly held up his device.
“No problem. Those slavers are probably scratching their heads, wondering how we did it.”
“If the slavers stick around long enough to wonder.” Tigereye interjected. “We have only one shot at this. Karazak slavers aren’t stupid. Once they figure out we bypassed their perimeter, they will probably leave their paid guns behind to pick us off while they jump planet with their valuables — including the children.”
“Sully,” Brixie slung a medical pack over her shoulder. “Before we go any further with this. I have to know who these children are. The least you can do is tell us why their lives are more important than ours.”
