Star Wars Adventures 006 - The Warlords of Balmorra

by Ryder Windham

  Jango reached for his blasters and dived between the droids. In midair, he twisted his arms, aimed his weapons at the area between each droid’s treads, and squeezed off three energy bolts from each blaster. He hit the floor and rolled as the droid to his left exploded in the same fashion as the Mark X in the previous chamber, but the other droid—the one that had been in front of him—deflected Jango’s fired bolts with one of its weapon arms.

  Jango threw his left blaster over the fallen form of the defeated droid and leaped after the weapon. He knew that throwing down one of his blasters would temporarily confuse his remaining attacker, and Jango used that precious moment—as well as his free left hand—to grab the defeated droid’s missile-launcher arm.

  Just as Jango had anticipated, the remaining droid’s sensors tracked the bounty hunter’s thrown blaster before it realized what Jango was really up to. And when the droid did realize what Jango was about to do, it didn’t know whether to attack, retreat, or maneuver every one of its weapon arms down in front of its treads. The droid chose to attack, bringing up its neuron whip and its own missile launcher, but the reaction was too late. Jango brought his fist down on the side of the defeated droid’s missile-launcher arm, and the missile tore through the remaining droid’s exposed cooling circuitry. And the droid went down.

  Jango went to work on both droids with his vibro-blade. In one droid’s chest cavity, he found a vial of red liquid. The other droid yielded a vial of clear liquid. As Jango removed the third vial from his utility belt, he doubled over in pain.

  He could actually feel the poison twisting through his nervous system. His vision blurred, and he fought to prevent himself from going into shock.

  Boba, he thought. I can’t die now. Boba needs me.

  Jango’s hands were trembling as he examined the three vials. Obviously, the colors were different, but each vial was slightly different, too. From what he could determine, the vials appeared to be designed to interlock with each other, and once they were properly connected, they would mix the liquids to create the antidote.

  Fumbling with the vials, Jango tried fitting the red vial to the blue vial, but he couldn’t get their ends to click into place. Growing desperate, he tried the red vial against the clear vial.

  Click. It was one of the most satisfying sounds Jango had ever heard. He quickly twisted one end of the blue vial against the clear vial, but there was a nasty scraping sound, and he nearly dropped all the vials. He took a deep breath, then rotated the blue vial so its other end was braced against the clear vial. He pushed them together and twisted. Click.

  As the vials locked into their proper sequence, their contents mixed to form a dark purple liquid. A thin metal tube automatically extended from one vial, and without any hesitation, Jango raised the tube to his mouth and took a sip of the antidote.

  Almost instantly, his vision cleared and his stomach was no longer in pain. He was tempted to finish drinking the entire mixture, but then he thought of Aurra Sing. If she was still alive, and he could find her, the antidote might save her, too.

  As Jango secured the linked vials within a pouch at his belt, another wall panel slid back in the chamber, revealing a flight of stairs. Jango climbed the stairs until he emerged in what he assumed was a large, dark room.

  Suddenly, a blinding spotlight was activated, and Jango threw a hand in front of his visor as he dimmed his night-vision setting. Then he heard a thunderous burst of applause. Squinting past the spotlight, he saw he was surrounded by staggered bleachers filled with hundreds of cheering aliens. He was back in the arena where he’d started the Death Run.

  Rigorra’s swoop gang started riding their repulsorlift vehicles around the arena, attempting to block Jango’s access to the exits. He spotted the Hutt brothers, Groodo and Rigorra, seated among the spectators. Groodo looked a bit nervous, but Rigorra appeared confident as he held up a remote-control device and aimed it at the arena floor. A moment later, a trapdoor slid back from the floor, and a droid rose up from another hidden stairway.

  It was Rigorra’s prized Razor Eater, an assassin droid that was designed to hack and slash its victims to ribbons. The droid-engineer Hurlo Holowan had tried to sell more than one Razor Eater to Rigorra, but he never saw any need to own more than one, especially since he knew it was stronger than the slightly inferior models that Groodo had purchased for his own fortress on Esseles. And unlike the other Razor Eaters, Rigorra’s was equipped with a vocabulator.

  “I remember you,” the Razor Eater said to Jango. “Eight years ago. You are the one who got away.”

  Jango drew his blasters and shot at the droid’s knee joints. The defiant Razor Eater didn’t even flinch, and the fired energy bolts ricocheted off the droid’s knees and smashed into the arena floor. The droid looked to the audience for a response, and they roared with pleasure.

  Jango didn’t care for the crowd’s attitude, so he elevated his blasters and squeezed off twelve rapid shots at the sides of the droid’s torso. All twelve energy bolts ricocheted out into the bleachers, which didn’t please the audience at all.

  Or the Razor Eater. Gnashing its metal teeth, the hulking droid lurched toward Jango. Jango was about to aim for its neck when—thanks to his helmet’s pineal eye sensor—he saw someone behind him, coming up the same stairway he had climbed to reach the arena.

  It was Aurra Sing.

  Something flared in front of Aurra, and Jango realized she had fired her rifle. A projectile streaked away from the stairway and sailed under Jango, passing between his legs, before it struck the Razor Eater square in the chest and detonated. The Razor Eater’s entire body exploded to bits.

  While the audience gasped, Jango turned and ran for the stairway. He deftly extracted the linked vials from his belt and dropped beside Aurra, who had slumped over her rifle against the upper steps. Aurra’s eyes were closed, and Jango realized she had used her last bit of strength to destroy the Razor Eater.

  Don’t die now, Jango thought as he slipped the straw from the vials into Aurra’s mouth. We still have work to do! Aurra didn’t sip from the straw, so Jango elevated the vials to let gravity deliver the antidote. Seconds later, Aurra’s eyes opened and she said, “Yummy.”

  Watching from the bleachers, Rigorra was outraged. Without waiting for any music to kick in, he grabbed his microphone with one hand and a large blaster rifle with the other. He aimed the rifle at Jango, then sang:

  “It seems to me, dear bounty hunter,

  If Death were a lady, you’d confront her,

  And tell her, ‘Lady, jump in a lake!’

  You’d make Death cry, for goodness’ sake!

  Instead of feeling slightly slighted,

  Death would fall in unrequited

  Love with you, you heartless wretch,

  And so you’d live another stretch.

  But I’m not Death, and I’m not smitten

  By the life you’ve underwritten.

  And so I bid, without ado,

  A not-so-fond farewell to—”

  “You!” Aurra rasped from the arena floor as she fired her projectile rifle at Rigorra. But instead of firing an explosive charge, she hit Rigorra with a stun-dart. Rigorra dropped his weapon and fell off his dais.

  Aurra leaped away from Jango, firing her blasters at the arena’s spotlights, and the result was pure pandemonium. Castle guards shot at the wrong targets, startled swoop riders smashed into each other, and alarmed spectators ran for the exits. Then Aurra headed into the bleachers.

  From his seat next to Rigorra, Groodo looked in horror at his brother’s motionless form. Like just about everyone else on the bleachers, Groodo decided it was time to leave. He flipped himself down from his seat and rolled onto the repulsorlift gravsled that had carried him into the arena. He started the gravsled’s ignition, and then sped off toward a wide arched doorway.

  On the arena floor, Jango knocked a Rodian rider from his swoop, then hopped onto it, gunned the engine, and raced after Groodo. He followed Groodo th
rough the arched doorway, and found that it led straight out of the arena.

  Night had fallen on Balmorra, but the moons were shining brightly. Without the use of any special helmet sensors, Jango spotted Groodo on his gravsled. The bounty hunter leaned on the accelerator. Within seconds, he was right on top of Groodo.

  Jango dived from the swoop and landed on the back of the gravsled. Groodo felt the gravsled drop at the same moment that he saw a riderless swoop speed past him. As the swoop careened and smashed into the arena’s exterior, Groodo lashed out with his muscular tail, hoping to whack anyone behind him.

  Jango ducked Groodo’s tail and shot the Hutt with a high-stun energy bolt. Groodo’s body jerked, and he accidentally slapped the gravsled’s controls as his body went limp. The gravsled swerved through the air, angling for the ground. Jango pushed past Groodo’s bulky, unconscious form, seized the controls, and brought the gravsled to a shuddering stop outside the arena.

  With the gravsled damaged, Jango knew there wasn’t any way he could transport Groodo to Slave I, so he removed a device from his belt and summoned his ship by remote control. As Jango waited for Slave I to arrive, he heard an explosion behind him, and turned to see that someone had blasted a large hole through the side of the arena.

  Jango was surprised when Bossk came crashing through the rubble and out of the hole. He was even more surprised to see that Bossk was carrying Skorr’s body over his shoulders.

  “Hey!” Bossk shouted to Jango. “What are you doing out here? Seems everywhere I go lately, I keep running into you!”

  “I could say the same thing about you,” Jango muttered.

  “Yeah, whatever,” Bossk said as he neared Jango. He let Skorr drop to the ground, then said, “I found Skorr while I was escaping through the caves under the arena. Someone must’ve zapped him. Figured I’d save his neck so he could owe me one. How’d you live?”

  “I found the antidote to the poisonous flowers,” Jango said. “What’s your excuse?”

  Bossk laughed. “Yeah, those flowers had a mean kick to ’em, but it takes more than a buncha flowers to kill a Trandoshan.” He jabbed Skorr with the toe of his boot, and Skorr moaned. Bossk added, “I don’t know what species Skorr is, but it doesn’t look like the flowers did too much damage to him, either. Go figure. Hey, what’s this?” Bossk had finally noticed the unconscious Hutt that lay on the crashed gravsled next to Jango. Bossk pointed at Groodo and said, “That’s one of the Hutts! But which one is it? The one I’m hunting, or his brother?”

  “Must be his brother,” Jango said flatly.

  “You sure?” Bossk said. Then a look of suspicion crossed Bossk’s face and he said, “Now, wait just a second. I didn’t even tell you the name of which Hutt I’m hunting, so how do you know that this one is the brother?”

  Before Jango could offer an answer, Bossk heard the engines of an approaching starship and turned to look up at Slave I. The moment he looked away from Jango, Jango shot him in the back of the head.

  Slave I touched down outside the arena. It took Jango several minutes to load Groodo, Bossk, and Skorr onto his ship. When the prisoner hold was filled to capacity, Jango went to the cockpit and lifted off from Balmorra.

  And later, after he’d set the nav computer to plot a course for Geonosis, he wondered how Aurra Sing had made out with Rigorra the Hutt.

  When Rigorra woke up, he was bound in chains and lying in a dungeon. There weren’t any windows on the high stone walls that surrounded him, and only a single glow rod dangled from the ceiling. He had no idea if he was still on Balmorra.

  One of the larger stones slid into the wall and revealed a hidden doorway. Standing in the doorway was the paleskinned humanoid female that he’d last seen in his arena.

  Speaking plainly, without any musical lilt in his voice, Rigorra said, “It couldn’t have been easy for you to haul me here.”

  Aurra Sing ignored Rigorra’s obvious attempt to have her reveal their location. She entered the dungeon and said, “Remember me?”

  Rigorra laughed. “Of course. How could I forget? You’re the one who shot me.”

  Aurra smiled, then shook her head. “Before that. Years before. Remember?”

  “Yes, I remember,” Rigorra said. “I remember back when you were just another slave who belonged to Wallanooga.”

  Aurra grinned and giggled. “You do remember!” Then her grin fell away, and she said, “Say my name.”

  “Aurra Sing,” Rigorra said.

  “No, no, no. Sing my name.”

  Rigorra could not refuse any audience. He sang, “Aur-ra Siiiiiiiing!”

  “You sing nice,” Aurra said. “But I don’t.”

  With genuine sympathy, Rigorra said, “How very unfortunate.”

  Aurra asked, “Do you give lessons?”

  At this point, readers who chose to follow the adventure in the Star Wars Adventures Game Book can return to the novel The Warlords of Balmorra.

  Jango Fett stayed on the planet Geonosis just long enough to deliver Groodo the Hutt, Senator Rodd, and Hurlo Holowan to a waiting squadron of heavily-armed Geonosian soldiers. After a Geonosian officer assured the bounty hunter that two hundred thousand Republic credits—the remaining balance of the bounty—had been transferred to his bank account, Jango left in Slave I with Bossk and Skorr still in the prisoner hold.

  The Geonosian soldiers were winged, insect-like bipeds. Groodo, Rodd, and Holowan had never even heard of them before. The soldiers escorted the three criminals into a tunnel that cut through a towering spire of red rock, and they proceeded through the tunnel until they finally arrived in a dark room that had many broken bones scattered across the floor. The room reeked of death.

  The soldiers left, and the criminals faced one another. Holowan said, “Where in blazes are we?”

  Senator Rodd said, “If we stick together, maybe we can still get out of here.”

  Groodo said, “I’m hungry.”

  There was a sudden chill in the air, and even the thick-skinned Groodo shivered. Then the three noticed that a man had entered the room—a silver-haired man who wore expensive-looking clothes. Senator Rodd recognized him immediately.

  “Count Dooku!” Rodd said. “You… you’ve been captured, too?”

  The Count smiled and shook his head. “No, not I. Actually, I’m the one who had you brought here.”

  “What?” Groodo spat. “Excuse me, but just who in the flizzards are you to have had us abducted?” Then Groodo noticed the lightsaber that hung at Dooku’s belt and said, “Not that I’m angry with you, mister… what’s your name again?”

  “Count Dooku of Serenno,” Dooku declared.

  Groodo pointed at the lightsaber and asked, “You’re a Jedi?”

  “A former Jedi.”

  “Really?” Groodo said, trying to sound impressed and hoping to get on the Count’s good side. “They let you keep your lightsaber though, huh?”

  “They never really had any say in the matter,” Dooku said.

  “Well, let me tell you, Count,” Groodo said. “I don’t know why you brought us all here, but I think maybe there’s been some kind of… how shall I say it? A mistake? I mean, I don’t even know these two.”

  “Why you—!” Holowan snarled.

  “There has been no mistake,” Dooku interjected. “I had you brought here because I learned that you three were responsible for the attempts to destroy the starship yards of Fondor.”

  There was a moment of silence, and then Groodo said, “The starship yards of where?”

  Dooku glared at Groodo and said, “I’ll tell you only once, Groodo: Never lie to me and never insult my intelligence.”

  “Oh,” Groodo said. “Okay.”

  Dooku continued, “Now, I have a strong interest in Fondor’s future, so it was most unsettling when I discovered that a Hutt, a droid-engineer, and a Republic Senator had conspired to bring ruin to the starship yards.”

  Holowan’s eyes flicked to Dooku’s lightsaber, then she forced herself to l
ook into his eyes and ask, “Are you going to kill us?”

  Dooku smiled again. “Kill you? That would be such a waste of talent! You see, I’m working on a project, something that may take years. I can’t tell you all about it, but as you may have already assumed, Fondor is an important part of my plans.”

  “So… you’re not going to kill us?” Rodd asked.

  Dooku shook his head. “On the contrary, Senator. I’m recruiting you for my cause. Although your scheme for Fondor failed, it showed a great deal of ambition and ingenuity, and it’s also to your credit that neither the Fondor Space Patrol nor the Jedi Knights ever discovered your plot. I admire people who can keep secrets.”

  “You’re hiring us then?” Holowan asked.

  Dooku said, “That’s right.”

  “I don’t get it,” Groodo said. “What if we don’t want to work for you?”

  Dooku shrugged. “Then you won’t leave this room alive.”

  “Ah,” Groodo said. “I get it.”

  “I knew you would,” said Dooku. “Now, let us adjourn to more pleasant surroundings. We have much to discuss.”

  Cradossk the Trandoshan, head of the Bounty Hunters Guild, was sitting behind his desk at guild headquarters and polishing his gutting blades when a servant entered and said, “There’s a Jango Fett to see you, sir.”

  “Jango?” Cradossk said, nearly falling out of his chair. “Where is he?”

  “His ship just touched down on Platform E.”

  Cradossk brushed past the servant, entered a lift tube, and went directly to Platform E. Slave I rested on the landing platform, and Jango stood at the bottom of his ship’s ramp. Beside Jango, there were two figures propped up against each other. Both figures were bound in chains and wearing stun cuffs around their wrists and ankles, and both were unconscious.

  Cradossk chuckled at the sight of the bound pair, then faced Jango Fett and said, “Welcome to Trandosha, Jango. I was starting to wonder what had become of Bossk and Skorr. Imagine my pleasure to see that you’ve brought them home to me, and so neatly wrapped.”