her long enough for him to press the emergency call. The wraith and
several armed guards appeared in moments, just as Trentacal pushed the
slave girl roughly to the cabin floor.
"Fools! All of you! You're supposed to protect me!" He held up the
knife he had taken and pointed it at the slave girl. "I want you to
vaporize this insolent thing and get us out of here! And pray that my
next wish is not all of your heads on a serving platter!" The guards
drew their energy weapons; aiming them at the slave. The ambassador's
daughter cried aloud, trying to shield her brother from the cruel
scene.
A muffled explosion rattled the huge. transport. Trentacal's eyes
bulged in mute surprise as he watched two of the guard towers tip over
and collapse in perfect unison.
Kempo and Brixie had made it only as far as the makeshift landing pad
for the camp's snubfighter when the snouts of several huge blaster
cannons appeared from slits in the command bunker. The heavy weapons
were laying down a withering curtain of fire, pinning them there.
"Hold still!" Brixie was still trying to apply a medical wrap to
Kempo's singed right leg. The pathfinder had unexpectedly been the
first target of the heavy blaster attack.
"Look at the size of those guns!" Kempo clucked his tongue in a
tisking manner. "They probably ripped them out from some capital
ship."
"Who cares! Can you see Hugo and Sully?"
Kempo poked his head slightly around the corner and shot a slaver guard
in the torso, dropping him instantly.
He spotted Cutter's familiar tousled mane of hair as he hid from the
energy fire coming from the command bunker. The prefabricated
structures he hid behind would not last for long.
"Hugo's trapped over by those buildings." He tapped his comlink switch
twice, but there was no reply. He shook his head. "I can't raise
Sully, but I think he made it to the freighter."
When Kempo looked around the corner again, the bunker's weapons were
aiming once again for Cutter. Energy beams mined down all over the
demolitions expert, burning away huge chunks of the prefabricated
structures.
Kempo shouted over the din back to Brixie.
"Hugo's gonna be a little smoking pile of nothing unless we do
something to shut those guns up!"
Surprised by his words, she looked over at the impregnable command
bunker. "But shouldn't we be going for the freighter? That's our way
out of here!"
"Leaving teammates behind is not in my employment description."
Kempo took a step back and jostled something. The niche where they
were hiding served as a storage shed for the landing pad. He
disappeared for a moment inside and returned with a grav-cart and a
half dozen large cylinders with prominent warning labels plastered over
them.
"I think it's time we extended a warm Red Moon greeting to our slaver
friends."
Two guards armed with sun prods stood by a secondary boarding ramp of
the cargo transport, shoving as many of the enslaved beings as they
could into the ship. Many of the slaves, panicked by the explosions
and screaming beams of energy fire, had taken this opportunity to
run.
The guards were in no place to argue. One by one, the other loading
ramps were closing as the ship began its final 'preparations for
takeoff. A message crackled over the guards' secure comlinks.
Relieved to be as far away from the shooting as possible, they began to
climb the ramp. As one of the guards turned to follow the slaves in,
he noticed a slave without a restraint collar. He growled to his
partner as he seized the Trunsk by the arm.
"Hey! They forgot to put a pain collar on this one."
Sully Tigereye turned around. Sharpened fighting claws seized the
startled guard by his chin. In his other hand, he aimed a heavy
blaster pistol at the second guard and shot the sun prod right out of
his hands. The guard spun and ran.
"There will be no more pain collars. Not as long as I live." He
clenched the first guard by the jowls of his neck and swung his face
close. "Now that I have your undivided attention--where's your
boss?"
Working quickly, Kempo and Brixie stacked the cart with the fuel
cylinders they had found as well as the explosives and grenades they
were carrying. The cannon fire around them was getting closer and
closer.
"Come to think of it, there's one small problem with this plan," Kempo
muttered half-aloud.
"We don't have time for problems!" Brixie replied, wincing slightly as
a piece of the nearby landing pad was blasted apart by a bunker
weapon.
"One of us is going to have to pilot this thing up to their
doorstep."
They both looked at each other, eyes frozen. A tight little grin
began to form across Kempo's face. He took Brixie's hand and kissed
the back of it.
"Don't worry kid, I just volunteered." The pathfinder climbed aboard
and took up a position by the cart's steering controls, trying to
hunker down low. He handed her the stormtrooper rifle.
"Keep them occupied long enough for me to get up close." He activated
the cart's repulsorlift controls. The cart surged slowly forward as he
smirked back at her.
"Just don't let people forget about me, right?"
She shook her head. There was something about his expression that she
had never seen before. There was so much she wanted to learn about him
and no time left.
As the grav-cart emerged, Brixie took up a position to the side of the
landing pad. She fired the rifle's grenade launcher, spitting
concussion explosives at the hardened outer shell of the command
bunker--for what little good it would do.
The grav-cart zigzagged across the clearing. For what felt like an
eternity, the bunker's blaster weapons clumsily tried to follow him,
just barely missing. Just as the grav-cart reached the bunker, Brixie
could see the pathfinder time his leap--only to stumble on the cart's
side railing.
His foot caught, he was dragged relentlessly along until...
The next second, she was looking up at the failing light of the evening
sky. The shock wave had knocked Brixie flat on her back. She
staggered to her feet.
Where there had been a command bunker, there was now only the jagged
remains of a permacrete foundation.
Even the sides of the cargo transport had been scorched by the blast.
Slavers were running wildly in all directions. She moved to the edge
of the heart of the fire, shielding her face as she looked for a
familiar form to stagger out.
Kempo had to come out. That's the way the holos always ended.
The hero always walked out.
Nobody did.
Hugo grabbed her by the arm and began pulling her over to the ship.
"No!" she screamed at him. "We won't leave a teammate behind!
We can't!"
He had to drag her away from the inferno.
The explosion was so huge it shook the cargo transport violently on its
landing legs.
The transport bridge's accessway popped open. Tiger-eye shoved the
guard into a few of the crewers standing there. Several reached for
weapons, but they were not fast enough. Energy beams ricocheted across
the bridge.
When it was over, Tigereye waved the blaster pistol at the survivors.
"Everybody in the escape pod! Now!"
They filed into the bridge's lifeboat pod. Tigereye sealed the
hatchway behind them, locking them inside.
After securing the bridge, he then tapped his comlink.
There was no need. Brixie and Hugo Cutter appeared at the bridge's
accessway. The demolitions expert's shoulders were sagging.
Brixie was crestfallen, tears streaming down her cheeks.
Tigereye understood immediately. Kempo. The explosion.
His hands balled into fists, Tigereye wanted to scream.
He wanted to tear the bridge apart..He grabbed the guard he had taken
prisoner and slammed him against one of the control consoles so hard
the impact dented the panels. He shoved the datapad before the guard's
eyes, pictures of the ambassador's children flashing on the tiny
screen.
"They're not among the slaves held down below. So where are they?"
The guard gestured at another doorway on the bridge.
"They're in the master's quarters! In there!"
Tigereye tossed the heavy blaster pistol to Cutter as he unsheathed
his vibro-ax.
"Set weapons to stun. We need those children alive."
"I'm coming too," Brixie stepped forward, shaking, still clenching Lex
Kempo's stormtrooper rifle with whitened knuckles. Tigereye gestured
at the guard.
"No. You have to watch him."
Brixie pivoted and shot the guard using the blaster rifle's stun
setting at point-blank range. The guard slumped over into
unconsciousness.
"He's going nowhere," she replied tersely as she inserted two stun
grenades into the rifle launcher.
Tigereye and Cutter regarded each other, surprised.
Muffled blaster fire erupted from somewhere behind the door, followed
by a painful scream. Tigereye gestured to Cutter at the door
controls.
"Open it. Now!"
The well-appointed domain of the slave master was almost completely
dark. The slave master himself was dead, slumped over in his
lounger.
Brixie immediately took a step toward the young girl and her brother
still chained to the wall, but Tigereye held her back.
From the way they were cowering in silence, he could tell something was
not right.
"Someone else is in here," Tigereye whispered.
"That is correct," a voice from the dark declared.
Crouching low, the mercenaries separated as they made their way into
the cabin. As she moved past the lounger, Brixie's foot grazed
something soft. She inhaled sharply as she saw the torn throat of a
dead slave girl lying on the floor, a hold-out blaster still clutched
in her tiny hands. The slave master's guards lay dead close by.
"She saw an opportunity to escape," the voice explained
matter-of-factly. "I had to convince her otherwise.
Take a good look, mercenaries. Your fate will be the same as hers."
A shape lunged at Cutter, sending him sprawling across the floor.
In just moments, the shape appeared again, claws burying deep inside
Brixie's protective vest. The thing shoved her into the wall, knocking
her senseless.
The stormtrooper rifle clattered to the floor.
Holding her injured head and side, she heard more fighting.
Trying to focus, she saw their attacker stand against the dim light of
the cabin's viewports for only a moment. She immediately recognized
the shaggy, black-furred creature from her medical training at the
university. No wonder the lights were out!
"It's a Defel! A wraith!"
Tigereye found the cabin's lighting controls and flipped them to their
maximum setting. Glowspheres filled the room with brightness.
The terrifying creature screamed in agony, trying to shield its eyes
from the powerful lights.
Surrounded and blinded, the Defel spun around wildly.
Brixie had picked up the stormtrooper blaster rifle. Hugo Cutter was
back up on his feet, blaster pistol in hand, his face badly bruised.
Sully Tigereye's gaze narrowed to a chilled yellow as he took a step
forward, vibro-ax in hand.
"The only fate you should be worrying about . . . is your own."
The cargo ship, almost fully laden with freed slaves, climbed slowly
into the sky above Gabredor III. Below on the night-eclipsed surface
of the planet, the destroyed slaver camp burned with a vengeance.
Tigereye had made it a point that they should leave plenty of Red Moon
marks for all to find there. Knowing they had been targeted, the
Karazak Slavers Guild would have to look long and hard for another
place to conduct its business.
And with the children of the Gola ambassador safely aboard the ship,
the Pentastar Alignment had lost as well.
In Brixie's heart, it was a hollow victory. They had tried to search
the wreckage of the command bunker, but the
fire was simply too hot.
She sat in a chair on the transport's bridge keeping to herself as
Tigereye and Cutter familiarized themselves with the ship's astrogation
controls. She finally thought about taking the helmet off her head.
With a tired sigh, she undid the straps and let the helmet fall to the
deck beside her feet.
Tigereye looked over at the sound. During her training, it had been
difficult for her to judge the Trunsk--to separate reputation from
reality. The same clawed hands which had so eagerly torn the Defel to
pieces were the same hands which gladly unlocked the pain collars of
dozens of slaves.
She finally realized why he had chosen her for this mission.
There were some things that cannot come with training or preparation,
they must be experienced and felt. Brixie had experienced the
camaraderie and the fear, seen the violence and death that was all part
of the life of the blaster-forhire. For a brief moment, Tigereye's
expression softened. He and Hugo would mourn the loss of their
lifetime friend in their own ways.
Her gaze fell upon the bridge's visual screens.
Gabredor III was falling slowly away. She found herself wishing Lex
was here, wondering what his reaction would have been to her
realization. He probably would have just winked at her.
Then she saw the remains of the slaver camp on the screens. A chill
ran down her spine--there was something familiar about the shape of
fires down there. Kempo's voice echoed in her mind. In his own words,
the path finder had indeed gone out in a blaze of glory.
From hundreds of kilometers above, the explosion that had flattened the
command bunker appeared like a fiercely glowing crescent . . .
A red moon.
Slaying Dragons
-by Angela Phillips Improper Passcode---Access Denied . . . Improper
PasscodeAccess Denied . . .
Improper PasscodeAccess Denied . . .
A plume of smoke from the end of
the canyon heralded the approach of
the dragon. Veni drew closer to his elder sister as Vici activated her
light-saber."
"Veni trembled at the sound of 20 powerful reptilian legs plunging
toward him in deadly synchronization.
But Vici was not afraid. Though only 16 years old, she held the mighty
power of the Force tightly in her hands. The dragon drew closer."
Vweep! Access Granted . . .
Shannon Voorson set her story platform aside and turned back to the
monitor. Finally, she muttered.
This code had taken longer to slice than usual. Still, she reflected,
any code one computer can generate, another can imitate.
First Law of Slicing. Now, she thought, let's see if we've found
anything interesting . . .
"Oh, yuck," she sighed when she saw the contents of the file she'd
entered: a register of six new Star Destroyers nearing completion at
Tales From The Empire Page 26