by Tony Russo
“The kid’s right,” Kempo added as he sheathed the vibro-cutlass in its carrier. “I’m deliberately jumping out of perfectly good trees for these pups. You owe us that much.”
Tigereye sighed. “They’re the children of the ambassador to Cantras Gola.”
“Cantras Gola is a corporate world.” Brixie found herself getting angry. “An Alignment world. What’s so important about that?”
“Everything,” Tigereye silenced her. “Kempo is right, Brixie. We’re soldiers. We don’t ask questions. We supply answers. With an entire corporate world about to sway over to the New Republic, and the New Republic unable to openly confront the Pentastar Alignment, you need someone else to fight the battle. We are that someone else.”
“But I thought the reason why the Red Moons broke away from the New Republic was because the New Republic wasn’t doing enough. Now we’re fighting their battles for them!”
“Helping the New Republic win Cantras Gola helps everyone. Like it or not, returning these kids alive to the Cantras Gola ambassador is crucial. We need to take that slaver ship before it gets away. It’s the only way to save those kids and for us to get off this planet. Now are there more questions from the ranks?”
The four of them looked at each other, the faint odor of ozone from blaster fire still in the air around them.
“I suppose it’s too late to request a transfer?” Kempo remarked.
The longer he waited, the more Greezim Trentacal nervously paced about the deluxe stateroom aboard Atron’s Mistress. The trackers sent out to investigate the crashed freighter’s missing escape pod had not reported in for several hours. There was more to the mysterious, downed vessel than even Vex had anticipated.
“They must be soldiers. Or worse. Mercenaries.” He shuddered at the thought. The incentive of credits and personal fortune that drove beings to enslave other beings also drove them to fight for foolish causes.
“Well?” He looked to Vex, still poised like a dark statue beside the stateroom’s viewports. He dropped the comlink from his ear.
“The tracker team is still not responding. In addition, one of the perimeter sensors seems to have malfunctioned, although I do not know why yet.”
“They’re here!” Trentacal put a hand over his mouth, completely alarmed now. “Lords of Atron! They’re here already! Give the order to debark. Immediately!”
“As I pointed out earlier,” the Defel spoke quietly but firmly, “We have not loaded the latest shipment of slaves.” He gestured at the large prefabricated building that served as a temporary clearinghouse for the newest arrivals. “They have to be tagged and medically scanned. Many slaves from this shipment are to be sold to the Hutts. You know how displeased the Hutts become when they are sent inferior wares.”
“You can medically scan them after they have been loaded. Do as I command!”
Vex’s expression did not change. He bowed slightly.
“I will give the order personally, master. We shall depart immediately.”
Trentacal rushed out of the stateroom to his own sleeping quarters. The Defel wraith looked upon the ambassador’s children, still chained to the cabin wall. Expressions laden with fear and loathing gazed back up at him. The girl, several years older than her brother, tried to protectively shield him from Vex’s penetrating, awful stare.
Suddenly, the wraith was gone. The girl blinked, uncertain whether or not to believe her eyes. She had not imagined the disappearance. Abruptly, the cabin door bolts clanged solidly shut, locking them in darkness again. Her brother whimpered. She held him a little tighter, silently wondering what would become of them.
Something touched her shoulder. The girl gasped loudly, if only long enough for a hand to clamp down over her mouth. She recognized the pained expression of Trentacal’s favorite slave girl. How long had she keen hiding here, waiting for Vex to leave? The slave pressed a key into her hand and made a gesture with her finger to her lips.
Before she could say a word of thanks, the door to Trentacal’s Private chamber was suddenly shoved aside, the slave master’s bulky outline filling the doorway. His face was masked in shadow.
“What’s going on in here?”
Lying prone in the foliage ahead of the assault team, Lex Kempo aimed the macrobinoculars at the clearing in the jungle growth before him.
“What do you see?” Brixie whispered beside him.
The slaver camp consisted of several watchtowers, a few prefabricated buildings and a currently-vacant landing pad for a snubfightersized craft. In the middle of the camp, the jungle’s heavy humus had been pressure-formed flat to provide room for the large cargo transport situated there. Beings of all origins were being rushed into the ship, which was not a good sign.
Kempo chewed slowly on a bit of protein survival wafer as he continued to sight the camp through the binocs. “Looks like we’re outgunned maybe seven to one. There are four watchtowers armed with blaster cannons: two close to us, two past the freighter. The camp is crawling with thugs. See that bunker right beside the ship? Looks like their command center. All sensors, communications and defensive controls are probably housed in there.”
“Are those hatches on the side?”
Kempo frowned as he zoomed the binoculars. “You’ve got laser eyes, kid. Those are definitely gun ports. It doesn’t matter, that bunker might as well be half a light year away. We’ll get cut down before we even reach the freighter.”
“Not if I can keep them occupied,” Cutter’s voice murmured behind them.
Kempo and Brixie looked around in unison at Cutter and his bag of magic tricks. In his hands he had one of the oddly concave Mesonics focalized explosives, the kind used to demolish structures. Squatting beside Hugo, Sully Tigereye made a hand gesture, fingers spread open wide which he turned into a fist. Kempo snorted derisively, but still nodded in agreement. Confused, Brixie poked at Kempo.
“I’m not familiar with that hand signal,” she whispered to him. “What does it mean?”
The pathfinder smiled grimly as he switched the safety off on the grenade launcher mounted to his stormtrooper blaster rifle.
“It means hang on to your pretty head. We’re about to make some noise.”
The slave girl lunged at Trentacal, a slender metal object in her hands. Despite his size, the slave master could move quickly if he wanted to. In seconds, he had the girl’s arms pinned. She strained silently against his grip, trying to bite his hands. Trentacal held 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 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 tisking manner. “They probably ripped them out from some capita 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 rained 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 stun prods stood by a secondary boarding ramp of the cargo transport, shoving as many of the enslave 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 stun 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 bunkers 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. Tigereye 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-axe.
“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 deeply 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. Sull Tigereye’s gaze narrowed to a chilled yellow as he took a sten forward, vibro-axe 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.