Star Wars: Scourge (24 page)

Reen wondered if that was a method of Hutt execution: boring the accused to death. Despite her battered state, she smiled at the idea. Mander would like the concept. Zonnos caught the smile and glowered at her, interrupting the Vuvrian and bellowing something incomprehensible at her. Oily spittle dripped from his lips as he flung insults and accusations at her.

Reen looked the Hutt square in the eye and recited the only Huttese that she knew. It was short and obscene and made scandalous reference to both Zonnos’s bathroom and his dining habits, equating the two.

Zonnos blanched at the curse; then the purplish stain on his face deepened, and he grabbed the club from the Vuvrian and swung it above his head. Reen thought she could twist at the last moment, bring up the chains, and maybe use the brute’s own rage to break them.

If she couldn’t, she would be dead, and at least she would be spared any more of the Hutt’s legal proceedings.

She tensed herself for the leap, and that was when the wall exploded behind her.

All eyes in the penthouse-turned-courtroom, living and mechanical, had been trained on her as she verbally and publicly assaulted Zonnos. As a result, no one saw the aircar that peeled away from traffic, and therefore no one had the opportunity to think it odd that such a vehicle would try to form its own lane. They would be surprised, though, when the aircar took a sharp left and picked up speed, aiming at the penthouse itself.

It blasted through the durasteel panels that had so recently been installed over the shattered windows. The panels themselves held, but the temporary fasteners were not so resistant to impact, and huge plates popped inward, into the room. The Wookiee guard, strung along that wall in a place of honor, was completely bowled over by the force of the blast, and many were crushed beneath the multi-ton plates.

The canopy of the aircar shattered and a lightsaber beam was clear in the smoke. Mander Zuma strode out of the wreckage. Angela Krin and Eddey Be’ray flanked him, their blasters drawn.

The Niktos were caught gaping at the sight, and Eddey and Angela mowed down the bulk of them. Two of the
Twi’lek handmaidens fled back to the lift, shrieking. The third, calmer than her sisters, retreated behind them in good order. The Vuvrian toady dived for cover among the holocam droids.

“Let her go,” shouted Mander, sounding more angry than commanding.

Zonnos seethed with rage, but was still a Hutt in his heart. He picked up one of the blaster carbines and grabbed Reen, pulling her as tight to him as her chains allowed.

“Kickeeyuna je killyo,”
said Zonnos. Reen didn’t know what the Hutt said, but she got his meaning: Mander could surrender or watch her die in a spasm of blasterfire.

Mander stopped, and for one cold moment Reen was sure that the Jedi would surrender, would offer himself in trade for her. And Zonnos would accept and then kill them all.

Then Mander reached into his robes with his free hand. He came up with a blaster.

And before Zonnos could move—before he could cower behind his hostage—Mander Zuma shot Reen Irana once, dead center, in the chest.

Reen slumped in her chains, falling through Zonnos’s arms and collapsing on the floor. The powerful young Hutt, deprived of his hostage, let out an enraged bellow, and charged Mander, wielding the blaster as a club. His eyes were feral now, and all trace of cunning or guile was replaced with an overwhelming rage.

He got halfway to Mander and stopped short. A lightsaber had blossomed in his chest, its blade driven deep into his soft flesh.

Mander recovered from the throw and somersaulted forward. He grasped the handle of his blade and tore upward, through the tough flesh of the creature. Zonnos
the Hutt, master of the Anjiliac clan for less than one day on Nar Shaddaa, collapsed at his feet.

The surviving Wookiees and Niktos had regrouped, taking cover among the destroyed chairs and droids, and now had their weapons leveled on Mander and the others. But a pall had descended on the ersatz courtroom. No one fired.

“What now?” asked Eddey, flanking Mander.

“They aren’t sure,” said Angela Krin. “They don’t know if they have a master or not. There is no one to give them an order.”

The turbolift doors slid open and Mika the Hutt slid out, flanked by Niktos. He looked out of breath. To Mander it seemed that he had been pulled from whatever room he was being held prisoner in here and rushed to the scene as soon as Zonnos’s death was broadcast.

“Ap-xmasi keepun!”
Mika barked, and the Niktos put up their weapons immediately, trained from birth to jump at the word of a Hutt. The Wookiees hesitated a moment, then did the same.

To Mander he said in a commanding voice,
“Reloj ba preesen!”
Free the prisoner. The Hutt’s voice had a note of command and power, and despite his small size Mika seemed to dominate the room. Mander knelt next to Reen’s fallen form and cut through the chains. Eddey hoisted her body. Angela Krin stood guard over all of them.

Mika shouted at the pair of them as they worked.
“Jee gah plogoon du bunky dunko.”
You are a plague on my house. Mander was stunned for a moment by Mika’s anger and the power in his voice—then realized that the holocam droids were still operating. They were broadcasting Mika’s words to an audience of Hutts, all of them weighing those words and whether this youngest member of the house deserved to run the clan. He was playing to the cams.

Mika spoke in Huttese, now, slowly enough that Mander could understand him. “I have discovered that it was Zonnos who was responsible for my father’s death. You are mere pawns in his plans. Come with me. You will darken my father’s halls no longer!” He beckoned for Mander and the others to follow. Eddey carried Reen, and Angela Krin kept her weapon drawn and ready in case any of the Wookiees decided to curry favor with their new master by trying something.

Once beyond the cams, in the safety of the lift, Mika allowed himself to deflate slightly. “I hope I was convincing,” he said, smiling weakly, speaking Basic once more for the benefit of the CSA agent and the Bothan.

“I was thoroughly convinced you were a Hutt,” said Angela Krin. “What did you say?”

Mika shrugged. “The truth. Or at least the truth as I understand it. It always served my father very well. I told them that Zonnos was responsible for my father’s death, and that you were nothing but a distraction. An irritating distraction that I would now throw out of my house with great show and fanfare.”

Mander said, “We will try to look appropriately abashed.”

“Your services will be rewarded,” said Mika. The door shushed open to reveal a nondescript hoverbus with blackened windows. “This will take you back to your ship. It is fully prepped and ready to go.” Angela went in first, and helped Eddey bring Reen’s unconscious form onboard.

“Thank you,” said Mander. “There is one thing, though,” he added, looking to make sure that the others could not hear them. “When we fought the vrblther, you seemed to …”

“… use a special talent,” finished the Hutt.

Mander nodded. “A talent that many of my brethren share.”

Mika’s face darkened in embarrassment. “I am thought of as an unusual son of an unusual Hutt to begin with,” he said. “Can you imagine how the other families would react if they knew that I had …”

“… a special talent?” said Mander.

“It is a tool that I would prefer others not to know about,” said Mika. “My father knew. And your apprentice found out, and helped me understand part of it. But so much of your teaching is alien. I cannot wrap my mind about it, no matter how hard I try.”

“Not everyone who feels the Force can be a Jedi,” said Mander.

“I know,” said Mika, and seemed to fall in on himself, seeming smaller than he was before. “I can work children’s tricks, no more. I would prefer that no one else knows this, either among the Hutts or the Jedi.”

The small Hutt’s brow furrowed and he shook his flat head. “I will have my hands full. Vago is missing. I don’t know if Zonnos had her killed, or if she has fled. I don’t even know how much she was responsible for what happened. I will have much work to repair my family’s reputation as it is. This is a secret I would prefer to be kept.”

“I understand,” said Mander. “And I want you to know that if you need help, you can trust this Jedi to keep your secret.”

Mika smiled weakly, “Your efforts will be rewarded,” he said with a shrug.

Mander said, “For our part, we will continue to pursue the Tempest trade.”

Mika shook his head sadly. “Of all the things, that particular drug has damaged my family the most. Perhaps with Zonnos’s death it will finally abate. Please keep me informed about your progress in this matter, and for my part I will tell you if Vago turns up.”

“Of course,” said the Jedi.

“Now hurry,” said the Hutt, “before the cam droids figure out where your ship is.”

Mander boarded the hoverbus and it pulled away. Through the darkened windows, he looked back to see the lone, small Hutt standing on the platform, lacking family, lacking support. A singularly unique Hutt trapped in a life he had not planned.

And then the hoverbus lifted into the clutter of air traffic, and he was gone.

Koax the one-eyed Klatooinian stood her ground as waves of abuse in Huttese spilled out over the holoreceiver. Spittle showed up as snowy static as the Spice Lord dressed her down. In her sleeping pod, she was glad she had set up the privacy shields to maximum. No one wanted to hear an angry Hutt through the walls.

“An amateur operation!” snarled the faceless silhouette hovering above the receiver platform. “Your Rodians could not handle the simplest of tasks, covering their own tracks on Makem Te. Why should I expect them not to make an akk dog’s breakfast of something like this? Why should I not put you and them out on the street!”

Koax visibly blanched at the thought. “With respect,
Ma Lorda
, Rodians are by their nature creatures of violence and vengeance, and the Bomu clan more so than most.”

The Spice Lord was unimpressed with her line of argument. “And you thought not to inform me that once you unleashed them, they would surge through the undercity like a plague, shooting everything that moved and blowing up the foundations of our very towers?”

Koax stammered for a moment, and the light in her red eyes seemed to flicker from nervousness. For Klatooinians—indeed, for most of the client races under control of the Hutts—disappointing their lords was a cardinal sin.
And yet inwardly she seethed—this was not her problem. The Spice Lord had gotten what the Spice Lord had wanted. “I apologize for their … enthusiasm. They were meant to merely herd the group into Zonnos’s trap instead of trying to blow it up.”

The Hutt made a growling noise that could have been laughter or indignation. “Zonnos. That was the price paid for their ‘enthusiasm.’ He should have gotten his trial and meted out his punishment to all three of them, taken Popara’s place, and proved to be a useful tool for us. Instead we have
Jeedai
and CSA agents sniffing at the hems of our robes.”

Koax’s gem-like eye gleamed in mischief. “Should I cut ties with the Bomu clan?”

“Yes,” said the Hutt, then considered a moment. “On second thought, let us do the opposite. Provide the Bomu clan with more opportunities to serve. Stretch them thin. Send them in a number of different directions, far away from the
Jeedai
and their hunters. Do not give them time to pursue their vengeance, while we recover and strengthen our own forces. When the time is right, we will sacrifice them.”

The Hutt laughed at the thought, and Koax cautiously joined the Spice Lord. “You are a good servant, Koax,” said the Hutt, “and your failings can be forgiven when compared with the gifts you bring.”

The Hutt raised a thick-fingered hand and produced the trophy, the weapon that had been in Koax’s possession until so very recently. Looking at it, Koax felt another pain—one of jealousy. There had been no question of her failing to turn over the lightsaber to the Spice Lord, but still, she missed its familiar weight from when she’d kept it safe.

The Hutt ran a thumb over the activator plate and the blade sprang to life, illuminating the Spice Lord fully to
the Klatooinian. For the first time in their conversations over the holoreceiver, Koax saw her master’s face.

She fought the urge to step away, to quail in the Spice Lord’s presence. Instead she said, “I am glad that you received it. I am glad you find me worthy to continue my service to you.”

“A good craftsman keeps good tools,” said the Hutt, and toggled off the transmission.

Koax stared at the blank holoreceiver, and realized that she was shaking. She had seen the face of the Spice Lord, and the expression on that face: cold, cruel, and calculating. Despite the encouragement, Koax knew the Spice Lord would leave her for dead at the merest suspicion of incompetence or failure.

She could not let that happen.

She would have to redouble her efforts, keeping the Bomus busy, taking care of the hundred and one things that needed doing that the Spice Lord was too busy for. Because for a Klatooinian, failing a Hutt is the worst failure of all.

“You shot me,” said Reen.

“A lightsaber does not have a stun setting,” said Mander. “You said that yourself.”

“You
shot
me.”

“Only to keep you alive,” he said, but the words sounded weak.

They were in the belly of the
Resolute
again, moving slowly through Corporate Sector space. Angela Krin had requested they redirect to her ship after leaving Nar Shaddaa. Now, in the medlab, a medical droid was prodding the blistered skin of the Pantoran, applying balms and ointments to her chest. She had her shirt off, and her anger allowed her to ignore the potential embarrassment of it. For his part, Mander found the far
wall of great interest, and concentrated his attention there.

The medical droid, a B1E unit, clattered with approval and rolled backward on its tripod wheels. Reen shrugged her shirt back on and Mander felt more comfortable with the conversation immediately.