After about an hour had passed, I slowed down the speeder bike in order to be able to spot the supposed lair of the crime syndicate, which would be well-hidden if they were truly competent. The vehicle coasted for a mile or so before an oddity in the sandy, rocky landscape caught my eyes.
I pressed the brakes and the speeder came to a screeching halt as I squinted to make sense of the object. In the center of a ring of rocks lay a black skull-and-crossbones flag, waving in sync with the wind.
Rolling my eyes at the conspicuous symbol, I jumped off of the speeder bike and dragged it behind a particularly large boulder. I traipsed forward, past the flag, averting my eyes when a strong gust of wind began to blow sand in my direction. I wove past sandstone formations and skirted around jagged rocks for a mile or so until I approached what appeared to be a building.
The structure was the same beige color as the sand and built intricately into the ground, making it impossible to discern from a cluster of rocks. The only indication of life was a group of speeder bikes parked outside with keys still in the ignition, nearly buried by the ever-changing blanket of sand.
I had to hand it to them, the idea was clever, but the execution of said idea was short-sighted. Evidently, they were careless with their work.
With the irksome sensation of sand seeping continuously into my boots, I advanced toward the building, one hand on my blaster and the other gripping the cool Beskar steel of my knife in anticipation.
I peeked through the arched doorway, and upon ensuring that no one occupied the entryway, carefully crossed the threshold of the compound. Inside was a room with a low ceiling, in which lay rows upon rows of sealed wooden crates haphazardly stacked upon one another. It was relatively quiet, save for the occasional enraged shriek or roar of laughter.
I tilted my head, listening to the sounds, which appeared to be from an area below me. It did not take long to locate a dim, dingy stairwell leading downwards. I descended the stairs, making sure to step lightly so that the echo of my boots against the cement would not catch any unwanted ears.
At the bottom, there was a short corridor lit by white lights that made a low humming noise, eerily similar to the hallway in between the two gray doors that had brought me here in the first place.
Tightening my grip on my weapons, I advanced forward, sneaking a look through one of the curved, crudely shaped doorways that lined the hall.
Inside, there was a spacious rectangular room with three human men sprawled on chairs, grasping cards and bottles of alcohol. They glared daggers at each other while a fourth, a Trandoshan, lay motionless on the ground - breathing, but evidently unconscious. With a sly smirk at his associates, the scrawniest of the three placed down his bottle and his cards, revealing them to be a winning hand.
Another man with multiple tattoos adorning his pale green skin scoffed, slamming his cards and bottle onto the table.
The last man narrowed his eyes at the winner and stood almost instantaneously, his larger frame looming over the presences of the seated men. "Cheater." The burly man's low growl resonated throughout the room, causing a fleeting expression of fear to shadow the winner's fox-like features before he composed himself.
"That's Sabacc, my friend," the winner responded coolly, shrugging.
This response infuriated him, and he pounced at the winner, who cried out in surprise and attempted to push the much larger man off of him. The tattooed, previously unconcerned man joined in on the fighting and they exchanged blows like savages, damaging other furniture in the room in the process.
A sudden whimper in the midst of the mayhem caught my attention, and I swiftly turned my head to meet the eyes of source of the pitiful sound.
A young boy who appeared to be hardly eight years old sat in the corner of the room, wearing faded, ragged clothing with his arms and legs bound in ropes. Thin strands of black hair framed his grimy face as he shrank away from the commotion, trembling and trying to make himself as small as possible as if a mere fly on the wall.
With my jaw set, I aimed my blaster. Three shots rang out, and the three men dropped lifelessly to the ground, skirmish forgotten in death. I lowered my blaster and finally entered the room, gaze fixed on the young child.
He stared straight ahead at me with a dazed, yet fearful look in his green eyes. He hugged his knees and stayed completely still, observing my smallest movements with apprehension. Pure fear rolled off of him in waves. What is a child doing in a place like this?
I slowly approached him, lifting my hands up off of my blaster to show that I had no malicious intent. "My name is y/n." I kneeled down in front of him, and spoke slowly and quietly, not wanting to startle or further frighten the boy. "Can I free you?"
He hesitated, then faintly moved his head up and down by a few degrees. I drew my knife, causing him to flinch and lean away from the Beskar blade with a sharp intake of breath. "Hey, it's okay. I'm going to use it to cut the ropes. Is that alright?" Another faint nod. With deliberate caution, I sawed at the ropes, and they fell apart within moments.
The boy sighed in relief, massaging the areas on his wrists and ankles that had formed dark bruises. He looked up at me with wide, sea-green eyes, waiting for my next move.
With a pang of guilt, I recalled my padawan and his eyes of the same hue, his hair of the same unruly type. Similar, yet so different...
Enough, y/n. Help the boy.
"Here." I handed him the pouch of credits given to me by Silya, hoping he would accept it a sign of goodwill. After a moment's hesitation, he took the pouch and drew his hand back quickly as if afraid I would take them away. "You can keep them. I'm going to help, I promise." He looked up at me once more, still uneasy, but with curiosity piqued.
"Are your parents here?" At my question, the child visibly deflated, and he shrugged sadly. "It's okay, I'll help you find them." I sent him gentle ripples of comfort through the Force, hoping it would alleviate some of the tension in his mind.
With the boy sticking close to me, his fear giving way to intrigue, I left the room, choosing to explore the rest of the compound for any potential threats or lost children.
Most doorways we stumbled upon lead into rooms that housed Toydarians in a drunken stupor or circles of people playing intense games of Sabacc that, more often than not, broke out in brawls. The members of the crime syndicate were all heavily armed, with each person carrying multiple blasters, vibroblades, and the like. Upon closer inspection, they seemed to be celebrating a victory and were in no state to use their weapons.
I breathed an unconscious sigh of relief, knowing that the use of my lightsaber would be unnecessary for this task. As much as the violet blades would provide an odd sort of comfort with the looming prospect of being hunted down by Imperials, it would not be wise to activate them in a place such as this.
Leaning against a wall of an empty room with the boy following suit, I shut my eyes for a moment, immersing myself in the Force to determine whether there were any enemies lurking in the shadows. All the hostile beings seemed to have been occupying the rooms I took a look into, however, a tremor in the Force told me that there were more people present. Their Force signatures were not malevolent, but curiosity won out and I decided to investigate.
I turned in a circle, inspecting my surroundings, and caught sight of another staircase leading further below. Sensing feelings of pain and sorrow emanating from the area, I approached the steps, directing the child to follow and stay close behind me.
As we walked down the steps, the temperature seemed to lower by ten degrees and a feeling that had nothing to do with the chill in the air prickled at the back of my neck. Faint, muffled cries grew louder in volume the farther we descended.
Finally, we reached the bottom, and were met with a dreadful sight.
The cramped room at the base of the staircase was dreary and dimly lit, housing a dozen prisoners of all ages, all confined in cells. Their clothing revealed them to be natives of Tatooine, and some had binders on their wrists, most likely as punishment for retaliating against members of the crime syndicate. None of them seemed to acknowledge my presence, but I noticed a Togruta child on my left flinch and bury her face in her hands.
The green-eyed boy ran from his place behind me to the nearest cell, in which sat a woman who was the spitting image of him, only older. Softly, she whispered what must have been the boy's name, and he reached out to her through the bars of the cell with tears running down his dirt-streaked face.
The boy looked back at me desperately, silently pleading me to reunite him with his mother.
I made up my mind within an instant.
Not wanting the child to see more violence than was necessary, I instructed him to stay put and walked back up the stairs, this time with a purpose.
Moving swiftly from room to room, I eliminated the entirety of the crime syndicate with a silent and almost robotic rhythm; an impassive expression and state of mind. One person would drop dead from a blaster shot to the heart, and before the others in the room could register what had occurred, they were dead as well.
A short-lived guilt gnawed at me at the sight of so many people dead, but I then reminded myself that these were all individuals who were willing to keep innocent townspeople, some of which were children, locked in a dank basement without so much as food, water, or a blanket.
Standing in the main corridor, I made to holster my blaster, but paused and tensed when I heard shuffling behind me.
As soon as I turned around, a Trandoshan came out of nowhere and slashed at me violently with a vibroblade, knocking my blaster out of my hand. Caught off guard, I stumbled backward, then managed to regain my footing and drew my knife. I was able to avoid most of her spontaneous attacks except one, which hit its mark, cutting my cheek.
So much for being careful.
Within a second, it felt as if a wildfire was slowly traveling up the right side of my face and I grit my teeth, willing the pain to subside. We sparred for a few more minutes before I gained the upper hand, feinting to the left but moving to the right instead, grabbing my blaster.
The Trandoshan was hit with a blaster bolt to the chest and dropped to the ground instantly, but remarkably, she wasn't dead just yet. I aimed my blaster at her head in case she decided to try anything in her final moments.
"You'll never get all of us," she wheezed, blood staining the corner of her lip. "Our leader, she-" The Trandoshan woman wasn't able to finish her sentence as she went limp against the ground.
Once I was certain that she was dead, I grabbed a key card that had fallen out of her pocket, knowing that it could be used to free the prisoners, and stepped over her body, out the door.
I reached out through the Force once more, but there were no hostile presences left in the compound. She must have been bluffing... but was she? With a frown and a backwards glance at the Trandoshan, I strode briskly back to where the prisoners were kept.
This time, I took a closer look at their condition.
The prisoners all wore a collective expression of hopelessness, of defeat. They looked pallid and sickly, as if they had not eaten in days. Most, if not all of them sported bruises and their articles of faded beige clothing were imbued with the harsh crimson tone of blood.
I took a deep breath, closing my eyes and steeling myself so as to not become overcome with anger at the captors.They didn't deserve quick deaths.
Automatically, I pushed the thought back to the depths it came from, burying it under the metaphysical pile of all of the negative thoughts that had come to me over the years.
Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.
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