Astera:
"Are you sure your parlour's safe?" Omega glanced up at Cid, as grumpy as ever as she stomped through the streets with her staff slamming heavily down with each step she took.
"Bolo and Ketch said the Pykes already came for Roland. I told you. They don't take kindly to unpaid debts." She kept her eyes firmly forward, but I noticed the tense set to her shoulders, the sharper than average words. Despite her bluster, even she wasn't entirely sure. She punched the button for the door, stepping inside and walking into the middle without even flinching. "See? My plan worked like a charm. Even better than expected."
If a charm included the numerous guards Roland had brought with him, more than I thought he'd had, dead and slumped on the floor in various crooked positions. Blaster holes were bored into their heads, their stomachs, their chests. I already knew that the Pykes were nasty when it came to unfinished business, but even this chilled me to the bone. It was straight slaughter. Omega was slightly green, taking in the scene.
Three Pykes emerged from the side room, dragging along a bound Roland. He was pushed roughly in front of them, pointing a long finger directly at Cid. "That's her. She's the one you want."
So they'd been waiting for us. A fact that only became more clear when Roland hurriedly backed away and the lead Pyke took his place, expressionless mask somehow more threatening than if we had been able to see his face. "It has come to my attention that you have stolen our shipment of spice. Return it to us, and we will consider this issue resolved."
Cid blanched, fear showing in her reptilian eyes for perhaps the first time I'd ever seen.
"Not sure what he's been telling you, but we don't have any spice." Her eyes darted from Pyke to Pyke, looking for any sort of tell. She wasn't technically lying, but they didn't know we'd lost it to the beasts. And right now, we were the only suspects. They were more likely to just kill us to make it even.
"Kill them all." My suspicions were confirmed as the Pyke stepped back, the other two cocking blasters and raising them to point at the closest of us to them - Cid and me.
"Wait." Hunter stopped them both before they could even take a step. Omega was discreetly pushed behind him, shielding her with his body. Good. I would have done it first, had I not been focused on the blaster at my chest with my hands resting on my own, deceptively casual. It would be a bad move to pull guns on the Pykes, especially when they had been slighted. "We don't have the spice on us, but we know where it is."
"My patience is wearing very thin." Despite the thinly veiled threat, the Pyke held up a hand, stalling the other two. "If you know where the spice is, then you should have no problem retrieving it. Until you do, the child stays here."
"Not happening." Hunter's blaster was suddenly in his hands. The mention of Omega had me forgetting everything earlier, abandoning all pretence of calm and also pulling out my weapon to aim at them. The other three clones did the same, not even bothering to hide protecting Omega any longer.
"She isn't going anywhere with you," I snarled at them, fingers itching to pull the triggers.
"You misunderstand," The Pyke responded silkily, the undertones of a threat still layering his artificially modulated voice. The lack of expression on their moulded masks somehow made them more threatening - unforgiving and cold. "This is not a negotiation."
Cid's head whipped back and forth between us and the Pykes, twitching eyes searching for a way to defuse the situation before shots were fired.
"If I may," she hedged, carefully watching the Pykes in an attempt to gauge their reaction. There was no sound from them, waiting for her to speak. And watching the six blasters trained on them.
"You all don't realise who you're dealing with," she hissed to us. "If you don't lower your blasters, we're all gonna wish we were dead. Let me handle this."
She put a hand on Hunter's arm, a silent plea on its own. I knew very well who we were dealing with; I'd dealt with them after Maul's takeover of Death Watch when he'd forcibly recruited the Pykes to his cause, and again when they'd held Ahsoka prisoner with the Martez sisters. I'd witnessed firsthand their ruthlessness. They would not hesitate to exploit our protectiveness over Omega as a weakness. And though I knew I could take them - I had before - I had used my lightsabers then. I couldn't here, even though it would give me the edge in this fight. That thought was enough to have me relenting.
Hunter glanced from Cid's hand on his arm, to the Pykes still staring at us expressionlessly, and finally to me, slotting my blasters away reluctantly. I met his eyes, hoping he could read the message beneath my visor. Begging him to trust me, and Cid.
"We can't leave Omega with them," Wrecker stated flatly, staring accusingly at Cid's back as we walked out of her parlour. Four other pairs of eyes wore identical emotions, one of them hidden underneath a helmet. Cid didn't appear particularly remorseful, but even the old Trandoshan had begun to care for Omega. And she didn't like leaving her behind either. But there was no other choice. It was either leave her behind or we all die.
"We don't have a choice," Cid echoed my thoughts, staff thudding into the ground with each step she took, "but we know where the spice is. We'll return it, and the kid will be fine."
"The Pykes won't hurt her," I added in an attempt to soothe Wrecker's worries. "As long as they think we have the spice, they won't do anything."
"And how do you know that?" Echo snapped at me, hostile the second I mentioned something that had remotely anything to do with my past. Still mistrustful that I refused to divulge details to them.
"I dealt with them on Mandalore. They destroyed my home." It was more about my past than I'd ever shared with them - he went silent, processing the loaded words. He knew of the Mandalore raids - Rex had told him about them before Bracca. And now they knew I'd been there too, maybe even fought alongside Rex. It would certainly explain how I'd known him.
Hunter slid a sideways glance to me, the only one to truly know about my past. Even Wrecker did not know what to say, leaving the silence brewing until Tech cut in, oblivious to the tense atmosphere.
"The ptero-creatures we encountered in the cavern are irlings. They are nocturnal insects with visual sensitivity to thermal registers. Our best chance is to strike before nightfall."
Cid paused at the landing ramp of the Marauder, turning back to look at the five of us. "Muscles, Mandie and I will rappel down to the cavern and locate the crates. I got the kid into this mess, and I'll get her out."
Wrecker looked marginally reassured by her words, stormy expression relaxing as he followed the rest of us up the ramp, the ship taking off as soon as the stairs had folded up behind him.
From the surface, the caverns looked no more remarkable than a set of rocky mountains in the middle of Ord Mantell's desert. But we all knew what was hidden in its depths. No one looked happy to be returning to this place so soon after we'd escaped, but Wrecker, Cid and I prepared to rappel off the hovering ship anyway, harnesses and grappling lines secured to our bodies.
The bulky clone glanced down, a sick sounding groan escaping him at the sight of the drop. "You've gotta be kidding me."
"And this time, don't drop it." Cid glared meaningfully at him, showing no sympathy for his fear. Like it hadn't been her fault the spice had been lost in the first place. Or that we'd gone after it in the first place.
The grappling lines deployed, sending us down into the darkened caverns, the already setting sun and our flashlights the only sources of light. Wrecker gripped onto the unwinding cable for dear life, sparing glances to the ground below. Each time he did, his hands flexed a little tighter around the grappling line. I could practically see him swallow.
My feet hit the ground first, any noise muffled by the blanket of webs covering the ground, the walls, everywhere I looked. Wrecker and Cid landed just as softly after me, the three of us disconnecting the hooks on our harnesses and keeping tight grips on them as we fanned out, delving deeper into the caverns in search of the six spice containers we needed for Omega's life.
Three muted white beams of light swept over the floor and the surrounding web walls, each of us taking care not to walk too loudly, hoping nothing would crack as we stepped onto it. If we brought them up, there would be no escape this time.
"Found one," Wrecker's quiet whisper floated over to me, both Cid and I turning back to head over to the first of the dark containers.
"I'll secure it." She nudged him out the way none too gently, clipping her line to its handle and tugging on it twice, a signal to bring it up. "Start looking for the other crates. Quietly."
I held back a snort - like we hadn't been already? - and moved off again when the first crate began to rise, the opposite direction of Wrecker, still keeping a tight grip on my cable.
Two hours passed, and three more crates had been sent up to the Marauder, one at my feet and Wrecker laboriously dragging the last one towards us. The sun had already been setting when we'd gone down, and it had only descended further, tones of orange, pink and purple blooming across the sky. On any other day I might have thought of it as pretty. But right now, I glanced up nervously, noting that I could no longer see the sun. We had to get out. Now.
"Last crate," Wrecker panted, dropping heavily onto the crate as Cid clipped a grappling line to it, "in hand."
"Rest later," Cid snapped at him, holding up her comlink to her face. "Final crate secure. Bring us up."
The last cable was secured onto my harness, and the three of us began to rise, Wrecker and Cid sitting atop the last two crates. Wrecker twitched at every little noise, flashlight darting to try and catch the sources of the noise. It sounded like the irlings' wings, buzzing and darting around us as the sun dipped further and the first of them began to wake.
"Quit squirming." Despite her biting remarks, even Cid was glancing around nervously, hearing the fluttering of wings just as we did. I could see the rails above us, a single destroyed cart still barely clinging on - we were halfway there. We could make it before the horde woke.
The edge of Cid's crate cIipped the cart as we rose past it, bumping it with a creak, deafening in the absolute silence of the caverns. I cringed at the noise, even more when the imbalanced weight caused the cart to topple off the rail, crashing loudly first to the bottom of the rail, then bouncing off the sides of the wall and one of the tunnels, before disappearing down it, the sounds of impact fading the farther it travelled from us. Closer to the sleeping horde.
"Oh." Wrecker dragged the single syllable into several seconds. "Maybe they didn't hear it?"
"I don't think we're that lucky." Cid's mouth pressed into a thin, worried line, searching the tunnels below us. The screeching had already started, irlings waking up their brethren as they realised their sleep had been disturbed. Rallying themselves to destroy their waker.
"Yeah, me neither." I hooked a blaster out of its holster, eyes also trained on the tunnel lit up by three flashlights. We were still rising rapidly, closer and closer to the Marauder, but the speed was still not enough as the first of the irlings burst forth from their sleeping place.
The horde had us surrounded in seconds circling around the rising spice containers and buzzing angrily. Wrecker swiped panickedly at them with one hand, the other one strangling the cable in a death grip, terrified that the irlings would knock him off his precarious seat, voice cracking twice as he screamed desperately into the comms, "Get us out of here!"
"Wrecker, what's going on?" Hunter's concerned reply came immediately. I could barely see his outline on the ship past the thick of irlings, peering down into the gap. With the swarming beasts and the dying light of day, it was probably too dark for him to see anything in the caverns.
"Irlings!" Cid filled in loudly instead, abandoning all attempts of quiet. "Lots of them!"
"Cid woke the horde!" The shouted comment earned me an irritated look that I ignored, firing into the mess of creatures blindly. Only two connected, the rest moving too fast for my shots to connect.
"Help! Help me! Help me!" Wrecker was still screaming, giving no indication of calming down as he squeezed his trigger as fast as he could, several irlings exploding into green slime under his shots. They were going wild - Cid yanked back her spice container as one flew past her, narrowly avoiding severing the cable.
"Watch out for the spice!"
He gave no indication that he had heard her, his screaming unending as he kept firing at the insects. Our blasters were basically useless against them - I'd noticed it before. The shots weren't controlled enough, precise enough, to take them out effectively. There had to be something that would work better...
I hadn't even noticed my free hand was crawling towards the compartments on my holsters until I'd flicked the cover free, the lightsaber sliding into my palm. The metal was surprisingly warm, as if inviting my touch. Use me, it seemed to beckon. Like it knew that it could fix this predicament we were in, give us a fighting edge. Only half aware, my thumb raised to press against the activation switch...
"Incoming!" I jerked to attention at Tech's warning over the comms, swinging myself out of the way as something dark and heavy looking hurtled past me, clunking to the ground below. I paid it no mind, instead staring at the hand holding the lightsaber. What had gotten into me? I couldn't use this, especially not in front of them. Not when I'd carefully crafted my cover to keep them safe from my past. This had almost ruined it.
The blinding flash of light interrupted any further thoughts, so blindingly strong and white it filled the entire cavern. I was unprepared - my eyes were still wide open and unshielded as the enormously powerful flashbang Tech had built blew up in the cavern, filling my vision and leaving me blinking huge black spots out of my vision.
The irlings shrieked and scattered before the light, driven out of the cavern by their aversion to something so strong. Wrecker abruptly stopped screaming at the absence of the threat, our ascent finally unhindered by insects. Thick lump in my throat, I slotted the lightsaber away and tried to ignore the racing thoughts in my head as we rose to the top of the cavern where Hunter and Tech were already waiting to haul the crates into the ship. That was too close. I had to be more aware.
"See, Muscles?" Cid said dryly to the still panting clone. "That wasn't so bad."
"Yeah, I'm okay," Wrecker mumbled half to himself, still strangling the grappling line with both hands. "I'm okay. Phew!"
I only rolled my eyes, the action hidden from the rest of them, and unhooked myself from the final cable, helping Hunter to drag the last of the crates onto the ship. We had the six crates. Now we just needed to deliver them.
The Pykes were already waiting for us at the Marauder's docking port, a cuffed Omega and Roland in tow. Roland was forced to his knees, Omega clutching the hateful lizard in both arms as one held her back from running straight to Hunter.
Wrecker dropped the last crate in front of the other two Pykes, one of them immediately pushing the top and passing one of the many containers to the lead Pyke, who inspected it carefully.
"Since the spice has been returned, consider the matter between us resolved," He said finally, finding nothing amiss with his shipment. He drew a long knife, pointing it at Roland. "But not with you."
The third Pyke took that as some sort of signal and pushed Omega forward roughly, Ruby hissing in protest as she made her way back to us, the whole time glancing worriedly at Roland hauled up and shoved stomach first onto the nearest spice crate. He made no move to struggle - he already knew his fate. Had already accepted it.
"Don't!" Omega cried hoarsely at the Pyke brandishing the knife next to his face. Roland's incredulous eyes darted up to her, the Pyke pausing where he held Roland down. "He made a mistake. That's all."
"She's right." It was Cid of all people who stepped forward to defend Roland further. "Kill him, and you'll be starting a war with Isa Durand. Do you want that heat right now? Call this a bad deal and walk away."
The Pyke considered her words for a fraction of a second. "We do not accept 'bad deals'."
The knife flashed, swinging down in a single smooth motion. Roland screamed, his hands going to the stump on his forehead as he was thrown to the floor by the Pyke, who picked up the horn he had severed from his head.
"Our business is finished," He said flatly to Roland, fist clenching around the horn. "It would not be wise for our paths to cross again."
Roland only whimpered, shielding his face as if expecting another blow, but the trio of Pykes only walked past him, taking their spice and disappearing into the crowds of Ord Mantell.
"Are you okay?" Omega crouched in front of the Devaronian,
"It's a small price to pay." His lips pressed into a thin line as he got back to his feet. Omega offered him back the lizard, now cooing and purring as she was returned to her owner's arms. "I'll be going now."
And that was it. No thank you, no gratitude for saving his life. Just that simple farewell and walking off after the Pykes, into the streets. We watched him go in silence, no one really wanting to speak a word.
"Come on guys." Cid eventually broke the silence. "First round's on me."
Wrecker scoffed, the barest hint of a grin beginning to form. "Hah! You owe us way more than that."
"Don't push your luck." But Wrecker was already running out of the bay, Echo and Tech hot on his heels. Cid followed after them more slowly, staff clinking steadily on the ground. I went with her, unable to help a snort of amusement as Wrecker shouldered Tech and Echo aside at the door to the parlour, eager to beat them to the bar.