With his last conscious memory being of his mother, Naruuk, towering
over him, Harrsk awakens in an all too familiar holding cell aboard Naruuk’s
flagship the Scythe. Harrsk is
chained, hanging from the wall by his wrists, and sitting across the cell from
him is Mazon, one of his mother’s cronies. Mazon seems comfortable enough,
especially with Harrsk chained up.
“Unchain me, let’s make this a real hunt,” Harrsk growls, but
his challenge is met with a laugh. Mazon proceeds to take out a knife and flip
it menacingly. Harrsk tests his chains, and is amused to find them easily
breakable.
Mazon, maintaining his bravado, approaches and starts to cut
into Harrsk, sliding the blade deep between Harrsk’s scales and into his flesh.
There is a struggle, and Mazon backs up, dropping the knife on the bunk. In
that moment Harrsk lurches forward, breaking his bonds with a triumphant laugh.
Surprisingly (or stupidly) Mazon does not seem phased. He locks the cell door
with himself still inside, tosses the key in the middle of the floor and
challenges Harrsk to a real fight.
Of course, it isn’t much of a fight. Mazon might get a
couple punches in, but ultimately he ends up with Harrk’s chain wrapped around
his neck and the Trandoshan growling, “I let you live out of respect,” before
strangling him into unconsciousness.
***
Ruby awakes slowly and painfully, head throbbing, sprained
ankle still swollen. She can tell immediately that she is no longer on Dagoba,
and panic starts to rise as she sits up. She is on a cot in the cargo bay of a
rather small ship – in fact she can see straight through the bars on the door
all the way to the cockpit. She isn’t bound, but her blaster, sword and jacket
are gone.
Beside her is a hover-cart carrying what seems to be a block
of metal, perhaps seven feet long and two feet high. Ruby frowns, her head
clear enough to slowly get to her feet and investigate the odd object. What she sees only bolsters her panic: there,
hands outstretched, face holding a look of utter shock is Ezio, frozen in a
block of Carbonite.
For a moment all Ruby can do is gape wordlessly, then sit
down on the bed, her mind racing. When
she gets to her feet again she heads right for the door, leaning through the
bars to look for her captors. She sees a female bounty hunter leaning in the
hall, smoking, her hand resting on the pommel of Ruby’s sword.
Ruby shouts out some less than polite names, which gets the
woman’s attention. The conversation that follows isn’t particularly productive,
all Ruby learns is that she’s being taken to an Imperial vessel to be turned in
for her bounty.
***
Trance is meanwhile not faring much better than his
crewmates. He finds himself handcuffed, and the ship bearing him is circling in
close to one of the most dreaded places in the galaxy: they pass the Hutt
homeworld of Nal Hutta, and come in for a landing on the orbiting moon Nar Shaddaa.
In the custody of Naruuk’s people, Trance is dragged from the
ship. At this point he is taking a ‘go out with a bang not a whimper’ attitude,
and showing as much snark as possible to his captors. He falls to his knees
once they get off the ship, his own injuries from the explosion still having
their effect. Trying to cover, Trance asks the name of his captor.
“My name is ‘get
the hell up’!” snarls his guard.
Trance squints up at her. “Is that an Imperial name, or…?”
As amusing as his banter is, it eventually lands him in
trouble as a slave collar gets clamped around his throat. The collar is put in
place by an oddly familiar Bothan, and it takes Trance a second to recognize
him as an escapee from when he killed Guro.
Naruuk is there, and Trance exchanges words with her. “You
don’t know what you’re getting yourself into. You don’t know who we work for.”
“Your captain?” Naruuk laughs. She walks over to Trance,
incredibly close, close enough that he manages to snatch a key from her belt.
“She is on her way to the Imperials as we speak. Or did you mean Korso? She’s
no concern of mine.”
Moments after Naruuk turns away, a Hutt appears, lounging on
his hover platform. He is huge and when he speaks, its with a much forced air
of aristocracy. After making sure that
Naruuk received her payment, he turns back again.
“Trance Aphax,” he drawls. “You killed my brother Guro, who
lived a mere 200 short years. My name is Doja, and my vengeance will not be
swift.”
***
Back on the small cargo ship, Ruby has had a bit of time to
regain her senses. She sidles back over to the bars and leans against them.
When she catches the bounty hunter’s eye this time, she smiles and beckons.
“Hey, sweetheart, c’mere.”
The bounty hunter flicks her cigarette away and walks over,
raising her eyebrow. Ruby beckons again.
Against all better judgment, the bounty hunter walks right
up to the bars, leaning her forearms against them.
“Wow,” she says with a soft laugh. “You must be desperate.”
“Wow,” she says with a soft laugh. “You must be desperate.”
“Girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do,” Ruby murmurs,
leaning in closer. A moment later she reaches out, one hand grabbing the bounty
hunter and smashing her face into the bars, the other snatching her
vibro-sword. As the woman stumbles back, Ruby easily breaks the chain holding
the door and pushes it open. “Oh, honey, you really should’ve stayed home
today.”
She rushes forward and slams the bounty hunter against the
wall, her vibro-blade pressed against the woman’s throat. The ship’s pilot
watches on in horror, unable to do anything. Ruby demands to know where her
crew is, but the bounty hunter says nothing, staring at her defiantly.
Then, from the cockpit comes a transmission from Naruuk: “Aphax has been successfully delivered to
Doja’s palace.”
Doja. The name that’s enough to stop Ruby in her tracks, the
Hutt who, twenty years ago, betrayed the crew of the Ouroboros¸ leading to their deaths. With a furious shout Ruby draws
the blade across the bounty hunter’s throat, letting her limp body fall to the
ground. The minute she turns, the by now terrified pilot makes a run for the
escape pod.
Now in possession of the small ship, Ruby retrieves the rest
of her things and goes to the pilot’s seat to set a course straight for Nar
Shaddaa. As she goes she sends off a
quick wave to Korso, saying simply, “You said a while ago that I need to face
my fears. Doja has one of my crew. I’m going after him.”
***
Trance is brought before Doja’s full court, consisting of
the hutt’s cronies, business associates, guards, you name it. They mostly laugh
at Trance, knowing (read: thinking) that he is coming here to his doom. Trance
does a fairly good job of maintaining his pride despite being in a slave
collar.
“None of you can imagine what’s going to happen next!”
Trance shouts, making another bid for intimidation.
Doja does not look impressed. “We are going to torture you,
and then we are going to kill you.”
“You can’t imagine,” Trance sneers, then says louder, “When
Black Sun comes for one of their own, they come without thought of justice,
without thought of vengeance. Black Sun just brings complete and unmitigated disaster!”
Unfortunately, even name dropping “Black Sun” does no more
than raise a few skeptical eyebrows. There is silence for a moment, then Doja
motions one pudgy hand and a girl Trance’s age is brought out. Now his face
does register horror as he recognizes Anomosi, his childhood friend, one of the
few members of his kind left. The Bothan takes out a knife and begins to cut Anomosi,slowly,
making sure Trance sees. This provokes a rapid response in Trance, who quickly
discovers that the key he took from Naruuk does in fact control his slave
collar.
That is about the time that chaos really breaks out,
heralded by Ruby “landing” her small cargo ship right through the wall behind
Doja. She’s followed not long after by Harrsk, landing his mother’s flagship.
The two come running out, and the battle really begins.
The three members of the Helios
Rain crew are currently up against Doja, his mooks, the Bothan, and
Harrsk’s mother who arrives in a storm of fury just after shots start being
fired. Harrsk descended the boarding ramp of the Scythe with a medical droid fixing his injuries, so by the time he
reaches the bottom, he is fully healed. The same cannot be said for Ruby and
Trance, who both start the fight with several critical injuries.
Ruby fires her blaster at Doja’s hover platform, trying to
upend it but sending it instead spinning into the fray. This makes her a target
for Doja’s mooks, who get in enough good shots that the captain is thrown
backwards, adding to her already hefty list of wounds.
Trance grapples with the bothan, determined to get vengeance
for what he did to Anomosi. What Trance does manage to do is get the slave
collar on over the Bothan’s head. The now enraged Bothan surges at Trance with
his knife, dealing a blow that drives into Trance’s shoulder and completely
severs his left arm from his body.
Blinded and screaming in pain, bleeding out from his
injuries, Trance sees Anomosi reaching out to him, trying to crawl through the
crush of people fleeing the scene. He shakes his head and somehow, through all
of it, he manages to hit he button that activates the slave collar. The Bothan,
who had turned his sights on Anomosi, cries out, electric sparks jumping around
his head and neck.
Amidst all of this, and much to Ruby’s dismay, Doja manages
to flee, disappearing deeper into his palace.
Harrsk meanwhile, much as he wants to have his sights set on
his mother, also has his life debt to remember. He opens fire and manages to
take out most of Doja’s mooks, and get a few shots at the Bothan. Naruuk seems
to realize what is happening and rushes for Trance, but Harrsk stops her with a
shower of blaster fire. Sadly it is not enough to kill her, and she turns back
to him with a scornful laugh.
A scornful laugh which is followed by Naruuk grabbing the nearest
member of Doja’s crew and hurling the man at her son. The two Trandoshan bounty
hunters continue to fight, suddenly oblivious to anything around them.
Eventually Harrsk is able to knock her backwards and
unconscious on the floor. The bothan is once again rearing over Trance, which
Harrsk sees as he walks to stand triumphantly over his mother’s prone form.
Harrsk opens fire, killing the Bothan, and turning his gun to then finish his
job and end his mother’s life as well.
Silence follows. Trance has sunk into a dead faint. Ruby is
barely conscious herself, despite the attention of a medial droid. Harrsk
begins to grumble and mutter to himself as he collects his two fallen crewmates
and drag them (literally) to where the Scythe
is still waiting. Anomosi follows, keeping close to Trance. At Ruby’s feeble
urging, Harrsk also retrieves the still frozen Ezio from the cargo ship.
Safe, if not exactly recovered yet, they set out for
Tattooine, and Harrsk’s father.
***
They find Harrsk’s father operating a moisture farm on
Tattoine, content in what Harrsk is baffled to discover as a rather peaceful
life. The older Trandoshan is disfigured, missing claws and an eye to Naruuk’s
ministrations. He is very pleased to learn that his son finished her.
He is also skeptical of Harrsk’s choice of companions, and
attempts to demand of Ruby why she thinks she’s worthy to command Harrsk. Ruby
brushes it aside, pointing out that she doesn’t really. It is, endearingly,
Harrsk who convinces his father that she’s alright.
Harrsk, Ruby, Trance and Anomosi all join Harrsk’s father
for drinks on the porch as they watch the twin sunset. By the time darkness
falls they’re all pretty far gone. Trance and Anomosi reminisce about their
childhood, and Trance seems – despite all odds – to be in a better humor than
he has in quite some time. When Anomosi says that she doesn’t know what will
happen, Trance reassures her.
“I know someone who likes to take in strays,” he says, not
specifying who he’s referring to exactly.
Anomosi looks down. “I want to be able to pull my own
weight.”
“Better bulk up then,” Trance says. He gives her a wink, and
prods her side. “Not much there.”
Anomosi glances at his bandaged stump of a shoulder. “Oh
yeah? Well why don’t you try clapping, huh?”
This gets an uproarious laugh from the two Trandoshans, as
well as the still oddly dour and quiet Ruby.
***
They don’t stay long on Tattooine. A while later Ruby is
back in the room she has claimed on the Scythe,
and is just sitting down on the bed when her holo-communicator pings. With a
strong suspicion of who it is, Ruby answers. Seeing Korso, she lets out a weary
sigh. “Hey.”
“How are you?” Korso asks.
Ruby slowly shakes her head. “I’ve been better. I’m with
Trance and Harrsk. Ezio’s here too but he’s frozen in carbonite…” her voice
trembles a little. “I don’t know where Min is, or my goddamn ship for that
matter…I don’t…”
“I can help you find Min and your ship,” Korso says quietly.
“Thank you.” Ruby looks down for a moment, and when she
looks back up she adds, “I miss you.”
“I miss you too.”
For the first time in weeks, a weary smile spreads over
Ruby’s face, but she says nothing.
“We need to meet up,” Korso continues. “I am sending you
coordinates. Please, travel safely.”
Ruby promises that they’ll be there as soon as they can, and
after ending the call, she goes to find Harrsk and suggest the new destination
to him.
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