Chapter 35
The desert sun beat down on the inhabitants of Mos Espa, but it's residents ignored it, they had more immediate problems. The cartels belonging to Jabba and Gardulla had started to make moves and the likelihood of a gang war was increasing. Tensions with the neighbouring tusken tribes were also getting worse and it was clear that violence was on the horizon like one of Tatooine's dust storms.
A robed figure walked into a private hangar bay and passed an alert and agitated AR-34 enforcer droid as he moved up the landing ramp and into a parked Defender class corvette.
Alpha had been investigating the city to try and find any leads on Gardulla the Hutt's movements, but all information pointed to the crime boss hiding away in her palace on the edge of the dune sea. That was going to pose a potential problem, but Alpha was confident that they could overcome it.
While exploring the city Alpha, on Renn's request, had gone to check in on Shmi Skywalker to see if the women was okay. But it seemed as though Padme true to her word had already sent someone to retrieve the women and give her a new life on Naboo.
"How was the information gathering?" Sapphire's avatar popped into existence next to Alpha and asked him.
"About as expected. We will have to attack the palace to get to Gardulla, but there are increasing problems with Jabba's cartel and the sand people so we may be able to use that to help us." Alpha spoke calmly as he began shedding his disguise exposing the metallic body that lay beneath.
"It'll be Renn's decision about what we do but I don't see why we can't just fly past and fire a salvo of concussion missiles at the palace and level the place." Sapphire said to Alpha.
"The slaves. Gardulla has a lot of slaves kept in the centre of her palace. Renn won't want us killing innocents if we can avoid it. His grandmother was the same, brutal to her enemies but merciful to the innocent." Alpha said trying to shake sand out of his blaster pistol.
"True. But it would still be easier." Sapphire said sighing. She knew House Dredd would try to protect the innocent if possible but still if it came down to it, she would watch planets burn if it meant Keeping Renn safe. Not that he would let her, Renn was destined to be a warrior so danger would be inevitable and there would come a time that he would have to face it on his own. So, the overprotective A.I. would just have to grudgingly let the others do the fighting.
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"How are you feeling?" Renn sat next to Seela and held out a cup of tea for the girl to take.
"Okay…Thank you." Seela said and accepted the cup with a small smile. "You don't have to go this far because of me. I could just leave, and all your problems would leave too." She continued sadly.
"Urgh, we've been over this." Opal groaned in exasperation from the corner of the room, "We don't care. This slug is messin with you so they're messin with us, just go with it."
Seela smiled despite herself, although she had parents on Tatooine they had never been very 'affectionate' with selling her into slavery to try and pay off their gambling dets and all. So, having people who cared about her made her feel warm inside.
First it had been meeting Shae on the streets of Mos Espa, then later meeting Renn and Opal, she was now surrounded by people who cared about her. But that also made her nervous, what if the coming fight with the Hutt caused those people precious to her to get hurt.
"She's right you know. We are here for you." Renn told her as Shae nodded, "We all chose to be here so whatever happens we'll face it together. So don't worry, soon you'll never have to worry about the Hutts messing with you again."
Renn's words filled Seela with happiness and as she looked at Shae and Opal, she saw the same sentiments written across their faces.
"Okay." Seela said quietly a soft smile appearing on her face. She made a silent promise to herself to get stronger so that she could protect the people in the room with her in the future.
"Yeah, don't worry. Renn and his droids can run around the desert shooting gangsters while we stay here." Shae said, although she sounded in support of the idea, they could all tell it was annoying her. Because she still hadn't been able to reforge her armour Shae was being forced to stay away from the fighting and that was grating against her Mandalorian sensibilities.
Renn shot Shae a smug look and received a raised finger in response from the sulking girl, which caused Seela and Opal to start giggling. The conversation soon moved in a more light-hearted direction as the four kids began laughing together, Seela quickly relaxing and calming down.
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"The palace is going to be heavily defended. From the reconnaissance that Crow and Scythe have been doing we can expect the whole Gardulla cartel to be there, which means over eight hundred armed gangsters plus however many droids and automatic blaster turrets they can get their hands on.
Apparently Gardulla also has a sizeable collection of exotic and dangerous creatures from all over the galaxy and seems to be fond of feeding her slaves to them for her and her men's amusement.
This also brings use to another problem. We can't get a complete estimate, but we can expect between one and three hundred slaves being kept in the palace. So, we can't just level the palace from orbit, we'll need to go in and do this ourselves." Alpha spoke to quiet conference room giving the assembled people a briefing on the problems they were facing.
"They seem to be expecting an attack, but that might help us. They have left all their territory outside of the palace basically undefended and with their cartel in such a precarious financial situation they won't be able to survive losing all of their businesses." Renn said while looking at the map of the dune sea projected on the holo-table.
"They have most of their forces not protecting the palace guarding a death stick manufacturing plant on the edge of the dune sea as its their main source of income. If we attack this plant, we can draw more of Gardulla's forces out of the palace and ambush them out in the desert." Renn continued a plan formulating in his head.
"That could work, but we are still going to be outnumbered." Alpha said slowly.
"True but I think I know where we can get some help." Renn said grinning and pointed at a spot on the holo-map.
Alpha followed Renn's finger and observed the spot on his map before nodding in agreement. The Jundland wastes, a rocky region that split the dune sea in two. A region home to numerous tribes of tusken raiders, tribes that had been suffering from constant raids by the Hutts and might just be willing to help even the score.
"Aww, when did you get so smart." Sapphire's voice filled the room and Renn blushed in embarrassment.
Renn coughed into his hand and tried to pretend he couldn't hear the droids in the room sniggering in robotic amusement.
"Aww, little Renny's growing up" Opal called out from a corner of the room and Shae and Seela who were sat next to her started giggling. The giggling turned to laughter after Renn shot them an annoyed glare.
"Don't worry young one, I'm sure you'll be a fearsome and intelligent warrior when you grow up. Your already well on your way for that." Yaddle said smiling and offering Renn a thumbs up.
Renn sighed in defeat as the others in the conference room laughed, he wasn't really bothered as he knew they were just teasing him. But still, he'd show them in the future how great a warrior he could be.