Chapter 38

Renn grinned as he pressed the big red button on the detonator in his hand and watched the chaos in the canyon below him.

Their plan had been fairly simple. The majority of the tusken raiders would attack the factory at dusk and when Gardulla sent reinforcements Renn, the droids, and a small group of tusken raiders would ambush them in the rocky canyons.

Renn and the others had buried explosives along the base of the canyon and then waited from a safe position high up on the cliffs as the gangsters had fallen into the trap.

Alpha and the other assassin droids were now shooting at the panicked mercenaries and gangsters who made up Gardulla's army while they were trapped like fish in a barrel. The tusken raiders let out their war cries and added their own shots to the chorus of fire the droids were giving off.

The battle didn't last long. Nearly seven hundred of Gardulla's men entered the canyon and now nearly seven hundred men lay dead, their broken bodies lay scattered among the destroyed speeders at the base of the canyon.

"Well, that was easy" Spark commentated, his heavy blaster's barrel glowing slightly as it cooled down.

One of the tusken raiders roared in agreement.

"See, he gets it." Spark pointed at the tusken raider and nodded sagely.

"Shut up" Crow said shaking is head. "Do you ever stop talking?"

"I don't know. I don't think I talk a lot. Do you think I talk a lot?" Spark said trying and succeeding to annoy Crow.

Earl and Scythe watched in amusement as Crow proceeded to throw rocks at the laughing Spark until they were all told to behave by a fed-up Alpha.

The leader of the group of sand people then came over to Renn and Alpha and began conversing with them, with Alpha translating.

"He says that you showed you are a great friend to the allied tribes as you have helped them kill a great many of their enemies. He also wishes us luck in our assault on the palace and hopes we will return for a victory feast with the other allied tribes." Alpha told Renn what the warlord accompanying them was saying.

Six tusken raiders had volunteered to come with Renn and the droids to assault Gardulla the Hutts palace. But the others would reunite with the main tusken warband at the death stick factory before retreating back into the dune sea.

The sand people lived in harsh conditions out in the desert and risking themselves in an all-out assault on the palace would be foolish, even if most of its defenders now lay dead in the sand. They had crippled Gardulla the Hutts empire to a point that it could never recover, and they were fine with that, but Renn wanted more.

Gardulla had messed with people that Renn was beginning to see as family and so Renn wanted to demonstrate what happened when House Dredd was attacked.

Renn said goodbye to the tusken warlord and soon his group splintered off and headed out in the direction of Gardulla's palace.

-

The man in the silver armour watched the hordes of gangsters leave the palace and couldn't help but think about how it was perfectly timed.

He had been wondering all day about how he was supposed to sneak into the palace and had settled on using darkness as a cover, then moving stealthily through the palace so he could get Gardulla one on one and force her to surrender.

But his day had just got a lot easier. Most of the palace's guards had just rushed off in the direction of the distant blaster fire that had started a few moments ago, so being sneaky was going to be a lot simpler.

He scaled the wall of the palace and was just snapping the neck of a solitary guard when a huge explosion sounded form the direction the gangsters had just sped off in. He quickly hid the dead guard and watched from the shadows as some more guards ran off into the desert.

His luck must have really been good today. Maybe he should test out a lottery ticket later.

-

"So, how's Renn doing?" Opal asked Sapphire as she and the others stood around the holo-table in the conference room.

Sapphire was projecting real-time updates of what was happening as well as camera feeds from the droids' optical sensors and Renn's helmet onto the holo-table and the girls were watching it anxiously.

Opal glanced around at the other people in the conference room. Seela was chewing her fingernails nervously as she watched and prayed that everyone would be alright. Shae was fidgeting through a combination of worry and a desire to be a part of the fight herself. And Yaddle was sat on a chair reading a book absentmindedly, utterly convinced that everything would work out.

Opal herself was trying not to show how worried she was. She had known Renn for over a year and had grown to care a lot about him and while she was confident in both his abilities and the abilities of the droids protecting him, she couldn't help worrying about him.

"Everything seems to be going fine. I can't tell if these tusken raiders are surprisingly good fighters or the Hutt gangsters are just that bad. Eh, maybe a bit of both.

Either way Renn and the others should have the palace under control soon, and then we can fly over and finish this all off." Sapphire said happily.

Opal nodded and went back to watching the holo-table and prayed that Renn would be okay.

-

"They've sent scouts out to check the area in case someone tries to attack the palace. Guess they're not 'completely' stupid." Alpha whispered to Renn as they, plus the six tusken raiders, hid in the rocks near the entrance to Gardulla's palace.

"Clank. You attack the front gate. Draw the scouts into a fight in the rocks and kill them. Then just cause general mayhem." Renn whispered, "you four" he pointed at four of the sand people with them, "Help him out by firing from the high ground over there. You don't have to worry about accuracy just make it seem like there are loads of you."

"The rest of us will sneak into the palace during the distraction. Scythe will then secure the palace gates form the shadows. While Earl, Crow and Spark will secure the slave pens to make sure the slaves aren't used as hostages. Me, Alpha and you two," Renn pointed at the final two tusken raiders. "Will find Gardulla and force her to surrender."

Everyone nodded in understanding, after Alpha translated for the tusken raiders, and soon everyone spread out to follow the plan.

The desert outside Gardulla's palace was quiet for a moment. The only sounds the distant crackling of fires and the occasional blaster bolt from the far-off factory. And a strange peace seemed to descend on the palace's defenders.

Until that peace was violently torn apart by automatic blaster fire that ripped through two of the palace's guards who had been given the unfortunate job of looking for intruders among the rocks outside the palace gates.

More guards charged out and were immediately met with more blaster fire coming from high up on the cliffs overlooking the palace. They scattered and ran for cover before shooting wildly in all directions hoping to hit the shadows that were killing them but were unsuccessful.

They were so focused on the mystery enemies attacking them that they failed to notice a small group of people and droids sneak right by them.