Chapter 83

Three months later.

CSS-1 Corellian Star Shuttle 'Grand Traveller', Shimia system.

Krik licked his lips in anticipation as the airlock to the Corellian star shuttle hissed open, exposing it's inner corridors ripe for the plucking.

He and nine-teen other pirates of Alnah Ux's pirate band rushed from the docking umbilical from their own ship and into the star shuttle.

The star shuttle was a civilian transport ship that had just left Ryloth and had started to make its way down the Corellian run hyperspace lane when they had ambushed it.

Captain Ux had heard about the ship from a loose lipped, and very drunk, administrative clerk he had encountered in a pub.

The ship was full of passengers and cargo, and according to the clerk the family of a wealth republic senator would also be on the ship.

They would pillage the ship, steal the cargo, sell the crew and passengers into slavery, and hold the senator's family to ransom.

"Hehe, I can't wait to get my hands on some nice new slaves," Krik's friend Iec said gleefully, "The last one I had got boring after a while, hehe."

"I know what you mean," Krik said his eyes gleaming with anticipation, "It's always fun when their still scared and…Unbroken."

The other pirates laughed as they entered the ship before dividing into four teams of five and spreading out to cause as much mayhem on the ship as they could.

One team would secure the bridge, another would capture engineering, the third would begin rounding up the passengers, and the fourth, Krik's team, would capture the senator's family.

They moved deeper into the ship along its wider arterial corridors and laughed at how easy it was. The ship's crew hadn't even bothered to mount a defence, and they were probably cowering with fear with the passengers, as they should be.

"You think it's weird they've activated the emergency lighting?" Eet, the youngest pirate in Ux's crew and still barely an adult, said nervously looking around the corridor that was lit by a series of dim red emergency lights.

"Ha, it's your first raid isn't? You scared?" Krik sneered at Eet and the others laughed at the kid's nervousness.

"We hit the ship's power grid to disable it, they probably had to switch to emergency power which would have changed the lights." Krik told Eet after a while when they had stopped laughing at him.

"Oh, O-kay," The kid stammered, obviously still nervous.

"Here, this'll help those nerves," Grobl, another of Krik's team, said with a laugh. Before producing an entertainment, unit and began blasting loud music thought the corridor.

"Ha, you just wanted an excuse to play your music," Qaik, the final member of the team, said shoving Grobl in the back.

"Hehe, guilty," Grobl rubbed the back of his head sheepishly, "But you got to admit, this is so much cooler with a backing track."

The pirates laughed along with Grobl and soon their music was echoing thought the star shuttle.

"This is Cumbas, we've entered the passenger quarters. But we can't find anyone here. Has anyone else seen anyone?" the voice of a pirate from another team sounded over the comm.

Krik responded that they hadn't, but when the other two teams gave the same answer, a nagging sensation began playing at the back of his mind.

Why hadn't they seen anybody? Yes, the ships occupants were probably covering in fear somewhere, but they should have come across somebody by now. Shouldn't they?

The nagging thoughts kept getting stronger and stronger the longer they went without finding anyone. The star shuttle was quiet as a ghost and it unnerved Krik.

The five of them continued on along the corridor listening to Grobl's music until they came to a sealed blast door.

Krik tried to use the control panel next to the door, but it was powered down and usless, so he decided to just blast his way through.

"Qaik bring you've got the charges, bring them here." He ordered and waited for Qaik to hand him the explosives not caring, or knowing enough about explosives to know, about the danger of causing a hull breach by setting off an internal explosion on a starship.

Krik waited for a few moments with his hand outstretched, but nothing was placed in it, so he turned in annoyance.

"Qaik! I said—" He trailed of in confusion because Qaik, was gone.

Behind Krik was a dark corridor, light by dim red lights, and three confused pirates.

"He… He was right behind me," Eet looked around wide eyed in fear, wondering how his fellow pirate could just disappear.

"Calm down!" Krik snapped at Eet, but privately he was just as scared as the kid, "He probably just wondered off."

"Ha, yeah… bet he found some pretty lookin twi'lek and didn't want to share. The selfish bastard," Iec laughed unconcerned.

"Still though, best look for him." Krik said, "he's got the explosives."

"Yeah, plus we can't let him have all the 'fun'" Grobl laughed, and they began moving back the way they came.

A new song started as they began walking, its beat starting slowly but building up to be faster and louder.

Iec was at the front of the group when they found Qaik, his back facing them as he lent against a wall seemingly for support.

"Hey, Qaik!" Iec shouted and walked up to shove the missing pirate for making them look for him, "Where've you been you di—" he trailed off as Qaik collapsed in a heap as soon as Iec touched him.

Iec stood in confusion his left arm still outstretched as he looked down at the collapsed form of Qaik.

Everyone stood watching him, just as confused as he was, until Iec's arm fell. Suddenly no longer connected to his shoulder.

Iec paused in shock for a moment, staring at the bleeding stump where his arm once was, before screaming in pain.

They hadn't seen a thing, hadn't heard a thing. Except the wet slap of Iec's arm hitting the floor.

Iec dropped to his knees, screaming at the top of his lungs still staring at his missing arm. Until he collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut, his neck cut wide open.

Krik and Eet began backing away nervously while Grobl stood rooted to the ground in shock.

They watched terrified as Grobl suddenly began being raised up into the air. The red light and the still echoing music creating a nightmarish scene.

Grobl struggled desperately looking back at the terrified Krik and Eet with panic clear in his eyes. The music playing from his pocket getting louder and louder.

"Help! P-please h-help… I don't w-want to d-di-aaargh!" Grobl screamed as a the bloodied tip of a blade pierced through his chest before it wrenched itself sideways slicing clean though him, nearly severing him in half.

Grobl's body dropped lifelessly to the ground, the music he was playing cutting off at the same moment.

Krik and Eet stared in horror, first at the mutilated corpse of their fellow pirate, then at the still empty corridor. Before turning and running.

They were almost back to the sealed blast door when Eet tripped, or at least Krik thought he tripped.

Krik soon realised as he looked down that a fibrecord whip was wrapped tightly around Eet's legs.

The kid looked up pleading silently for help with his eyes, before he was pulled back screaming into the darkness.

Krik turned away, ignoring the kid's screams and the sounds of his palms squelling against the polished metal flooring, in the vain attempt to halt his progress.

A sickening crunch sounded from behind him, and Krik looked back to see Eet's body lying still, his head split open by some invisible force.

Krik reached the sealed blast door and began slapping at it desperately praying for it to open, but it remained stubbornly sealed shut.

He then remembered his comm and quickly activated it hoping someone, anyone, was close enough to save him.

"Help, somebody please help. There's a…" he paused his begging as a figure materialised out of thin air before him, its pitch-black armour blending into the darkness and its red visor reflecting the pale red emergency lights. "… Demon."

Krik collapsed, his back to the door, as the armoured demon began walking slowly towards him.

"Hello, Pirate…" The demon whispered, it's voice cold and synthetic, its helmet altering the voice of whoever wore the armour to sound mechanical and grating. "…You ready to die!"

Krik screamed as an armoured glove closed around his head and began pressing it against the heavy metal blastdoor behind him.

He felt the pressure increase second by second, heard his skull creaking and cracking under the strain, until it finally popped like a piece of over ripened fruit.

Krik's headless corpse slid to the floor and the armoured figure casually wiped the blood from its hand onto the dead pirates clothes before typing in a command on the tactical pad built into his armoured forearm.

The blastdoor sprung to life and slide open, giving him access to the corridor beyond. He stepped through and vanished mid-stride.

Once more turning into an unseen nightmare.

-

"Help, some body hel-"

"It's… can't see it… oh no… no, NOOO!"

"I wanna go home, please I'm sorry… I know I've been bad… please I'll be a good boy from now on, I promise. I prom-erk."

Alnah Ux listened to the panicked comm traffic from his crew aboard the star shuttle and chewed the inside of his mouth in concern.

What was on that ship?

It had to be a whole band of mercenaries, or maybe some kind of republic black ops squad. Whatever it was it was massacring his crew.

"Retract the umbilical," Ux snapped, "we need to leave now!"

"Can't sir, our men by the airlock aren't responding!" A member of his bridge crew shouted back nervously.

"Well send someone down there, we have to get out of here. Right Now!" Ux screamed in panic before a cold synthetic voice sounded form over his shoulder.

"Too late".

The defining bang of a slug thrower filled the bridge and Ux fell limply to the ground, a ragged hole through his forehead.

-

"You know a lot of that was completely unnecessary," Sapphire said lazy.

"I don't know what you mean" Renn said absentmindedly as he lounged in the captain's chair of the still powered down Corellian Star Shuttle 'Grand Traveller'.

The pirates that had attacked the ship had all ben delt with and now he was waiting for his client to come and rendezvous with him so he could get of the unpowered ship.

It had been a few months since Renn had forged his armour and after reuniting with Opal, Seela, and Shae he had started a career as a bounty hunter and was already building up quite a reputation.

Renn had been hired by some Twi'lek political activist called Cham Syndulla to deal with a pirate gang that had been preying on civilian transports leaving Ryloth and selling its passengers into slavery.

Cham had been distressed by his peoples suffering, and the republic's lack of respons to it. And as Ryloth's own senator was too busy stealing money from his own people to fund his opulent lifestyle, Cham had decided to do something about it himself.

He had decided to hire a relatively cheap but efficient bounty hunter to assist him, which was where Renn came in.

As a new bounty hunter, who was unaffiliated with any of the big hunter guilds, Renn was unable to set a high price for his work until he had completed building a reputation for himself.

Not that he minded that, he was making enough credits form the trade guild that he had founded that he could live in complete luxury for the rest of his life and never run out of money.

And so Renn had accepted the contract to help deal with the pirates because it would help him build his reputation, and it was the right thing to do to help stop the pirates around Ryloth.

Syndulla hadn't known how to find the pirates though, they would usually lurk somewhere along the Corellian run and attack the ships but would rarely stay in the same place.

Renn had come up with a plan for that though. He had spread a rumour that a passenger ship carrying a wealthy senator's family had left Ryloth on its way to Christophsis.

Renn had then waited on the star shuttle for the pirates to ambush and board it before killing the boarders and seizing control of the pirate ship.

And now all he needed to do was wait for Syndulla and his men to turn up, when they did Renn would transmit a message to let Syndulla know that the pirates where defeated and it was safe to approach and retrieve him.

"Yeah, you do," Sapphire said and Renn could practically hear the eye roll in her voice, "acting all dramatic like you where in some kind of holo-entertainment."

"Ha, maybe. But you gotta admit, it did look cool." Renn said happily.

"…True… but underestimating your enemy might get you killed." Sapphire sternly.

"I know… Oh look a ship," Renn said quickly as a ship dropped out of hyperspace, just in time to save him from an impending lecture.