Chapter 16: Representing the Red Hulls

Through various sources, Lana and Theron had managed to uncover that the Revanites were gathering their forces on Rishi, and that they had enlisted a local pirate faction to support them: the Nova Blades. Apparently, the Nova Blades had been getting more and more bold with their endeavors, and since much of their spoils were feeding back to the Revanites, disrupting them in any way would be a blow to the cult. They had also learned that a Mandalorian named Torch had been approached by the Blades and turned them down, so had the potential to be a useful ally.

“I’m still not clear on why we needed to be labeled as cannibalistic pirates to take action against the Nova Blades,” Nadia said as they all stood around the planning table, where a variety of maps and photos had been spread about like a sloppy collage.

“We don’t want the Revanites to know that we’re on their trail,” Lana explained. “If Theron or I made a move, or if we attempted to bring in the Empire or Republic, the cult would be spooked and either enact whatever plan they have early, or just bug out and we’d have to hunt them down again.”

Kayora brought a hand up to her chin, the wheels in her brain turning. “So instead, you make it look like a rival pirate gang is picking fights with the Nova Blades, which won’t stand out as abnormal. If suddenly the Blades are falling victim to a different group of pirates, it just looks like pirate politics are playing out as expected and the Blades just happen to be coming up short on their end.”

“Precisely.” Theron crossed his arms and nodded decisively. “So, for obvious reasons, Lana and I need to stay out of any actual operations, since our faces are plastered across the holonet as fugitives.”

“Leaving the heavy lifting to us again, huh?” Vera’s words were annoyed, but her inflection was more playful than that, leaving Nadia unsure about how the bounty hunter was actually feeling, especially since she had her helmet on.

Ignoring the comment, Theron continued. “We have two objectives we want to accomplish at the moment. One is to approach this Torch individual and see if we can convince them to support us, and the other is to sneak onto one of the islands the Nova Blades occupy and free as many of the slaves there that we can.” Grabbing one of the maps on the table, he pointed out the island that they’d be infiltrating.

“I’ll go talk to Torch,” Vera offered. “After all, I’m also a Mandalorian, so I shouldn’t meet too much resistance.”

“You say that, but the stories I’ve heard about this one are … discouraging to say the least.” Lana pulled up a scan of the area where Torch resided. 

“That is … a lot of gun emplacements,” observed Nadia.

“Yeah, they don’t like visitors,” Theron stated. “They shoot down anything that gets close, and the information I’ve gotten about those who do make it down alive is that they’re immediately set upon by the warriors. No small talk, no introductions, just full scale attack.”

“I’ll assist Vera,” Kayora said firmly.

“We do work well together don’t we?” This time Nadia could hear the smirk behind the helmet.

“Alright, that leaves the slave trade. Nadia, you up for some aggressive emancipation?”

Though she still felt the knee-jerk reluctance to separate from Kayora, Nadia knew that this was part of the job. She was still a Jedi, and she would do everything she could to protect the people of the galaxy. “Absolutely.”

Theron clapped his hands together. “Great. It’s up to you if you want to bring anybody else, or just go at it solo, but I’ve forwarded the coordinates to everybody. Vera, Kayora, I’ve got a guy who’s willing to lend us a shuttle to get to Torch’s compound.” He grimaced. “Don’t really want to risk one of ours.”

As they all began to file out, Vera stopped in front of Nadia. “Mako can go with you. She’s a hell of a hacker, as well as being pretty good in a fight. I’ll have her meet you at the rendez-vous coordinates.” Without waiting for a response, Vera brushed past, heading Lana’s direction. Her absence was filled by Kayora, who reached out to grab one of Nadia’s hands.

“Stay safe, and I’ll see you soon,” her master said, before pulling her in for a tight embrace.

“You too, master.” They separated, and Nadia gave the Twi’lek a quick peck on the lips before they went their separate ways. It was time to disrupt some pirate activity.

—

The screeching calls of orobirds reverberated across the rocky outcroppings that surrounded the small loading platform that Nadia and Mako found themselves on. They had stowed away in a cargo container at one of the Nova Blades’ supply outposts, and then a dropship had picked up said container and delivered it to the series of interconnected islands that made up the main slave staging grounds for the Nova Blades. Mako had quickly gunned down the very surprised pirate that had opened their crate, and now the two of them were scanning the area, marking points of interest.

“It looks like there’s three clusters of slaves,” Mako explained, eyes pressed against a pair of macrobinoculars. “I can’t for sure say that there aren’t any others held away from the main groups, but we can’t very well take on the entire camp.”

“Agreed.” While Nadia was confident in her abilities, if they weren’t careful they could get easily overwhelmed. Add on top of that the slaves that they would be escorting back to this landing pad, and things could get very messy very quickly. “Jakarro and C2 said they could pick up one of these larger containers with their freighter?”

“Yep. This one here.” Mako slapped a palm against a drab grey shipping container that was big enough to easily hold several dozen people. Once all the slaves were inside, they just had to signal on the comlink and Jakarro and C2 would swoop in and extract the crate.

Nadia unclipped her lightsaber from her belt and spun it in her hands. “Ready?”

“Ready.”

Dashing toward the first location, they did their best to stay out of sight, using the rocks and trees as cover. A Nova Blades pirate was standing watch at the edge of the small patch of raised land, but was obviously not taking his job too seriously. To be fair, they were at a somewhat secret location that was only accessible by official Nova Blades ships, so there generally wasn’t much of a need to stay alert.

Today, that worked in Nadia’s favor as she used the Force to leap an impossibly long distance, landing right in front of the pirate. His eyes widened in surprise as she jammed the end of her lightsaber hilt against his chest and toggled the power switch. The green blades burst to life then immediately extinguished, leaving a smoldering hole in the pirate. Mouth agape, he fell to the side and hit the sand hard.

“Damn, that was metal,” Mako remarked quietly, looking impressed. Nadia shrugged off the praise, and swept her gaze across the small island they were now on. A handful of pirates were standing guard around a group of slaves, all fitted with arm irons that were chained together. Another pair of pirates were off near a communications terminal, and there were three more dotted around the perimeter, probably keeping watch. The fresh corpse on the ground most likely fell into the latter category.

“I can take the three that are next to the prisoners, and then do my best to keep them protected,” Nadia stated, quickly spinning up a strategy in her mind. “Can you take down the two at the terminal, and then we’ll deal with the other sentries? They shouldn’t be too much trouble, especially that they’re split up and exposed.”

Mako confirmed the plan, and began to slink around the water’s edge toward a pile of equipment that would give her a good sightline on the comm terminal as well as a bit of cover from the other pirates. As she waited for her teammate to get in position, Nadia couldn’t help but have her mind wander to Kayora. She hoped she wasn’t getting into too much danger, though knowing her master, she wouldn’t hesitate to throw herself in harm’s way if lives were at stake. Luckily, or unluckily in this case, it didn’t sound like there would be any civilians to deal with at Torch’s compound. Just a load of bloodthirsty Mandalorians.

A thumbs up from Mako brought Nadia’s focus back to the present. It was go time. Putting on a burst of speed, Nadia launched herself at the pirates near the prisoners, her lightsaber bursting to life as she moved. Much like the previous guard, these pirates were not the least bit prepared to be ambushed in their own base. Two of them were cut down before they even registered the danger, and the third barely got their rifle raised before it was sliced in two and they met their end as well. Chancing a look to see how Mako was doing, Nadia was pleased to see it was going just as well on that end. Both of the Nova Blades by the communications equipment were on the ground, and Mako was already firing at one of the sentries, who was a little outside of her blaster’s accuracy range. Swiveling her head to get a bead on the other sentries, Nadia saw them both rushing toward their fallen comrades, though seemingly unable to decide which target they should engage. 

Making their decision for them, Nadia reached out with the force, lifting one of them off of the ground and hurling him into his companion, sending them both sprawling, weapons skittering away. Swiftly making her way over to them, after ensuring Mako was still exchanging shots with the final sentry and no further reinforcements had appeared, Nadia evaluated the status of the two prone pirates. One immediately leapt toward her, foolishly attempting to battle her in hand to hand combat. A quick twirl of her lightsaber put an end to that, his body falling limply into the dirt. The other pirate had pulled herself into a sitting position and was holding her hands up in terror.

“Please don’t kill me!” she pleaded, scooting backward awkwardly, since her hands were still raised. “I promise I won’t say nothing, I don’t even really like being a pirate!”

Nadia glanced over her shoulder, seeing Mako start to wander her direction, obviously having taken care of the remaining pirate. Turning back to the woman on the ground, who had begun to bawl, Nadia knelt down.

“This is what we’re going to do,” she said, hearing the footsteps of Mako approaching. “We’re going to tie you up and leave. When the other Nova Blades find you, tell them the Red Hulls are taking over their territory, got it?” The woman nodded fervently, wiping a bubble of snot away from her nose. “And then, the first chance you get, you leave the Nova Blades, and stop being a pirate.”

“Yeah, yeah I can do that, I didn’t wanna be a pirate anyway,” the woman said, continuing to nod like a broken bobble-head. “I thought it was gonna be parties and swoop races and stuff, but now I’m guarding slaves and I hate it.” 

“Here, to help you on your way.” Mako tossed a credit chip at the woman, whose eyes grew wide as she caught it.

“T-t-thank you, thank you so m-much.” The woman started crying again, and Nadia awkwardly patted her shoulder as she tied her hands behind her back with a broken cable that had been laying nearby. With that done, she and Mako headed back to deal with the slaves.

“At least she won’t have to fake any tears when the other pirates find her,” Mako commented, smiling wryly. Arriving back in front of the slaves, who surprisingly hadn’t moved a muscle, Mako clapped her hands together. “Alright, who wants a ride out of here?”

—

In a twist of fortune, the three areas where the slaves were being kept were all far enough apart that none of them were alerted to the havoc that Nadia and Mako were wreaking on the other pirates. They approached each of the scenarios in a similar fashion: Mako would find a good line of sight, Nadia would rush to secure the slaves, and then they’d methodically eliminate the rest of the pirates. Sadly, none of the other Nova Blades attempted to surrender, so they were forced to kill all those they encountered.

“I mean, they are slavers, and we did give them a chance to give up,” Mako reasoned, as she could see that the deaths were affecting Nadia. Thinking a moment, she amended her statement. “We gave some of them a chance to give up.”

“I know, I just wish so many didn’t have to die,” lamented Nadia as they guided the last group of slaves to the landing platform. She morosely kicked at a loose rock as she passed it by. “I’m sure Kayora would’ve been able to force a few more to surrender.”

“Please, none of these womp rats had the slightest inclination of surrendering. What, do you think that your master could have talked some sense into them? Maybe when they were shooting at us maniacally? Or yelling hurtful and honestly incorrect slurs?” Nadia gave Mako a sideways glance, and the shorter girl sighed. “I mean, if I saw you leap into battle and utterly dominate my fellow pirates, I sure as hell would be surrendering! If that display didn’t trigger their self-preservation instincts, nothing would.”

Nadia let a small smile flicker onto her face. Mako’s impromptu pep talk did actually make her feel a bit better, even though she knew for a fact Mako didn’t feel any remorse at taking out all of those pirates.

Reaching the open shipping container that already had the rest of the slaves, Nadia watched several of the new ones they had rescued race toward the container, tearfully embracing others. Even those that didn’t appear to know anybody else were waved into the crate with gusto, pulled into impromptu hugs and handshakes. A full smile graced Nadia’s face as she watched some of the reunions. They were doing the right thing, she was sure of it.

“Everybody please step back into the container. We’re going to join you and then I’m going to shut the door and call our ride.” Nadia and Mako got into the big metal box as the slaves pressed themselves against the back wall, taking extreme precautions to be out of the way of the door. Reaching up, Nadia grabbed one of the handles while Mako took care of the other, and with a slight bit of effort were able to pivot the door closed, hearing the latch secure. Pulling out her commlink, Nadia sent their coordinates to Jakarro and D4. “We’re ready for a pickup.”

A Wookiee yell was heard over the radio, then D4’s voice chimed in. “On our way. Brace yourselves, it’ll be a bumpy ride!”

—

It was surprisingly smooth sailing getting the container back to the main Rishi village. Metaphorically of course, because as D4 has warned, the ride in the container itself was aggressively turbulent. Most of the slaves ended up sitting or crouching, holding each other in small groups for support. Nadia was able to use the Force to help stay balanced, and Mako attempted to stay on her feet as well, though nearly fell over several times.

Once the slaves had been released, Nadia and Mako began to make their way back to the safehouse when they were intercepted by Kayora.

“Master? What are you doing here?” Nadia’s surprise at seeing Kayora not at the safehouse was overtaken by her happiness at the fact that the Twi’lek did not seem too worse for wear after her own mission. The edges of her robes did appear slightly singed, and she had what looked like soot on her face, but otherwise appeared unharmed. “Did you manage to recruit Torch?”

Kayora shook her head. “We did not, but that news will have to wait. Theron’s been kidnapped.”