Loic Monerat & The Lizard Brain Spice Smuggling Syndicate - Chris Herron, Greg Provan (red seas under red skies txt) 📗

Drozsk was winded, bruised and dazed. Bloodthirsty gladiators fell upon his prone form and started to tear him to shreds like a pack of wolves. The Devaronian turned his attention to Bossk who was also fighting several foes at once.

 

Bossk gripped a yak-faced warrior by the throat, with a powerful yank of his free hand, he decapitated the creature. Erupting blood spouted as though from a geyser. As Bossk swiped his claws he left bloody mists in the air, then the Devaronian charged into his side, Bossk thudded into the arena wall as his ribs were crushed. The Devaronian and the remaining ferine gladiators, drunk on death, assailed the Trandoshan hunter all at once, clubbing and beating and goring with claw, fist and horn.

 

Racing upwards through the hewn stairway Nilita paused mid-step. ‘What is it?’ Quizzed Loic fearfully.

 

‘Silence,’ she whispered. The Chiss took the blaster from Loic and peeked round a turn in the stairway. The smuggler looked on with frustrated bemusement. Freedom was within their grasp, they were nearly at the top of the temple, but laser blasts hit the walls around them. Nilita returned fire. She pointed to Loic to keep moving. The smuggler chanced a glance back down the stairway, his curiosity a morbid thirst never slaked. There in the flicker of torchlight he could see the glimmer of Trandoshan scales, an open-mouthed repulsive lizard face with one blind white eye. Its baleful, avid hissing filled the corridor, masked only by the crack of lasers.

 

Loic made it to the end of the passageway, pulling open the door with the strength of a mad man. Blessed clean air enveloped him as he took in a breath-taking panorama. The sun was rising in the distance, the surrounding serene landscape peaceful and radiant. Nights were very short on Florrum, but he had endured many hours of torment. There was the sound of more blasterfire, before the Chiss appeared slamming the door behind her. ‘It’s still alive. To the ship.’ Loic did not know to whom she referred, or to which ship she referred. There were several small crafts on the plateau, he merely followed her, once again naked of a blaster with a Trandoshan on his heels, as always.

 

Krang booted the door off its hinges with one firm kick. He took cover behind the stonework for a heartbeat, expecting returning fire, but all he heard was the sound of a ship’s engine powering up. He dashed out into the open ground, blaster in hand, but he was too late. The oval, chrome-finished ship was now off the ground and beginning to rise. A laser cannon dropped from its belly and swivelled in his direction, he had to roll quickly to avoid the spray of laser fire.

 

As the ship powered into the sky, he ran to his stashed turbo-pack, quickly slung the strap round his frame, and donned his helmet. He ignited the boosters and blasted after them. One Trandoshan with a boosterpack against a ship was a fool’s errand, but Krang did not seek a firefight. No, his quarry would escape, that was inevitable, but he still had time to accomplish something of worth. If a crafty bounty hunter could not pursue his quarry, he would track them, nonetheless. He fumbled in his jump suit for a homing beacon. He had to be quick before the ship reached the upper atmosphere where he could not follow. He just needed one clean shot…

The Chiss had harshly demanded Loic use the shower stall thoroughly before he was permitted to lounge around the ship. It had been the greatest shower of Loic’s life though, re-born was he beneath those jets of hot water. Afterwards, he was provided with a gown, and he looked around; it was not a large vessel, little more than engines and a cockpit, though there was a small vestibule seating area.

 

After dressing his wounded ear, disinfecting and picking the glass out of a few cuts, and reattaching a couple of the stomach stitches which had come loose, she prepared him a hot drink – its tasted extremely bitter, but apparently it would calm his nerves. His nerves were indeed ravaged. What he endured would take much time to digest and most likely haunt him the rest of his days. One puny smuggler against crime syndicates, bounty hunters, killers... Bossk and Okkra and Sarkraa fought over him in an eternal tug of war, and when his limbs came apart, they tore his soul to shreds and feasted on the remains.

 

The Chiss studied him with unreadable crimson eyes. Guilt and shame washed over him. Her companions had died so he might live, what were brave men to one drug-addled conman? They had died, the hard way, butchered, bleeding, agonized, alone. ‘What is your name?’ He asked of her.

 

‘Nilita.’

 

‘I am sorry that your people died. I am sorry that they died…’ He choked, ‘for me.’ Was all he could offer, lamely.

 

She nodded. ‘They would still be alive if they had adapted to the situation. Dying in the service of the King and Sacred Csilla is the greatest honour one can be afforded. They will be rewarded kindly in the netherworlds.’

 

‘What are you, assassins? Soldiers?’

 

‘We are the Children. We are trained sometimes from birth,’ she said, in a formal matter-of-fact fashion.

 

‘Trained to do what?’

 

‘It varies. Matters of statecraft, war, subterfuge, combat. I am from the Black Tears, we are the fighters, the one you knew as Maax, he was from the Purple Glove, they are the spies.’

 

She was almost robotic. She lacked any of Maax’s subtlety, cunning, or oral acrobatics. Despite her undeniable youthful beauty, Loic could only see her for what she really was, a trained unthinking killer, a force to be unleashed by her superiors. He sensed she was neither good nor evil, merely a product of her programming. Assuming you outranked her, you could order her to do anything; kill by strangulation, shoot someone in the head at point-blank range, bash a skull in with a rock, it didn’t matter, she would merely carry out her tasks dispassionately, her body simply moving through the series of movements her training had ploughed into her brain.

 

‘Do you know Jaster?’

 

‘I know he broke with tradition by mustering us to rescue you. We – the Children – must never be quested for matters of a personal nature, like rescuing a friend from witless spice-runners half a galaxy away. We live solely to benefit the interests of the Chiss people. Civil war is coming.’

 

‘Civil war because he sent you to rescue me?’ For half a heartbeat she looked as though she would giggle, seeming little more than a spritely young lady, her pretty face flanked by an avalanche of rebellious blonde curls, now she had loosened her dreads, heart-warming in her naivety. But her face hardened once more, and the killer was back.

 

‘No, not just that, though his enemies will use that against him too. He is now King once more. When he returned to his throne – dragged to his throne – he robbed his brothers of their power. Now the dark times will return; political chicanery, double-dealing, nihilistic conspiratorial machinations... And you will get to witness it all first-hand, for I will deliver you to the King himself.’

 

Loic pondered a second. ‘He is my friend, but I can’t fathom why he went to all this trouble over me.’ He met her gaze, ‘you don’t approve?’

 

‘I carry out the instructions which I am given. The Children take no part in intrigue. We are a military branch and behave accordingly.’

 

Loic nodded. ‘Okay, now what happens to me once I get to King Jaster.’

 

‘Oh, I imagine you will be an honoured guest. Fear not, you will be quite safe, I am sure, at least for a time.’

 

THE END. EPILOGUE

 

Krang One-Eye made his way back to the crumbling Great Hall. He stepped over mounds of eviscerated, blasted bodies. The temple was now a charnel house, a silent tomb. The screams of the dying had ceased, the clattering racket of battle no longer echoed from the lofty domed ceiling, all was as hushed as a crypt.

 

Krang moved stealthily as he padded over the carrion, for he suspected rogue survivors ready to pounce from each shadowed alcove. But all had been slain. All but Bossk. Bossk had perched himself atop Okkra’s dais on a throne fashioned from bones. Ichor and green slime oozed from a great many wounds over his colossal frame. At his feet lay the severed head of a Devaronian, the mouth open in a silent scream, the yellow eyes gazing sightlessly into the abyss.

 

‘A Chiss female and the smuggler have fled. I am tracking their ship.’ Krang offered the statue-faced Bossk, whose murky maniacal gaze chilled even the taller Trandoshan to the bone.

 

Bossk remained silent. The smuggler was nothing to him. The bounty on him had long been collected. But chasing paltry bounties was no longer his intention. The temple would serve as his base. He would summon the finest most ruthless Trandoshan warriors to his banner, assemble every first-rate bounty hunter, assassins, and guns-for-hire, the rim worlds had to offer. He would destroy Sarkraa, crush her pitiful host, and take her riches and resources, adding them to his own collective. He would build an army and terrorise the galaxy. They would kneel before him, for he was Bossk, the Trandoshan God of Death incarnate. He gripped the decapitated head at his feet by a horn and stood thrusting it towards the heavens with an ululating screech that split the desert lands asunder.

 

Krang knelt.

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

 

Several years ago, Greg announced offhandedly, and drunkenly, that our mutual friend Loic Monerat had a very Star Wars-sounding name (pronounced mono-ray). Gregg is a good writer, and our styles mesh well, and he proposed we write a Star Wars story based on Loic. We decided to do a page or two each then just pass it back without conferring, or conspiring, or planning any plot. This proved to be a fun method because it kept the writing fresh, the writer finds himself in the unique position of not actually knowing which way the story is going to turn, or what's going to happen next to the protagonist. It also means you're constantly striving to do good writing if the last writer's piece was really good. It also adds a loose deadline, providing me with something I severely lack, motivation. We did part one and got bored and wrote 'to be continued'. Seven years later, a month ago, we picked it up again, and within a few weeks, using the same method, we had wrote a novella for part 2 and completed the tale. Anyway, that's the story behind LM&TLBSSS, we hope you have as much fun reading it as we did writing it.

Cheers.

 

P.S We know how pedantic Star Wars fans can be, because we are two of them, and so we have done our best to ensure we remain true to the actual SW Universe, and I'm confident we have managed that, but feel free to pedant away anyway.

 

C.T Herron

 

*All images randomly swiped from Google image. Credit to the respective artists.

 

**Cover image swiped from Stoner Days.

 

***No actual wookies were harmed during the making of this tale.