Diffuse, grey-gold light, the color of bile on duracrete, filtered down from above. Dust clouds sparked and swirled under a mosaic of fluorescent panels. Illuminators bolted to Selonian marble columns ringing the audience chamber gave off a harsher, nacreous glow. It made them tough to look at directly, and turned the sea of onlookers into washed-out specters. Two males, one tall, the other, much shorter, stood several floor tiles apart, on either side of a prominent scorch mark.
“This is all your fault,” the man hissed, low under his breath.
The blue-skinned Chiss replied, in a voice perfectly suited to his upright, austere image. “Pardon. Is that directed at me, or at In’hahn?” In’hahn preened, as if aware of the attention now being paid it.
“It’s both your faults!”
“Ah. Then, I do not see how that could be possible,” Corvo murmured.
“You broke my speeder—“ the younger male began, but cut himself off when the Chiss and the Jai’galaar, the shriek-hawk on his shoulder, turned simultaneously. Something in those eyes silenced him right away. Or maybe it was just the hue. Corvo’s lack of pupils gave the impression of staring into twin chips of mirrored glass. Their gazes were bright and hard and unreadable.
He flushed, suddenly angry at himself. Never show weakness. Not on accident. He spun halfway-around and snarled, “I’m gonna put a hole in you.”
“That is rather the point of this exercise. Is it not, Daven Skyfe?”
A rumbling from the dais preempted his curse. The droid translator’s photoreceptors flashed. “It is time for quiet, slugs.” *Is that what we look like to them?* Daven wondered, eyeing the Hutt at the top of the steps.
After the . . . *incident,* the guards told Corvo and Daven to await ‘the boss.’ At first, this sounded better than summary execution. The doors leading to the throne room banged open somewhere behind the high dais. It, the sloping floor, his angle to the doors, and thick curtains prevented him from seeing anything, and it was a long time before the mistress herself crested her special ramp.
When he saw it was her, Daven grew nervous. This was not the head of a kajidic. This was one’s mother. The usual ‘boss’ was out. Every powerful crime lord, Hutt or otherwise, had stories told about them, of their methods, their great acts of retribution, and also, in some cases of their . . . proclivities. In *her* case, those accounts were strange. Considering where he now stood, Daven assumed at least some of them were true.
He had never heard of a Hutt doing this.
Initially, he tried to play innocent, a confused bystander. In light of what he and Corvo had wrought, this went over dreadfully with kajidic security. Then the later began talking. Reciting the exact order of events as they had transpired in a calm, clipped tone, he appeared oblivious to the forest of slugthrower barrels in their faces. That concise explanation, when conveyed to the Hutt, amused her. It saved their lives.
*And got us where we are now. Thank you very-kriffing-much, you big blue rakeweed.*
A hundred pairs of eyes were focused on them. Weequay eyes, Nikto eyes, Noehon eyes. Rodians, Bothans, rutian Twi’leks and even one tall, proud lethan lined the walls shoulder-to-shoulder. There was a barely-audible undercurrent of muttered conversation, mostly sublimated into the energetic strains of an all-hallikset band behind a shimmersilk curtain. He felt opalescent Anomid eyes, milky white Arkanian eyes, massive scarlet duros eyes, turquoise quarren eyes, sable and emerald and beige and jet Aqualish eyes, and Barabel eyes of the same bright golden shade as the palace interior. This much attention made his skin crawl.
Artwork, tapestries and paintings and floating holoprojectors recreating art in gilt frames, adorned the high walls. All were creations of prisoners of the late Jiliac Desilijic Tiron, going back many, many years. His eye kept returning to one in particular. The holographic image depicted a scene from the point-of-view of the inhabitant of a high tower. Their chamber was cramped, and bare, and miserable. The uneven stone walls visibly glistened. The artist faced a hole in the wall, gazing out across a sickening expanse of swamps and toxic clouds from impossibly high-up. The angle was such as to give the impression they—and by extension, anyone who studied the painting—contemplated said drop.
He felt a rare twinge of sympathy for the artist. Daven could not paint. One assumed he would have been taken somewhere and shot in the head—or more likely, just shot in the head—were it not for Corvo.
He wiped sweaty palms on black trousers. Corvo’s previous words rattled around his head. *That is rather the point of this exercise. Is it not?* In the silence following the Hutt’s declaration, he thought the Chiss said something. It sounded rather like, You’ll try. All of this, because of . . .? Well. Smarter people died for stupider reasons.
Right?
When he emerged through the aurodium-gilt gates in view of a two-hundred-meter-high alumabronze Hutt statue—in case any visitors forgot they were on Nal Hutta—Daven saw the dent on his Starhawk. His mind went blank. He hardly remembered what he did next in his fury, or who pointed him the Chiss’s way. Admittedly, Nal Hutta was a planet of liars and troublemakers. Corvo could well have been innocent.
*Who cares, at this point. You’ve gotta kill ‘im now, kid.*
It was hard to breathe. The cool recycled air filled his lungs and sat there, heavy as lead. The outer corridors’ malodorous atmosphere was replaced by a much subtler, fetid scent that tickled his nostrils. Perhaps it was his imagination. No one else seemed to notice when he asked. Maybe kajidic places just made Daven queasy.
Aliens outnumbered humans behind the pillars. They were separated from the wide-open floor by rows of long tables. Heaping trays of rich food, alien delicacies, and what had to be roadkill sat on blue-and-gold tablecloths. Topato stew, klatooine paddy frogs, fathier steaks sprinkled with glitterstim, and vulptex livers soaked in polstine, served in blue cruses on aurodium platters. The guests held flutes of neon drink, whyren’s reserve, Corellian ale, ruby bliel and plain ol’ caf, spiked with scarn, ryll, sweetblossom, sansanna spice and ground death sticks.
The majority of attendees were ‘Davens,’ not ‘Corvos.’ Bruisers, lowlifes, scammers. The ridiculously-opulent spread thus had a dizzying, stupefying effect as sharp as any hard drug could induce. Hitting them with sheer ostentation was a surprisingly-subtle form of intimidation, he felt. Or, perhaps not surprisingly. Nobody sane or educated thought Hutts stupid, and he was one of those two.
His eyes kept returning to the clear brownish dessert on a nearby table, decorated with jogan fruits held together by a white custard mortar. Daven’s stomach rumbled. “Battles are not won on an empty stomach, Daven Skyfe.”
Too frightened of the Hutt’s wrath if he spoke, Daven subtly showed him a rude gesture. There was another table overturned in the far corner. He did not need to look to see the unmitigated fury in the Sullustan’s gaze. Losing an ear ruins a temper more surely than most anything. Enough pain to make you cross, not enough to distract you from being cross.
Gamorreans in patchwork leather-and-metal armor flanked the dais. They had those big, Gamorrean axes. Pitted, worn from overuse, razor-sharp and entirely free of rust, their weapons were in the exact same state as Daven’s.
Erect and towering in pristine armor, Corvo appeared, by contrast, to have stepped straight out of a high-class function into the palace without walking on Nal Hutta first. His perfect cropped hair, together with that pleasing cant to his masculine features, contributed to a ‘military’ look. He radiated such self-control that it infuriated Daven. He was not sure why. People like this always made him angry.
Corvo wore leather dyed the same shade as his onyx bracer, chest and shoulders covered in stark-white plates with blue accents. He wore his Naga Sadow colors proudly, an odd display of fanaticism, as Daven saw it, in this crowd of freelancers and assorted scoundrels. His left pauldron showed a captain’s rank insignia in gold, and to his right were attached three inky-dark feathers. The shriek-hawk had positioned itself so its tail feathers draped over the back of the same shoulder.
Excessively shiny boots added to his already-impressive height. Perhaps he actively sought to make others feel insignificant. I am really gonna enjoy killing this rotten svaper.
His own diminutive stature was emphasized by the males’ proximity. Every time he straightened, he became self-conscious and shrunk again, constantly bobbing up-and-down, eyes darting to-and-fro. A Sanyassan raider lounged in a distant corner. Daven was not out-of-place here. Corvo just looked so comfortable, it made Daven feel less secure than he normally would have.
The younger male’s outfit was not tailor-fitted, like Corvo’s. His steel grey jacket came to the backs of his thighs, and hung loose on a gaunt frame. His pant legs were rolled up three times. Daven caught a guard’s eye. Those black orbs, recessed in wrinkled pits, held his stare. It was easy enough to guess what he(she? were Gamorreans girls?) was thinking. Pish posh, whomsoever does yonder callow youth think he is, to adorn himself thusly at such an establishment?
To his alarm, the guard drew nearer. He was tense as a spring until they halted several paces distant. Their axe—called an arg’garok, he now remembered—was held across their chest. A thick shaft, with an intimidating spiked pommel, slotted into the massive head. Twin spikes protruded in the opposite direction from its crescent blade. Blue quark frosting still smeared the guard’s face.
They uttered something rude. Or menacing. He assumed it was rude or menacing. Then they pointed emphatically. He eyed the spot on the floor, glanced at Corvo, and began to shuffle away as the Chiss followed a similar directive, this time punctuated by a wave of an axe. Graceful as a nighthunter, Corvo pivoted on one heel and *marched* to the spot. Daven threw another rude gesture at his back.
The droid’s translation overlapped with its Hutt master’s next, cackling speech. “For disrupting the day’s festivities in celebration of the successful massacre in Kor Vella, the two sentients will fight to the death in view of their fellow guests. The event will commence once snacks have been distributed. Remember to tip your server, and trust it will be a most pleasing display.”
“Great. Looking forward to it.” Daven rolled his shoulders, resisting the urge to check his blaster. The gesture might be misinterpreted, here.
Corvo was staring. Daven felt like a swoop bike in a mechanic’s shop. “Casting blame is a tedious exercise, often useless,” he called out. “I do not point fingers. Otherwise, I might take the chance to mention this is all your fault.”
Daven laughed incredulously. “What? The slime pod? How was I supposed to know it doesn’t stretch that far?”
“You might have referred to your common sense,” Corvo suggested plainly. In’hahn shrieked agreement, making Daven and most of the watchers in his field of view start.
He wondered at his proximity to the Hutt. In fact, an errant shot could hit anyone present. The pair got let off with a light punishment—forced gladiatorial combat—because earlier, nothing was destroyed and no one was hurt. So what if now he accidentally shot the monkey lizard? Remembering the Kowakian monkey lizard from earlier, he faced that way. The small creature quickly hid behind the angry Sullustan. He actually . . . felt a little bad about that part. Sorry, he mouthed.
Corvo’s X-8 Nightsniper dwarfed the iron at Daven’s hip. Apparently he shared Daven’s preference for BlasTech products. The youth’s affectation of an Ec-17 was because it was the only weapon in his price range he could use with shockboxing gloves on. Daven hated firefights, and found going everywhere with shockboxing gloves often precluded the need to draw a blaster.
Well. One does as needs must.
The droid announced, “Sixty seconds until commencement of hostilities.”
“The time is upon us, it seems.” He met his opponent’s frigid red stare. “Take this chance to make your peace with death.”
Daven cocked his head. “Question. How many times did that thing crap on you to turn your armor white?” He indicated In’hann.
“I almost hesitate to ask, but—those are what you want your final words to be?”
He shrugged. “Either way this goes, I’m gonna burn you. Tiny little circle, from a blaster bolt right through your tender parts. That’s how I’ll get the last word.”
“No,” Corvo stated.
“What?” Daven asked, startled.
“There is no ‘either way.’ The outcome has been decided. You missed your chance to make the guard kill you.”
Daven took an involuntary half-step back. The Gamorreans each took a half-step forward, and he hastily resumed his position.
Cheeks blushing scarlet, his fingers twitched above his pistol grip. Corvo had hands folded at the small of his back, chest thrust out, shoulders in line with his hips, in a pose of soldierly relaxation. Daven did not feel comfortable with blasters. On the other hand, nor was he thrilled by the notion of kickboxing the big Chiss. Knowing nothing of Chiss martial arts, he had to assume this muscular warrior was a hand-to-hand expert. Close range was not an option, in this or any galaxy, Daven figured.
“Killie,” bellowed the Hutt all at once.
“Kill,” the droid requested succinctly.
Daven’s hands flew up in surrender. Somewhat to his surprise, Corvo made no move for the X-8. “One sec. I have to tie my—“ he said, bending over for the A/KT in its right-side ankle holster.
He had no idea what prompted the dodge. Some instinct rang out in the corner of his mind. Perhaps he unconsciously observed a subtle twitch, or a slight shift from one foot to the other. Regardless, before Daven knew what was happening he had sprawled onto his shoulder and a blaster bolt was whizzing by. The heat of its passage singed his jacket sleeve.
Pawing for his A/KT stun gun, Daven fired off a return shot while lying down. Corvo was in the middle of an athletic roll behind a nearby pillar. A cobalt energy projectile dissipated against stone, below the holographic painting of the tower and an immense drop. It hit half-a-dozen meters above the Hutt, laughing low, slow and deep.
Cursing, Daven scrambled into a crouch and ran, bent-double. No doubt, the Captain was better. Not only had Corvo fired the exact instant his long barrel cleared its holster, flipping it up at Daven to shoot from the hip, but it was done with excellent accuracy. By all rights, it should have hit home. Daven got lucky, but now understood that he was in very serious trouble. Much more so than usual.
Reaching the table with the jogan fruit dessert, he attempted to roll across the surface and brought it crashing down on its side. He wiped custard from his eyes with gloved knuckles. A blaster bolt pierced his cover, and scorched a hole through the tablecloth opposite him. Daven hunched, bleating like a panicked shaak. Head between his knees, he sought to clean the sticky goop from his eyes.
A deafening shriek sent electricity up his spine the same instant lines of fire scorched his face. In’hahn, the Jai’galaar, raked curved talons across his forehead. He swung and whiffed, as In’hahn flitted out-of-reach. Coughing brownish gelatin, blinded by jogan juice, he slapped metal gloves on his maimed face, which made him reel. Fortunately, he was not that maimed.
He swore In’hahn timed its attack deliberately, and was just probing his defenses. Their gracious Hutt benefactor was roaring hysterically along with half her court. She did not mind Daven fighting two opponents. The bird was far smarter than he expected. Or well-trained.
He groaned through the pain, continuing to rub his scratches while clutching his blaster. The youth’s other glove patted his pockets. Squinting one eye open, he felt the blinding dust, and took in the high ceiling, the surrounding tables, the arrangement of pillars.
Okay. Okay, not a great start. But he could save this.
Reaching up and backwards over the table’s edge, he fired blind. He assumed Corvo still took cover behind the pillar, and tried to shoot in that general direction.
“Take this chance to make your peace with death, Chiss!” he howled.
