Moral Economics, Addendum

Posted on Thu Mar 31st, 2022 @ 10:01pm by Bomoor Thort & Amare & Reave

3,473 words; about a 17 minute read

Chapter: Chapter VI: The Last Bastion
Location: Shuttle Crash Site, Woodland, Bastion
Timeline: Late Afternoon (Day Three, Week Four)

OLD


A look of fear briefly passed over the older Human's face, but it was quickly replaced by narrowing eyes. He raised his energy-blunderbuss back at and primed its cartridge. "A-ha! A hunt! A hammerhead, no less!" He spun around to the other heavy battle droids and destroyers, gesticulating with his elbows and shoulders, in spite of holding a weapon of his own. "Platoon! Search patterns, weapons armed for stun; these trophies shall be mine!"

"That man..." Bomoor whispered to his cohorts, "I know that man from Onderon."

NEW

Bomoor was taken aback to see the Human again after what must have been ten years and, aside from some natural wear and tear to his physiology, almost identical to the man Thane and himself saw shouting at displaced Onderonians on the streets of Iziz when they were but padawans.

"Intendant Thendleton," he spoke the name quietly, "My, my... what have I done to offend the Force enough to run into you again?"

From behind a chunk of smoking jagged hull plating stuck in the ground where Bomoor laid her to rest, Amare kept still as she overheard the exchange between the man and his machines. She wasn't sure where she was, but her vision was slowly coming back, albeit in a very blurry and dizzying state.

"I don't feel Thane's presence here," Amare whispered to Bomoor and partly to herself. "Where could he be?"

"Be sure to track any footprints, eh?" The intendant ordered his droids noisily from nearby, glaring down the barrel of his weapon, which he swung about somewhat aimlessly. "I know you metal chaps have those programs installed. Not that I need them, of course, but we still have a job to do! Best get this done quickly."

The droids warbled something back by way of confirmation and began spreading out around the wreckage in different, but very coordinated, directions, whilst Thendleton forced one to remain by his side. The Four-Series destroyers had entered their spinning state and began circling around, whilst the heavy Three-Series stomped in the general vicinity. The ones nearest to Bomoor, Amare and Reave, however, were slower. Their optical sensors continued to carefully scan the area nearest to them all, and was clearly peering at the hastily-taken path the crash survivors had taken.

"A-ha!" Exclaimed Thendleton. "You've something, droid!" His voice dipped a little as he aimed his blunderbuss towards the location the droid was starting to investigate. "Good. Let us see what it is that has got the dear executive's hackles up so."

"Foot indents heavier towards stern compartment of vessel," the droid reported, now drawing so close to the Raptor trio's hiding place that its servos and internal workings were quite audible to them.

There was a pause as Thendleton's face once again seem to contemplate entering a state of fear, but he restored his sneering expression and pointed the barrel of his gun at the wreckage. "Aliens!" He called. "By the authority of the Most-Esteemed and Serene Charter of GalactaWerks and its Fellows, I order you to surrender yourselves to my mercies! You are to be detained for acts of sedition and corporate espionage! Or... don't, of course." He threw his head back briefly. "Droids! To me!"

Anxiety hung thick in the air amidst the smoke from the nearby wreckage, and its emotional stench was very much noticeable to Amare. Her instincts used it as a guidepost to where she was and what she was facing alongside Bomoor and their plucky and volatile Jawa ally, Reave.

Why am I hiding? Amare silently chided herself. No...no more taking cover and cowering. I've trained for this. I have to face the danger, or I will never forgive myself for hiding behind Bomoor and a Jawa. I am Sith...and...and I can hear it...

"I can hear his heart beating..." Amare softly said aloud to Bomoor, letting the last bit of her thoughts to slip out as a revelation began to strike her. "That man...he's afraid. We're cornered and wounded and yet he's afraid. I can feel his heart, its rhythm! I can feel its vibrations in my head." Partly as a matter of pride, but also a product of her harsh Sith training, Amare took it upon herself to gingerly force herself up to her feet on her own as her vision and senses began to steady themselves, steeling herself for action. "I'm going to face him," Amare said with a reluctant, yet determined spurt of resolve as she tried her best to ignore the pain of her injuries and will the Force to flow through her in case someone or something decided to pull a trigger.

Before stepping out of cover, Amare unclipped her shoto in her left hand, refrained from turning it on, slowly stepped into the open and immediately locked eyes with the hunter. She cast aside all personal doubts as she instantly became peripherally aware of the surrounding droids. For bad or worse, she committed herself to her choice with full faith in the Force and her charisma to give her an opportunity to overcome this new challenge. "Is it the way of your people to harm guests of the Grand Moff?" she asked as she revealed her presence. "I would hate to see you lose standing for making such a terrible mistake, mister...?" Her voice trailed into a question, seeking the officer's name.

Bomoor shook his wide head slightly and arose himself, using the opportunity to carefully sweep for all the droids he had heard surrounding them. The two Three-series destroyers were now both firmly beside the Intendant who now stared up at them from beside the front of the wreckage. One of the more-agile models was also close at hand, but that left another unaccounted for. Bomoor wondered if Amare was alert enough with her injury to assess the threat even one of those powerful droids could pose, particularly when catching you by surprise.

"Thendleton," Bomoor answered Amare's question, bringing himself almost completely out from their hiding place to stand beside Amare, "Intendant Thendleton the last time we met, but that would have been about ten years ago now. I'm sure GalactaWerks has since rewarded his callous disrespect for life with a greater title by this point."

The Human's face contorted from one of wry disgust to ugly surprise, nose twisted and eyes narrowing but blazing at regarding the being in front of him that had addressed him by name. "You... you know me?" The words came out incredulously as he jutted the barrel of his weapon towards Bomoor as he said the word 'you'. The weapon was primed and humming gentle, whilst each of the droids had also raised their wrist launchers or rifles in the direction of the trio. "I rather think you misjudge yourself, Hammerhead," he went on, recovering some degree of confidence as he continued to hold him in his weapon's oversized sights. "I hold life in very high regard. Actual life. Not..." he said, eyes glancing over Amare and, for a little longer, Reave, "whatever you are."

Clearly, the man did not remember Bomoor. Not yet, anyway. Whoever had sent him had clearly not enlightened him as to his targets, even if he had armed himself so heavily with weaponry, mobile armour and droids.

"You've already made yourselves some very unfortunate enemies since your arrival here, aliens, since poking your nos- snouts... or, whatever it is those are," Thendleton waved a gloved hand lazily towards the faces of his foes, "in business that does not concern your likes. Now, I'm a sporting chap, so I was going to offer you a headstart."

It seemed the view of an injured Nautolan, a diminutive and strangely-dressed undersized being and a lumbering Ithorian had diminished some of the fear he had been feeling, and he had not the good grace to recognise the shoto hilt in Amare's hand.

Waves of throbbing pain was attempting to get the better of the Sith apprentice's senses. However, she was secretly channeling the Force fueled mostly by her sheer antipathy towards the human who clearly just tried to kill her and her allies, using that power to temporarily dull her weakness and boldly face the situation. In spite of the odds, she never felt more confident, more inspired to rip and tear since she ended her brother Capo's life. Nevertheless, her feminine wiles had a more delicate touch in mind as she zeroed her feelings more acutely toward the music of Thendleton's anxious heart.

"I make you a counteroffer," Amare retorted with a wry grin as she let her shoto slip from her fingertips to the ground and slowly raised her hands up as if intending to surrender.

It was then that she thrust out her right and immediately felt her adversary's cardiac core. The telekinetic feeling was both surreal and nostalgic as she recalled her momentary experimentations with the Force on Rex back on the ship when they had first met. She began to apply pressure on the human's heart, clenching her fingers together slowly as she locked her directed dark power at him, the ventricles and the atria gradually compressing simultaneously.

"I offer you your life in exchange for your cooperation," Amare added.

Just as the droids aimed their weapons at her, Amare's left fingers curled along with her thumb and middle fingers touching at their tips, as if ready to snap them together.

"Call off your clankers," she demanded as her legs and body began to shiver involuntarily from blood loss, "or one snap of my fingers will make all of their power cores explode in an instant. Do not test me, human. Surrender...now!"

Her ranged grip on Thendleton's heart was real, but the threat of blowing up the droids with a mere finger snap was a roll-of-the-dice bluff she hoped would be enough to deescalate the situation. After all, how could the man possibly know the extent of her powers? If there was anything she learned from the underworld of Nar Shaddaa was that a clever well-placed lie issued under the right circumstances could have more influence than a million credits.

Bomoor looked towards Amare then back towards his old foe before stepping fully out from cover and beginning to pace gently towards the Human. He could see the twitching motions of the hulking droids at the man's sides, eager to blast the Ithorian away but holding themselves back until the order was given. Even seemingly mindless killing machines such as these had what seemed like a nervous energy to them as they resisted that instinct to kill.

"I would do as she says, Thendleton," Bomoor gestured an open palm in the air, reasoning with the man he knew was far from reasonable, "And I would also refrain from further disrespectful comments about our species when your own frail Human heart is all too exposed."

He stopped, now just a few feet away from the Defence Walker where Thendleton stood clenching his chest.

Mirroring Thendleton's own disgust in his own Ithorian expression, he continued, "It seems you have not changed one bit since Onderon and, just like then, you're about to find the planet turning less hospitable GalactaWerks friends. So, why don't you cut your losses and get out now."

Panic had once again prevailed as the emotional theme within the middle-aged Human, as his prideful disgust was washed away in a growing frenzy of ailing gasps, his gloved hands clutching tighter at his chest. His weapon dropped to the ground as he fell to one knee, reddening eyes glaring up at Bomoor.

"Y-y...you!" He managed to gasp painfully, recognition finally dawning on him as his body began to revolt against its impending shutdown, Amare's invisible grip on his heart bringing the intendant closer to death with each passing second. One hand reached from his chest up towards Bomoor's leathery face, as if grasping for desperate aid, trembling with the pain and exertion, before it slowly turned into a pointing finger. "K-k- urgh... ki--ll them!"

Even through the pained and broken gasps of their master, the droids registered the command, as those nearest, being the Three-Series, responded immediately, raising their wrist launchers and blasters directly at the two Force users and their Jawa companion.

Bomoor’s eyes widened as he looked down the barrels of the droid’s attached repeating blasters and he summoned his strength to dive to his right and rolled, much like one of the destroyer droids themselves, behind another scrap of the destroyed transport with somewhat less cover than their previous hiding spot. Igniting his lightsaber, he began to catch the laser fire and deflect it back towards the droids. However, when he turned back, he saw that the droids had already erected a faint blue deflector shield and his deflected bolts simply dissolved into the shield with a muted echo of the distinctive laser chime.

As the droids began to move and converge upon him, he drew his blade across himself defensively and realised he was now cut off from Reave and Amare further up the hillside. He stole a glance in their direction and saw Amare preparing to face off with the Mark 3 droid close to her. He also finally spied the other droid that had been previously out of sight, rolling back to the combat from the other side, threatening to flank their position.

“Amare!” he shouted, “Another destroyer around to your rear. Watch out!”

At the same time, Reave had screeched something unintelligible, most likely in his native language, and spun nimbly on his spot a short distance from Amare. At sighting the destroyer, its shields fully polarised and its weapons squared firmly on the Nautolan target, he unleashed a full barrage from his heavy repeater. The end of the Jawa's gun barrel exploded to life, the black metal quickly glowing a brilliant orange from the sheer heat being generated by the relentless hailstorm of rapid blaster bolts.

Initially, as with most of the small arms fire directed at them, the GalactaWerks droidekas showed little by way of even acknowledgement of the attack against them, as their durable forcefields easily shrugged off and dissipated the energy bolts. However, Reave's weapon, heavily-modified and boasting energy packs quite unsuitable for its standard output, quickly began to overwhelm the droid's defences. As the blue shield continued to be peppered with bolts, its colour began to shift to a bright red, and the perfect bubble began to destabilise.

Reave's war cry grew in ferocity with the screaming of his own gun, before it was soon impossible to distinguish between the two, and within a few more seconds, the destroyer's shields were completely overwhelmed and the droid within obliterated.

Whilst the extreme assault had perhaps saved Amare from the machine, Reave paid no mind to his success. As the other droids, for the moment, altered their positions or sought out Bomoor, Reave looked down with disgust at his beloved repeater. Black smoke rose from the barrel, which was now distorted and sparking dangerously. Cracks lined the oversized barrel, which Reave now slowly caressed, apparently oblivious to the conflict they were all still complete embroiled in.

And then, just as quickly, he threw it away and whipped out a holdout blaster (one that had not yet been seen by either Bomoor or Amare before), and began taking potshots at the less-nimble Three-Series still advancing.

Bomoor spied the felling of the Four-Series droid at Reave’s tremendous assault and could not help but allow the corner of his mouths to raise slightly in the knowledge that even the stronger model could be felled by the return of enough energy. It did, however, highlight that merely deflecting blaster fire was not sufficient to take down one of the destroyers.

Thendleton’s armoured transport continued to trudge off with the wheezing Human aboard while the two older models continued to advance on Bomoor’s position, battering away at the precious cover that he had. The lighter blaster fire Reave now offered was not enough to tempt the machines away from pursuing the Ithorian. Trying to use the dry, sandy environment to his advantage, Bomoor emerged and began hurling concentrated busts of the Force at the ground below the droids’ position, causing it to slip and crumble.

He was partially successful in causing the droid on his right to lose its footing and topple onto its side. Reflexively, the droid shrunk back into its wheel-like shape to regain its balance. However, unlike older Droideka models, this model’s shield stayed firmly raised, shrinking only slightly, as it slipped into its more-mobile form. It did, however, still find it hard to find a firm grip for its metallic wheel from within the sinking pocket of sand and dirt Bomoor had thrust it into and so it was momentarily left spinning, frantically kicking up dust towards its neighbouring droid, which began to fizz as the particles impacted its shield.

The droid left standing showed no concern and continued barraging Bomoor with laser fire. However, Bomoor could now stay out in the open and more comfortably deflect the fire of the lonesome machine.

“Amare!” he shouted as he began to make his way closer to the Nautolan, “I think a blast of lightning from the both of us could weaken the shields enough to strike through.”

Amare drew forward and now the two Force users now stood together, facing their foe, and Bomoor imagined the many times he and Thane had faced down their enemies together. But the power he hoped to conjure would require a darker, more furious emotion then fond reminiscence. He thought of the last time he had encountered Marius Thendleton and how the man’s arrogance and weakness had resulted in the deaths of Rift Knight Sazar as well as countless civilian deaths that could have been prevented like the strange woman who had gifted him his cherished Viridian Crystal. Now this Human had returned to his life and threatened their lives once again. He would not let history repeat itself. He would destroy all who threatened them.

He spied Amare’s fingertips crackling and, with a guttural growl, he unleashed his own electric power from his fingertips. The power burnt as it shot out from him and, combined with Amare’s own fury, visibly warped the perfect spherical shield of the destroyer droid until the front face had seemingly melted away like an overheated glass bulb. They continued their onslaught, the power now frying the circuits of the machine until its blaster arms drooped downwards and it slumped into a smoking mess.

With a final furious wave, Bomoor threw the heavy droid at its counterpart that still desperately spun in the dust. The weight of metal on the shield, combined with the sandy ground below finally overloaded the shield and it gave way, leading both droids to collapse into a scrap heap of metal and dirt.

Finally allowing himself a heavy breath, Bomoor’s hump heaved greatly but he managed to turn to Amare and pant, “I’m impressed…” he took another deep breath, “At the both of us. Now that just leaves…”

The sound of intermittent cracking followed on from Bomoor's trailing words, drawing the group's attention towards the final member of their posse. Having mounted the fizzing remains of one of the GalactaWerks droids, Reave was repeatedly, slowly and with great force, smashing the remnants of a large destroyer's blaster-arm into his quarry. Each blow was punctuated by a curse in his native tongue, the audible exertion matching the physical one.

"Uu-" CRACK. "-Ti-" CRACK. "Ni!" CRACK.

With that final curse/blow, the diminutive warrior dropped his makeshift weapon and hopped off the droid. As Reave slowly began bimbling towards Bomoor and Amare, he fumbled within the folds of his thick garments and withdrew a little pre-rolled cigarra, which he promptly lit with a tiny lighter. He then glanced back to his defeated foe, his head jerking a little as spittle erupted from his unseen mouth and spattered over the droid's mangled chassis.

He reached the pair and took a long drag from his cigarra, his golden eyes glittering casually and his manner giving no sign that he had just been embroiled in combat against much larger and more heavily armed foes.

"Ibana?" He demanded of Bomoor.

Without fully understanding the Jawa’s query, the Ithorian knew what their small companion would be wanting next.

“Don’t worry, he won’t have made it far,” Bomoor squinted at the distance, following the tracks where his armoured transport had slipped away from the combat zone, “That man will finally suffer some consequences this time, believe me.”

TBC

RSS Feed