The Force Always Says Yes [Star Wars]

[Hyenanon]

Chapter 57: Spring The trap​

The streets of Boonta were by far the most chaotic he had ever been on. There was no clear distinction between a street for speeders and a sidewalk for pedestrians, and few aliens bothered to step out of the way of any traffic that didn't look immediately dangerous.

He expected poverty, and there were indeed many on the streets who were impoverished—but the type of poverty he had expected was scrap hoarders, livestock tenders, and so on. That wasn't the case, at least not in this city. Moreso, they simply didn't seem to have any place at all. A few set up stalls, but many seemed to wander almost aimlessly. He supposed the setting was too urban, and the lower rung jobs filled too thoroughly by slaves.

Looking down at the bowl of noodles he had bought, he was fairly certain the discoloration was not due to mold, but rather various plastics that had at some point made their way into the man-sized pot that the Mon Calamari chef seemed to use to cook everything on the menu simultaneously. Nerim frowned at it.

"Told you," Tetha said unapologetically.

"It...It still smells good," Nerim weakly defended the dish, moreso trying to convince himself.

"I've got a bad feeling about this," Tetha slowly shook her head.

"...Me too," Nerim admitted with a sigh. Then he blinked in confusion. "Or, wait. Not this. Do you get the sense that—"

His communicator chirped to life. "Good news, student!" Arwain's voice came through. "I've figured out what happened to Jianno!"

"What?!" Nerim frantically fished for the communicator, and pressed the button. "What happened?"

"She was taken captive by the Hutts!" Arwain said cheerfully. As she did so, in the background he could hear a woman's gruff voice shout out in Huttese "Hey, get that thing away from her!"

"Master, how did you figure this out?" Nerim asked calmly, feeling like ice water had just been dumped down the back of his shirt.

"I am also being taken captive by—" Arwain's voice cut off.

Nerim and Tetha sat in silence, staring at each other, as the bowl of noodles steamed in their faces.

He was the first to speak. "Well, now they definitely expect us to stage a rescue attempt."

"What do we do?" Tetha asked.

"Stage a rescue attempt."

Tetha placed her fingers to her temples and rubbed them, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath in through her nose. "Okay," she finally said. "First question is how they even found Jianno and Arwain in the first place. Can they find us the same way?"

He thought for a moment. "If they're actively looking for us, I have a hard time imagining they found my Master and a trained Mandalorian guerrilla, but not us. I imagine Jianno must have gone looking for a fight, and Arwain slipped up in attempting to rescue her."

"This is so embarrassing," Tetha said, pulling her hands down her face. "The agreement was to confront the Dark Jedi first, Hutts second. The Saarkanians are going to get cold feet."

Nerim sighed. "Yeah. Okay, we have to just...fix this before the Saarkanians figure out it's going wrong. We'll have to get Arwain and Jianno out ourselves, and regroup."

Tetha nodded, and stood off the stool. "Let's go."

Nerim grimaced down at his untouched bowl of noodles. "Sooner rather than later," he said, also standing and leaving with her.

"Luckily, the Hutts won't be so hard to find," Tetha said, pointing to the structures on the horizon.

The Hutt Palace on Boonta was enormous, and very distinctive. Rising from the skyline of the cityscape and glinting in the afternoon light, a grand conical structure of glass and mustard-yellow durasteel stood almost like a rounded pyramid. It was a bizarre mix of a cathedral and some sort of snail shell, which a particularly uncharitable psychoanalyst might use to evidence some form of overcompensation for the slug-like Hutts.

Despite being one of the most storied seats of Hutt power, it was a far cry from the claustrophobic, organic architecture Hutts tended to prefer in their current homeworld's environment, or the worlds which they terraformed to match its swampy morass. The Palace of Boonta was all transparasteel and glamour, letting in the full breadth of sunlight across its hallowed halls and party decks. Legend had it that the entire structure could lift from the ground and cruise the deserts like a barge, but hadn't since the times of Boonta The Hutt himself, for various contradictory reasons.

At this particular moment, the Palace was occupied by two Hutts, a father and daughter named Skissa and Yenchara respectively, of the Desilijic clan. According to Arwain, the clan was infamous in Hutt Space for being, in the opinion of other Hutts, a particularly degenerate and perverted clan, as well as impotent and tactless, which explained their consistent exile to just outside of 'proper' Hutt Space. According to Jianno, they were ruthless and violent, had no shortage of bloody disputes with other Hutts, and Skissa in particular was infamous for his use of Mandalorian slaves.

Oddly, though, Desilijic was one of the least xenophobic of the Hutt clans by a wide margin, and it was that quality that probably gave them the lion's share of their negative reputation, both within Hutt Space and outside of it. Most Hutts simply stayed in their throneworlds and blasted any foreign ships that got close, leaving them with little reputation outside their borders beyond mystery and danger. The Desilijics, on the other hand, got quite personal with the outside Galaxy, and cared little what species served them so long as they were served. Because of this, and their penchant for hosting near-endless parties and grand sporting events, Nerim hoped it wouldn't be too hard to worm their way into the building.

When the two exited their rickshaw and approached from across a rocky plaza of uneven bitumen cobblestones, he felt almost worryingly vindicated. The snaking glass tube walkways which served as the entrances to the palace were surrounded with crowds and slowly consuming them, distant specks of sentients making their way through the tubes as if they were being digested by the monstrous building.

Nerim turned to Tetha. "Do you think...we could just walk in?"

"Us? Well..." Tetha shook her head. "Look at what those people are wearing. They look wealthy, most of them. The ones who don't...they look tough."

"Are we not tough?" Nerim asked, his fluffy hair getting in his eyes.

She glanced at him and smiled. "I'm guessing you have to actually be in their employ to get in, and have a good reputation with them at that. But I could get us in. Let's just take a look at the door guards before we try anything."

They cautiously moved forward, staying on the edge of the crowds. Oddly enough, there were two separate entrances to the Palace, one leading to the right and the other to the left. Only the outer layers of the Palace were ensconced in transparasteel, but there was a clear divide in the two halves. More than that, there seemed to be a divide in the people who went through either; every member of the crowd seemed to be rather consciously attempting to go through one particular entrance, even if there was an opening in the line to the other. But beyond that, there was no apparent similarity in the partygoers from one side to the other, as far as he could tell.

Nerim tilted his head. "Do you think that each entrance symbolizes some sort of...allegiance?"

"To one Hutt or the other, maybe," Tetha concurred.

Nerim put a hand to his chin in thought. "Skissa is the one that enslaved the Mandalorians. Look," he said, pointing to the guard at the left entrance, who was clad in a dull and scratched red-and-green suit of armor. "Using a Mando in full beskar as a door guard. What a waste. He has to be doing it as a statement."

"Skissa is probably the one who has Arwain and Jianno. But I don't wanna mess with that guard. Look to the right," she nodded in the direction of the other door guard, a vicious reptilian alien with needle-like teeth and sunken, yellow eyes. "Is that a...Trandoshan?"

"It's a Barabel," Nerim replied. "I recognize them from my historical studies at the Temple. They're a primitive species from out of Republic space that worship Jedi as gods."

Tetha raised an eyebrow. "And the Order's reaction to that information is...?"

Nerim cast his eyes up in recollection. "The Jedi want to be respected, but they worry Knights that spend a lot of time around Barabels might get a big head about the whole thing."

"Great, but what do they think about Barabel society itself?" She insisted.

"Be careful, their hides are blaster resistant," Nerim shrugged.

"Self-centered little..." Tetha sighed and shook her head. "Alright. But they're not resistant to mind tricks?"

Nerim shook his head, and she gestured for him to follow as they shuffled into the crowd, which clinked and bristled with jewelry. They waited for some of the tougher looking ones to go through, and then cut in front of the wealthier ones, to the sound of loud complaining.

The Barabel glared down at the two of them, his lipless mouth crisscrossed with teeth like barbed wire. The fact that there were wealthy patrons directly behind them was probably the only reason he didn't immediately respond with violence. "What, you urchins think you belong here or something? Scram, before—"

"We're going in," Tetha said firmly, her hand raised to him.

The Barabel blinked. "You're...I...You're going in?" He said, clearly unsure of his own words.

"Yes, we are," Tetha replied, with enough force to make the Barabel step aside. The two of them walked in, and then Tetha turned and gave Nerim a small grin of triumph.

"That ability is quite useful, if disturbing," Nerim said uneasily. "But I'm glad we got in here without much trouble. Now we have to make it to Skissa's half, and find where prisoners—did you realize that everyone here is unarmed?"

Tetha looked closely at the other attendants as they walked swiftly through the tube and into a grand entrance area, its large and rounded shape leaving it almost like a crescent. The wall to the right was entirely made of transparasteel, where the low sun shone in with orange-golden light, while the wall to the left was solid and glittered in the light. All of the inhabitants—even the people who were obviously guards, had no obvious weapons.

"...What?" Tetha's eyes narrowed in confusion. "I've never heard of a Hutt without armed guards—"

Her words were suddenly drowned out by cheering, as two grand sliding doors opened from the left wall. Several hulking aliens carried a palanquin on their shoulders, atop which was a Hutt who had her arms up in the air, with a satisfied smirk and rippling yellow eyes that seemed to stare directly through anything she looked at. She was only a little larger than a human, obviously not that old by Hutt standards.

Flanking either side of her palanquin were guards, still curiously unarmed, all female. They wore strange clothes which Nerim realized were somehow similar to the An'omarr Monks, with black and yellow ponchos that hung over their bodies and obscured their silhouettes, but as they moved it was clear they wore tighter outfits underneath which would allow for freedom of movement. It was impossible to tell if they had blaster pistols underneath, but they clearly weren't wearing rifles. They were comprised of two Twi'leks, as well as a Zabrak and a Human, and each scanned the crowd with alertness as they exited.

A scampering Dug scuttled in front and shouted with impressive volume over the crowd. "Presenting the Almighty One, Yenchara Desilijic!" His voice echoed from the walls, to continued and only slightly forced applause.

"Hahaah!" The Hutt laughed and gestured for the cheers to continue. Then she closed her fist in gesture for the cheers to stop, and they did. "Welcome, welcome!" She shouted to the crowd, her voice magnified through speakers on her palanquin. "We are gathered here today in remembrance of Boonta the Great, Boonta the God of protection and swift victory! With Boonta's Eve nearly upon us, we have much to look forward to!"

Tetha leaned in distractingly close to speak quietly in Nerim's ear. "Think we could sneak in through the door they left open?"

Nerim shook his head as the Hutt continued bloviating. "Got a weird feeling about that. Think we sh—" Suddenly he felt electricity run up his spine, and felt a need to move. He grabbed Tetha's hand and began striding forward, and she didn't object, obviously having the same intuition. He turned his head behind himself and saw one of the black-clad guards move through the clearing they had just made, a curious expression on her face.

The Hutt's voice caught his attention again. "But enough of tomorrow! Speak now of the victories of today! I have acquired a most sumptuous prize! See here, what my honor guard have brought me!"

Nerim and Tetha pushed further towards the front, making a concerted effort to duck into areas with taller aliens that might hide them better. Suddenly, as they were close enough to make out what the movement around the Hutt was, they saw what she was referring to.

Two more of the black-clad guards dragged a figure out from behind the palanquin, which Nerim swiftly realized was Arwain, who was frog-marched forward between the two. Her elegant dress was hardly ruffled, and her expression was one of moderate enthusiasm, curiously looking around the room and smiling at the large chandelier above them. All in all, she looked rather unperturbed by her captivity.

"Fantastic," Nerim said, somehow both sarcastically and not at the same time.

"She may not look like much," Yenchara chuckled, "But that is due to the prowess of my Syaniids!"

One of the aliens beside Nerim, a bug-like Verpine, leaned in to speak to another. "Don't you think this is a little unbecoming of her? Who ever heard of a Hutt praising their servants so openly?"

"It's a brag, that she has the 'most powerful' servants around," the other Verpine reasoned. "She's doing it to compete with Skissa's Mandalorians in the public eye."

"I don't know," the first one chittered. "It looks more like they have undue influence on her."

The Hutt continued. "The catch you see before you...is a Jedi Knight!"

One of the black-clad guards, apparently a Syaniid, stepped forward. She raised in her hand Arwain's lightsaber, and activated it, to the sudden gasps, oohs, and aahs of the crowd. Nerim's eyes traveled down from the lightsaber towards the face of the woman holding it, and his eyes widened. Vena Riila was the woman holding it.

The Togruta deactivated the blade, and then handed it to Yenchara, who raised it and activated it with a giddy laugh, waving it in the air and listening to it hum.

Arwain craned her head around and grinned at the Hutt. "Be careful with that thing, I wouldn't want you to get hurt."

"Hah!" Yenchara tilted her head back, impressed with her catch, in the way a fisher would be. "A true Jedi spirit, that's for sure."

Nerim turned to Tetha, her face having adopted her impenetrable neutral expression. "You know," he whispered, "I don't think we properly planned for a scenario in which the Dark Jedi and the Hutts were working together."

"Yeah. No." Tetha shook her head.

He tilted his head. "Still doesn't explain where Jianno is."

"No. Yeah." Tetha nodded.

"You think we get out of this alive if it goes loud?"

"Maybe."