Chapter 139
Dennis:
“And you’re sure he’s going after this man?”
“As sure as we can be.” Hondo answered with a shrug. He, Hondo, Ventress and Rugess were gathered around a tac holotable in the large ‘carrier’ junk currently sailing through hyperspace at the head of the ad hoc pirate fleet that were the Weequay pirates.
Dennis frowned. “Why him? Sullust isn’t part of the Separatists.”
“Ahh,” Hondo raised a finger. “But they almost were.” He answered. “Beolars Bribbs was pushing an effort for Sullust to defect from Pubs to Seps. It was stopped, and he runs to the Outer Rim. Nominally, he’s in exile, but he still has influence in Sullust. More importantly, he’s under the protection of the Commerce Guild, who are planning to use him to keep dissidents active on Sullust.”
“Hmm.” Dennis nodded. “So, Commerce Guild leadership likes him, Maul hates Sep leadership which includes the Guild, so he’s gonna go kill him?”
“Mostly it looks like a target of opportunity.” Ventress cut in next to Dennis, eyes already darting over a datapad. “There’s a gala being held on one of those pleasure barges, with several potential Separatist allies and partners there. Security would be relatively light, both soldier and fleet wise. Beolars should be there.”
Dennis glared at Hondo “And if he’s not then you get to raid a bunch of Outer Rim fat cats and take all their money.”
Hondo laughed. “I always knew you could be smart if you tried! Haha, tell me this isn’t a perfect mission?!”
Ventress shrugged. “More likely than not he is there, and so Maul will be there too. I doubt you’ll have enough time to get much of any cash. We’ll have our hands full.”
Hondo scoffed. “There is never too little time to rescue helpless credits from undeserving hands!”
Ventress rolled her eyes so hard Dennis could almost hear it.
“Boss!” The Weequay helmsman called. “Almost there, Boss, two more minutes.”
Hondo’s smile was all needle teeth and he clapped his hands twice in excitement as he turned from the table to make his way to the viewport. “Showtime!”
Dennis felt the tingle of nervous anticipation in his body, the same one he always got before a big fight of some kind. He leaned over towards Rugess, whispering to his best friend, not worried at his voice not being heard by him, Bith hearing was exceptional. “Get to the ship when the fighting starts. Either Hondo or Maul might have us booking it quick.”
Rugess nodded quietly, just as the streaming lights of hyperspace faded out to reveal-
“Ahh, fuck.” He bemoaned as Hondo roared and cackled with laughter.
—
The Zeltron’s Delight was, as Ventress had pointed out, a pleasure barge. Twice the size of a Venator, it was a ‘cruise ship’ designed to cater to the richest people in the galaxy with money and time to burn. It was set up for a three year trip where the rich could abandon their woes and worries and enjoy nothing but being waited on hand and foot for three years of bliss.
Of course, this kind of thing was just a massive target. Rich people had money and if they were left unprotected, it’d just be asking for an ass kicking.
So, it was accompanied by a collection of Hutt enforcers, not helped by the fact that there were probably several Hutts ON the Zeltron’s Delight.
But that didn’t seem to dissuade Maul at all.
Not that Dennis expected it to.
But it was one thing to know something and another thing to see it. Right now, the Delight and its defense fleet were under a very enthusiastic attack by a ramshackle fleet of Black Sun, Exchange, Syndicate and whatever other crews Maul had on him, each force exchanging fire across the void as the seemingly crippled Delight was currently being boarded.
And now… Hondo was here…
The aforementioned frenemy roared and cackled, as though he intended for the enemy fleets to hear him through the void as he shouted at everyone on the bridge. “Alright, lads! It’s time to earn a pay for a hard day’s work!”
—
As the boarding pod rattled and jerked with turbulence born of backfiring engines and questionable pirate repair quality, Dennis had to note:
“You know,” He sighed. “I think I’ve been spoiled by Pub and Seppie fleet battles at this point.”
Ventress, strapped to a harness and restraint turned her head to stare at him, raising an incredulous eyebrow. “The fuck are you talking about?”
“I mean think about it,” He shouted over the din and the rattle. “We’ve been involved in fleet battles with hundreds, or thousands, of other ships! This is, what? A dozen? Two at most.”
“What, Dennis, I’m not good enough for you no more?” Hondo frowned from his place across from them.
Dennis smirked at him. “Hondo, buddy, you gotta admit you’re not exactly punching above your weight class when it comes to ship tonnage here.”
Adding just a cherry on top was that several of Hondo’s Weequay men seemed to nod with mumbled agreements to the statement.
Hondo looked around at his men, looking genuinely offended before he pointed a bony, scraggly finger in Dennis’ direction.
“That’s it! You’re not invited to the next slave raid!”
“...Oh gee, however will I live with myself, the slave liberator not being invited to catch slav-”
There was a crash and a sudden jerk and stop, the inertia dampeners keeping all their necks from snapping at the deceleration before the pod opened and the harnesses snapped up to let them loose.
Two of Hondo’s men were the first ones out of the pod’s snout, rifles in hand. Dennis heard some screaming and shots fired into the air as everyone filed out after them into what had once, apparently, been a rather expensive bathroom.
“Ehh, you could have always tried to stop us.” Hondo shrugged, raising his hands up. “I capture slaves, you try to shoot me, I shoot back, we could have made a day out of it. Before you declared I’m too small time for the big shot Kronos.”
“I can still shoot you if you like.” He offered as an olive branch.
“If you don’t shut up, I’m going to shoot both of you idiots.” Ventress snarled.
Hondo held up a hand, finger pointed skyward. “No, my love. Thank you, but it would not be the same coming from you!”
Dennis was pretty sure he could hear Ventress’ teeth grinding down to powder.
—
Having arrived third to this party of three, it didn’t take long before Hondo’s boys crashed face first into one of their many rivals here, the Black Sun.
They’d caught the gangers mid looting spree. Just before ducking into cover, Dennis counted seven Black Suns, a menagerie of various species including a Houk, humans, Trandoshans, and even a Selkath of all things.
Blaster bolts crisscrossed down the wide hall. Hondo laughed uproariously as he practically stood out in the open and fired with his heavy blaster pistol, every single shot missing because Dennis was pretty sure the giant idiot couldn’t see shit through those goggles.
Dennis ducked out of cover, firing twice. The first shot went wide, the second struck the Houk right in the chestplate, but the big bastard just shrugged it off. “Can’t afford to get stalled out here! We gotta find Maul and that Sullustan!”
“And the credits!” Hondo smirked.
If Dennis could have rolled his eyes any harder he’d probably be seeing his frontal lobe. “Oh, for fucks- Stay focused!”
“I am!”
Suddenly, Dennis heard a crash as a whole wall section tumbled down in the hall ahead of them, crushing two of the Black Sun pirates under the debris before Ventress lunged out of the dust cloud, twin blades lit up as she tore into the others.
Dennis blinked, surprised before looking to his ther side, noting the oddly, lightsaber made holes that had bypassed two rooms to flank the enemy. Handy.
Men screamed and limbs were severed. The Houk tried to rush her but a single, brutal kick to the big guy’s gelatinous face had all of them wincing as his head and neck whipped back and he toppled like a great big tub of lard onto the floor.
Hondo took a deep breath, eyes closing and expression almost appreciative. “I really need to get me one of her.”
Dennis glared at him. “Yeah, well this one’s mine, so stop ogling her before I shoot yo-”
“A Force user…”
As one, all weapons were up and swiveled to the hallway behind them.
The sight of the Zabrak sent a very real chill crawling down Dennis’ spine.
He wasn’t one to scare easy, but Maul was scary. It was one thing to see a still image, it was quite another to be in the man’s presence with those eyes burning like firepits as they stared at you.
In one hand, the Zabrak held his unlit lightsaber hilt. In the other, a head.
Dennis didn’t have to guess who’s head it was.
“The man of the hour.” Hondo chuckled.
Those burning eyes swiveled towards Hondo, metal legs clanking on the floors as he stalked forward. “Have you been searching for me, Pirate?”
He was outnumbered at least eight to one, by Ventress too, and somehow Dennis still felt like the only ones in danger here were the ones not in black and red.
Ventress slunk her way forward, her stance tight and tense like a coiled spring.
“Not him.” Dennis answered, pointing dead at the Sith’s head with one blaster, the other waving with a more casual air than he felt. “Me. You’re a hard man to track down.”
“I hope you took payment up front from my Master. I’m afraid you won’t be spending much of anything if you didn’t.” Maul’s smile was all yellowed teeth and murderous anticipation.
“Not here to fight you, actually. Here to make you an offer.” He said. “We want the same guy dead. We can help each other.”
Maul’s forward stride paused, and he began to pace the width of the hall. “I doubt that.”
“Come on.” Dennis smiled. “You’ve got that Force shtick, right? You can tell if I’m lying or not.” He nodded. “I know who he is. A lot of people want him dead. So lets kill the fucker.”
Maul’s eyes narrowed, yellow slivers in the dark. He snarled. “This… is a trick.” He growled. “There is no way someone like you could have come across that information.” His lightsaber lit up, the red casting dark shadows across his face and Dennis felt a very real fear spread through his gut.
“Like I said, a lot of people want him dead. I’m one of ‘em. Right now you’re one of the last keys we need to make that happen.”
Maul sneered, still pacing, but now it was like a caged animal, contemplating if it should try to break down the bars to get to the soft meat on the other side of it.
“If you’re not working for him, then who are you working for?” He demanded.
Dennis had hoped he wouldn’t have asked that question.
“Jedi know who he is. They’re the ones that hired me to find you.”
He didn’t know the first thing about the Force, but he could practically taste Maul’s temper spike. “Jedi.” He spat, fingers spinning the lightsaber hilt in his grip as he got into a ready stance, Ventress now fully interposing herself between the two of them. “Do you take me for a fool? Even if what you say is true and the Order are not completely worthless, they would sooner kill me than work with me.”
“Think you’re overestimating your place on the totem pole, buddy.” He said, eyes darting to Hondo and his men. The Weequay Pirate King still had his gun trained on Maul, as did the others, but Dennis could tell if this didn’t resolve soon the man would likely do something to ‘get the ball rolling’.
Dennis decided to throw out his last card. “We can give you back your Dathomiri kids.”
The Sith stopped moving.
The smuggler nodded. “The ones you had on Yavin. They’re alive an-”
Suddenly, an irresistible force literally pulled Dennis off his feet, the sudden jerk all but giving him whiplash as he was pulled forward hard enough to rattle his brain in his skull.
He heard Ventress snarl, her footsteps rushing after him but stopping as his throat was suddenly in the grip of a very angry Zabrak.
“I will carve out your heart.” The man’s voice was a deathly low whisper, and that… was honestly more terrifying than any shout or roar he could have given.
“Not… lying.” Dennis croaked, sucking down what little air got through the tight grip.
Maul glared at him. “Take one more step, Rattataki, and I snap his neck.”
“Alright, fuck this.”
Dennis abandoned the struggle for his own neck and instead whipped out one arm, coiling it tight around Maul’s shoulders to hug him close.
His other hand had dropped the blaster, and was now holding a detonator switch.
The surface of Dennis’ armor began to glow with several red pinpricks.
“I’m gonna count to three,” He wheezed out in a far too thin voice. “Then you’ll be visiting every corner of this hallway at the same time.”
Maul’s eyes swiveled between Dennis’ faceplate and the softly glowing explosive charges covering his armor like a mesh netting. “You’ll die with me.”
Dennis’ fingers brushing against the inside of his gauntlets begged to differ.
“I’ll be just fine.” He might lose the thumb, left exposed to press down on the trigger. But if Ventress could deal with a missing leg, a thumb wasn’t the worst thing to lose.
“If you blow yourself up, I keep your ship.” Hondo chimed in from behind him.
“Shut the fuck up, Hondo!” Ventress answered, her voice betraying her stress.
Dennis did his best to ignore them both, instead focusing on his angry hostage and captor. “Now, you wanna talk, or do you want me to win this dick measuring contest?”
Maul glared.