Ravensdagger_Overkill

Chapter Three

Chapter Three Taylor discovered what a Tusken Raider was as she made her way through the Jawa vessel.She was nearing the bottom of the ship, the place where she knew there was a ramp that could be lowered to the outside world. It was also, she learned as she approached, the place where the Jawa were making their last stand.She had tagged as many of the little creatures as she could with the inoffensive little flies that flitted around the place, one on each Jawa’s hood. They were all gathering in one room. No, not all of them. The smallest and those that didn’t move with the same alacrity as the rest, those moved to the back of the vessel, where stacks of metallic limbs and broken equipment lay discarded and where they could hide amongst the trash.“What’s a Tusken Raider?” she asked her robotic companion.The robot was quick to reply, but his broken English, as impressive as it was, was not up to the task of enlightening her by much. “Answer: Tusken Raider. Big Strong. Smart. Danger. No explosive. Hurt tools from far.”“Hurt tools from far?” she asked as she navigated the tight corridors around them. It was a bit of a comfort that all the Jawas were gathering at two places. The only one in her range was the tall one behind her. “You mean bows?” She mimicked firing a bow. “Slings? Javelins? Guns?” Each gesture was answered by a shake of the head, then the robot paused at the last.“Answer: Tusken Raiders use guns,” the robot said. It made a noise, a recording of an electronic whine in quick stuttacco.“Guns that fire quickly, then. And not bullets.” She ducked under a low arch, her ribs and stomach protesting at the motion. She was still far, far from her best. “Are they hard to hurt?”“Answer: No,” was the quick and easy reply. “As hard as a human.”She snorted. His first full sentence and it was to tell her that her adversaries and her were on even ground. Or would be if she wasn’t probably outnumbered, literally outgunned and fighting defensively against an enemy she knew next to nothing about.She felt through her bugs as the Jawa around the entrance tensed. The vessel shook, a loud clanging boom resonating through the entire structure followed by a dull thud. “I thought you said they had no explosive?” she asked her robot friend. He just stared at her blankly.They redoubled their pace. She had the Jawa behind her search himself for any kind of weapon, but only found strange tools stuck to his bandoleers and belts. Maybe one of them was a weapon, for all she knew, but it wasn’t one she was familiar with.One of the Jawa’s by the door fell, then another. Whining noises like the one her robot friend had made echoed through the steel walled halls, growing in intensity. Her bugs, the scorpions rushing outside and the few flies she had in the hold, finally found the Raiders.They were human. At least, that was her first impression. Tall, gangly men in loose clothes, all of them wearing masks and moving with the surety of soldiers into the Jawa vessel. One of them fell, but after being dragged back by his companions he was replaced by two more.“Shit,” she said.They were outnumbered. She knew it, the Jawas knew it, and their enemy, judging by the raucous noises they were making, knew it too.All it took was one more Jawa falling and they broke. The little creatures turned and ran, all of them moving deeper into their home with the ease of years of practice. Walls were lowered, grates shut, and the passages deeper into the vessel were locked up. All those in the direction opposite where she was now.Taylor had a choice. To back off and hide, or stay and fight. Her scorpions outside had finally found the other Tusken Raiders, a group of half a dozen waiting around a huge mammoth like beast.She had them wait.A plan was hatched, one that relied on a power she hated, and on a gamble she didn’t want to make.Taylor walked on.

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A’Shar’Kr shifted with the sands, his Gaffi stick held high as he roared his defiance to the little ones who ran. He and his clan, his brothers, would chase them in their iron box, and they would slaughter them for trespassing on the land of his clan.Then he was hit in the back of the head, not a hard blow, but a reminder. “Keep your eyes open. It is like the moonless night in this box,” Grrk’Kri’Ar said.The clan leader moved deeper into the Jawa vessel, feet as light as grains of sand in the wind and cycler held low. A’Shar’Kr did not like the weapons, not in such tight quarters as these, but the clan leader was a good shotThe proof came when he moved into the dark pit of the Jawa home, away from the brothers who stayed with the Bantha and Ur’Aah’Crnt who had earned himself a burial in the shifting sands for his bravery. The fool should not have stood in the path of the little one’s light guns.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.There were six of them moving into the dark pits, all of them waiting for their eyes to lose the day glow vision and relearn to see in the dark. But this was no night watch, and the Jawa were no empty hillside. They were clever little ones. Traps awaited for those that did not pay attention.“A’Shar,Kr, you are coming with me,” Grrk’Kri’Ar said. “The rest of you, dig into their cave. Find their water. It is ours now.” There was some cheering at that. More water for the clan was always a welcome gift.A’Shar’Kr moved after his leader, deeper into the shadows and towards the distant rumble of the Jawa home’s heart. “I see three dead,” A’Shar’Kr said. “What will we do with them?”“Leave them to the sand barbs,” Grrk’Kri’Ar said. “We are here to kill the trespassers and take their waters, not honour their dead.”“Ah,” A’Shar’Kr said. “But I wanted a gift for my little Uli-ah.”The leader laughed, a low rumble like heavy rocks tumbling down a hill. “They we will find a nice gift for your child.”Their path was blocked first by a large plate of metal, then by a grate, but Grrk’Kri’Ar was clever and wise, and he had A’Shar’Kr open the path with his Gaffi stick as a lever.They could hear the moan of the Jawa, and the air stank of womp rat piss. They knew that they were coming. “We must be careful,” Grrk’Kri’Ar said. “I smell a trap.”Someone screamed behind them and the two froze like a dragon that heard prey. The scream cut off, then there was a gurgle of fresh blood flowing.Grrk’Kri’Ar said something that the clan matriarch would have cuffed him for speaking. “A’Shar’Kr, stay here. Watch for the Jawa. Be sure that they don’t come to stab us in the back.”A’Shar’Kr grunted his understanding and watched his leader rush back to the entrance they had made in the Jawa home. The others must have met resistance. Maybe they ran afoul of trap or snare.He waited. He was good at waiting. All the warriors could stand in one place like a stone in the wind while the sands danced and the suns circled above.Then her heard stepping. Not the soft steps of his brothers but the heavier tread of someone who knows no better in the desert. Girding his wits about him like a robe, A’Shar’Kr moved towards the front room, eyes darting around like a womp rat that had scented a Kyrat dragon.He found them in the entrance room. His brothers. Two of them standing above the body of a third. And Grrk’Kri’Ar was there, his rifle at his shoulder. All was well.Then he saw the others. A girl-child of the outworlders, crouched down in the shadows beyond the doorway, her eyes already on him. Why? Why was she not being taken by his clan? Did Grrk’Kri’Ar want her as a trophy? As a toy while the banthas rested?But no, his clan’s men were not moving, not talking, and they were standing wrong. Too tall, too unmoving. They did not sway like the skittering sand over the dunes.Grrk’Kri’Ar and one of his brothers turned, their Cyclers rising to their shoulders and A’Shar’Kr knew that he had been betrayed. The fact stung, like water spilled into the sands, but he was a brave warrior, and all brave warriors of the sand knew that to face the dragon in its cave was foolishness.Even as the first shot was taken and missed, A’Shad’Kr was moving. The second screaming retort of the cycliers came with a bite in his lower arm, but it was not the one holding his Gaffi stick, and though he might have dropped blood on the sands, he still lived.A’Shar’Kr jumped out of the ramp and into the sands, his legs already carrying him towards the bantha. “Brothers! Brothers! We must flee. The demons have taken Grrk’Kri’Ar and the others. Let us run and return with the moons!” he called out.Then his moon eyes, burning in the sun’s wrath, saw his companions who had been left to guard the Banthas.They were on the ground, or slumped against their mounts. Gaffi sticks lay abandoned, cyclers were already sinking into the sand. And around his clansmen were the bodies of sand scorpions, barbs crushed, tails torn, holes smashed into them. But there had been too many.A’Shar’Kr turned. She was there. The outsider demoness. She had only one arm, and eyes with more wrath than the suns themselves.A cycler barked and A’Shar’Kr fell into the sands, his life fleeing all around him. He heard the distinct, chilling scratch of a scorpion crawling to him, and knew that the monster would feast on his blood.Panting, he looked up, he had to see, to know why and what.Grrk’Kri’Ar pointed his cycler towards one brother and shot. He pointed to the next, and this one did not even move. Another retort. More blood in the sand. Then, as the darkness swallowed A’Shar’Kr, the last thing he saw was Grrk’Kri’Ar tossing his precious cycle to the sands and removing his knife from its sheath.

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Chapter Four

Chapter Four They respected her.At least, that’s what Taylor wanted to think. The Jawas had snuck out of their little hidey hole, some of them immediately falling on the dead with wails of protest, but others, the braver ones, moved outside. They found the pile Taylor and her robot friend and the one Jawa with the white bandoleer were making, a mountain of corpses, divested of guns and whatever looks useful.There was a burial, of sorts. Jawa bodies wrapped in cloth and left in the sand. Taylor had stood aside, left them to their mourning. Then the Jawas waved her back into their home. The one with the white Bandoleer had given her a tool, tossing it to her with chittered instructions that took a while to decipher even with the robot’s help.The collar was gone.And she was put to work.As their machine, the sandcrawler, moved across the Sea of Dunes, Taylor was shown to the Jawa’s workshops where they took apart machines with little hands and put them back together with the speed of long years of practice.A few of them were happy to show her how to do the same, and lacking anything better to do, Taylor started to learn about rusty robots and broken old machines. There was something about it that was soothing, even in the bowels of the too-hot workshop where the whole room rumbled and the heat was almost unbearable, she sank into her simple work, losing herself in the act of taking things apart and trying to put them back together.She had been at it for nearly a week, a week where she was starting to feel something like companionship for the Jawas, even if they still kept their distances most of the time.“What’s this part?” she asked, lifting a long tube with little notches on its side and a sort of hole at the top.Her robot friend eyed it for a moment before responding. Half of his words were in an unfamiliar tongue, but that was okay. She wanted to learn, and teaching someone technical terms for a field she knew nothing about was verging on the impossible. “Answer: That is a power converter for a moisture gatherer.”“And what does it do?” she asked as she started to fiddle with a pair of wrenches that the robot insisted on calling hydrospanners to take the top off. There was some green stuff on the coppery bits of the tube. Rust, but the sort that grew with humidity. She wondered how that had happened in a desert.“Answer: It uses the ambient temperature to convert ionized particles into usable electrical current to power a moisture gatherer, a device used by filthy biologicals to obtain the liquids they need to keep their fleshy parts moist.”Taylor nodded. She was beginning to suspect that the robot’s invectives were on purpose, and not just an artefact of bad translation. As for the explanation, it at least made the rust make sense. She repeated the unfamiliar words a few times, trying to commit them to memory. Learning a new language was going to be tricky, so she was going to start with the words for which she had no translation.The converter’s inside was a rusty mess, but a few hours of rubbing and cleaning it left it shiny. She put it back together with a contented humm and tossed it into the pile of fixed things.“Right, next part,” she said as she started to reach for a strange looking component in the busted bin. She never grabbed it as a group of Jawas rushed by. She had not been around them long enough to understand their language, if she ever could, but she could tell they were excited.One of them stopped and chattered at her robot friend before moving into Taylor’s range to grab the bin of fixed parts. She guided the little guy over to it, grabbed the things, then guided him out of her range without a second glance. The Jawa were becoming surprisingly docile about having their bodies puppeted.“What’s going on?” she asked.“Commentary: It seems as if the Jawa have arrived near a trading outpost. They are preparing to ply their trade to other degenerates. Statement: Perhaps I will be fortunate enough to be sold to some gullible water farmer.”She shook her head as she got to her feet. It would actually hurt her to lose the translation robot’s company. Not that she would admit it to him. He was insufferable enough as it was.“C’mon,” she said as she moved over towards the front of the sandcrawler. The Jawas were, indeed, setting up shop. They had a folded pavillion off to one side, with a sort of canvas top packed away, and one of them was busy lining up all the other robots in the crawler into neat rows against the far wall. The bins and bins of parts she and the Jawa had been tinkering on were moved over to the edge of the ramp-wall and crates filled with guns and even the weapons they had taken from the Tusken Raiders were moved to one side.She was approached by the Jawa with the white bandoleer, the one she figured was the leader of the little group. He chattered at her, yellow eyes glowing under his hood.“Translation: The little sack wishes to inquire if the lady will be venturing out of the sandcrawler while the Jawa work.”She nodded. “Yeah, it would be nice to stretch my legs. That is, unless it’s dangerous.”“Sarcastic Commentary: We are on Tatooine. Nothing is dangerous here, only the deserts and everything that lives in it.”She gave the robot a flat look. “Just translate.”He did and the Jawa squeaked back at him before removing a gun from one of the bigger pouches of his bandoleer. He tossed it to her underhand and she caught it out of the air with only the slightest fumble.“A gun, seriously?”“Commentary: Oh, this might be fun.”She shook her head and inspected the gun. It didn’t have a magazine or anything, and the barrel was too stubby and crooked to possibly use actual bullets. She had to assume it was a raygun or some such. “Is there a safety on this thing?”“Statement: There is. The weapon is currently safe. Instruction: Do press the red button on the side to arm the blaster.”She looked at the side of the weapon and it did indeed have a little light and a button next to it. Shrugging one shoulder she turned towards the robot and pointed it between his glowing red eyes. “So if I pull the trigger now, you’ll still be yammering on at me?”Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.“Statement: How delightfully pragmatic.”Taylor rolled her eyes and looked for a place to store the thing. Her current attire wasn’t anything to write home about. A skirt made from some of the rough cloth the Jawas used, a shirt that had been in the packs the Tusken Raiders had carried and that she had washed in the sands and a belt that cinched everything at her waist. It was light and airy and not terribly supportive, but better than her torn up costume for desert living. Though she did tear the goggles out of her mask. Getting sand in her eyes was not something she wanted to deal with again.She was really starting to hate sand.The front ramp of the sandcrawler lowered with a pneumatic hiss, pistons as big around as Taylor stretching out to lower the entire front of the vehicle and slowly revealing the bright blue sky beyond.Her robot friend’s assertions that they were near a trading post has left her wondering what kind of place they were actually near. She had expected a few buildings, or maybe something more primitive.Instead she took in the sights of a small village. White, squarish houses with domed roofs, large metallic pillars around the town proper, standing up like high-tech fence posts. A few things that looked like cars moving across a busy street that lead down to an intersection. And people.Taylor stretched out her senses and caught a few bugs, proper bugs, at the edges. She didn’t recognize most of them, but they were similar enough to what she was used to that just having them in her control lifted a weight off her shoulders.As she stepped down the ramp, her robot companion at her heels and the Jawas behind them with their assorted goods, Taylor paid particular attention to all the people walking around.Some were human, and that alone had her wanting to run over and touch them. Others were aliens, from strange beings with flat necks and hammer-head like faces to blue-skinned people with large tentacles resting on their necks. Most wore beige and brown garb, loose and flowing to wick away the heat. Others wore armour or colourful outfits with splashes of yellow and blue that made them stand out like flowers in an empty lot.“What is this place?” she asked.Her companion stomped over to her side. “Commentary: it seems to be a filthy hole where only the desperate and idiotic would like. A fitting place for these fine specimens.”Taylor snorted. “Yeah, sure,” she said. “Well, where do we start?” she asked.“Exclamation: My lady, you could not possibly think of taking over this small town and installing yourself as its leader through force of arms with nothing but a blaster.”“What? No, I wasn’t thinking about anything like that,” she said.“Commentary: How disappointing.”“I meant,” she said while ruefully shaking her head. “Where do we start exploring.”“Suggestion: Perhaps refining your search parameters would be of assistance.”Nodding, she started walking towards the village, noting as she did that a few curious souls were heading towards the where the Jawa were setting up shop. “That depends on what they sell here. Between you and me, finding a place that isn’t all sand would be a god send. Or a library.”She knew that the races around her were alien, some of them also looked distinctly unfit for desert life. That either meant that there was somewhere hospitable on the planet or that they were from elsewhere. And since they weren’t on Earth, that was very much possible.She wasn't going to find her home amongst the dunes, nor her revenge.Navigating the crowds was surprisingly easy. Despite the number of beings around they mostly held together in small groups. She didn’t know if it was because of familiarity of if they needed safety in numbers. More than a few were armed, handguns at their hips or rifles strapped to their backs.She had the impression that she was in a frontier town, like something in an old western where cowboys and bandits could pop up at any moment.The few who entered her range were left confused and disoriented as she had them turn around and walk right back out of it as quickly as she could. It left a bubble of peace around her where only her robot friend remained.“What’s that place?” she pointed to one shop that had weapons on racks before it..“Translation: The sign reads Darvo’s Bazaar. Commentary: It seems to be a place to sell weapons of questionable quality.”She nodded, then pointed at the next shop over. “And that one?”“Commentary: A fruit stand. You do know what fruit are, yes?”“Yeah,” she said. She didn’t know what she was looking for yet, but had the impression she was going to stumble upon it soon.The next intersection was a three way, with a road veering off to their right. To the left the road had been blocked off by a marge stand with a cloth canopy above it. A small crowd was gathered there, looking up to the stage.A creature that Taylor couldn’t help but assume was a giant slug, was speaking to the crowd, fat arms waving about and capturing their attention before we gestured off to the side. A pair of pig-like creatures in rough armoud strode onto the stage, each holding onto a staff with a ring on the end, a ring around the neck of an emancipated young man wearing nothing but a steel collar and some shorts.“Is that a slave market?” she asked.“Observation: Judging by the Hutt attempting to extol the virtues of the underfed human and the explosive collar on the filthy cretin’s neck it is indeed a slave market.”Taylor didn’t know what to do. She watched the man be sold to some strange flying creature. There was an exchange of metal bars to one side, and the slave followed the creature away down the street without so much as a twitch of resistance.Her jaw clenched and her almost started something, but then the next slave was on the block and no one was doing anything but bidding for them.“This place isn’t what I hoped for,” she said.“Suggestion: Perhaps a bit of conflict resolution is in order. I did enjoy your techniques with the Tusken Raiders.”“No. Not yet,” Taylor said.She turned and walked deeper into the town.

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