Kouhun's Poison: Skail of Justice

What a desolate place this is, Trebel Drelve mused as he surveyed the brownish, dusty landscape. The landspeeder he piloted had been rented from a rather annoying Sullustan after much haggling. In actuality, the bargaining had all been part of an intricate code, proof that they were both agents of the Rebel Alliance on the same mission. That mission was to free the indigenous people, the Tentrelvians, from the grip of several gangsters and crime lords, and one in particular – Tink Demel.
It was not uncommon to see Humans and species other than the Tentrelvians on Katloom, but they were greatly in the minority. The native’s great black eyes stared mournfully at him from windows and doorways, mothers holding young children in their three arms, fathers uselessly sweeping huge piles of dust out from under their four feet.
Trebel’s contact was supposedly out beyond the edge of the city. And whoever named these cities has a vindictive sense of humor. There were three cities on Katloom: Xylmrklm, Tendritonparafonmiendonloss, and one that was even longer and more unpronounceable than the others.
Trebel shook his head and gunned the throttle, rocketing towards Xylmrklm’s outskirts.

Ten minutes later, Trebel arrived at an old warehouse in an abandoned section of Katloom – a typical ghost town. The small sign he was searching for was scratched in the sand on the east side of the building, so he cautiously entered. His disruptor pistol preceded him. As he passed through the doorway, it was suddenly snatched from his hand and a fist connected with his head, dropping him to the floor. A boot slammed into his back, driving the air from his lungs. He heard a deep, gravelly voice say, “Enough, Jiv. Bring him here to me.”
Whoever or whatever Jiv was pulled Trebel up by the armpits and half-carried, half-dragged him to the feet of an extremely tall Aqualish. “And you needn’t be so curt with our . . . guest.” The Aqualish stared straight into Trebel’s eyes. “What are you doing here?”
When Trebel didn’t answer, the still-unseen Jiv rammed a fist into his left kidney. The Rebel collapsed to the ground, gasping for breath.
The problem with being a member of an illegal organization posing as a member of another illegal organization was that you could get in so deep that you couldn’t risk having your cover blown. The sad truth of the matter was that Jiv could be Trebel’s contact.
Amidst his efforts to draw breath through flaming lungs, Trebel heard another voice say, “Haven’t you done enough, Mister Demel?”
Tink Demel whirled on the unseen speaker. “Quiet, Benji! He refuses to answer!”
Benji replied coldly, “Maybe you should give him a chance.”
Demel pivoted on his big foot and planted the other one squarely on Trebel’s solar plexus, once again causing the other to race out of his lungs with a whoosh. “Who are you working for, boy?”
Trebel coughed out, “Sid Nrevel. Maintenance. Heard about . . . a gas leak.” He smiled weakly. “Guess we heard wrong, huh?”
Demel nodded. “Guess so. Who ever heard of a maintenance worker toting a highly illegal disruptor pistol? Especially when there’s a gas leak?” Trebel silently cursed himself. The disruptor had been a stupid idea.
“I heard voices. Sounded . . . dangerous.”
Demel looked at him curiously and then took his foot off Trebel’s torso. “Kill him, Jiv.”
Before the command was out of his mouth, the butt of a blaster rifle smashed into the back of his head, then, as he dropped to his knees, it impacted once more on his domed crown. His assailant turned the rifle and fired. A thunk, a wet gurgle, and then silence greeted Trebel’s ears. He slowly clambered to his feet and stared down at Jiv’s body. Whatever weapon he had been shot with, it must have been big. The blaster bolt had carved out most of Jiv’s torso and face.
Abruptly, the hair on Trebel’s neck stood on end. Just because Jiv is dead doesn’t mean that Demel isn’t. Or . . .
He wheeled around to find a thin, wiry man pointing a wide-bore blaster at his face. “Benji, I presume?”
The man nodded slowly. “Ever heard of Drelmack?”
“Once or twice.”
“Nearly killed me a year ago. I shot him.”
“Where’d you shoot him?”
“Blew his kidney out.”
Trebel grinned. “You’re my contact, I presume.”
Benji nodded again. “You presume an awful lot, don’t you?” He lowered his rifle and said, “Name’s Jhun Skail. My alias is Benji Heater.”
Trebel tried in vain to replicate the movement of his contact’s lips, but failed.
The man laughed and growled in a gravelly voice, “Call me Kouhun. Everyone else I know does.”
Trebel’s jaw dropped. “You’re Kouhun Skail? The mercenary?”
Kouhun shrugged. “Look, I may not like the Rebellion, but I like the Empire a whole lot less.”
Trebel sniffed. “From your record, I would say that doesn’t mean much.”
Kouhun shrugged again. “Price you pay for being successful.”
Trebel glanced down at Demel’s body. “Is he dead?”
Kouhun checked the Aqualish’s vitals. “Nope. Just out cold.”
Trebel grinned and smacked the dust off his clothing. “Well, then I’ll load him onto the landspeeder and take him back to my ship.”
Kouhun shook his head. “Oh, no, you aren’t, kid.” He grabbed Trebel’s shoulder in a durasteel vise. “You’re my ticket off this dustball. Besides,” he continued, “Demel’s not the one you’re looking for.”
Trebel’s eyes narrowed. “Wait a second, hold up. First of all, don’t you have a ship?”
Kouhun actually managed to look embarrassed. “No, I . . . uh . . . no.”
Trebel nodded. “Okay. And what do you mean Demel’s not the one I’m after? I was sent here to find Demel.”
“No, kid. You were sent here to find the head of the biggest gang on Katloom.”
Trebel’s eyes widened in sudden understanding. “Demel’s not our man. His boss is.”
Kouhun rolled his eyes toward the ceiling and muttered, “Great deduction, kid.” He thrust his head into Trebel’s face and the young Rebel stared into his deep brown eyes. “I know who Demel’s boss is, kid.”

“You came in that thing? You’re dumber than I thought.”
Trebel glared at Kouhun. “I came in what it used to be.” The landspeeder was now nothing more than a chunk of charred metal. Smoke rose from it, mixing with the free-flying dust in the air and blotting out some of the light from Katloom’s sun.
“Great, kid,” Kouhun growled, kicking at the landspeeder’s half-melted windscreen. “Not that I care much, but your legs are going to be awful tired after dragging Demel over three klicks of desert.”
“Well, what do you suggest, Kouhun?” Trebel yelled, his anger rising.
Kouhun looked at him, his face the definition of utter calm. “We walk. What else?”
Trebel cast his eyes around himself. “What about Demel? What do we do with him?”
Kouhun shrugged. “Leave him. Maybe we can pick him up later.”
“Uh-oh. We’ve got trouble.”
Kouhun followed the young Rebel’s gaze and cursed. “Kriffing swoop gang. Jiv or Demel must have signaled for help. Let’s move.”
“Wait,” Trebel said, batting Kouhun’s hand away. “That’s no swoop gang. They’re in a military formation.” He swallowed hard. “It’s the Empire.”
Kouhun froze for just a moment, jaw dropping a few centimeters. Jerking himself out of his momentary reverie, he yanked Trebel away from the wreck and into a small building. As they pushed themselves farther back into a dark room, Trebel, hauling Demel’s body, rammed into something. “Stop.” He pulled out a small glowrod. “Now that’s what I’m talking about!” Kouhun crowed and leapt onto the customized swoop. “I knew this was here somewhere!” He looked back at Trebel and grunted, “Well, kid, you coming?”
Trebel stared at him. “What about Demel?”
“I told you already! Leave him! Let the Imps take care of him!”
Trebel shrugged and clambered onto the swoop behind Kouhun. It was a tight fit.
“Let’s get out of here, kid. Hang on.” Kouhun gunned the throttle and they narrowly cleared the top of the doorway.
Trebel ducked. “Are you sure you can pilot this thing?”
“Do I have a choice?” Kouhun yelled back as he narrowly avoided slamming them into the side of a building. “Besides, this is where the fun begins!”
Trebel’s sharp ears picked up the sound of several military-grade speeder bikes approaching from behind. "Fun!?” he screamed as a pair of blaster bolts impacted the ground around them, spraying red-hot sand in all directions. Another whizzed past – so close to his ear that he could feel the lobe beginning to blister. The Rebel grabbed Kouhun’s wide-bore blaster rifle from its shoulder holster and spun around in the seat, nearly throwing off the balance of the swoop.
“What the hell are you doing?” Kouhun roared.
“Somebody has to save our skins! It might as well be me!” Trebel lined one of the speeder bikes up in his sights.
“Well, kid, are you gonna shoot him, or do you need a personal invitation?” Kouhun howled.
“Hang on, merc!” The Rebel fired once and was nearly thrown off the swoop.
Kouhun, lightning fast, reached down and yanked him back up by his shirt collar. “You hang on, kid!”
“How do you handle that recoil, Kouhun?”
The merc shrugged. “Comes with experience.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet.”
Kouhun gritted his teeth and bounced the swoop above a pair of boulders. More shots from the Imps forced him to stay low to the ground.
Trebel fired once more, this time into one of the smaller boulders. It exploded in a shower of rock splinters. The scout trooper who was flying the speeder bike didn’t have the time or the reflexes to move out of the way. Instead, his bike plunged into the ground and skidded until it was in shreds.
“Great shot, kid, but there are still at least three out there!” Kouhun yanked the swoop to the left as a blaster bolt nearly ripped his head off. “Four!”
Trebel sat for a moment, trying to draw a bead on one of their pursuers, then grinned. “They’re herding us towards Xylmrklm!”
“You sound way too happy about that, kid.”
“Trust me.”
Kouhun rolled his eyes. “Where have I heard that before?”
Trebel pulled a small silver cylinder out of his pocket and hit a small green button on the top.
The ground exploded.
A shockwave expanded outward, swallowing the Imperials and nearly overtaking Trebel and Kouhun. Then, with another thunderclap, there was utter, deafening silence except for the purring of the swoop’s engines. The engines made a clunking sound and coughed.
“You better have one good explanation for what just happened, kid, or I’m going to rip your head off with my teeth,” Kouhun rasped menacingly.
Trebel’s grin grew wider. “I set mines on the way to the warehouse district. I set them up as a chain but…I never thought that they’d be so powerful.”
Kouhun opened his mouth to speak, but then closed it again. He let out a long, low breath and grinned. “Well, kid, I guess you just solved that prob–”
The rest of his sentence was cut off by a boom. A blaze of pain shot up Trebel’s arm. Kouhun grabbed Trebel and tossed him off the swoop, then launched himself after him. The swoop’s engine exploded. Blaster bolts peppered the air as Kouhun frantically began to dig a hole in the ground. “Help me, kid. I’ve dug in before. We can do it now. Then we’ll fix up that arm of yours.” Trebel began clawing at the dirt with his fingers. “They can’t see us now because of all the dust, but they’ll be here soon.”

Six and a half minutes later, Trebel gripped his disruptor in bloodied fingers. His arm ached from where it had been seared by the explosion. Kouhun’s fingers were similarly caked in blood, and they were both sweating buckets in the trench they had dug. Kouhun’s rifle had proved very useful as a shovel; he sat on the ground, cursing anything and everything but himself, trying to clean the hard soil out of it. “Kriffin’ weather,” he spat. “Couldn’t it have rained for just a few kriffin’ minutes so that I didn’t have to…” Another two seconds and he was raging about the manufacturers of the swoop and their mothers.
Trebel’s eyes swept the terrain around them. “I think they’re gone, Kouhun.”
“Like trimp they are. They’re looking for us.”
Trebel started to reply, but the cold metal of a blaster met his temple and his vision abruptly went black.

“Get up, kid. Get up!”
Trebel’s eyes opened and he quipped, “You really oughtta brush your teeth sometime, Kouhun.”
The merc grabbed Trebel by the lapels and tugged him into a standing position. “I just saved your life, kid. You gonna argue with me?” Trebel shrugged and Kouhun rolled his eyes. “Let’s get out of here.”
As Trebel’s vision finally cleared, he saw the bodies of two awkward-looking stormtroopers lying on the ground.
“These ones were part of a swoop gang. Their rides are out here,” Kouhun explained as he dragged himself out of the trench. Awaiting their arrival were two heavily modified swoop bikes. “Back to Zeelmershlime!”
“Xylmrklm.”
“Whatever.”

Kouhun led the way, blaster rifle back in its shoulder holster and lips silent. Trebel had trouble keeping his swoop under control. It had been modified to accommodate a Tentrelvian’s three arms. It consistently swerved to the right, forcing him to yank it back on course. The seat had also been changed – to have room for one of the native’s four legs – and force Trebel into a very uncomfortable position. He came up alongside Kouhun and yelled, “Who was flying this thing?”
“Rodians owned these things. Came from Ny-Vreno Ylma’s gang.” They swerved to avoid more boulders. “Demel’s boss.”
Trebel gulped and looked straight ahead. “Uh-oh.”
Eight swoops with orange-skinned Tentrelvian riders appeared out of a large dust cloud. A pair of scout troopers on speeder bikes followed, firing at the swoopers. One Tentrelvian spun around in his seat and fired twice. One of the Imps flew off his bike and into a small pile of brush. The bike hit the ground once, bounced off, and then rammed into a large boulder and exploded in a burst of roiling flame.
Trebel drew his disruptor and jammed the throttle forward. He zoomed past Kouhun and whooped. “Yee-haw!”
Kouhun roared, “Kid! Where are you going now? Kid!”
Trebel fired wildly, hitting Tentrelvians and whooping all the way.
Kouhun growled. “Kid’s gonna start a blasted gang war!” He whipped his swoop around and flew straight into the Tentrelvian formation. His rifle roared and one’s head exploded in a puff of wet, black smoke. The Imp biker scout fired twice and dropped another.
Somewhere in front of Kouhun, Trebel whooped again and leapt off his swoop. It caught the scout full in the chest and drove him into the ground. Trebel climbed onto the abandoned speeder bike and roared off, knocking two more aliens off their swoops. In the midst of all the chaos, ten more scouts appeared. Kouhun glanced back over his shoulder and did a double-take.
An AT-ST walker lumbered into view. A pair of scathing laser bolts stopped everyone from moving. An amplified voice said calmly, “You are all under arrest for disturbing the peace and assaulting Imperial troops. Drop your weapons and dismount.”
One bold Tentrelvian bellowed up at the AT-ST, “And what if we don’t?”
The AT-ST fired once and vaporized both swoop and rider in mere milliseconds.
Kouhun and the others gingerly laid their weapons on the ground and grimly stepped away from their rides. A handful of stormtroopers herded them into a line. “Hands on your heads.”
The Tentrelvians made a big deal about which hands the Imps were talking about, but the whole party was soon loaded onto two small transports. The captives sat on one side with faceless stormies on the other, just waiting for the order to blow them apart.
Half an hour later, the transport Trebel and Kouhun were on stopped and a pudgy Tentrelvian was led through the entrance.
Kouhun growled apprehensively. “Ylma.”
The alien looked down at him and waved four pudgy fingers at him in a genial fashion. “Benji Heater! How are you?” When Kouhun didn’t reply, Ylma frowned. “Come now. I’ve just bailed you out. The least you could do is show a little gratitude.”
Kouhun snorted. “I’ve got a Trandoshan friend looking to paint his home fluorescent orange. Be glad I don’t skin your hide and give that to him. Maybe it would make a good blanket…who knows?”
Ylma boomed a laugh that shook the transport. “Was that a joke? I’ve never heard you make a joke before, Heater!” A pair of deafening explosions rocked the transport and Kouhun heard blasterfire outside. Ylma suddenly had a blazing blaster in each hand. The stormies slumped in their seats. The gangster’s black eyes glinted dangerously. “Well, let’s go, Heater!”
Kouhun dragged Trebel to his feet. The Rebel knocked Kouhun’s hands away and threw a punch that cracked against the merc’s jaw. He stumbled backwards and landed on a pile of stormies. “I can stand, merc. I can do things myself! I don’t need to be babied like I’m some sort of child!”
Kouhun muttered, “I wasn’t babying you, kid. And didn’t your parents ever teach you to be nice to others?”
Trebel’s fury subsided for a moment and he slumped. “I . . . never knew my real parents. I grew up alone. All I had were my friends – and my enemies. And Force knows I had more enemies than friends.”
Kouhun looked stunned. “Oh . . . well, I . . . I’m sorry, kid. I just assumed–”
Trebel replied sadly, “You assume an awful lot, don’t you?”
Kouhun swallowed hard. “Well . . . let’s go, kid. Ylma’s obviously started some sort of fracas. We might as well join in.” He retrieved his rifle and Trebel’s disruptor and the two of them rushed outside. “Whoa.”
The AT-ST was a blackened and gutted hulk on the ground. The other transport was completely gone. Stormies circled in speeder bikes and crouched behind the AT-ST. Ylma’s gang members dropped left and right, but the Imps were suffering heavier losses. Trebel gunned down a pair of stormies and saw Ylma off to his left. He aimed at the Tentrelvian’s back, but didn’t fire. I can’t shoot him in the back!
A stray blaster bolt burned through Trebel’s left elbow and completely messed up his aim. Trebel looked to his left. Maybe not so stray. A swooper stood there, blaster aimed straight at Trebel. As the Tentrelvian’s finger tightened on the trigger, a riderless speeder bike slammed into him. Trebel’s grin swiftly changed to a grimace as the pain in his elbow finally cut through the adrenaline rush of combat.
A fat, orange hand grabbed him from behind. The Rebel had grown up on the streets of Nar Shaddaa and had learned more about “Stranger Danger” from experience than he had from his mostly-absent foster parents. He rammed his elbow into the alien’s face and snapped his leg back in a sharp kick, connecting with several satisfying thuds. His assailant groaned and went down hard. Spinning around, Trebel planted the barrel of his blaster right between the Tentrelvian’s eyes. Ny-Vreno Ylma stared up at him with a bewildered look on his face. “Like to collect shrapnel, do you, boy?”
Trebel glanced down at himself. A sliver of metal as long as his forearm was embedded in his chest, right above the heart. Other, smaller bits adorned his arms and legs.
Ylma grinned. “Good. Happy Salvage Day.” He roared, a continuous thunder of a bellow. The force of it catapulted Trebel up and away from Ylma, back towards the AT-ST’s ruined head.

Kouhun, almost three quarters of a klick away, felt the force of Ylma’s scream. The swoop he had appropriated bucked twice, nearly ramming him into a boulder, then leveled out again. His pursuit accelerated until Kouhun could almost reach out and touch the Imp. The stormie drew up level with him and aimed a small blaster at his head. Kouhun pivoted slightly in the uncomfortable seat and fired his wide-bore rifle. The stormie screamed once as his torso and legs were separated, and then tumbled off into the dust. Kouhun gunned his throttle and, once again, raced back into the fray.

Trebel groaned as he woke up, mainly because someone was slapping him – hard. “Get off.” When he tried to sit up, a burning pain erupted in his chest and threatened him with a blackout again.
“Stay there, kid. We’ll get you fixed up in no time.”
When the room came into focus, Trebel found himself staring up at something entirely unexpected – a ceiling. The ceiling of a ship. “Where am I?”
Kouhun leaned over to peer into his face. “You’re in the sick bay on the Nebulon-B Frigate Helper’s Dream.”
A 2-1B droid added from outside Trebel’s field of vision, “We were able, sir, to remove most of the shrapnel from your body. However, some pieces are so embedded that we cannot risk manually removing them at this time. Instead, I have prepared a solution that will be injected into your bloodstream. It will soften up the metal and loosen the skin so that we can safely remove it.”
Trebel stiffly stretched his left arm. “That’s fine, Two-Onebee. How’s my elbow?”
“It was a simple matter to apply a bacta patch to it. The blaster bolt merely burned flesh and clipped the bone. You might experience some phantom pain occasionally, but it should not be too considerable.”
The Rebel closed his eyes. I must have hit my head pretty hard to forget what happened a few hours ago. “Where’s Ylma?”
“Mister Ylma should be healed in just a few days.”
Trebel resisted the urge to sit up in excitement. “You got him, Kouhun?”
The merc nodded. “Shot an arm off.” Seeing Trebel’s shocked face, he added, “Not like he needed it. He’s got two left. His gang scrambled when they saw their boss go down.”
Trebel rubbed his head gingerly. “What happened to me?”
Kouhun chuckled. “Ylma screamed at you and you landed on what was left of the AT-ST. Knocked you out for about a day.”
“A day?”
Kouhun nodded.
“How did he throw me? Did he use the Force?”
Kouhun snorted and looked at him quizzically. “Didn’t you know? Tentrelvians have seven throats. Very powerful.”
Trebel rolled his eyes. “So I’ve heard.”

Epilogue

EXCERPT FROM THE PRIVATE JOURNAL OF JHUN “KOUHUN” SKAIL, DATED 7 BBY:

“Where are you going now, Kouhun?”
I sighed and replied, “Back to Katloom, I suppose.” I looked at Trebel Drelve, as he had been introduced to me, and frowned. “I don’t think we did that much good. Just because we took care of Ny-Vreno Ylma doesn’t mean that another won’t take his place.”
The young Rebel gave me a knowing look. “Maybe even Demel.”
I nodded. “Like I said, I think we may have hurt instead of helped the Tentrelvians. We certainly took a good chunk out of the landscape.”
Trebel paused at the ramp of the Indigo Snow – the shuttle that would take him back to his allies in the Rebel Alliance. “You know, kid, I could use you. You . . . you want to sign on as my partner?”
Trebel grinned. “Does a Hutt drool?” His face became somber. “I . . . I’d really like to, Kouhun, but…” He gestured at the shuttle. “I can’t. The Alliance needs me, Kouhun.”
I nodded and swallowed past the knot forming in my throat, surprised. Did I really admire the kid that much? “Well, kid . . . uh . . . you know where to find me, Trebel. At least for a while.” I put a hand on his shoulder. “Good luck.” As Trebel boarded the shuttle, I added quietly, “And may the Force be with you.”

© July 2008, Benny Heather