The rambling, art, and writing of a somewhat lost Star Wars fan.
Perfectly Executed
Originally posted on tumblr, off the Short Fiction Weekly Challenge prompt "Weapon of Choice," though I may have interpreted that prompt rather broadly. I've also taken liberties with the early Imperial Agent mission "Claim Your New Identity," but then, so has Kyrian...
The guard leaned against the door frame, a cigarra drooping lazily from one corner of his mouth. The lit end glowed brightly in Hutta’s grimy twilight, marking his head as well as any laser sight.
Finding a vantage point on the hill above the shabby building Fa’athra’s thugs had claimed had been easy. Most of the citizens of Jiguuna were eager to avoid getting caught up in the Hutt conflict and conspicuously ignored anyone who wasn’t shooting at them. The last thing they wanted was to see where an off-worlder with a rifle was going.
Kyrian studied the guard through his sights. The man worked for a Hutt. He was probably a terrible person who kicked small animals and stole from children. Certainly he and the others in the building hadn’t hesitated to steal the case of valuables Intelligence had sent to Hutta as a means for Kyrian to – in the person of the Red Blade, notorious pirate – gain an audience with Nem’ro the Hutt. Nor would the guard hesitate to use the blaster on his hip to defend the building and its ill-gotten contents.
Jheeg had insisted that they needed to eliminate the thieves to ensure that no one learned of the theft. There could be no doubts about the Red Blade’s competence. Or Jheeg’s. Keeper seemed like a man who expected missions to run smoothly.
Kyrian wasn’t sure what Intelligence did with contacts who failed them, but he had the uncomfortable feeling that they usually knew too much to leave alive. With Fa’athra’s thieves dead and the case reclaimed, Jheeg could concentrate on proving that the theft was a fluke and that he was still invaluable to Imperial Intelligence.
The cigarra end flared as the guard drew on it. He was a perfect target. He would never even know what hit him.
Buying the case back had been out of the question – making the offer would only alert the thieves to how valuable the contents were and encourage them to brag about the theft. Stealing it back, however…
Kyrian considered the building. It had a back door – unguarded, he’d checked that already – and the lock was mechanical, likely with no defense against the tiny laser cutter built into his wrist chrono. The case wasn’t the only thing the thieves had stolen from the spaceport; they had helped themselves to an entire shuttle’s worth of cargo.
They’ll sort the cargo, decide what’s worth selling, and what’s worth taking to Fa’athra. The case was small and nondescript. Whatever else had been on the shuttle had been the target of the theft. If the thieves were distracted, there was a chance he could simply slip in the back door, locate the case, and slip out unnoticed.
Kyrian shouldered his rifle and made his way down the hillside. He couldn’t be seen. The Red Blade was lethal and ruthless, not at all the sort of person who quietly retrieved stolen cases. But if the thieves never even knew they’d had the case, Jheeg had nothing to fear, and the mission could go on as planned.
His comm had a setting that amplified sounds. He pressed it to the back door and listened. He could make out the distant sounds of conversation – too distant to be directly behind the door. Another room, most likely.
He took a deep breath. I’m sorry, Jheeg.
The lock melted like butter. There was no reaction from inside the building. Kyrian eased the door open and slipped into the darkened room.
Aside from a couple of chairs and a stained carpet, the room was empty. Light spilled in through an open doorway from what looked to be a hall. Voices carried down it from the front of the building, not quite loud enough for Kyrian to make out words.
He edged softly to the doorway and peered down the hall.
It ran down the center of the building, closed doors on either side marking other rooms – hopefully unoccupied. The light and voices came from a large room at the front of the building. The hallway at that end was partially blocked by a large military crate and a couple of bolts of shimmery cloth.
Kyrian crept down the hall, crouching low enough that the crate and cloth would hide him from any casual glance. Less than three hours into his first solo field mission and he’d thrown out all good sense and a simple plan that took advantage of his specialized training. His instructors would have had him flogged and thrown out of Intelligence for sheer stupidity. He had only basic stealth training and none of the equipment for it – no stealth suit, no silent grenades or poisoned knives, no darts, no specialized close-quarters weapons.
I can do this. He wouldn’t imagine Jheeg, or Keeper, or Instructor Senrit shouting at him. He wouldn’t consider the possibility of failure.
There were three men and two women in the room. All human. All armed. None aware of his presence.
The shuttle had been carrying a mix of military hardware and luxury goods. Someone’s half of a spice deal, most likely. The case he was after sat next to an open crate of grenades, apparently untouched. And in plain view of everyone in the room.
There was only one certain course of action: retreat to the hillside and carry out Jheeg’s plan. They would hear the guard go down, rush out of the building, and be picked off one by one. There really wasn’t another option.
The room was lit by two large field lamps – little more than globes on sticks. Kyrian considered the geometries. None of the thugs had their weapons drawn. Two of them were debating opening a bottle of Zeltron spiced wine and another had his hands full of a long rope of pearls.
A burly woman held a large green stone up to the light. “Only right we get some spoils.”
“I ain’t riskin’ it.” A man with cropped gray hair folded his arms and sat down on an unopened military crate. “Fa’athra’ll feed you all to his pets.”
“Coward.” The man with the rope of pearls fished in his pocket and pulled out a small knife. “You got to skim a little. Everybody does.”
“Best wine in the galaxy.” The woman held the bottle out to the man on the crate. “Might be our only chance to-”
Two shots plunged the room into darkness.
Kyrian dove for the case. He bounced off someone in the dark, rolled to his hands and knees, and grabbed the case. He retreated backward, slamming into the crate he’d hidden behind. His muffled yelp was lost amid the thieves’ shouts and swearing.
Kyrian fled down the hall, staying low in case any of them had flashlights. Or decided to risk shooting in the dark. He tripped over a chair in the back room, picked himself up, and raced out the door.
Straight into the guard who’d been out front.
Momentum was on Kyrian’s side. The man stumbled back, blaster pointing momentarily at nothing. Kyrian ducked, swinging the case at the other man’s gun hand. He missed. And kept running.
Blaster bolts pocked the swampy earth, sending up little gouts of flame. Kyrian dodged around the corner of the building and threw himself into the thick undergrowth of the hillside. He scrambled upward, slipping in the mud.
The flashes of blaster fire grew more wide and wild. He rolled over the top of the rise, slid down the other side, and sprinted into the tangled streets of Jiguuna.
–
Half an hour later, he stumbled into Jheeg’s shop, dirty, bruised, and exhausted, but still clutching the case.



