บท 94: Bounty Hunters
"So, what is the plan, general?"
"I need to think. But the most important is to find a disguise for you all. The clone armor is quite... conspicuous. Most of the scum on that palace probably never saw a clone, but those two pirates we are hunting certainly have."
Metal shook his head when he heard General Di's words.
"I don't think they are pirates, general. I think they are bounty hunters."
General Di lifted his eyebrows.
"Is there any difference?"
"Bounty hunters are much more deadly. Before I was recruited in Hell Squad, on my first battle, in Geonosis, my platoon and another one were tasked with capturing a small geonosian leader. Everything was going okay until we fought two bounty hunters that he had hired."
At that point, Metal shook his head once more, but this time he seemed sad and angry.
"Two. That was how many bounty hunters we confronted. They killed twenty-four of my brothers. And even then, one of them still managed to run, although he left the geonosian behind."
Silence enveloped the group. Dageer had never fought bounty hunters before, and to him, they were just a slightly better version of pirates. But now it didn't seem so. He looked again to the front gate of the palace, where dozens of people were carrying weapons and prisoners. If even half of them were as good as Metal described, then they were in serious trouble.
General Di face got even more serious.
"We have here a commander, and three clones belonging to a special unit. If we get rid of your armors, or at least disguise them, I believe we can enter there. They aren't checking everyone who goes in. Besides, those creatures are simple-minded. We will do that without fighting, and after we rescue my padawan we go back."
Following General Di's plan, the clones smeared dust in their armors, and took off their helmets. After that, they found some pieces of ragged clothes and used it as cloaks.
The white armor was covered in dust, so even if a piece of it or another appeared under the cloak, it was unrecognizable. Without their helmets, each clone had different hairstyles and tattoos, so unless someone put them side by side and compared, it would be difficult to recognize them.
The jedi found a red mantle to himself, and by intention or not, this clearly marked him as the leader of the group.
After making sure that no one was looking at the ship, they departed, and walked to the palace. The sand was incredibly hot, and Dageer was sweating profusely inside his armor. Two suns hanged in the sky, sanding heat wave after heat wave onto them. Dageer wondered how the Hutts could build a crime empire on such planet.
The only one who looked comfortable was General Di. When they arrived at the palace gate, they had to enter in a long queue that the bounty hunters from before had skipped.
Hours passed, and day turned to night. Dageer was tired of waiting in line all day, and it looked like they still had some time to wait. His throat was sore, and he seriously needed a drink.
At that moment there was a commotion in front of the gate. The big metal gate started to close, and many of the aliens near to it tried to run inside, only to be beaten back by the guards.
That was bad, because if they were locked outside, then who knows what would happen to Ragout. Dageer looked at General Di, waiting for his orders. The jedi walked ahead calmly, even though the gate was already half-closed. He got near one of the green-skinned pig-men.
"You will let us pass. You won't close the gate."
The eyes of the pig-men blinked, and then got misty. He made a move to stop the gate, but as soon as he touched the lever that controlled it, electric currents passed through his body, and he fell to the ground twitching. An electronic voice appeared, together with a mechanic eye.
"Unauthorized! Unauthorized! Any who dare to stop the mighty Jabba's orders will be killed!"
After the pig-man was killed, the others just kicked its corpse aside, and let the gate close. Nobody tried to go against the guards anymore.
General Di looked quite shocked. He never expected that the owner of the palace, Jabba, would kill one of his own men. But after thinking about it, it was quite normal. He couldn't maintain his position as one of the heads of the Hutts if he was merciful.
"What do we do now, general?"
Commander Keeli approached the jedi and asked quietly. Their path was blocked, and they couldn't let Ragout wait another night.
"Let's go back for now. We need to find another entry point, and if we stay here it would look suspicious."
The group retreated enough so the darkness of the night could cover them, and started circling around the palace.
But there were no windows, doors or anything they could use. After half an hour, General Di finally lost his patience. He knocked on the walls until he found one thin enough, then used his lightsaber to open a hole through it.
The blue lightsaber melted the wall, leaving a bright orange and yellow lava-like substance on the border of the circle. Using the Force, he pushed the circular block he had cut and it fell to the inside.
The first thing they saw when they looked was a surprised pig-man, with the meat of some animal halfway to his mouth. General Di did a rapid spin, and the chest of the guard was opened, a blood-red line showing where the lightsaber had cut.
That was the first time Dageer saw the general kill someone who wasn't a droid. When he saw that the jedi's expression didn't even twitch, he wanted to say something along the line 'for a peacekeeper you kill quite decisively', but he got a hold of his mouth.
Maybe that was why he liked General Di. Both he and Kit Fisto were jedi, but the first knew when it was necessary to kill, while Dageer felt that the last would have tried to knock down the guard, which could have ruined the entire operation.
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