In The Fire Of Water

[Lev Surrel]

There are two ways to create demand: make something no one thought of before, and make something better than what's already out there.

The Guavian Death Gang had opted for the second option. It trafficked in controlled substances, combat enhancers and stims rather than gutter spice, and if its leaders wanted to own that market they would need to have the best chems available. For Lev Surrel, who was building a legacy of aggressive expansion, undercutting prices and hustling out competitors wasn't enough. She envisioned something new, something uniquely Guavian, that would have pirates, mercenaries, and slave drivers eating out of the palm of her hand, and she had devoted the considerable expertise of the Death Gang's chemists to finding out what that might be. Because it was one thing to peddle Slumm and combat adrenals; it was another to hold access to something exclusive.

In the age of blasters and powered armor, it was difficult to create a stim that would create deadlier warriors. Sure, you could bulk up a being's muscles until he could bench-press landspeeders, but a squad armed with rifles would cut him down before he could get close enough to rip them apart (unless he was a Jedi, in which case he didn't need stims). There was some spice that was supposed to improve coordination and aim, but that was an area where training tended to be at least as effective. In the defensive race, on the other hand, Lev believed that stims had a role to play. What if that warrior couldn't be dropped by a hail of blasterfire, and got that ability from something cheaper than armor? Now that would revolutionize the battlefield in a profitable way.

The Sith, it was said, could go into a dark rage that would drive them into warzones, impossible to kill until their fury was spent. As much as she despised the Force, which elevated beings to the level of minor gods without rhyme or reason, she took inspiration from that ability. What if a stim could make a man unkillable, or at least nearly impossible to bring down? It would require a blend of compounds with effects that already existed - painkillers, muscle stimulants, some way to focus the mind past the dullness of the nerves. But it would be something unlike anything that had ever been synthesized before, and something that did its job better than any of its components. And by the laws of the galaxy, that would be doubly in demand.

 

[Lev Surrel]

Gylocal was the logical starting point. The stimulant was well-known for its extreme prowess as a painkiller, keeping users sedated and alive through the most grievous of wounds. But a mind clouded by the stim was not one that could fight effectively; something else was needed to cut through the haze. A focusing agent was a possibility; countless mystical traditions used such compounds, as did some athletes and gunslingers. But the end product was designed for shock troops and cannon fodder, not the elite. What mattered was less their calm discipline than their frantic drive forward, and the best way to achieve that was unbridled rage, the way that the Sith did. That would be the first step outside the law, for aggression enhancers were near-universally restricted.

Lev's choice was pentabenzedralyne, a little-known chemical compound that had been used both to increase aggression among soldiers and as a covert tool by assassins. Tracking it down, though, would be a challenge. Gylocal was commonly available on the black market, but it was still in use; pentabenzedralyne dated back to the Clone Wars, had undergone underworld production in the New Republic era, and then largely vanished. Lev herself knew of it only because she had once been hired to traffick it in her smuggling days, and that was her only lead on where to find it: the shadowy remnants of the Camarina Connection, a syndicate that had once spanned the galaxy. Now they operated out of an ancient pirate shadowport called Providence.

That was what brought Lev to the Tragan system. The armored freighter Irreverent, its holds full of the red-armored soldiers of the Guavian Death Gang, drifted gently into docking position beside the station, built out of an amalgamation of ancient starship hulls. As she stepped out into the docking tube, the crime boss could hear the structure creak and groan around her, the wheezing rattle of a half-corpse begging to die. She hoped the place didn't depressurize around her, she mused, staring around at rusted bolts and thick layers of dust; that would be an anticlimactic end to her career. For now she went alone. If it became necessary to storm Providence, she had that option in her back pocket. But why risk valuable soldiers if she could get what she wanted without them?

 

[Lev Surrel]

Providence was a hideaway, not a trading port, so it had never been heavily trafficked. Still, its cavernous halls were filled only by the gasps of struggling air recyclers and the jagged shadows of poorly-welded bulkheads. The few times Lev thought she saw another being, it immediately scuttled away, deeper into the darkness of the half-lit station. The eerie yellow and red glow of repurposed hazard lights played over the crime boss's darkly gleaming armor as she walked. She kept one hand on her heavy blaster, her occular implants constantly scanning for life forms. She was not afraid; she had walked fearlessly through far more frightening places. But neither was she incautious; her life was her most valuable possession, and she had no intention of losing it carelessly.

When she finally reached the port offices, she began to see signs of habitation. Two ancient guard droids flanked the administrator's desk, standing at attention mostly because of the rust that had locked up their servomotors; they were unpowered, their long-ago vigil ended when their internal energy cells had failed. Of the administrator himself there was no sign save a desk messy with discarded flimsi forms and a heavy terminal with a cracked screen. Lev suppressed a curse. She'd assumed that the lack of response to her docking request had been underworld procedure, not actual absence. Still, it might not be a total loss; it might even be easier than negotiating. Tugging a long cable from a hidden port in her cybernetic left arm, she plugged it into the terminal. Mercifully, it powered up.

Datafiles rushed through her processing implants, and she sorted them carefully to locate the ones that might be of some use. Most of it was bureaucracy from eight centuries ago - shipments of consumables and fuel, docking records, sensor data. Certainly there was nothing so useful as a chemical formula. But buried beneath it all she did find one promising lead. There was another freighter still docked here, one with a listed cargo of "combat stimulants." If there was pentabenzedralyne to be found on the station still, it would be aboard the Wolf Dancer. Tugging the cable free of the terminal, Lev returned her awareness to the present. It was just in time to catch a flash of movement and a pair of blood red eyes.

Her life form readings lit up like Life Day. The station's sentients were long gone... but a pack of Vrblthers remained.

 

[Lev Surrel]

A blaster bolt went cleanly through the skull of the first beast, which hit the floor hard and spilled the drool lolling from its gaping mouth over the deck plating. But there were far too many to shoot down one by one. Calmly, coldly, Lev evaluated the situation. Her armor would protect her against claws, but the pressure of a Vrblther's jaws would crack it with persistence, and the armored grafts on her otherwise exposed cranium would be no match for tooth or claw. She needed a way to fall back, but the creatures were faster, and would run her down if she simply sprinted away. It was a good thing that she came into any situation prepared. Spurred by a data-driven thought, her flamethrower emerged from her left arm, and she sprayed burning promethium down the hall as she walked calmly backwards.

The screams and howls of the Vrblthers, some on fire and some seeking ways past it, accompanied Lev as she made her way back toward the hangars. The Wolf Dancer was on a lower level, and she didn't trust the turbolifts, so she swung herself into the maintenance shaft and descended the ladder, startling a colony of mynocks chewing on the magnetic couplings. One hand on the rungs of the ladder, she turned and used the other to put a blaster bolt through each of the leather-winged creatures in turn, more out of disgust than necessity. The little whumps with which they hit the bottom of the shaft were extremely satisfying. The remainder of the descent took nearly ten minutes as she moved across damaged sections of ladder, but at least the Vrblthers would find it difficult to pursue.

Finally arriving, Lev leapt across the shaft and pried the turbolift doors open, the servomotors in her shoulders whirring as they rose to the challenge. The hallway beyond was in utter darkness, but that was little challenge for her optical implants. The crime boss navigated the blackness, her blaster held at the ready, as she searched for the door to hangar twelve. At times like these she remembered how much she missed the adrenaline of field work, the thrill of uncertainty seasoned with confidence. She would have to lead more operations personally. Three time she was sure she head the scraping of claws along the hall behind her, but her implants detected nothing. She found the doors to hangar twelve open, and stepped through to find the half-ruined bulk freighter beyond.

 

[Lev Surrel]

The Wolf Dancer had once been a sleek ship, designed like an arrowhead for a perfect combination of speed and cargo capacity. But it had been sitting a long, long time, its paint peeling away, its superstructure chewed on, its landing gear buckling under rust and strain, and now it was little more than the rotting corpse of elegance. With any luck, its cargo would be in better shape than its exterior. Either way, this was Lev's ticket out. "Pick me up at hangar twelve," Lev signaled to the Irreverent, certain that her order would be obeyed without question. Then she stepped up the still-lowered ramp of her target ship, filtering out the dank smell of its bulkheads as she picked her way through to the cargo hold and the secret she hoped it held.

The unmarked crates were still neatly stacked in several piles, sealed against time and the elements. Lev cycled the first one, and her heart leapt as she saw the contents: vial after vial of dark purple liquid, still perfectly climate controlled. She recognized the stuff: pentabenzedralyne after all, just like the cargo she'd trafficked all those years ago. Briefly she wondered who had really hired her for that job, since the Camarina Connection was clearly long defunct, but she pushed the question aside; she didn't waste brainpower on irrelevancies. Reaching down, she activated the crate's repulsorlifts and gently pushed it along the ship's corridors toward the loading ramp.

By the time she returned to the hangar, the Irreverent was waiting for her, docking tube extended so that she could easily enter. The Vrblthers would be denied a meal, but at least one living being was leaving the station happy. Lev felt more certain than ever as she boarded her ship that pentabenzedralyne was the key to the Death Gang's new concoction, providing the artificial hate that would both create aggressive soldiers and cut through the haze of painkillers. But such speculation was easy for her; she was no chemist, and thus was not the one who had to make it all work together. No, the next step would be up to the technicians back on Atzerri. Only they could tell her if it would blend, and as such if it had been worth the trip...

 

[Lev Surrel]

It wasn't working the way they'd planned. Not even a little.

Both chemicals were doing their job, Lev reflected as she watched the eighth field test in the hidden labs on Atzerri. The heavy dose of gylocal numbed the recipient to all pain, and the pentabenzedralyne filled him with hate. The gundark thrashed and howled, frothing at the mouth as it hurled itself against the transparisteel, heedless of the bones it broke with each full-bodied impact. But then, like the others, it collapsed, blood streaming from its eyes, mouth, and nose. It had lasted only a minute after injection. Scan data filled the viewsceens, sending the technicians into a frenzy of activity. "Same result," the Givin head tech reported, his melodious voice flowing eerily from his skull-like face. "Total organ liquefaction."

Lev offered a distant nod, her mind racing with calculations. If a gundark couldn't survive more than a minute on the new cocktail, no soldier would be able to either. The combined effects of the two drugs sent the internal organs into unsustainable production, pumping oxygenated blood so fast it damaged the muscles of the heart and caused flesh-tearing hyperventilation. They needed some way to stabilize it, to increase oxygen intake and circulation without overworking the organs. That was when it hit her: cordrazine. The drug was a last-ditch lifesaving effort, administered to beings on the verge of death to stimulate their organs back to full functionality. But if used on someone who wasn't yet near death, perhaps that organ stimulation would make them strong enough to survive.

Of course, cordrazine was extremely valuable and heavily regulated; it was not something the Guavian Death Gang could yet synthesize on their own, or they'd be making a killing selling it. So another little expedition was in order, this one more likely to be full of direct violence. "Prep the Irreverent for takeoff," Lev ordered, standing from her observation chair and sweeping from the room without another word. It was time to see where they could steal some meds.

 

[Lev Surrel]

The Aurora Medical Facility on Obroa-Skai had been centuries in operation, but unlike Providence it was still filled with people.

Early in the morning, the medcenter received a frantic hail. "... pirate attack ... serious injuries ... need immediate medical support..." The freighter Irreverent was immediately cleared for landing on the emergency pad, and trauma teams rushed to her side, ready with repulsorlift gurneys and trauma medpacks to treat the first victims unloaded from the ship. But when the boarding ramp lowered, it was not injured spacers who stumbled out but fully-armed soldiers of the Guavian Death Gang, their crimson armor gleaming in the morning sun. Lev strode out among them, blaster raised. There were shrieks, shouts of alarm, a panicked flight back toward the hospital doors. Lev calmly put a blaster bolt through two of the medical droids at the rear of the pack.

"Stay still if you want to live," she said, her voice calm but magnified by her implants so that it was audible across the entire courtyard. The EMTs slid to a halt as the Guavians cut them off, forcing them down on the ground in little huddled clumps. "Aurora administrator," Lev thundered, "here's how this is going to work. You're going to bring us your supply of cordrazine. All of it. You're going to do it in the next five minutes. If I don't have it by then, people start to die. If I get a whiff of law enforcement, people start to die. If I get what I want, I leave, and you can pretend this never happened. Don't put your people's blood on your hands."

The administrator had dealt with drug thieves before, but they had been isolated, desperate junkies or poorly-disciplined street thugs who were easily routed by local police. This group was different - an organized, ruthless paramilitary organization that had already jammed communications and stood ready to coldly commit murder if they didn't get what they wanted. The crates of cordrazine were brought out by binary loadlifters within minutes, the entire hospital consumed with panic as they rushed to get everything into place. Lev's men loaded them onto the Irreverent with trademark efficiency, and within ten minutes of arrival they were ready for takeoff. They said nothing to the hostages, just turned around, boarded the ship, and left.

The medical personnel were left cowering on the ground, wondering if it was really over.

 

[Lev Surrel]

One last snag - the cocktail didn't want to mix properly.

The three chemicals together were thick and brackish, hardly something that could be efficiently injected; the effects would hit at different times, ruining the entire point of using them together. No matter what process was used to mix them, they either separated out or were rendered useless. They needed a carrying agent, something with no effect except to keep the other three suspended evenly within it. Fortunately, they had soon hit upon a solution. When the Guavian Death Gang had first arrived on Atzerri, they had evaluated the local flora to determine if any of them could be valuable in the production of stims. The local swamp algae, a pervasive film over the waters of every bog, had been on of the plants they'd extensively tested.

When properly cultured and treated, the algae became a clear liquid laden with nutrients. The Death Gang already had a profitable sideline selling it to underfunded hospitals as a nutrient drip replacement, but it might have another way to serve. Lev watched as the three chemicals were injected into a filter of the algae solution, turning the clear liquid a deep garnet red. Scanners beeped and technicians held their breath as the chemicals drifted and recombined. Finally they settled, and the sensor readouts lit up - a perfect blend. Beneath her mask, Lev allowed herself a smile. If this stuff worked the way it was meant to, and they were closer now than they had ever been, it would be the greatest moneymaker she had yet introduced. A legacy of wealth and blood.

"Begin a minor production run," she ordered. "We'll put it to the test."

 

[Lev Surrel]

Few places in the galaxy could claim to be as savage and lawless as the fighting pits of Nar Shaddaa.

The Techno Union regulated the moon's commerce now, but wiping away its reputation for lawlessness would be next to impossible. The same seediness lurked beneath neon facades that hard lurked there thousands of years ago, when legitimate businesses had first deserted the Smugglers' Moon. And so the fighting pits persisted. Armed and unarmed, sentient and nonsentient, beings of all sorts lived and died in those pits. Well, mostly died. Life expectancy for a really good pit fighter was measured in weeks, because sooner or later someone who stood to make a killing if they lost would make sure that they did. Anyone else wasn't terribly likely to last a day. And yet somehow this wasn't savage enough for some.

The Guavian Death Gang could peddle the answer. They called their new product Cadanil, and they had provided free samples to the owners of half a dozen fighting pits. Lev had come to watch the results at one such location personally. She stared down at the massive Kintan Strider as it in turn looked down at a lone Gran, puny by comparison. The Gran took out the little crimson vial, swallowed hard, and plunged it into a vein. Within seconds, his triple eyes lit up with rage. As the starting buzzer sounded he charged directly at the Strider, howling his fury. The Strider lifted one foot and stomped him flat, the sound of cracking bones drawing "oooohs" from the bloodthirsty crowd. And normally that would have been the end of it.

But then the Gran, his limbs bent half a dozen different ways, was holding onto the Strider's leg, a vibroknife between two mangled fingers as he stabbed and stabbed and stabbed. The Strider reared back in pain and confusion, tipping over backwards, and the Gran raced up its body spiderlike, stabbing all the way. Finally he reached its throat and tore into it, half with the vibroblade and half with pointed fingers pulling at the jagged cut he'd made. The Strider burbled, thrashed, and was still. The Gran howled in triumph, raising the bloody knife before turning to stab the Strider's corpse even more. It kept stabbing until, seven minutes later, it dropped bonelessly to the ground beside its vanquished opponent, extremely thoroughly dead.

Lev could feel all eyes on her. She allowed herself another smile. The demonstration had been perfect.

 

[Lev Surrel]

Orders had come in from contacts across the galaxy over the next few standard days, and demand showed no signs of abating. This was something new and powerful, the Death Gang's ticket to wider influence, and it would sell like some priceless blend of aurodium and glitterstim on discount while it was new. Eventually demand would stabilize, Lev knew, as it became more prevalent. But that just meant that she would have to work at establishing contracts early on. Grand plans swirled in her mind of perhaps selling to galactic governments; the Republic could certainly use the boost given their losing war against the One Sith and Mandalorians, though they would have to swallow their moral pretentiousness in order to make it happen.

Walking among the shipping warehouses, Lev watched as freighter after freighter took off with its precious cargo of dark red vials. She would need to hire more smugglers, many more, in order to keep distribution going. But that would only expand her influence and reputation, provided that she could keep her hirelings in check. And Cadanil, which had already picked up the street name of "Rage Juice," would continue to carve a bloody and profitable swath across the galactic underworld as the product that made untrained louts into unkillable shock troops. The gang would save some for themselves as a weapon of last resort, of course; soldiers who were critically injured anyway could inject it and spent their last breaths in a blaze of glory.

This was a move more aggressive even than the push into the Core. This was a move that would truly put them on the map.