Private No One Left to Bury

[Rheyla Tann]

The air on Nar Kaaga always smelled too clean for a Hutt world.

Not clean as in fresh—nothing on this side of the galaxy ever was—but the kind of processed, recycled, sterilised stink that came from too many filters and not enough conscience. The neon signs still buzzed like hornets. The gutters still hissed with run-off. But someone, somewhere, was paying to make it look nice. Which only made Rheyla more suspicious.

She tugged the cloth up over her mouth and nose, tightening it against her face. Not just for the cameras, but for the smell. It gave her anonymity and silence—two things this city didn’t trade in easily. The club was ahead—tucked beneath a curved glass awning that screamed “exclusive,” flanked by guards with armour polished just enough to look official. One leaned against a carbonite-forged column, helmet tucked under one arm, rifle across the other. The other stood statue-straight, scanning anyone who came close like they could smell the difference between credits and desperation.

And Rheyla? She had just enough of both to be a problem.

Nyla Rass.

Broker. Liar. Empire-fed parasite.
She’d sold coordinates to the highest bidder more than once—trade routes, troop movements, safehouses. One of those sales had painted a red ring around the fallback site Clan Vhett was using that day. A pretty, tidy little contract to “streamline Imperial negotiations” in the Mid Rim.

And someone had paid her well for it.

Now she was holed up in The Violet Shroud, a nightlife fortress wrapped in synth-jazz and shadows, where the drinks were overpriced and the secrets weren’t. According to Rheyla’s contact—an underfed Rodian slicer who owed her three favours and a kneecap—Nyla was a regular fixture. High booth. Two bodyguards. Custom cocktail. Likes to arrive late, leave with someone new, and never talks business on the floor.

So Rheyla wasn’t walking in with blasters drawn.

Yet.

She traced the edge of the club’s glow with quiet steps and a forgettable shape. Just another drifter in oil-stained boots and too much scarf. A shuttle hissed by overhead. Somewhere deeper in the alley, a droid was being beaten for malfunctioning. Nar Kaaga didn’t have slums; it had service corridors with body counts.

The guards at the door didn’t so much as twitch when a swoop biker swaggered up and palmed them a bribe thick enough to choke a Womp rat. He was in within seconds. The next two in line—some kind of off-world noble couple—had actual datacards with the club’s seal.

Rheyla had neither.

What she did have was time, instinct, and a very old habit of slipping into places she wasn’t invited.

She ducked back into the alley and pulled out her holopad. Sliced schematics. Exit routes. Vent placement. The Shroud had security, sure—but it wasn’t fortress-tier. Not for someone trained to ghost through corridors and leave no trace but the echo of breath.

Rheyla smirked faintly and tucked the pad away. Her fingers ghosted over the vibroblade at her hip, then the small, boxy charge tucked into her belt pouch.

No explosions tonight, she reminded herself. Not unless she starts lying.

She stepped into the shadows again, scanning the upper levels.

There had to be a way in.

And Nyla Rass wasn’t going to leave this city until she gave Rheyla the name that ended a clan.

Valery Noble​

 

[Valery Noble]

​

Outfit: Combat Jumpsuit
Weapons: Lightsabers

The sound of her boots was lost beneath the buzz of repulsorlifts and distant synth music. Nar Kaaga was the kind of place where shadows stuck to your back and secrets were currency, and tonight, she had come for one of the worst.

Nyla Rass.

The intelligence had been thin, but the pattern was clear. A string of deals gone too clean, sensitive locations leaked, and lives lost across the Mid Rim. The name tied to each thread? Nyla's. It was always buried beneath fake credentials and layers of deniability, but the damage was astounding.

Now she was here, slipping in and out of a place called The Violet Shroud, a den of high-priced drinks and low morals. Valery stood across the avenue from the entrance, eyes narrowed behind a visor that reflected the neon flicker of the district. Her black jumpsuit hugged her form, practical and tactical, and the hilt at her side remained untouched for now.

She watched a swoop biker get waved through with ease. Then a couple in formalwear, laughing like they owned half the city. The guards were checking everyone. No chance she'd walk through unnoticed, not without tipping something off.

Fine.

She turned from the front entrance and moved down the block, sliding into a side alley that reeked of coolant and grease. Her eyes scanned for surveillance, picking out blind spots and possible entry points. The upper floor of the club curved out over the alley, windows tinted, likely one of the private booths.

Valery pulled a small device from her belt and activated a local scan. Internal layout. Ventilation access. Security rotation. Nothing unusual for a place like this, but enough to work with. She could get in, and more importantly, she could get close without anyone knowing she was ever there.

Nyla was going to talk. Whether she wanted to or not.

Rheyla Tann ​

 

[Rheyla Tann]

The Shroud’s side wall rose smooth and silent above her—steel and synth-glass, no handholds, no ledges, just a clean facade that dared anyone without clearance to stay grounded.

Rheyla narrowed her eyes and exhaled once through her cloth-covered mouth.

Then she jumped.

A dull whumpf cracked through the alley as her rocket boots fired—tight and controlled, just enough lift to boost her up past the glow of the lower signage. She caught the eave with both hands, shoulders twisting as she pressed herself flat against the overhang. The club’s upper level loomed above her, quiet and pulsing with muffled synth.

No alarms. No shouts. No stray spotlight sweeping her position.

She moved along the ledge in a crouch, cloak trailing behind her like shadow-bait, until her gloved hand found the vent panel—exactly where the schematics said it’d be. Small, reinforced, and armed with a local sensor—not a full lockdown grid, but enough to trip if she wasn’t careful.

A red diode blinked at the frame’s edge.

She leaned in, blade already drawn.

Two taps to the coil junction. A flick of the vibroblade across the trigger node. The diode winked out. Silence held.

Rheyla’s brow twitched in a rare, private smirk.

Still got it.

The shaft angled slightly down—tight, dusty, and loud with the hum of the club below. She moved hands-first, elbows and knees tucked, her cloak pulled close. Just the quiet pull of breath and the soft creak of metal beneath her. Quiet. Controlled.

She passed above a security checkpoint first—two heat signatures, bored and leaning. Then a cluster of lesser booths, tucked in along the wall. No guards. Not her mark.

Then—curve left. Outer rim of the floor plan. High booth. Two guards. One familiar outline, seated and still.

Nyla Rass.

Broker. Liar. Ghostmaker.

Rheyla pressed closer to the vent’s edge, just shy of visibility, and studied the angles. A silent exhale steamed the inside of her cloth wrap.

Not yet.

She hadn’t come for a shootout. Not if she could help it.

She had come for a name.

And if Nyla Rass didn’t give it willingly—

Well.

There were other ways to make people talk.

She didn’t drop down—not yet.

There was no sense in crawling straight into a hornet’s nest, especially not when she could slip in through the cracks. Nyla’s booth might’ve been her target, but the Violet Shroud had arteries—service rooms, private lounges, soundproofed confessionals for the rich and rotten. She just needed one.

Rheyla kept moving, her body tight to the shaft, cloak whispering behind her as she crawled past Nyla’s position and further along the line. Two more turns. A smaller vent junction. Cooler air.

There.

A side shaft branched downward into a dim room—no heat signatures, no movement. Just cleaning supplies, a discarded serving tray, and a slatted door that opened into the hall just behind the VIP curve. She cut the grate, twisted, and dropped with the quiet ease of someone who’d made a life out of going unseen.

Boots kissed the floor without a sound.

Rheyla stood in the dark, pulled her cloak back into place, and adjusted her gauntlet.

Time to make her talk.

Valery Noble​

 

[Valery Noble]

​

Outfit: Combat Jumpsuit
Weapons: Lightsabers

Valery stood beneath the overhang, one hand resting lightly against the wall as she steadied her breath. Then she vanished. The Force folded around her like a second skin, bending the light, masking her sound, muting her presence into nothingness. Where she had stood, there was only shadow.

A moment later, she stepped forward and passed straight through the club's outer wall. No door, no alarm, just a subtle shift in the shimmer of air where the structure barely acknowledged her passage. She phased, sliding through layers of construction until she emerged within one of the narrow upper corridors behind the main floor.

The inside was exactly what she expected: noise, smoke, and the low thrum of bass rattling the walls.

From her position, Valery let her senses expand. One presence burned steady at the center of her focus. Nyla Rass, smug and seated, surrounded by two heavily armed guards. She felt the tension in them before she ever saw them.

But then something shifted.

A pulse, faint but distinct. Another presence. Someone else was inside. And they did not belong here. Not part of the crew, not part of the club. They were not meant to be here. Valery turned her head slightly, gaze narrowing as she followed the thread of that presence through the Force.

Her path had just gotten more complicated.

Rheyla Tann ​

 

[Rheyla Tann]

She eased the slatted door open just far enough to slip through.

The hallway was dim, narrow, and lined with velvet-panelled walls designed to muffle both sound and consequence. No cameras. Just subtle uplights and the low pulse of music bleeding through the floor. The Shroud didn’t believe in surveillance where credits flowed freely.

Good.

Rheyla moved with purpose—one hand near her holster, cloak pulled tight around her shape, head low beneath the trailing edge of her wrap. She didn’t bother with a sweep. She already knew the layout. Already knew where Nyla would be.

The booth was just ahead, veiled in smoked glass and arrogance. Two guards stood near the entrance—bored, overconfident, dressed more for intimidation than speed. They didn’t notice the shadow that paused just out of sight, watching them through the patterned glare of the wall fixture.

Rheyla’s jaw tightened behind the cloth.

Nyla Rass sat inside, drink in hand, reclined like someone who had never once paid for what she’d done.

Rheyla had pictured this a hundred different ways. A kill shot from across the room. A knife at her throat. A whisper in the dark. But when the moment finally arrived, it was quieter than all of them. No anger. No pulse spike.

Just focus.

She drew her blaster.

Two quick stun bursts, centre mass—one for each guard. The shots cracked through the corridor with a sharp whine-pop, and both dropped in sequence—dead weight hitting velvet carpet before they even knew what hit them. No shouting. No scrambling. Just the sharp hiss of charge coils and the soft thuds of unconscious weight hitting velvet carpet.

The stun shots cracked through the corridor with a sharp whine-pop—not loud by club standards, but in the softened hush of the VIP wing, it might as well have been a blaster cannon. The two guards collapsed in sequence, dead weight hitting the carpeted floor.

Rheyla stepped forward, one hand shifting to adjust her cloak—just as the booth’s glass door slammed open.

A blur of motion. A hard shoulder to her ribs.

Nyla Rass.

The broker was already bolting down the hallway before Rheyla could finish turning. Pale skin, dark red dress slit high up one side, hair coiled into an elaborate updo already half-unravelling. She moved fast in heels that weren’t made for it, hand clutching something—datachip or weapon, Rheyla couldn’t tell.

“Ke’nu’rid, shab’alor!” Rheyla hissed in Ryl, breath knocked from her lungs.

She shoved off the wall and sprinted after her, boots pounding the narrow hall. No blaster. Not yet. Not with Nyla headed straight for the main club.

Too many eyes. Too many bodies.

But that didn’t matter.

Rheyla had her in sight now.

And no one ran forever.

Valery Noble​

 

[Valery Noble]

​

Outfit: Combat Jumpsuit
Weapons: Lightsabers

Valery felt the sudden spike of movement and the rush of adrenaline that followed it. Nyla's presence flared in the Force, sharp and frantic, cutting through the smoke and sound as she bolted. Valery moved immediately, slipping through the narrow corridor to begin her chase. She passed the downed guards without slowing, eyes fixed on the flash of red ahead as the broker burst through a service door and out onto the main floor of the club.

The crowd swallowed her almost instantly.

Light and color washed over the space, music pounding through the walls as Nyla pushed past dancers and patrons, heels skidding on the slick floor as she vanished into the press of bodies. Valery stopped at the edge of the corridor, scanning the crowd, feeling for that presence through the chaos. It was still there, moving fast, angling toward the far side of the room.

She stepped out into the open and let out a sigh. A ripple in the Force told her someone else was near, and she turned as Rheyla caught up. Valery fell in beside her without hesitation and finally decided to announce herself.

"Making quite a show of it," she said, eyes still tracking the movement through the crowd. "I'm after her, too. Work together? I'll let you keep the credits," she offered.

"I just need her taken down."

Rheyla Tann ​

 

[Rheyla Tann]

The service door banged shut behind her just as the wall of noise hit.

Lights strobed across the ceiling, catching in the haze of smoke and sweat. Music pounded deep in the floor like a second heartbeat. Rheyla squinted against the shifting colors—enough red and purple to make any trail vanish in an instant.

Nyla was gone.

Somewhere out there, between the dancers, the laughter, the bodies grinding to the beat, the broker was slipping through the cracks.

Rheyla scanned the crowd, jaw tight. Her hand hovered near her blaster, but she didn’t draw. Not yet. Not with so many bystanders packed shoulder to shoulder and vibroblades probably hidden in half their boots.

She was just about to move again when someone fell into step beside her. Not a guard. Not a club rat. Just a beautiful woman in black with a claw-like scar over her eye, calm and focused, like the noise didn’t even reach her.

Rheyla didn’t answer right away.

She turned just enough to size the stranger up—not too close, not too far. Her eyes scanned over the fitted jumpsuit, the sabre hilt. Jedi? Or something close. Either way, not from around here.

She snorted softly behind the cloth over her face. “Generous of you,” she said. “Credits aren't the reason I’m chasing her.”

Her eyes flicked back to the crowd. One hand slipped a small tracking fob from her belt. Still no ping. Nyla wasn’t tagged. She was running blind. “She sold out my clan,” Rheyla added, flat. [#A6D1DF]“So if you’re looking for mercy, that’s not in the cards.”[/color]

A pause.

Then, with a shrug that barely moved her shoulders, she nodded once toward the floor.

“I’m too damn close to let her slip now. You want to help? I’ll take the front. You keep the back clear.”

A beat.

“But she’s mine.”

Her eyes flicked sideways—hard, steady. “You can cuff her, drag her, preach to her later. I don’t care. But I get to her first.”

And with that, Rheyla stepped into the crowd, her tattered cape waving behind her without waiting for a reply.

The main floor swallowed her in sound and colour.

Light strobed from overhead—pinks, golds, deep violet pulses that bled through artificial fog and made everything too bright and too vague at the same time. Bodies moved like tides, dancers locked in rhythm, patrons laughing too loud over drinks that cost more than a blaster mod.

Rheyla didn’t flinch. She didn’t rush. She moved like someone who belonged, shoulders turned, eyes half-lidded beneath the edge of her wrap. Just another drifter with scars and smoke in her lungs.

But her gaze swept the room like a blade.

She didn’t need the Force. She had instinct. And instinct said Nyla Rass hadn’t come this far to vanish in a crowd—she was headed for the exit.

Panic rarely ran deep. Panic ran out.

So Rheyla veered off from the centre. She kept to the wall, just inside the edge of the crowd’s orbit, where the flow of dancers gave way to booths and open floor. She tracked movements, watched for breaks in the rhythm—where a dancer turned the wrong way, or someone’s head ducked a little too low, or a path cleared in a direction it shouldn’t.

She passed two possible false leads—same height, same dress colour, but no tension in the shoulders. No urgency.

Too calm.

Then, near the lower bar—movement.

A flick of a dark red hemline flows away in the direction of the back entrance. A stumble. A shoulder angled for space, not rhythm. Rheyla’s eyes narrowed.

There you are.

Rheyla immediately waved herself through the centre dance floor, with a slight hope that the woman with a lightsaber had managed to get to the back entrance.

Valery Noble​