Triple E Evil

[Melvand Zrimmir]

A small forgettable moon, in an unimportant system, in a backwater part of the galaxy. A world filled with rather poor and primitive settlements. Ripe for the harvesting. Zrimmir liked to think of himself as a farmer. A farmer of talent. Talent that would serve him in his grand mansion on his homeworld of Cato Neimoidia.

Zrimmir watched as his men rounded up the residents of a little village he had spied from his freighter. No more than eighty in number, or at least before they had arrived, it was most likely a self sufficient little settlement. Now, there were only sixty-three, upon counting them himself. Two dozen or so bodies littered the ground about them, villagers who had decided to put up a fight. Quite a futile one. Even with their hunting blasters and other weapons, they had been wiped out by the twelve Stormtroopers and personal bounty hunter Zrimmir had brought. The soldiers were courtesy of the mercenary company The Lost, whom Zrimmir had signed a deal with making them his guard on payroll. The bounty hunter was Rundo Diniz, a man on retainer for Zrimmir, a long time gunman in his employ.

The men, women, and children were organized in four lines in front of their small accumulation of dirtbrick and plastoid buildings that made up their village. Sadly, many of the most able men and women had died in the firefight, but those who survived would do. Zrimmir first ruled out the elderly and injured, his house was not a hospital, he wouldn't pick his servants as patients. Then he walked through those remaining in the lines. Grabbing their jaws to inspect them fully, then ripping off what they wore to make sure it was thorough. This was much to chagrin and anger to husbands, wives, fathers, and mothers. But a simple beating by the stormtroopers flanked to Zrimmir's sides was enough to put their little resistance down. He was halfway through, having picked several, and hopefully he would be finished soon. Zrimmir had very important business to attend to.

[member="Mereel Vaun"]

 

[Mereel Vaun]

A cacophany of sound thundered through the skies over the village as a HWK-295 freighter soared over the plastoid and dirtbrick buildings at low altitudes. Atmospheric thrusters gushed out large pillars of flame as the pilot of the ship corrected course to set down on the outskirts of the tiny settlement. The decrease in speed was an incredibly abrupt manuever, and the ship narrowly avoided crashing as its landing gears connected with the dirt of the planet's surface. A moment later, the vessel's boarding ramp fell to the earth as well - a heavily armed and helmeted man in a jacket standing on it.

Mereel smiled and whistled a tune under his helmet as he walked towards the village. He had come to this nothing moon in an insignificant expanse on the galactic map because it was the perfect place to fully test the limits of his new freighter without drawing the ire of planetary security forces. However; as was often the case when testing the limits of things, Mereel had ran into an issue: he had learned the hard way just how fast the engines could go before warning alarms would start sirening.

Since it was a new ship, he didn't have all the tools he typically had in tow in his old Starfighter on hand. His mission here was simple. Borrow a hydrospanner from a charitable villager, fix his portside engine, return the hydrospanner, and then leave. He couldn't have asked for a less dangerous outing.

And yet as he walked into the perimeter of the village, he knew right away that something was wrong. The air smelled of carbon scoring, and it didn't take him but a few moments to find one of the bodies strewn about the village to further confirm his suspicions. Despite the blast marks and bodies, he knew that there were still people in this village, and he could sense their negative emotions of fear, anger, and.. humiliation? He followed what he had sensed in the force to the edge of the heart of the village.

A glint caught his eye as he began to round a building to see into the main courtyard, and he ducked himself behind a plastoid building wall in a heartbeat. Stomach sinking, Mereel drew a blaster pistol. He was more than certain that the glint he had seen was an Imperial helmet. He wasn't sure whether or not he had been seen directly, but they sure as hell knew he would be coming from his insane piloting.

Ampylifing the volume of his helmet's external audio speakers to their maximun setting, Mereel doubled down on being overt, "I don't know who you are, but you're about to get your shebs handed to you if you were planning on enslaving those villagers without a fight."

[member="Melvand Zrimmir"]

 

[Melvand Zrimmir]

When Zrimmir saw the ship come to a rough landing across the village, the Neimoidian nodded to the Stormtrooper Lieutenant who began positioning his troops against the northern faces of the northmost houses, and four around Zrimmir. Atop Zrimmir's freighter, perched Diniz, watching down on the village with his slugthrower rifle. Zrimmir began to stall, so that his men could finish positioning and Diniz could find his target.

As the Neimoidian began to slowly walk backwards to his ship, he said, "You misunderstand us, newcomer. I am here to hire a new workers." He dug out a datapad from his extensive robes, "See? This is the contract here," The Stormtrooper officer gave him a thums up, and not soon after Diniz paged Zrimmir, "Please, if you come out we can sort this all- Now!" Zrimmir yelled. At once, blaster fire blanketed the village from the dozen stormtroopers, and Diniz made his shot.

[member="Mereel Vaun"]

 

[Mereel Vaun]

Hiring new workers, huh? That was a new one.. Mereel didn't take the bait or even budge an inch when he heard the unknown voice telling him to come out and look at a contract.

"Oh, yeah, I bet that's a real nice contract! Tell me, do you have something on there that says 'Termination of employment results in termination of life'? Because I saw a few dead employees on my way here!"

His blood wasn't exactly boiling, but slavers held a special place of contempt in his heart - and that contempt had encouraged him to respond the Nemoidian's taunt with his helmet's speakers at full volume like a rookie. Luckily, the incredible volume of his helmet made the sound reverberate throughout the village, so it was still somewhat difficult for the stormtroopers to pin down his exact position as they began pouring blasterfire towards the vicinity of the building he was hiding behind.

The stormtroopers played their part perfectly, keeping him suppressed and distracted. He began leaning to peer around the corner of the building he was hiding behind in an attempt to fire a round or five at one of the stormtroopers he had sensed in one of the buildings to the north of him, but before he could get a shot off a slug round slammed itself into the side of his helmet. He stumbled backwards a step or two as his feet worked against the momentum of the blow.

"Fierfek."

Mereel felt slightly dizzy but he was otherwise unscathed from the slug, which had harmlessly bounced off of his durasteel helmet with a metallic ring. Taking note of the direction the slug had impacted him from, he realized that he probably should've ran to find new cover as soon as he had survived getting shot in the side of the helmet, but Mereel was something of a stubborn mule, and he held his ground.

As far as he was concerned, he had two options. He could either slink back around the building he was behind to seek cover from the sniper and thin out the stormtrooper ranks as much as he could with his blaster before the sniper relocated and he had to move again, or he could charge the stormtroopers head on and find out if the sniper would shoot at him while Mereel was within a foot of his allies.

Still holding his Lucky Seven blaster pistol in his left hand, Mereel un-clipped his lightsaber from his belt with his right. After thumbing the blue blade into life, he slowed his breathing and cleared his thoughts. What he was about to do was probably really dumb, but overthinking it when using the force was always an easy way to ruin your day. Mereel swung out from behind his cover and into the open. Raising his left arm and taking aim at the stormtrooper he had seen in a building across from him and to the north, he fired off five shots in rapid succession.

[member="Melvand Zrimmir"]

 

[Melvand Zrimmir]

TK-4892 started towards one of the smaller blocks hoping to get the drop on the unwelcome newcomer. She moved alone, but quiet. Keeping her blaster aimed and ready, she moved into the little cube of a building and took position. She fired when ordered, and hoped her shot would scare the little bugger out of hiding. She just missed him shy of a mynock's tooth when the blasted Mandalorian moved from cover to cover. But that was no matter, she'd get the Mando scum the next time he showed his little armored head. But then an all too familiar sound an sight froze her. A lightsaber. Her body fell to the ground in a clump of dead flesh and plastoid armor. It was too bad that the clad white armor could only hold up against one or two blaster bolts, not the four she had taken.

Lieutenant TK-3723 was tired of this morally bankrupt banker and his queer tendencies, but the job was the job. Not that he would admit this to anyone, he was thankful for the intruder's appearance. Something to distract him from the obviously ethically wrong thing he was aiding. Inside his audio locked helmet, he gave orders only to be heard by his subordinate troopers, "Hurang, Beeto, and Maris, go in formation triple threes to the eastern block of buildings. Diniz got a sight on him down in there. Weapons fire at will."

The three troopers moved under the cover fire of their fellow troopers' suppressive heated bolts of plasma. Slowly they moved into position to [member="Mereel Vaun"]'s east flank. Doing their best not to give away their position. Situated with a good position, they waited for their CO's orders. However, TK-4823 was given the unfortunate vantage point of seeing who Vaun's target was, his much-more-than-friend. In an emotional outburst, he began firing and shouting curses, his squadmates, trying to salvage their objective, firing in short succession after.

Diniz dropped from his perch atop the freighter and landed next to the retreating Neimoidian, bear-foot. He slung his rifle and unholstered one of his revolvers. Diniz didn't trust the white clad soldiers one bit and if he wanted his fat checks to keep rolling in, he'd properly defend Melvand Zrimmir. Diniz made a sign foreign to all non-Korunnai, "Enemy, Mando Jedi."

Zrimmir looked bewildered, "A Mandalorian trained in the arts of the Jedi?" Zrimmir pondered those thoughts for a moment, "If this man carries the reputation of his armor, he could prove quite valuable in the arena." A lipless smile spread across his gray-green face, "Lieutenant, tell your troopers to aim for extremities, nothing vital. Diniz, lets see if your worth the pretty penny I pay you for." Diniz nodded and ran off into the village, unholstering his other revolver. The lieutenant merely saluted and made the order. Zrimmir couldn't wait to see how this Mandalorian Jedi performed.

 

[Mereel Vaun]

"One down.. force knows how many more to go."

Mereel sighed. Several stormtroopers across the courtyard were already firing at him, and he dropped his pistol back into its holster to slip fully into the force and the defensive lightsaber form of Soresu. Two of the blaster bolts deflected off of his blade landed in the crowd of slaves. One struck an elderly man in the back, another landed on the neck of a young, pretty woman who had been stripped of her clothing.

"Fierfek"

While he felt no remorse for the death of the stormtrooper, the two villagers' deaths at his hand sunk his spirits considerably, but he gritted his teeth and forced himself to press on. If any of the villagers wanted out of a life of slavery, he needed to get up next to the remaining stormtroopers, and fast. Besides taking out the sniper directly, using his opponent's forces as meat shields was the best way to avoid getting shot in a place where durasteel wasn't protecting him.

Trying to avoid more civilian causalities resulting from his blocking, Mereel made his saber movements more deliberate as he moved on a course heading towards Zrimmir's ship, batting the bolts skyward with low energy swings when he could. Before he could get even remotely close to where he wanted to go, pain shot out from his right shoulder. It was the first of many bolts fired at him by a group of three stormtroopers in the cover of a building to his east.

He slowed his breathing and cleared his thoughts to see through the pain. He thought he heard one of them shouting something, but he was too mentally occupied to process any individual words, let alone care what the stormtrooper was saying. He stopped walking and changed his stance to better block the blaster bolts now coming at him from two directions. He was too bogged down to continue walking, so he didn't even bother trying to.

Taking his left hand off of his lightsaber hilt, he hurriedly reached for a grenade on his belt. Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on how fast he wanted this to be over with, his hand had drawn the smoke grenade. His left hand hit the activator button on the grenade, and his right continued blocking blaster bolts with his saber with some difficulty.

The price of removing a hand from his blade, another blaster bolt hit a villager, a young boy, most likely under the age of fifteen. Smoke began fuming out of the grenade still clutched tight in his hand.

[member="Melvand Zrimmir"]