Sloane clears her throat and remembers: Be deferential. Hutts prefer to be spoken to as if they are not merely sentient, intelligent creatures. They like to be served. They want worship. This one more than others, it seems.
Only problem is, Sloane doesn’t do the deferential thing very well. Still, she clears her throat and makes a go of it:
“Glorious serpent, mistress of sand and stone, Niima the Hutt, I am Grand Admiral Rae Sloane of the Empire. I come today to beseech your help. I and my traveling companion wish to pass through your cavernous territory and on toward the plateau called the Plaintive Hand—”
The Hutt interrupts her with a gabble of laughter. “Sty-uka! Kuba nobata Granya Ad-mee-rall.” The box translates: “LOOK AT YOU. YOU ARE NO GRAND ADMIRAL.”
“I assure you, I am, and I will retake my Empire. If you allow me to pass through, I will have much to offer you once I regain control…”
But she already hears it in her own voice: She’s bargaining from a place of weakness. Niima wants to be served, yes, and she wants to be the Queen Worm, but alternatively, if Sloane has to bow and scrape and act like a wriggling fly trapped on the fat beast’s tongue, then she seems weak, too weak to be taken seriously. She has to be humble while still seeming powerful. This is not something she knows how to do—how to perform as such a living contradiction. How does that even work?
Answer: It doesn’t. Again the Hutt bellows with laughter. She roars in her gargle-shriek tongue and the speaker returns a translation: “YOU WILL RETAKE NOTHING. YOU HAVE NOTHING TO OFFER ME.” To her servants, the Hutt screams: “TAKE THEM. STRIP THEM. SHEAR THEM. HAVE THEIR MINDS BROKEN.”
No, no, no. It wasn’t supposed to go like this. The slaves underneath Niima gently ease her to the stone, and one by one they come for Sloane and Brentin. He flashes her a frightened look, his hands forming into fists.
But Sloane gives him a gentle headshake and mouths four words: I can fix this.
“Wait,” she says, holding up both hands. The Hutt-slaves do not stop coming, but they slow down, creeping toward her on the balls of their feet. Teeth bared, air hissing between them. “Gallius Rax is a pretender to the throne and he is weak. I will be Emperor.”
Niima squawks, and the translator box barks: “HOLD.”
The slaves stop. They freeze in place, as if automatons. They don’t even blink. Niima’s voice lowers, almost as if she’s confiding in Sloane, though the translator box knows no such inflection; when it decodes the response in Basic, it does so in the same mechanized monotone: “I ALREADY HAVE A DEAL WITH COUNSELOR RAX. YOU ARE TOO LATE, GRAND ADMIRAL.”
A deal with Rax.
Of course she has a deal.
He has to get through her territory somehow. He’s given her something. Or offered something.
Sloane just has to find out what.
Once more the slaves surge toward her, grabbing at her wrists, her jaw, her throat. There’s the flash of a blade, and she thinks, Don’t fight, wait it out, keep talking, keep digging.
Then something turns inside her. She’s been on this forsaken planet for months now. She’s tired, rawboned, and in pain. She is an admiral in the Imperial Navy and the only one deserving of ruling the Empire.
I will not be abused anymore. Forget bargaining from weakness.
It’s time to try the other way. It is time to remember the strength of a grand admiral.
Sloane roars, and throws a punch. Her knuckles connect with the trachea of one of Niima’s Hutt-slaves, and he staggers back, clutching at his throat and keening in a high-pitched whine. All her NCB pugilistic training comes back to her, and she adopts a strong stance with one foot behind her and starts swinging as if each punch has to save her life—and she fears that each punch has to do exactly that. Her fists connect. A jaw snaps. A tooth scatters. A slave grabs a hank of her hair and she traps his arm, twisting it so hard she feels the bone break—the freak screams and drops, writhing like a spider set aflame.
They keep coming. She keeps ducking, moving, punching.
But she’s getting fatigued. Pain throbs in her middle, radiating out like the ripples after a heavy rock hits calm water.
The Hutt screams and the box translates: “STOP.”
Sloane sees Brentin—he is against the ground, his arms bent painfully behind him. Blood pools beneath his busted nose. Sloane thinks: Forget him. Let him go. He has served his purpose. And yet a part of her doesn’t want to. Loyalty has to count for something. And Sloane doesn’t want to be alone. Not yet. Not here.
So she waits. She holds up her hands.
And it’s good that she does.
Because more of the Hutt’s servants are crawling down out of the tunnels. Dozens of them now. A few of them with blasters, many with knives and clubs, all their weapons bound with tendon and bone.
I can’t fight them all. I just can’t.
“What has Rax offered you?” she asks the Hutt.