Maybe he won’t pay the crew, after all. A few credits to get them on their way. Or maybe no credits at all…after all, what work did they do? It darkens his feeling of victory, a little. Having to share the cut with those old knobs? It would be much better to keep it all—especially since they did literally nothing except come along for the ride.
He ponders this as they walk down the smooth stone passageways of Niima’s cavernous temple. In this, she’s quite unlike the other Hutts he’s known. They favor opulence and amusement. Jabba’s palace on Tatooine was positively baroque. This, though, is about as spare as they come: It’s just boreholes and tunnels sculpted out of the fire-red stone. The tunnels are smooth in some places, scalloped in others, and he doesn’t know if they’re natural to the landscape or if the Hutt chewed or somehow secreted her way through the rock. Stranger still, there’s almost nothing powered here. Minimal electricity. No droids that he’s seen. Even Emari is bound with rope—not chain, not shackles, not cuffs. Common rope.
They pass by more cells. In one of them, the Hutt-slaves hold a man down, carving off hanks of the old spacer’s hair. The man screams as they shear him down to the skin. The freaks stuff something in his mouth—a dirty rag. One of them sticks a needle in the corner of his eye. His screams dissolve into mushy murmurs behind the gag. A puff of coppery dust and they begin to paint the man’s face red…
They’re making more of themselves, Swift thinks. Niima enslaves her acolytes, and in turn they make more acolytes. Like a spreading disease.
He keeps moving, putting forth a brisker pace. The sooner he can be done with this, the better. His ship, a Corellian shuttle, awaits.
Still. Something nags at him. His good feeling is eroding, fast.
He also doesn’t like that Emari hasn’t said a word. She’s keeping her mouth shut, and while that should please him, it doesn’t. Because it means she’s not giving him any satisfaction at all.
And Mercurial demands satisfaction.
The bounty hunter tells himself he’s not going to say a word, either, and next thing he knows he just can’t help himself. He keeps walking, facing forward as the words tumble out of him: “I don’t think you appreciate the trouble you’re in, Emari. And I don’t think you get that I’m the one thing standing between you and Boss Gyuti taking your head as a trophy. So now’s the time.” He grins, flippant. He makes a lasso gesture with his finger above his head. “You want to beg, beg. Plead if you can. Cut me a deal. C’mon, Emari. You’re a bounty hunter. You know the art of the swindle. Unless you just want me and my crew to bring you in…”
And yet, nothing.
So disappointing.
He stops suddenly and rounds on her. “The bounty is for you alive or dead, Emari, and I’m happy to take your head—wait, what are you doing?”
Her hands, bound in front of her, hang in front of her mouth. Her cheeks bulge until they don’t. A slick string of saliva connects her lower lip to her knuckles. Her eyes flash with mischief.
Mercurial only realizes what’s happening when it’s far too late.
Jas tilts her head—and the hair upon her scalp flips from one side to the other. When it does, it reveals the topography of her skull, and gone from that side of her head are her spikes.
Three of them. Broken off. The nubs puckered with dry blood.
Where the…?
Oh. Oh, no.
The spikes are in her hand.
Swift staggers backward, heels scuffing stone as he reaches for the batons that hang at his side— Emari’s hand forms a fist around the spikes as she moves forward fast, too fast, and already those bony thorns are thrust up through the gaps in that fist, sandwiched between squeezed fingers— His fingers find one of his batons—
Slow, too slow, the Hutt-slaves don’t even know what’s happening— Her fist flashes in front of his face. Three spikes slash—drawing sharp lines from his chin all the way up to his brow. Pain throbs. All he sees is red. He whips out the baton but his fingers fumble, and it drops.
Swift trips over his own foot. His shoulder slams hard into the wall as he falls. Above him, he sees the blurry image of Jas Emari vaulting over him—with a pivot-twist of her wrist, she uses the rope to yank two of the Hutt-slaves with her, and both of those freaks collapse into Swift just as he tries once more to stand. Her knee connects with one of their heads—and that head slams into the bridge of Mercurial’s nose with a dull pop. Behind his eyes he sees hyperspace streaks. He roars with rage.
When next he opens his eyes, he sees Jas stab out with a high kick—taking out the last Hutt-slave. The neck snaps. The slave drops.
Jas Emari backpedals. Sawing at the rope with her own horns.
“Emari,” he growls, trying to stand.
She cuts through the rope. “Please don’t hurt me, Mercurial. Please don’t take me to Boss Gyuti.” She makes a gesture at him with her free hands—the backs of each finger swiped along her cheeks as her upper lip twists into a sneer. He assumes it’s a rude gesture.
Then she finds one of the bolt-holes leading up through the Hutt’s temple—she clambers her way up through the space and is gone.