CHAPTER FOUR
Tuanul village, Jakku
A Klatooinian thug let out a wail as he was sent flying by a sudden burst of air. As he landed face-first into the sand, the Kessurian woman from before charged towards the Jedi responsible for the Force push, knife drawn as she let out a furious yell.
Holding her emerald lightsaber blade aloft to the side, Nira Maren calmly raised her hand again and the Kessurian froze in place. A look of bewilderment crossed the thug’s red face as she struggled to move against the Jedi’s invisible grip, to no avail. As her brown eyes locked with the Jedi’s, Nira spoke to the Kessurian in a slow, almost soothing voice.
“You don’t want to do this. You want to leave and go home.”
The Kessurian’s face twisted in confusion. “I… I don’t want to do this. I want to—”
“Don’t listen to her!” Bar'derro screamed, huddled behind their landspeeder from which he was shooting at Nira’s companions. “She’s trying to do one of those Jedi mind tricks!”
The Kessurian blinked, shaking her head to snap herself out of the Jedi’s trance. Nira let out a sigh before flicking her hand, which sent the woman flying over to join her male counterpart.
“Dank farrik!” Bar'derro swore. He squeezed off a few more shots from his blaster, all which were deflected by Toah Jarsan’s lightsaber as he, Poe, and Snap Wexley advanced on the Balosar’s position. Nearby, Slatero had been taken down by Rey and Finn, while Chek and Jessika dealt with a Rodian bandit. With each thug that was taken down, at least two more hopped onto a swoop bike or landspeeder and drove away, cutting their losses and returning to wherever they had come from. Within minutes, the dozens of bandits that Bar'derro had initially arrived with had been thinned down to a mere handful.
The Balosar rose from his hiding spot once more to shoot at the approaching Jedi only for his blaster to click when he pulled the trigger. Toah then reached out and seized him with the Force before pulling him over the landspeeder he had been hiding behind and onto the ground at the Jedi’s feet. As Bar'derro struggled to get up, he found a blue blade pointed at his neck.
“Give up,” Toah said coolly. “There is no victory for you here.”
Bar'derro scowled at him. “The others will be back with reinforcements. Unkar Plutt is not one who gives up easily.”
“What does this Unkar Plutt want with this village? I don’t see anything of value here.”
“You might not,” the Balosar spat. “But it’s really not any of your business anyway.”
“Are you sure about that?” Toah gestured to Bar'derro’s thugs, who by this point had all been overwhelmed and defeated by his companions. “Because right now, it seems that the only thing you can do for us is talk.”
Bar'derro looked to his fellow bandits, who were now all on the ground and being looked over by the other Jedi and Resistance agents. Realizing that Toah was right, and that there was no escape for him now, the Balosar sighed and hung his head, his antennae drooping low.
“Unkar sent us to find some stupid map. Said it was buried somewhere around here. Didn’t think we’d encounter any resistance, or that we’d even find someone living here.”
“A map, you say.” Toah exchanged glances with the others, in particular looking towards Chek who returned with a neutral expression. “And why does Unkar Plutt want this map?”
“He didn’t say. And we know better than to ask. So long as we get paid, it’s none of our business.”
As Toah continued to hold his blade at Bar'derro, mulling over the Balosar’s words, Rey approached him from behind.
“I know where we can find Unkar Plutt,” she said. “We should go to him, and maybe take these guys with us, so that we can get to the bottom of this.”
Bar'derro snapped his gaze to her. “You,” he murmured. “I remember you. You were one of Unkar’s scavengers. What are you doing with these losers?”
Rey shot him a look. “I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”
“All right,” Toah said, lowering his lightsaber but keeping it activated. “We’ll go find this Unkar Plutt individual and see what he’s all about. Master Maren, you and Chek should stay here to keep looking for the map. Comm us if more of these thugs arrive.”
“Snap and Jessika can stay behind as well,” said Poe. “In case more of these guys do show up.”
As the thugs were pulled to their feet and rounded up into the landspeeder that had brought them to Tuanul, Bar'derro sneered at Toah as he was seated next to the Jedi in the pilot’s seat.
“This will not end well for you,” the Balosar growled. “Unkar Plutt has a lot more of us waiting for you at Niima Outpost.”
Toah smirked at him. “I look forward to meeting them, then.”
Niima Outpost
“These parts are worth… one quarter portion.”
“You’re kidding, right?” The Dressellian scavenger stared at Unkar Plutt with an incredulous expression. “Do you have any idea how hard to come by SOSW power converters are? I heard Durkus got nearly three quarters portion for just one of them!”
“Durkus can be a lying pile of happabore fodder,” Unkar growled. “One quarter portion. That’s my final offer.”
The Dressellian let out a heavy sigh as he slid the parts across the counter before swiping his lackluster payment for them. As the scavenger stormed off, Unkar stepped away from the window of his concession stand and glanced furtively at the chronometer on his desk, his comlink right next to it. He had told Bar'derro to call him as soon as the Balosar and his gang got to Tuanul, one of the many locations where they had already searched for the map. Unkar thought for sure Bar'derro would have gotten there by now, and yet he had still not received a call from the Balosar.
He wasn’t sure how long it would be before he heard from his contact again. He had not been given any sort of deadline to have the map by; Unkar figured that time frame would be whenever his contact’s patience was fully depleted, which could happen at any moment at this point. Time was running short; both for the search for this map and for his own existence.
Just as he was about to close up his concession stand, Unkar Plutt heard the distinct sound of a landspeeder engine running. He peered outside to see a worn-down landspeeder driving up to Niima Outpost, parking just outside the gateway. Six figures disembarked from the vehicle, with two of them being restrained and held back by the four others. Though it was hard to make out any details from this distance, Unkar was able to spot a pair of antennae on the heads of one of the constrained beings, marking them as a Balosar. The other, meanwhile, had a reptilian, almost serpentine look to them, which Unkar recognized as the distinct appearance of a Kalleran.
Unkar’s heart drummed against his chest as realization dawned on him. He slammed the window to his concession stand shut before scrambling for any supplies he could find to pack up. He had a small light freighter waiting for him in the back, covered up by a tarp to hide it from prying eyes. He knew that this day would have come sooner or later; he just didn’t know the circumstances behind it would have been like this.
Before he could even begin to organize the things he was going to need before leaving, he heard a knock at the closed-up window.
“Unkar Plutt,” a familiar voice rang out. “It’s me. Open up.”
The Crolute silently seethed to himself. He knew that voice; it was her. The scavenger girl. One of Jakku’s best scavengers, until she had mysteriously vanished one day last year. Everyone, including him, had thought she had died. Even the best scavenger could always fall victim to the Sinking Fields or have a bad run in with the Teedos. Yet here she was, apparently; alive and well as if she had never left. Unkar tried to refrain himself from responding but his anger got the best of him and he stormed up to the front, tearing the window open.
“You,” he snarled at the dark-haired woman standing outside. “Where in the nine hells have you been?”
“Away,” Rey said simply. “My friends and I have some questions of our own to ask you.”
“I’m not telling you anything,” Unkar snapped. “Especially not after you abandoned me and caused my business to go down!”
Rey frowned and glanced at an older man standing next to her. He stepped over to stand in front of the window and made a gesture with his hand. “You will answer our—”
“No!” Unkar stepped away from the window. “No, no. I won’t be falling for that. You can’t get me that easily, Force-wielding scum!”
The man sighed. “Listen, we know that you’re searching for something that’s hidden here on Jakku. It just so happens that we’re looking for the same thing. Maybe we can help each other out.”
“Help?” Unkar let out a harsh laugh. “Ha ha. ‘Help.’ That’s a funny word. The last time someone ‘helped’ me, I was left several thousand credits in debt.”
“No one’s looking to put you in debt. I simply believe that we would both benefit from working together to find this map.”
“You’re wasting your time,” growled Bar'derro, held back by a dark-skinned man behind Rey and her new friend. “Unkar Plutt doesn’t work for or with anybody. You either work for him or you’re worth nothing.”
However, Unkar Plutt found himself hesitating. As much as he wanted to just tell Rey and her new friends off and slam the window shut in her face, he also couldn’t forget the fact that he was making little to no progress in finding this blasted map. Perhaps, if he allowed these others to work with him, he could use them as scapegoats should they fail to find the map and Unkar’s contact showed up to dispense punishment. It was a risky scheme, one that was not guaranteed to work but may ended up saving his own life. And at this point, he was desperate enough to try anything.
So instead of telling Rey to frak off and close his window, he instead stepped back up to the front and lay his pudgy hands on the counter, speaking two words that put surprised expressions on all of the faces in front of him.
“Let’s talk.”
* * *
Far away from both Niima Outpost and the village of Tuanul, the Super Star Destroyer once known as the Ravager laid in ruins among the Graveyard of Giants. Nearly four decades ago, the massive vessel had been the flagship of Fleet Admiral Gallius Rax during the Battle of Jakku, a tumultuous battle that had dealt a major blow to the Empire not long after the loss of its Emperor. To this day, historians and analysts debated whether Rax’s scheme to pit Imperial forces in a suicidal battle against the New Republic had truly been an order given to him by the late Emperor Palpatine as part of a contingency plan or if Rax had simply deceived everyone for some ulterior motive. Whatever the case was, the Imperial forces eventually realized what Rax was trying to accomplish and promptly turned against him before being folded up into Grand Admiral Thrawn’s faction.
The “Graveyard of Giants,” as it was aptly called by the residents of Jakku, served as a grim reminder of the chaos that had unfolded thirty-seven years ago. Imperial and New Republic ships alike littered the desert world, spread across nearly the entire planet. Once mighty warships such as the Ravager and the Concord were now nothing more but a reservoir of parts for the vulturous scavengers that roamed the deserts of Jakku. Given the state of both factions in current times, it was a bitterly fitting analogy.
But none of those things was the primary concern of the sole occupant residing in the picked-apart carcass of the Ravager. Standing in what had once been the Super Star Destroyer’s command bridge, the lone figure stared out the partly shattered viewport. The sun slowly descended towards the horizon, casting a lavender shade in the sky.
Unkar Plutt’s time was running short. If the Crolute did not have the map by midnight, then it would be the end for the junk boss… and Ochi of Bestoon would have to take matters into his own hands.
He had hoped to keep a low profile for this operation. But, as the saying went, if you wanted something done, you sometimes had to do it yourself.
Pulling over a chair that had been dislodged from the crew pit below, Ochi sat down and began sharpening his knife. A long, bloody night awaited him.
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