Star Wars: Return to Trigalis

Authoress's notes: The following story is a sequel to Transformations, in which Tahiri Veila, while working as a bounty hunter, is captured by a swoop-bike gang and turned into a gang slut, and rescued by Jedi Knights Ta'tan'ia and Wyric Torrin. This story also includes the character Colonel Drasi, who is the son of Ysanne Isard, Instead of running the ProCorps Academy like he did in my Imperial Prostitute stories though, Colonel Drasi is now a high ranking member of Imperial Security. Stormie, who was the ProCorps Academy's tattoo artist in those stories, is now a member of Imperial Security as well. This story takes place in the 'legends' universe.

Return to Trigalis: Twi'lek Trap

Lieutenant Stormie Tarkin, granddaughter of the late Grand Moff Tarkin, stared at the holozine Custom Swoops Weekly in shock. Like most speeder and swoop-bike holozines, this one featured plenty of holographs of sexy half-naked women with the tricked-out speeder and swoop-bikes. As a swoop-bike enthusiast, Stormie didn't pay too much attention to the women, other than the occasional interesting tattoo, or fetishy jewelry or high heels they were wearing. This one had caught her eye though. The holograph was of a heavily—and freshly—tattooed and pierced blonde woman posed on a swoop-bike.

The woman was sprawled out on her back on top of the swoop-bike, naked except for a pair of black short-shorts, and a pair of black platform ankle boots. The stiletto heels of her boots were hooked on the hand grips, and her hands were cuffed underneath her, arching her back and causing her tits to thrust upwards. Besides the wrist cuffs, a black durasteel collar was visible around the woman's neck. Stormie could make out the word PROPERTY on one side of it.

The woman was obviously a swoop-bike slut. She had flames tattooed around the base of her breasts, and another tat of flames on her lower stomach. The most important thing about the woman though, was that she was that kriffing schutta who had murdered Grand Admiral Pellaeon; Tahiri Veila!

Stormie had to find this schutta, and bring her to Imperial Justice. The Jedi-loving Rebels obviously weren't doing a thing to find her. Stormie's eyes glanced at the swoop-bike, and she caught sight of the rancor on the side, just below Jedi-girl's naked calf. While Stormie wasn't an expert on outlaw swoop-bike gangs, everyone in the Outer Rim knew of the Zoloz.

The location the holo was taken could be tracked by tiny digital codes embedded in the data. Slicing into the holozine's computer database to find out the HoloNet address of whoever had sent it would probably be faster though. Stormie stood up, and headed towards the crypt section. As she stepped into the corridor, she lifted her durasteel wrist comlink to alert the techs she was on the way.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Colonel Drasi thought the mission was a bad idea, but she insisted. Since he couldn't fully authorize the mission anyway, he contacted the head of Imperial Security. Director Abbrums said he would consider it, and get back to them as soon as possible. Stormie was in the comm center when she received the message. Instead of Director Abbrums though, it was the Imperial Head of State.

"Moff Reige, Lieutenant Tarkin, Imperial Security," Stormie identified herself once his hologram appeared.

Thanks to her grandfather, the name Tarkin was notorious in the galaxy. Because of that, Stormie mostly used the last name Kintra, much like Colonel Drasi didn't use his real last name of Isard. Of course High Moff Riege knew who both of them really were.

"Lieutenant Tarkin, I've heard a lot about you," the Imperial Head of State greeted her with a nod. "And I want to hear more about this mission you're proposing."

Stormie didn't bother to ask him what he'd heard about her. She didn't care. "Your Excellency, I've located the murderer Tahiri Veila," she told him, holding up the holozine. "We've tracked this holograph to Trigalis, in the Juris Sector. I want to take a team to arrest her."

"I believe Trigalis is in the Galactic Alliance. The Empire doesn't have jurisdiction," he replied dryly. "Also, didn't High Moff Fel pardon Miss Veila?"

"Those Jedi-loving rebels aren't going to do anything about her murdering Grand Admiral Pellaeon, Your Excellency. As for former High Moff Fel, he's married to one of the Jedi! Tahiri Veila being free is a disgrace to the Empire, Your Excellency. Let me take a team to bring her in. No one will even know we were there," she assured him.

"You're sure she's on Trigalis?" High Moff Reige asked her after a few moments' pause.

"The computer techs are positive, Your Excellency. This holograph was taken on Trigalis, about a week ago. I don't know why she's with this swoop-bike gang, but that means she's most likely still there."

High Moff Reige considered that a moment. "I can contact Boba Fett and send some Mandalorians after her. That way the Empire isn't directly involved."

"Mandos!" Stormie answered in disbelief. "We don't need that scum! My team and I can handle one murdering Jedi."

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

By the time Stormie and her team arrived on Trigalis, they had learned that nine Zoloz had been killed and nearly two dozen arrested at a warehouse with about two thousand blaster rifles. The incident had happened in New Coronet, where Veila was supposed to be, less than twelve hours ago. Stormie wondered if she had had anything to do with it. She still had no idea how or why that murdering schutta was with a gang of outlaw swoop-bikers.

Unfortunately Moff Reige had only allowed her to bring two Security Operatives with her. They were supposed to find out if Veila was still on Trigalis, then Moff Reige would send a full team in to assist in apprehending her. Stormie wanted to bring about six people to take her down as fast as possible, but Moff Reige was more concerned with the Galactic Alliance discovering them on Trigalis.

Stormie had chosen Whytte as the first member of her team. She had worked with him several times before, and trusted him to get the job done. Her next two choices for her third team member were unavailable though, so she had had to take an Agent Broxn, whom she didn't know at all. Whytte had worked with him though, and said he seemed okay. Since she was in a hurry, she took Broxn and his glowing recommendation from Whytte.

They had also brought three ysalamiri along. Each one was about a meter long, and created a bubble about ten meters in diameter where Jedi couldn't use the Force. One was in a compartment in the bulkhead near the cell on board their ship. The other two were on portable backpack frames. When they got Veila, she wouldn't escape.

Once they landed, she took her team and one of the ysalamiri to the tattoo shop where the holograph had been taken. Stormie sent her two subordinates to the back to gain entry and secure the building, while she went go in the front to keep the proprietor occupied.

"Hey, welcome to Wild Ace Ink. I'm Vik, what can I do for you?" a bald, heavily-tattooed man asked as she entered the shop.

Stormie paused a moment in mock nervousness as she glanced around the shop and checked out the tats on his exposed arms and neck. They weren't too bad. The walls of the shop were covered with flatholos of tattoos he had done.

The flatholo of Veila from the holozine, enlarged to about a meter across, was displayed prominently, almost right in the line of sight of anyone entering the shop. There was also another one of Veila posing naked except for a thong and her ankle boots. Her arms were stretched up over her head displaying a flaming pattern down her right side from around her breasts to her ankles. Stormie had to admit it looked pretty sexy.

"Yeah, I was like wondering, do you do belly piercings?" she asked him in her best brainless socialite voice.

She needed to distract him long enough to let Broxn and Whytte clear the rest of the building.

"Yeah, that's no problem," Vik answered with a friendly smile. "I can pierce your belly button. Or just about anything else you want."

"Cool," Stormie replied with her own flirty smile as she set a hand on her stomach. "What about a tat around it too?" she asked. "Maybe a sunburst or something?"

"Yeah, I can do that," the tattoo artist repeated. He was about to say something else when there was a barely audible noise from the back.

He paused and glanced towards the corridor a moment, then quickly turned back and reached underneath a nearby table. As he pulled the hidden blaster out, Stormie fired a stun bolt into him from her own blaster. He fell to the ground, unconscious. A couple of seconds later Broxn and Whytte stepped out of the corridor, their weapons drawn and extended.

"You two want to be a little louder next time?" she demanded in annoyance. "I don't think they heard you on Bastion."

Both of the Security Operatives stared at her silently a moment, then holstered their blasters and began moving the tattoo artist towards the back. Stormie turned off the shop's sign, and locked the front door. Then she headed towards the back to join them.

A few minutes later they had the tattoo artist in his office, on a metal chair. His wrists were tied together behind his back—and the straight back of the chair. His feet were tied together underneath the chair about twenty centimeters apart, and tied to his wrists through the chair rails.

When they were ready, and the stun bolt was wearing off, Stormie moved to finish waking him up.

"Hey Vik, wake up. Vik, you awake?" she asked him as she tapped his thigh with the edge of her datapad. "Come on Vik, I've got some questions for you."

"Look, just take whatever you want," Vik said groggily, still regaining consciousness.

Stormie ignored the remark, and held her datapad up for him, displaying the holograph of Veila on the swoop-bike. "Do you know who this is?"

"What?" he replied in obvious confusion. "Who are you?" he asked, glancing from the datapad to Stormie, to Whytte standing off to the side, and back to Stormie.

"Hmmmm," Stormie mused, lowering the datapad. "I guess I need to explain something to you real quick. I am the one that's asking the questions," she told him, gesturing towards herself with the datapad. Then she tapped his chest with the corner of it as she said, "You are the one that's answering the questions. Understand?" She paused a moment, then added, "Next time you try to ask a question, this is going to happen."

With that Broxn, who was behind Vik, pressed a shock stick into his back between his arm and the chair.

The muscular tattoo artist writhed in pain from the electricity coursing through his body, his jaw clenching shut.

Stormie gave him a few seconds to recover, then leaned down closer to him. "Now, are you going to ask any more questions?" she asked.

Vik shook his head no, still clearly in agony from the shock stick.

"Good," she answered with a friendly smile. "Now, do you know who this is?" she repeated, instantly turning serious again, and holding up the datapad for him.

"Ye-yeah," he replied painfully. "Her name's Torri. She came in to get some tats and piercings a week or so ago."

"Who was she with?" Stormie prodded.

Vik hesitated a moment before answering. "Some swoop-bikers," he finally said.

"What swoop-bikers?" she asked calmly.

He paused again, obviously reluctant to mention the Zoloz. Stormie wasn't sure if it was from fear or loyalty, or even just stubbornness. Either way, she was going to find out what she needed to know.

She glanced at Broxn, who already had the shock stick just centimeters from Vik's back. He pressed it into the exact same spot as the first time, and the tattoo artist strained against his bonds in agony again.

"What swoop-bikers was she with?" Stormie demanded after he stopped twitching.

"The Zo-loz," Vik finally sputtered.

"Which Zoloz?" she immediately asked him. "I want names."

Vik took a couple of breaths. "Look, do you know who the Zoloz are?"

As soon as he spoke, he realized his mistake. "Wait! Wait!"

Stormie caught Broxn's eye, and stopped him before he shocked the tattoo artist a third time.

"I'm just saying they're dangerous," Vik explained. "You don't want to kriff around with them."

The Imperial Security Operative reached out, and set her hand on his shoulder. "I appreciate your concern," she told him in mock sincerity. "But you let us worry about the Zoloz." She paused dramatically, withdrawing her hand, then added, "Now tell me which Zoloz were with. . . Torri, you said her name was?"

Vik muttered a curse before answering. "When she came here she was with Cyllir, and Torch, and . . . and, Jahn, I think the last one's name is."

Stormie knew Whytte was looking those names up on the HoloNet, along with the local police's computers they'd sliced into, and any other sources of information they had.

"And is Torri still with these Zoloz?" she asked.

The tattoo artist took a deep breath. "I don't think so," he began. "They had a huge party last night. A bunch of them came in from off-planet somewhere. There was this Twi'lek babe there too. A few hours after I got there, one of them found out another gang was hitting a warehouse they had. Most of them that weren't completely wasted took off for that, and the Twi'lek sneaked her outside, where someone picked them up."

Now that was unexpected news. Stormie was really going to be pissed if they had gotten here just too late to get that schutta . . .

"Who was this Twi'lek?" she asked him. "Have you seen her before?"

"I think her name was Tania or something," he responded. "She was with Dirc I think. Real sexy. I hadn't seen her around."

"Dirc is a Zoloz?" Stormie asked.

"Yeah," he answered.

"And you're sure you've never seen this Twi'lek before?"

"Na. I would have remembered a sexy-ass purple-skinned Twi'lek around here," he said.

That definitely caught Stormie's attention, not that her expression changed. There weren't that many purple-skinned Twi'leks in the galaxy. In fact, Stormie only knew of one. Since Trigalis didn't have a large Twi'lek population, it was pretty unlikely another one would be at the Zoloz party.

"Was this Twi'lek wearing a durasteel collar and wrist cuffs?" she asked him.

Vik flashed her a puzzled look. "She was wearing a collar," he confirmed. "Like that Torri chick you were asking about. But she had some sort of nerfhide things on her arms with a bunch of straps on it."

Stormie nodded her head absently—mostly to herself—as she quickly pulled up an image of Jedi Knight Ta'tan'ia on her datapad.

"Is this the Twi'lek that took Torri from the party?" she asked Vik, holding up the datapad.

"Yeah, that's her," the chair-tied tattoo artist agreed.

If the Jedi already had Veila, that would definitely complicate things. Ta'tan'ia had served Admiral Daala as her Jedi Liaison when she had been Chief of State of the Galactic Alliance. Stormie also knew that the Twi'lek had been basically Admiral Daala's sex slave, until just before she left the Rebels. She had been pretty upset when her pet chose to stay with the Jedi.

"Now when you say she sneaked Torri out, was she forcing her, or was it more like they were leaving together?" Stormie probed.

If the Jedi had forced Veila to leave, then it might be easier for Stormie to get her—if she could find her, that was. Maybe she would even escape the Jedi on her own, and she could just scoop her up.

"It looked like the Twi'lek chick was mostly carrying Torri," Vik answered. "She looked like she had passed out, and the Twi'lek had just thrown her arm over her shoulder, and was carrying most of her weight."

Stormie considered that a few moments. "Give us a minute," she said absently, catching Whytte's eye as she reached for his datapad.

He handed it to her. She began scanning the information he had pulled up during the interrogation as she walked out of the room. He followed her, towards the back door of the tattoo shop. Broxn stayed put, guarding Vik.

"Thoughts?" she asked once they were out of Vik's earshot.

According to the local Security Force's files, Cyllir was the Vice President of one of the local Zoloz chapters, while Torch and Jahn were members. Dirc was the Sergeant at Arms. Cyllir, Dirc, and Jahn all had several arrests, but only Jahn within the past year. Cyllir, Dirc, and another one named Sidd had been stopped by the police less than two weeks ago, along with a Torri Antilles. The flatholo on Torri's identichit was of Veila, but without the piercings and tattoos. She was wearing the same collar from the swoop-bike holozine though, and she looked high on spice or something as well.

"Any idea who the Twi'lek is?" Whytte asked.

"Jedi Knight Ta'tan'ia," Stormie replied, still reviewing the information on the local Zoloz. "The one that was Admiral Daala's pet when she was G-A Chief of State."

"Oh, her," Whytte said with a faint smile. He paused a moment, then asked, "Well, if the Jedi have Veila, do we need to waste any more time on these swoop-bikers?"

"I didn't come all the way to Trigalis to give up based on what some tattoo artist remembers from a drunken party," she replied without looking up. "We are going to get one of these Zoloz, and find out for sure if they still have Veila. Then if they don't, we are going to find her, and take her down. And if Jedi Ta'tan'ia gets in the way, then we'll deal with her as well."

"Okay," Whytte agreed, obviously reluctant. "We finished here then?"

"Yeah, go let Broxn know," Stormie told him, still studying the datapad.

"'Firm," he answered, heading back up the corridor.

A moment later she heard the sound of a single blaster shot from Vik's office. Then Broxn came out, tucking his blaster back into its disguised holster inside his jacket.

"You shot him where you shocked him, right?" she asked him, glancing up from the datapad. That would destroy the evidence of the interrogation, which was standard for field ops like this.

"Of course," he responded, flashing her a look of annoyance. "I have conducted field interrogations before."

Stormie turned her attention back to the datapad without replying. She barely noticed Whytte returning with a hand full of credits from the shop to make it look like a robbery a few moments later. The three Imperials left out the back, got into their speeder, and headed for the New Coronet Zoloz' clubhouse.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Stormie gazed across the street at the run down speeder repair shop, then glanced at the Zoloz clubhouse down the block, and back to her datapad. Broxn was in a tapcafe a little closer to the target. Whytte was out in the speeder, riding around a little, then stopping a bit, then riding around some more. One of the ysalamiri on a portable frame was in the speeder as well.

Broxn was facing towards her in the tapcafe, but he had a clever holocam sitting on the table next to him pointing towards the clubhouse. All three of them could monitor the feed from their datapads, so no one had to actually stare at the clubhouse. They had been pulling surveillance on the Zoloz clubhouse for well over an hour.

There were only five swoop-bikes parked in front of the clubhouse. According to the police computer, they had towed about four dozen after the shootout at the warehouse last night. The club's president was among those arrested at the warehouse. The police had also searched the clubhouse, but didn't find anything linking Veila to the Zoloz, which was what Stormie was interested in.

About twenty minutes ago, a pair of Zoloz had emerged from the clubhouse, and climbed onto their swoop-bikes, and left. Stormie didn't want to risk taking on two of them if she could help it though. Three-to-two odds weren't ideal if they wanted to keep the mission quiet. If she had a choice, she wanted to get Cyllir or Dirc. They were almost certain to know if the Zoloz still had Veila, or have the best idea of where she was.