Star Wars: Return to Trigalis

While she was poking around the local police database, Stormie had also learned that five members of another swoop-bike gang, the Blood Riders, had been killed at the spaceport last night. An unknown blue-skinned female Twi'lek, possibly wearing a durasteel collar, and possibly with a human male accomplice, was listed as the prime suspect. The police suspected she and her accomplice were bounty hunters. Stormie was reasonably sure that they were Ta'tan'ia and her Jedi partner, in spite of the inaccurate description.

Admiral Daala knew what she was doing when she had tried to lock tracking collars on all the Jedi. It certainly made it easier to identify them, even if you couldn't actively track them with them.

The two Jedi had left in a ship registered to a Terri Rapuung, who was listed as an active bounty hunter. Stormie assumed that was an alias Jedi Ta'tan'ia was using. The spaceport computer had also logged the unauthorized departure of a ship registered to another bounty hunter named Kyle Rimex just a few minutes before that. Stormie pulled up a holo of Terri Rapuung, and was shocked to see Tahiri Veila instead of Ta'tan'ia.

What the kriff!? Rapuung was Veila!?

Stormie read the file on Terri Rapuung, and found a membership to the Bounty Hunter's Guild dating back almost to her escape from the Galactic Alliance after her trial. The schutta's been working as a bounty hunter! There were even quite a few entries of her capturing members of the Zoloz who had arrest warrants. In fact, the swoop-bike gang seemed to be her favorite targets until a couple of weeks ago, when her captures stopped completely. If Veila had been collecting bounties on Zoloz though, then why was she with them all of the sudden?

As Stormie thought about that, she pulled up a holo of Kyle Rimex. She didn't recognize him, so she told the ship's computer to run facial recognition on him, starting with Jedi. If there were two Jedi—besides Veila—she needed to know who she was dealing with.

Killing five swoop-bikers didn't seem like something the Jedi would do, but maybe they were trying to stop them from taking Veila. Stormie frowned a moment, then glanced back at the file on the Blood Riders. It said they were rivals of the Zoloz, so they probably weren't trying to save the Zoloz' gang slut from the Jedi. Oh well, it wasn't really her concern anyway.

Maybe the Jedi had sent Veila to infiltrate the gang for some reason, to stop the weapons they had smuggled to the warehouse, and they had simply extracted her. If that was the case, then getting all those Property of Zoloz tats and piercings was really dedicated. Or maybe the Zoloz had somehow captured Veila, and were forcing her to be their gang slut in retaliation for her hunting them. After a few moments' thought, Stormie decided that reason made a little more sense than the infiltration angle, considering the tats and stuff. Either way, she was extremely annoyed she had arrived less than a day too late. Still, she was going to get that kriffing Veila, one way or another.

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

As the waitress brought Agent Broxn a refill on his caf, she saw a glimpse of the Zoloz clubhouse on his datapad. She had already seen the compact holocam sitting on the table but hadn't wondered too much about it, other than its odd placement near the window. She frowned in thought as she walked away. She liked the Zoloz, and knew they would want to know about someone watching them. A minute later, she was out back in the alley. She quickly commed Torch, and told him what she had seen.

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

Stormie put the clubhouse feed on half of her datapad screen, and used the other half for her research on the Zoloz, and Veila. Several minutes later a lone figure emerged from the clubhouse. Stormie immediately notified Whytte to head this way.

The Zoloz took a long swallow from the bottle he was carrying, then headed—a little unsteadily—towards the nearby swoop-bikes. After he climbed onto one, he took another swallow from his bottle, put the top back on it, and stashed it in a compartment on the side of the swoop-bike. The Zoloz started up the swoop-bike, and took off, heading away from Stormie at a leisurely pace.

Perfect.

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

As Stormie awoke, the first thing she felt was the lingering pain from the stun bolts. Then she felt a sharper pain in her shoulders. That was probably because her arms were restrained over her head, and supporting most of her weight. Durasteel binders bit into her wrists. Her legs were spread apart, with shackles on her ankles and chains out to each side. Frakk.

"Hey there," someone—a human male—said in a friendly voice. "You awake?"

A moment later Stormie felt someone pinch her nipple and twist it—hard—at which point she realized she was naked as well. She did her best not to show pain as she lifted her head, and opened her eyes. In a glance, she took in her surroundings.

She was in some sort of garage, probably the one in the basement of the Zoloz' clubhouse. One was in front of her—still twisting her nipple—while another one standing further back her left, and a third was sitting in a chair on her right. He was holding a blaster in his lap as well.

"I'm goi—awake," Stormie spat out. "What do you want?" She had been about to say she was going to kill all of them, but she had quickly decided not to antagonize them. It probably wasn't the best idea at the moment.

"Good," the Zoloz said with a predatory smile, finally letting go of her nipple. "Now who are you, and why are you here?"

The Zoloz that was doing the talking had V. President on one of the patches on his vest, and Cyllir on another one.

She bit back another sarcastic comment as she came up with a plausible story. She was pretty sure Whytte was dead, so she didn't have to worry about him contradicting her. Broxn had stayed behind at the tapcafe, so he should be working to extract her by now. With the club president in jail, Cyllir here was probably running things for now.

After a few seconds thought, she decided to stick sort of close to the truth. "A bounty hunter. My partner and I were looking for another bounty hunter named Kyle Rimex, and his partner, a purple-skinned female Twi'lek."

She assumed the Zoloz weren't happy with the two Jedi, so she wanted to put herself against them as well. The whole enemy-of-my-enemy thing. Telling them anything was risky, but she wanted to hold off on the rougher stuff for as long as she could. Maybe Broxn would figure something out before they got started on that. Maybe they'd even believe her.

"Your partner," he said thoughtfully, changing the subject. "That's the guy that was in the speeder with you?"

"Yeah." A heartbeat later she asked, "Is he dead?"

Stormie was pretty sure Whytte was, but she wanted the Zoloz to think she was really concerned about him for personal reasons. Mostly she just needed to get control of the interrogation.

It didn't matter anyway. Almost as soon as the words were out of her mouth, she screamed out in agony from an intense pain in the middle of her spine. It was a shock stick.

She had forgotten how much they hurt. A few seconds later, after the electricity stopped, she realized it was probably her own shock stick, which made it even worse.

"Hey!" Cyllir shouted. "I said start her on low!"

"Damn! Sorry," someone replied from behind her. "I thought it was."

A moment later Stormie felt another jolt of electricity—not quite as intense—on the back of her hip, just above her ass.

"There, that's it," the Zoloz behind her announced triumphantly as she grimaced in pain. Then Cyllir stepped forward, and grabbed a fist full of her hair.

"You should be more concerned with telling me what I want to know," he told her. He jerked her head back as he let go. "Now, why were you and your partner looking for these bounty hunters in New Coronet?"

"We had a tip that they were here," Stormie answered, hoping he didn't ask for more details.

"Ronko shavit," he responded forcefully. Then he paused thoughtfully a moment. "You seriously expect us to believe two sets of bounty hunters just happen to come sniffing around the same time one of our major operations gets shut down and nine of us get killed?" he demanded.

He didn't seem to question the story that Ta'tan'ia and her partner were bounty hunters. They must have already learned that from the police or somewhere, not that that was actually true.

"We were just tracking our targets. I don't know anything about any of your operations, or your people getting killed," she told him.

"Ronko shavit," he said again. "Why were you even going after these other bounty hunters?"

"Embra the Hutt paid them a deposit on a bounty. They didn't deliver by the deadline, so we were sent to deal with them."

Stormie could tell he wasn't going for it.

"So why were you at Wild Ace Ink?"

She opened her mouth in shock. How could they know about that?

Now Stormie had to be careful. The tattoo artist could lead them to her real mission—Veila. She couldn't have them asking too many questions in that direction.

"We weren't at a Wild Ace Ink," she told him in bewilderment. "We were just tracking our targets."

"You know, I'm sort of glad you said that," Cyllir replied with a smile.

Then Stormie was screaming out from the shock stick hitting her again. This time it went on for several seconds. In the middle of the eletro-torture, Cyllir punched her in her solar-plexus, knocking the wind out of her.

"Now, one more time," the Zoloz began slowly, leaning in close to her. "Why were you at Wild Ace Ink?"

"I—I must have followed Kyle and his Twi'lek schutta. I wasn't paying attention to where exactly they were going," she responded breathlessly.

"And who shot the tattoo artist there?" Cyllir asked, his mouth just centimeters from her ear.

"I—I don't know!" Stormie answered in mock fearfulness. "It must have been Kyle and the Twi'lek."

Suddenly Cyllir held the shock stick up in front of her. He made at point to let her see him turn it up to maximum. Then he shoved it several centimeters up her sex.

"If I find out you're lying to me, I'm going to fry every single nerve in your pussy."

Stormie stared at him in horror. For once, she was really helpless. She couldn't imagine that thing shocking her in there.

"I swear me or my partner didn't kill anybody," she told him, staring straight into his eyes—and lying through her teeth.

"Oh, I know you didn't kill him," Cyllir replied casually. "He's not dead. He's just in a bacta tank. He should be fine in a week or so."

Stormie was absolutely stunned. That kriffing idiot hadn't killed him! How the frakk could anyone frakk up something so simple!? Vik would tell them everything. When she got out of this, she was going to kill Broxn. Slowly.

While she was contemplating Broxn's Hutt-sized incompetence, and what she was going to do about it, Cyllir was sliding the shock stick out of her. Suddenly she felt a jolt of electricity on her pussy lips, and screamed in a combination of pain and terror. In a split-second she realized he had turned the power down to low. It still hurt like hell though, and had scared the shavit out of her. The Zoloz merely laughed at their joke.

One of the other Zoloz caught the Vice-President's attention, and gestured towards the door. He looked over, then back to Stormie. She followed his glance to see yet another Zoloz standing just outside the doorway.

"Be right back, babe," he said cheerfully, tossing the shock stick back to the Zoloz behind her.

As Cyllir left, Stormie glanced between the two Zoloz in front of her. Neither was shy about staring at her naked and in chains. The one behind her was probably eyeballing her ass too. She thought about trying to talk them into letting her go, or at least loosening her cuffs. They weren't torturing her at the moment though, so maybe she should stay quiet for now. Then again, she needed to get control of the interrogation. She wasn't going to get out of this by hanging around doing nothing.

"Please let me go," she finally pleaded with the one on the left, who was standing. His name patch said he was Koda. "If you want credits, I can pay you whatever you want."

Koda flashed an amused smile, while the other two laughed.

"Anybody ever tell you you got a nice ass?" the Zoloz behind her said as he ran his hand across her backside.

Before Stormie could respond, she yelped in surprise—mostly, but a little in pain as well—as he spanked her. Then she heard the shock stick activate. She held her breath as she felt it get within a centimeter of her ass. She recoiled as much as her chains would let her, but he kept it almost touching her skin. After a moment he moved it up to her right side, and she twisted away as much as she could again. Next he moved the shock stick around her to the underside of her left breast. The Zoloz sitting down laughed, while the one standing off to her left merely grinned in amusement as she flinched and twisted away from the painful shock stick.

Stormie almost let him just shock her, but she knew the pain would be worse than the humiliation—barely. She kept dancing and twisting in her shackles for the Zoloz amusement, while cursing herself for getting captured, and cursing Broxn for not killing that kriffing tattoo artist.

Several minutes later—although it seemed like a lot longer—the asshole behind her grew bored with his game, and let her relax, at least as much as she could hanging from her wrists. A couple of minutes after that another Zoloz came in, carrying a black durasteel collar. She had a pretty good idea who that was meant for.

The Zoloz whispered a few words to Koda. Stormie could make out the word PROPERTY on one side of the collar, just like the one Veila had been wearing in the holo. Then she wondered if it was the same collar. Wouldn't that be a blaster bolt to the gut?

"Well well," Koda said, turning back towards her. "It looks like we're going to have to take a break here."

Stormie almost asked if that meant she could get a cup of caf and use the 'fresher, but quickly closed her mouth without saying anything. Something wasn't right. Why would they stop interrogating her? Maybe they were just checking out her story. . . or maybe they had another source of information that seemed more promising. . .

Under Koda's direction, they lowered her arms until her wrists were just above her head. Then he gathered her hair, and pulled her up by it until she was standing on her tip-toes. The new Zoloz closed the durasteel collar around her neck, and Koda let her go. Next they put some slack in one of the chains separating her ankles, letting her feet come to a little more than shoulder-width apart.

"That's real sexy," Koda told her, reaching up and tugging on the leash ring of her collar.

The Zoloz that had been torturing her with the shock stick and the one that had brought in the collar left, leaving her with Koda and the one that had been sitting off to her right.

"We're just going to hang out a while, okay?" Koda said as climbed onto a stool next to a table with some tools and speeder-bike parts on it.

Stormie looked around the garage a few seconds, then between the two Zoloz left to guard her.

"So, how long you guys been with the Zoloz?" she asked with a friendly smile.

"It's our first day," Koda answered promptly. "Now shut the frakk up."

Stormie sighed, and looked around the garage some more. There wasn't anything within reach that looked useful. A few minutes later she asked for some water.

This time she felt a shock from her collar.

Frakk. That wasn't good news.

"Anything else you want, babe?" the one on her right asked with mock-concern.

She wisely didn't respond.

The jolt definitely hurt, but not as much as the shock stick on low. There was no way she could avoid getting hit by a collar maglocked around her neck though. She didn't see Koda use a remote or anything, but since she hadn't been expecting it, she hadn't paid attention. Next time she got shocked, she would.

With her wrists cuffed only right above her head, and her feet shackled about half-a-meter apart, Stormie was comfortable enough in her chains, at least for now.

About fifteen minutes or so later, Cyllir returned, along with another Zoloz. His name patch said he was Lonn. She thought he was the one who had been shocking her earlier, but she wasn't sure, since she hadn't gotten a good look at him.

Cyllir grabbed a chair and set it down about a meter and a half from her. The second Zoloz took his place behind her again.

"Hey, what'd you say your name was?" Cyllir asked, straddling the backwards-facing chair.

Stormie had gotten around that question earlier by just saying that she was a bounty hunter looking for two other bounty hunters they were also looking for. The Zoloz had seemed more interested in that story then her actual name.

"Valliry Plaxx," she answered confidently, giving the name on the phony ID she had been carrying.

"Yeah, that's what we thought," Cyllir agreed with a nod. "Funny thing is though, we just had a talk with your other partner from the cafe down the street, and he says that your name is Lieutenant Stormie Kintra, and that you, Cole Whytte who was in the speeder with you, and he are all Imperial Security agents."

HOLY FRAKKING EMPEROR! Stormie thought in stunned silence. Broxn was captured, and actually TALKING! I'm sooo frakked!

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Stormie quickly assured him. "I don't know who this person from some cafe is, or why he would tell you something like that. I'm a bounty hunter named Valliry Plaxx. The only 'partner' I had was Tam Lenzo, who was driving the speeder when you captured me," she explained, doing everything she could to make him believe her. "If he's alive, he'll tell you the same thing."

"Sure you don't," Cyllir replied with a chuckle. "You see though, my buddies weren't as nice to him as I've been to you. Or maybe they're just better at getting answers in situations like this," he said with a shrug. "We know who you are, and why you're really here." He paused again, then added, "The good news for you is, we're gonna have to take a longer break while I talk to some people about some things."

As he finished, Stormie sensed the Zoloz behind her almost touching her. She flinched away, anticipating a shock, but instead she felt a spray hypo on her hip.

"Wait!" she shouted, trying to stop the shot. She couldn't keep control knocked out. It didn't matter though. Before she could open her mouth again, she felt the drug hitting her. In seconds she was hanging limply in her shackles, unconscious.

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

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

Ta'tan'ia brought her speeder-bike to a stop a few hundred meters up the street from the Zoloz' clubhouse. Master Solo had told her to take the small skiff from Wyric's ship and return to Trigalis. Since the local police were notoriously corrupt, she didn't trust them to properly follow up on the Zoloz' weapons smuggling.

Ta'tan'ia had landed her skiff at a smaller spaceport about a thousand klicks away, and rented the speeder-bike to come to New Coronet. She didn't want anyone at the New Coronet spaceport—which was the main one for Trigalis—to spot her and tip-off the Zoloz. Ta'tan'ia climbed off the speeder-bike, retrieved her gray cloak, pulled it on, then headed towards the clubhouse on foot.

Beneath the knee-length cloak with three-quarter length sleeves, Ta'tan'ia was wearing an armored black bodysuit with matching fifteen-centimeter wedge heeled boots. Her lightsaber was horizontal across the back of her nerfhide belt, while her blaster was in a drop holster on her thigh. A second blaster was in an inside pocket of the cloak. The bodysuit mostly hid her beskar wrist comlink and chrono, and collar. Her beskar chastity belt was locked in place underneath the bodysuit as well.