Bad Blood

Chapter 25 - Smoke and Mirrors

Astéri scowled as Maul curled a lip at her. "Stop sneering at me. I'll leave your for dead if I have to."
"Fascinating. You seem to think I will need assistance in getting past a squad of troopers. And here I was thinking you were a more proficient hunter than that."
Astéri laughed. "A squad? They've brought the whole kriffing army. I don't happen to have any long-range weaponry, and I don't plan on getting up close and personal enough with those bastards to use my pulse bands. So excuse me if I feel the need to stop and panic for a moment about how we're getting out of this one."
Maul furrowed his brow for a second, a calculating expression flitting across his tattooed features. "I value my secrecy. The Darksaber would draw too much attention to us. It would be more than sufficient to carve through twice that many stormtroopers, but I fear that it would bring down an inquisitor or even the Emperor himself on our heads before we even made it off world."
"So no laser sword."
"No."
"Down this alley! They're round the back." A Stormtrooper shouted. Thundering footfalls hammered towards Astéri and her unlikely ally.
"In here!" She grabbed Maul's arm and dragged him into one of the houses. "We have to find better weapons. We can't go out there as we are; we'll be full of blaster holes within seconds. Even with my beskar, I'm betting at least some of the troopers will be competent enough to go for the head."
Maul jerked his arm away, fury simmering in his eyes for a second, before he wrinkled his lip. "You seem to be forgetting. Any and all weaponry has been confiscated by the empire."
"Ah, shit." Astéri yanked upon a cupboard and shoved out the contents. "What weapon is your style best suited for?"
"A double-ended lightsaber."
Astéri blinked. "What's that in regular, non-lightsaber terms?"
Maul sighed and kicked the end off a broom before twirling the metal handle round a few times. "A staff."
Giving a vague thumbs-up from where she was rummaging through kitchen drawers, Astéri swore. "Not even a bloody butter knife. There has to be something here I can use. Ah!" She held up a spiked hunk of metal on a sturdy handle, grinning. "This will do."
Maul raised an eyebrow. "I thought there were no weapons in the house?"
"There aren't." Astéri finished tying a rope around the handle of her makeshift weapon and have it an experimental swing through the air. "This is some kind of kitchen utensil. I think it's called a meat tenderiser. Though-" Astéri tied a kitchen weight to the other end of the rope, then twirled and flung it clean through a wall- "it'll make quite a nice meteor hammer."
Realisation dawned on Maul's face and a chilling smile crawled onto his features. "Let's give the empire a good show, then."

Astéri whirled around the Stormtroopers, ducking and weaving. She'd taken out at least four of them before she had even left the cover of the building, such was the impressive range of the meteor hammer. Only having used one of the specialised weapons once before, it had taken Astéri a few minutes to settle back into the rhythm and accustom herself to the weight, but now, the momentum and centrifugal force were doing most of the work for her. Her chunk of spiked metal cleaved a path through the troopers, leaving shattered glass and armour in her wake.
Maul however was taking a slower, but no less deadly, approach. He advanced gradually on the troopers, rarely even having to use his staff, as he flicked their blaster bolts harmlessly aside with just a thought. Occasionally he would wave a hand and send a chunk of building, the edge of a signboard or even once a fuel tank in their direction. Most of the soldiers were shredded and roasted before he even had the chance to touch them with his staff.
By now, Astéri was certain that Maul was a Sith. She'd vaguely heard of him during her time on Kamino, but never enough to put two and two together. However, one did not simply plough through an army of stormtroopers in that way unless the Force was involved, and Astéri was pretty damn sure that Maul was no Jedi.
It had probably been a mistake to get involved with a Sith, but the deed had been done. There was no way out now.
He was graceful and deadly. He was fury itself. He was one of the most terrifying things Astéri had ever seen.
"Handle that squad to the left. I'll take care of the Death Troopers." Maul commanded.
The troopers visibly flinched as Astéri turned on them. A few flicks of her rope sent their blasters flying out of their hands and the troopers staggering backwards, cradling their crushed fingers. A few tried to run. Astéri's spiked metal hammer smashed through their armour and left them motionless on the floor.
A blaster bolt found it's way perilously close to Astéri's head and she whirled behind a stack or crates, just as Maul did the same from the other direction, slamming his back against the wooden slats.
"What did Olena do to offend you so much anyway?"
"You want to have this conversation now?" Maul sounded vaguely amused.
"I don't see why not. If you're as competent as you should be then you should have no problem talking and fighting at the same time."
Maul wrinkled his nose. "This is not talking and fighting. Fighting requires a challenge, some opposition. This-" he clenched his fist as a Stormtrooper stepped around the crates towards them. The trooper's helmet imploded "-this is talking and killing."
Astéri swallowed.
"In answer to your question, however, Ms Ranzak has been a severe hindrance to my operations with Crimsen Dawn over the years."
"She's a pain in your arse." Astéri simplified.
"I intend to deal with the problem at its roots."
Astéri didn't buy it. Maul was up to something; she just didn't know what. She'd have to take safety measures.
Stepping out from around the crates, Astéri swung her meteor hammer at the last of the troopers' ankles. Then, aiming he spiked end at a chimney, she used it as a grappling hook and clambered up to the rooftops. From her vantage point she could see the whole village, and would easily be able to jump the perimeter fence.
"There's a creek by Olena's cabin. I'll meet you there." Astéri called to maul, before sprinting across the rooftops.