Chapter 112

"I'm sorry…"

Renn sighed and turned his head to smile at Opal who was fidgeting in the co-pilots seat next to him.

"It's not your fault, I know you tried… it's just one of those things," Renn said reaching over to squeeze her hand in comfort.

Opal had been sulking ever since the two of them had broken into a republic military hospital to visit Spoon and his two injured brothers.

She had insisted on going along with Renn because she knew how close he was to Spoon and the injured Egg and so had hoped to use her medical skills to help them.

Opal had learnt all sorts of medical skills from Sapphire, with her endless data banks of knowledge, and a lot of force related healing abilities from Yaddle, making her able to heal virtually any illness or injury.

She had even snuck into some of the record rooms on Kamino to learn about the clone's genealogy and biology so that she could try and create a way to slow down the clones rapid aging process so that Renn's friends could live a full life.

But even for her it was impossible to heal something that no longer existed.

The lightsabre wound Egg had received had not only cut through his armour and most of his shoulder, but the intense heat of the blade had permanently destroyed his nerve endings there. Leading to the republic medics amputating his entire left arm.

It had been hard to see the normally cheerful man brought so low by his injury, even if he tried to hide it from the rest of them behind a mask of dark humour.

When Renn had seen him, Egg had tried to joke that his wound was just a scratch and that once he got a robot arm, he'd be able to go undercover in separatist droid factories and become even better at blowing them up.

But they could all see the man was worried about being away from the fighting and his brothers for however long it took him to recover from the injury.

And while no-one blamed Opal for not being able to do the impossible she still felt like she should have been able to do more.

"Do you want to go anywhere special?" Renn asked, as he looked over at Opal and tried to change the subject, it had been a while since it had been just the two of them after all.

Seela had become incredibly protective of her newly discovered little sister and was still reluctant to leave her alone for extended periods. And Shae was currently on a girls bonding trip/arctic warfare survival course with her new best friend Cecelin.

Which meant for one of the few times since they had met the other two members of their chosen family all those years ago, it was just the two of them.

But before Opal could answer a chime sounded from the console in front of them indicating an incoming comm message.

Opal looked towards Renn to seek his opinion on answering and when he shrugged non commitally she reached forward to tap in a command.

A second latter the haggard looking form of Jango Fett popped up above the holo-display in front of them.

Renn knew that despite whatever he had felt about creating and training a clone army originally, Jango had grown to care about the one hundred Alpha class ARCs almost as much as his son Boba.

It had been nearly impossible for the stoic bounty hunter to distance himself emotionally from the Alphas after his sister had grown so attached to them, which had meant that Myx's death was very upsetting for both of the Fett siblings.

Especially seeing as it had been a needless sacrifice to save a jedi that would never attempt to return the favour and save a clone life.

There was no love lost between Jango and the jedi order and the only reason he and his former assassin sister weren't currently on a revenge rampage against the jedi was that the remaining clones still being forced to serve the republic would be caught up in it.

"Hey, kid" Jango said tiredly running a hand down his face, "how are things?"

"Okay… we've just seen Egg and Omen, and it sounds like they're going to be alright. How are you?" he answered and watched as the legendary bounty hunter shrugged in response.

"Been better. Arla and Boba are still pretty upset but…" Jango trailed off as he tried to avoid getting choked up and being forced to show any emotion.

After Arla had forced Jango to grow closer to the Alpha ARCs it had been inevitable that his only 'official' son would see the Alpha's as his older brothers, even if they were technically the same age, and so it was no surprise that the young clone was so upset.

"I called about something else though," Jango said after a moment as he slipped back behind a mask of professionalism.

"A former client reached out to me for a job, I haven't responded because I've stopped doing jobs for the Hutts but I thought you'd like to know about this one."

"Oh? Why's that?" Renn asked curiously as he wondered why Jango thought he might want to help on of the slug crime lords.

"It's from Jabba, apparently someone's kidnapped his son and he's trying to hire every available bounty hunter he can to try and recover him.

He probably would have tried to contact you too if the wraith hadn't killed forty of his minions because they were stood between him and a bounty a while back so now, he's terrified of you.

But apparently Jabba's also requested help from both the republic and the separatists in exchange for access to hyperspace lanes through Hutt space, and I think the republic are already putting together a jedi task force to help him.

He's throwing everything at this… which is also exposing what's left of his empire to a fair amount of danger."

Renn smiled at that. Jabba had been a controlling power on the desert world of Tatooine for a long time and had even tried to seize total control of the planet by simultaneously stealing Gardulla the Hutt's criminal empire and dealing a crippling blow to the warriors of the planers native sand people.

But after Renn got involved in the conflict because of Gardulla's harassment of Seela, not only did the sand people grow in strength and unity but Gardulla's entire empire was reduced to ashes and instead of an easy planetary take over Jabba had been fighting to gain any territory since then.

The Hutt crime lord had still managed to bring a large portion of the planet under his control though, although this might be an opportunity to change that.

Renn smiled again as he turned to look at Opal, who was also smiling having already figured out what Renn's plan was.

"Want to cause some chaos?" He asked and watched as Opal's smile grew brighter.

"I thought you'd never ask. Let's do it!" She cheered excitedly and Renn smiled again, already planning out what to do.

-

Asajj Ventress, apprentice of count Dooku, Sith assassin, and commander in the confederacy of independent systems, glared in frustration as five Hutt bounty hunters made their way into the monastery.

Five more bounty hunters walking into the trap she had laid for the republic. Five more soon to be corpses, but still no jedi.

Ventress had been ordered by count Dooku to kidnap that disgusting slug Jabba's equally disgusting offspring and try and blame it on the jedi to increase tension between the Hutts and the republic.

The plan had gone perfectly so far. She'd kidnapped the kid, stashed him in the dungeon of an abandoned monastery on the backwater planet of Teth, but the jedi were dragging their feet in arriving.

So, all Ventress had had to test herself against were the seemingly endless stream of mercenaries, bounty hunters, and gangsters the Hutts had been sending. She was almost insulted.

She dropped from her hidden perch in the rafters and landed gracefully behind the five men, igniting her lightsabres as she fell.

Three of the men were dead before the bounty hunters even realised she was there and the final two just managed to turn to look behind them when Ventress separated their heads from their bodies.

Two soft thuds filled the monasteries corridor as the heads hit the ground and Ventress let her sabres deactivate before turning away.

"Commander!" she snapped at a battle droid commander lurking in a corner, "send Jabba the heads of his worthless minions… Maybe that'll get things moving quicker." She added the last part in a growl under her breath.

"Their heads?" The droid asked and Ventress ground her teeth in annoyance at its irritatingly nasal voice. And its lack of intelligence.

Ventress swiped her hand right and used the force to send the offending droid skittering across the floor until it slammed into the opposite wall.

Then she pulled the droid back before slamming it back into the wall, and repeating the process until it was reduced to a pile of scrap metal.

"Do 'you' have any questions?" She said turning to another battle droid who was staring at the pile that used to be his boss.

"No ma'am," the droid said robotically and Ventress snarled impatiently.

"Then do it!" She growled before stalking off deeper into the monastery, "And someone go check on that slug! There's no point in this if it dies before the Jedi get here."