97 Chapter 87

"Just keep driving. Any sudden moves or suspicious actions, you so much as think a treacherous thought, and I fire a slug straight through you," Renn hissed to the pirate sat next to him.

From an outside perspective it would seem like the pirate was alone in the repulsor truck speeding towards the pirate stronghold, but there was in fact an invisible heavily armed and armoured Renn sat next to him pointing a slugthower at his 'lower region'.

The pirate nodded along fearfully at Renn's words, terrified of the prospect of the slugthrower firing and rendering him sterile.

It wasn't long before they arrived at the gates of the pirate fortress and Renn watched the pirate like a hawk as they stopped at the guard station.

"Hey there Jeirt," The pirate guarding the gate said as he staggered over towards the repulsor truck, and Renn noticed with some distain that the man was drunk while on duty.

"Wait…Hic… weren't there more of you when you left?" The guard asked suspiciously narrowing his eyes but burping mid-sentence due to his inebriated state.

Renn jabbed his slugthrower hard into the pirate who flinched before chuckling nervously and trying to think of an excuse.

"Yeah, haha. The others wanted to stay back at the farm we raided… found some villagers they could have 'fun' with you know?" The pirate said trying to seem calm and unbothered, and Renn was slightly glad the guard was drunk with how bad the man's acting was.

"Oh, yeah. Hehe, lucky them." The guard grinned and laughed, "I might join them later then," the guard continued chuckling to himself as he waved them through the gate.

He didn't realise how accurate his statement was, he would indeed be joining the other pirates soon, only not in the way he thought.

The pirate parked the truck next to the fortress's generator, the pirates didn't have any protocols for parking or safe storage, so nobody questioned why he had chosen to park there.

He was just turning to ask Renn what he should do next when Renn's fist shot forwards and slammed into his nose, shattering it, and rendering the pirate instantly unconscious.

Then Renn hopped out of the trucks cabin, his active camo still activated, and moved silently and unseen away from the truck.

He cast one look back to make sure the barrels, not full of plundered loot but with explosives, were still safely in the back of the truck before heading towards the forts sleeping area.

Renn moved through the pirates sleeping area as though he truly was a Wraith like his nickname suggested.

He crept silently through the rooms plunging his knife through the throats of the sleeping pirates and leaving nothing but death in his wake.

After killing all the pirates who were asleep, Renn stalked silently out onto the forts walls to see a group of pirates curiously poking at the truck's now unconscious driver.

He could hear some laughter and jokes being made about the man choosing to sleep there, but stopped when he saw one of the pirates climb into the back of the truck and begin to examine the barrels.

"Well, this is as good a time as any I guess." Renn thought silently and tapped a command on the tactical pad build into his armoured forearm.

A split second later a massive explosion split the skyline as the explosives in the back of the truck detonated. A chain reaction followed consuming the truck and the generator, as they detonated as well and added to the size of the explosion.

Fire consumed the pirates nearby, roasting them alive, as a whole section of the fort was destroyed.

They rest of the pirates came running out to investigate, as shouts of alarm filled the air, and Renn dropped down from the wall to meet them.

He drew his slugthower with his right hand and his blaster pistol with his right, then raised them towards the pirates as he deactivated his active camo.

Two pirates turned in surprise as he appeared before them, only to end up dead as Renn fired both his pistols at the same time.

Other pirates turned to face only to meet the same fate as their friends as Renn began striding through them, cutting down pirates with brutal precision.

-

"I… When… wow… when we hired you, I didn't expect you to be this… effective… just, wow… thank you so much!" The excited farmer said as stood next to Renn gazing at the destroyed pirate fortress.

After the fighting had stopped and Renn had secured the area, he had invited the farmers who had hired him up to see the results of their purchase, needless to say they were very pleased.

Renn watched as a group of farmers picked over the dead pirates on the far side of the fortress, poking the corpses in the vain hope that one might still be alive and that they exact their own revenge on that person.

"Hey!" He called over to them, "The stuff these guys nicked from you is in that warehouse over there," he pointed towards a large, relatively undamaged, building nearby and the farmers nodded gratefully before scurrying off towards it.

"You didn't want to keep it for yourself?" The farmer next to Renn asked curiously, "Most bounty hunters would take it as their due, as loot from the battlefield."

"Nah, you guys need it more than me," Renn shrugged dismissively, "Just transfer me the credits we agreed on and we're cool."

The farmer began nodding rapidly a grateful smile plastered across his face, "Of course Mr. Wraith, I'll see to it right away."

"No rush, it's fine." Renn said casually before heading off in the direction of his parked ship, "I trust you guys."

"Thank you again Mr. Wraith," The farmer repeated and bowed slightly in Renn's direction.

"Don't mention it," Renn said as he gave a half wave in return, "And if you ever have any more trouble with pirates, message me. I'll give you a loyalty discount."

-

Renn sat back in the pilot's seat of the Speedy vagabond and kicked his feet up onto the console in front of him.

He had taken his armour off after he had boarded his ship and now, he was dressed in more casual clothes as he relaxed, before figuring out where to go next.

The recent galactic turmoil, or the Separatist crisis as it had been called by the republic, had caused a great amount of work for bounty hunters with the amount of pirates and other criminals who had appeared with the intent to get rich now that the republic was pre-occupied.

The separatist had named themselves the confederacy of independent systems and had claimed that they were sick of the republic not treating smaller and more distant planets fairly when compared to the core worlds, so they were going to create their own government which treated everyone fairly.

More systems were leaving the republic in favour of the separatists every week and tensions were high, it seemed more and more likely that a war was coming.

Renn agreed with what the separatists said about the republic, but it became clear to him very quickly that they weren't much better, it was hard to claim you wanted fair treatment for everyone when your ruling council was filled with trade guilds known for their unjust treatment of the common people rather than the planetary governments you were supposed to represent after all.

He quickly realised that Count Dooku, the leader of the separatists, was just using popular rhetoric and political dogma for his own ends. Which most likely weren't fairness and justice for the oppressed people of the republic.

Whatever was going on neither the republic nor the separatists were aiming to look out for the little people, who were the ones that were going to be most impacted by a galactic civil war.

Renn's own faction was actually doing a good job of that however but was still too small and too secret to be a major galactic power, for now.

They had started carefully expanding both in their military capacity and the people living on the planets loyal to Renn, but they had been doing so quietly. Not wanting to alert any potential threat to their existence until they were strong enough to crush it.

Sapphire had suggested using their trade guild, Dredd Industries, as a cover for the recruitment, so that people assumed it was the trade guild growing stronger rather than an unknown galactic power. And so far, it had worked.

Renn's faction had even been named and was now known as the 'New Aruum Commonwealth' and all its citizens knew that they had sworn fealty to House Dredd.

That wasn't to say Renn was trying to turn himself into a tyrannical dictator, while it was true, he would be its ruler most planets in the commonwealth were free to govern themselves and he would also have a council of trusted advisors handling most of the day-to-day stuff.

But that was for further in the future, as for now the commonwealth barely contained more than a handful of planets and their associated systems.

Renn was broken out of his musings when Sapphire's avatar popped into existence right beside one of his boots.

She gave him a pointed look and he instantly removed his feet from the console and rubbed the back of his head sheepishly, refusing to make eye contact with the A.I.

"Hehe, sorry Saph." Renn said awkwardly as the hologram continued giving him a look of slight disapproval.

"I was just thinking about what to do next, seeing as we're done here." He added trying to change the subject before he got a lecture of the A.I. about proper hygiene standards for cockpit consoles.

"Uh-huh," Sapphire said neutrally, knowing full well what Renn was doing, before continuing. "Well maybe this will help you, we've just received a holo-message from Opal. Seems she's on Coruscant at the moment."

"Best play it then. She's probably been hanging out with Padme and now wants to complain about 'all the boring politics' that's been going on," Renn said, and waited for Sapphire to play Opal's message.

A moment later the lights in the cockpit dimmed and the holographic image of Opal appeared in front of Renn.

The figure was perfectly still which let Renn know that it was a recorded message rather than live, there was no way Opal would stay that still for more than a second.

"Heya Renn," Opal began in a happy tone, but there was something about it that seemed to promise future violence.

"You're probably finishing up your job on Dantooine at the moment so I'm leaving this message so that you can catch it once your back at the ship, hopefully.

Soo, anyway gooood news! I've got you a new job for once you're done there. And its on Coruscant… I think… sort of…

Anyway..." Opal's happy smile dropped into a malevolent grin, "Someone's tryin to kill my BFF, so the Naboo government wants to hire you for protection."

Renn imagined Naboo's government's wants hadn't exactly mattered in this situation and Opal had just forced them to comply to her demands.

"Whoever's trying to kill her blew up her ship, ON Coruscant, can you believe it!?!" Renn absolutely could, the republic's capital was supposedly the safest place in the galaxy according to the republic but in reality, it was probably more dangerous than most places in the outer rim.

"Apparently the chancellor is going to ask the jedi for a bodyguard to deal with the assassination attempts, but I'd rather you deal with it.

Do you know how annoying it is making friends? Very! So, I want this one to stay alive, and what's the point of having a boyfriend if you can't use his to murder a whole load of people who are potentially inconveniencing you?

OH! And pick up Shae and Seela on your way. They didn't want to come to Coruscant because 'it'd be boring' but they'll probably enjoy it if they get to blow part of it up… especially Shae…

Ooooh, maybe we can force whoever is trying to assassinate Padme to flee into the Jedi temple then we can fire a missile into it, and it'd be justified. Bet Shae would love that… hehe, bet Yaddle would too.

Anyhow, better sign off now… Padme's been looking at me weird since I mentioned murdering people. I was joking… staged whisper, not." Opal finished her message just as Renn heard someone, probably Padme, shouting in the background that you couldn't just say stage directions in real life.

"Well… Guess were going to Coruscant." Renn said with a mock sigh.

"…I've already plotted a course," Sapphire said with her own sigh, before both she and Renn began laughing.

They were going to the republic's capital, and most likely about to cause some chaos.