Star Wars: The Old Republic: The Former Legacy: Chapter 1: Grinding the filth

Nar Shaddaa; caked with the effluvial grime of various sources of filth and pollution, Hutta’s largest moon and the last place Lexiine Former wanted to be right now. Even the Rakghoul infested ruins of Taris seemed more appealing to her at this very moment than another minute in this wretched place.

In the highest sectors of this city-covered moon, where the spaceports, casinos and luxury hotels are fitted with advanced air purification systems, the air is tolerable, only smelling slightly musty despite the filters lasting only a single day between replacements. Unfortunately, for Lexiine, her mission takes her away from the high-class strippers and casinos she enjoyed on her last visit, instead dropping her straight into Nar Shaddaa’s undercity; a section of the moon’s overgrown mega-structure where all the filth and pollution ends up funnelling into. No matter where you are down here, it all smells the same; there is no way to escape it, especially if you are unfortunate enough to live here.

Lexiine adjusted her crouching position as she rubbed her nose with the back of her gloved wrist, keeping her dark chocolate eyes locked on the large cargo bay doors below from her vantage point. The HK-51 assassin droid crouching beside her observed her face for a moment. Though shrouded in darkness, the assassin droid’s advanced optical sensors allowed it to recognise the discomfort on Lexiine’s face, even through her stern look of concentration.

“Suggestion: Perhaps you should apply more nasal numbing agent, master,” the droid vocalised, expressing simulated tones of concern. “Your deletion efficiency will be reduced if you become distracted.”

As the assassin droid spoke, an array of red lights located

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vertically on the front of its head lit up. Though, the sound of its voice didn’t come from where the mouth would usually be located on the majority of humanoid organic species found in the galaxy, instead it was emitted from the droid’s chest plate that buzzed with each vocalisation.

Lexiine sighed then took another breath, already regretting having to inhale more of the putrid air. “I ran out,” she announced to the droid. “But you don”t have to worry about my killing efficiency. Even if this place smells worse than a rotting Tauntaun, killing Imps comes before everything else.”

Satisfied with her response, the droid tilted its head back to a neutral position with a faint sound of servomotors moving within its neck; it continued running a passive scan of the area below. Its angular gold optical sensors glowing brighter as the droid shifted scanning frequencies with each pass.

Moments later, the large cargo bay door on the far side of the room emitted a loud screech as the rusted gear mechanisms—in desperate need of maintenance—struggled to move the weight of the thick blast-proof material. Lexiine watched patiently as the doors opened far enough to allow a squad of Imperial troops to move forward into the room. Their heavy boots thudded as they marched forward on the duracrete floor, the noise of their collective thuds still pale in comparison to the incessant noise still emanating from the rusted gear mechanism.

She counted ten in all, heavy troopers wearing black duraplast armour with full face helmets, carrying standard issue Imperial blaster rifles along with their sidearms, various grenades and extra ammunition. They were heavily armoured and carrying extremely lethal weaponry for every contingency; however, the extra weight of their equipment would slow them down in a surprise scenario, making them easy targets if handled correctly.

The troops divided into two groups of five, filing into formation on either side of the large doors as two more figures entered through the open blast-doors, their shadows preceding them. The first to come

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into view wore a hooded black robe that seemed to absorb all light, never betraying its wearers form. He strode forward, as if pursing unseen prey as a second, smaller man followed the spectre, trying to keep up with his pace. Lexiine focused on the robed man, clearly Sith, but not a Sith Lord or Darth, he was still an apprentice as no higher ranking Sith would bother to make the trip all the way down here to meet some seedy black market merchant. The smaller man, now in view, a Devaronian, his red skin, black horns and pointed ears clearly visible as he gestured apprehensively into the room, his posture and body language giving away his disposition.

The large blast-proof doors finally juddered to a halt and the deafening screech that filled the room stopped along with it.

“Yes, my lord,” the Devaronian spoke nervously to the Sith apprentice, continuing the conversation they began outside, “all of the components have been checked and are in order as you specified. They are being loaded onto your ship in bay four as we speak. Please, come in and we can make arrangements for your payment.”

Suddenly, the decaying smell of this polluted moon no longer mattered; Lexiine’s eyes locked onto the Devaronian as he conversed with the apprentice, the Imperial troops standing silently on either side of them like armoured statues.

The Sith, now standing a couple of metres ahead of the Devaronian, turned back to face him. “You told me they would be complete,” he countered, his voice sounded gravelly and rough but seemed to boom as if being amplified artificially.

The Devaronian winced, clearly hoping the Sith would not catch that small detail. “Ah, y-yes, of course, yes,” the Devaronian stumbling over his words before taking a breath to calm himself down. “I apologise, I couldn’t risk building the completed refinery units without alerting Republic spies on Nar Shaddaa.”

From this angle, Lexiine couldn’t see the apprentice’s face shrouded under his hood, but the cowering posture of the Devaronian gave her all the information she needed to indicate the Sith apprentice was glaring at the smaller man.

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“Very well,” the Sith responded, almost dismissively. “At this point in the war effort, we cannot afford to be picky. You will receive your payment”—pointing his black gloved finger directly at the Devaronian’s face—“after we have completed construction of the isotope-5 refinery units.”

That was it, with that slip of information, she had confirmation of the Imperial’s objective and that’s all she needed to move ahead with her mission. Lexiine turned to HK-51 and cocked her head up toward a maintenance rafter above them. The droid understood and made its way silently to the higher vantage point. Lexiine took one final look down at the group below, burning their positions into her mind before moving back into the darkness and down from her perch.

“B-but, my lord, please,” the Devaronian stammered slightly, “I acquired these components at great cost, I need to be reimbursed post-haste in order to continue operations of my other business dealings.”

In an instant, the Sith apprentice closed in on the Devaronian, his pitch-black robe masking the speed of his movements as he stopped only centimetres from the smaller man’s face.

“I should cut off your horns and force them down your gullet,” he snarled before calming his voice, managing to keep his anger in check. “However, you should be grateful that the Empire is in need of your services and requires further use of you. You are indeed fortunate to be the only supplier of such specific obsolete components that meet our requirements.”

Turning away from the Devaronian, the apprentice stepped slowly to the centre of the room, taking a moment to look around at the run-down auxiliary storage area the Devaronian was using as his personal office.

“Once we verify that these refinery units work adequately for our needs, you will be reimbursed triple what you were promised originally. This should be more than enough compensation for your missed opportunities, and sufficient motivation for you to build

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completed units for future orders.”

Dumbfounded by his good fortune, the Devaronian stared at the apprentice’s cloaked back for a moment as a sense of relief washed over him. “Yes, of course! Thank you, my lord.”

Ignoring the merchant’s exuberant reply, the apprentice began to notice the darkened lighting conditions of the high ceiling room he stood in. No doubt, the Devaronian preferred a darkened office to combat the neon lights shining everywhere else on Nar Shaddaa, though, at the same time, the lack of illumination seemed odd. Through the darkness, he noted several stacks of heavy durasteel crates lining the walls, some positioned haphazardly though somehow managing not to fall from their perch. Tucked away in the corner, the Devaronian’s meagre little desk stood with yet more crates surrounding it.

“As for your Republic spies,” the apprentice assured the Devaronian, still scanning the room, “do not concern yourself, we will deal with them ourselves.”

The Sith apprentice stopped his scan, focusing on a small collection of crates standing inconspicuously in the opposite corner of the room from the Devaronian’s desk. “In fact,” he continued, “a Republic spy is amongst us as we speak, hiding, watching.”

Lexiine smiled from behind the crate she had ducked behind; of course, a Force user would be able to sense her presence using that strange mystical power of theirs. She slowly stood up from behind her cover, being careful not to knock her assault cannon that lay on the ground between her and the crate. From this position she was finally able to get a good look at the Sith apprentice staring back at her. He towered over her even from a distance, his face, pale and scarred, his eyes glowing red, no doubt through some effect of the dark side designed to intimidate their foes. With his face cracked and deformed by his scars, it was hard to tell if the man standing across the room was human or another species.

From either side of the Sith, the Imperial troops immediately formed a defensive line in front of their superior, aiming their blaster

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rifles at Lexiine who stood still behind the durasteel crate, almost casually. As the group of Imperials and the black market merchant watched her silently, she walked slowly around the crate and into the light, positioning the crate directly behind her.

The Sith apprentice studied her closely. “You’re an interesting one,” he murmured.

Reaching her arms high into the air, Lexiine stretched lethargically then plonked herself down on the crate she had used for cover, resting her hands behind her on its metal surface to support her weight as she leaned back.

Although a highly skilled and talented Commando, Lexiine wasn’t your textbook Republic Special Forces soldier, with her unorthodox combat methods and demeanour extending to her appearance. She wore heavy blood red arm length gloves and boots, both ribbed horizontally with large double buckled straps and black accents on the fingers, palms and feet. Her black pants looked deceptively skin-tight, but in truth, they hid light duraplast armour plating underneath, making her legs look slightly thicker than they really were. She wore her black leather jacket casually zipped around her waist, letting it fold back to cover her rear. Her long, wild black hair lay just as casually over her shoulders and down her back. However, perhaps her most striking feature is her bright white tube top covering only her breasts, leaving the dark skin of her neck, shoulders and toned midriff completely bare.

Normally, her attire would put her at a tactical disadvantage in any common sense battle scenario, but through Lexiine’s unorthodox methods, her choice in battledress has served her well through many missions.

Lexiine arched her back seductively as she sat, arms back on the durasteel crate, watching the group of Imperials watching her. She could sense the eyes of the Imperial troops through their helmets, focusing in on the shape of her feminine form as she arched her back to the perfect angle for them. It was almost too easy.

One of the soldiers finally broke from his trance. “Your orders,

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my lord?” he asked, trying not to take his eyes off the sight before him.

The Sith apprentice smirked, amused at the display. “Did you think I could not sense you in the room with us, hmm, Republic?”

“No,” Lexiine replied, tilting her head slightly at the apprentice, “you just had me waiting back there for so long that I was getting bored.”

His glowing red eyes narrowed in on her position as his smirk grew into a toothy grin. “An amusing display, Republic. For your insolence, you are to be eliminated.”

Lexiine shot an evil grin right back at him. “You first,” she bit as she squeezed a detonation switch hidden in her right hand.

A single sharp concussive blast shocked the Imperial troops as their attention snapped above to see shredded pieces of the durasteel crates that were once stacked high into the ceiling falling down upon them. In the same moment, Lexiine rolled backward over the durasteel crate she was sitting on, ducking back behind it to retrieve her weapon, immediately springing back up with assault cannon at the ready, its barrels primed and spinning, aimed directly ahead.

The Imperial troops were in complete disarray, three lay crushed under a small mountain of durasteel crates while another two lay in pools of blood with shredded durasteel sticking out from their bodies, piercing their flesh through the gaps of the thick armour they wore. The rest of the Imperials stumbled to their feet groggily, still affected by the heavy impact of the crates that fell on them while the Sith apprentice used his mystical powers to throw aside the crates he had caught with a suspension field.

Before they had time to recover, Lexiine opened up on the remaining Imperials, firing a hail of orange-red blaster bolts from her assault cannon into the group. The bolts caught the troopers in the head, the chest, the arms, they were cut down quickly despite their thick armour, but the Sith apprentice had managed to ignite his lightsaber with a brilliant flash of red and deflected her bolts harmlessly into the room.

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Lexiine switched tactics, firing a mortar volley at the apprentice who created a Force shield around himself, the concussive force of the blasts still knocking him back, making him stumble onto his knees. As the final blast from her mortar volley hit, Lexiine lobbed a plasma grenade directly at her adversary.

Using his powers, the Sith reached out with the Force and stopped the grenade in mid-air only half a metre from his chest.

With the threat of the plasma grenade neutralised, the apprentice got to his feet, the room booming with his laughter. “Yes, excellent,” he coughed, inhaling the residual smoke caused by the carnage, “you decimated my troops in mere seconds and you enjoyed it! I can sense it. But you don’t know the power of the dark side.”

Ignoring the Sith, Lexiine aimed her assault cannon at the plasma grenade still floating in the air, firing a single blaster bolt directly at it. Predictably, the Sith apprentice masterfully shifted his weight, allowing him to easily swing his lightsaber, deflecting the bolt right back at Lexiine who already engaged her reactive shields, absorbing the deflected bolt’s deadly energy. In his sweeping manoeuvre to deflect the bolt, the Sith apprentice noticed the faint gold glint from above only too late.

A single blaster bolt struck down from above, piercing the plasma grenade and detonating it, igniting the Sith apprentice in flames.

The fire of the plasma grenade burned through the dark spectres black robes and pale skin, charring it black and red. The apprentice screamed in agony, not at the immense pain he was enduring as he burned, but at his obvious defeat as his body seized and refused his brains commands. His blood boiled, he was about to die a humiliating death to this small Republic wretch. She had a droid, a damned droid laying in ambush; he had failed to sense its presence, a fatal error.

Lexiine watched a moment as the Sith burned, somehow still standing as he continued to scream in agony. She closed in on the apprentice, firing charged bolts of blaster fire at him, hitting his right

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hand and the hilt of his lightsaber, destroying it. She fired another burst at his left arm, its charred husk disintegrating with each hit. She then focused on his knees, firing volley after volley of charged bolts into them, ripping straight through them until the apprentice’s immolated body dropped back onto the ground from his crumbling knees with what remained of his severed legs still standing upright in front of him.

With a sudden heavy metal clank, HK-51 dropped straight down from its perch and onto its feet to the left of Lexiine, sniper rifle ready in its clawed hands. It watched silently as Lexiine moved forward and stood over the defeated Sith apprentice.

“Evaluation: An efficient combat manoeuvre, master. However, initial analysis of combat effectiveness has established a margin of point-six-seven-three percent that can be improved upon.”

Ignoring the assassin droid beside her, Lexiine stared down at the Sith.

The apprentice’s eyes widened as he looked up at her. “The savagery, I—” his sentence broke as he coughed, blood spewing from his mouth and down his charred black and red neck.

Lexiine grinned her evil grin down at the Sith apprentice one final time. “The dark side of the Force isn’t enough to stop me,” she quipped.

Unable to speak further, he watched silently as Lexiine aimed her assault cannon directly at his face, the barrels spinning at point blank range. She squeezed the trigger, unloading her assault cannon in full auto mode, grinding away at whatever remained of the Sith apprentice’s head in a continuous stream of blaster fire.

From her right, the Devaronian that had been lost in the confusion of battle gasped and whimpered at what he had just witnessed. He lay on his back, unable to move due to a stack of the durasteel crates pinning his left leg to the floor.

“Please,” he begged, watching Lexiine approach him slowly, “please don’t kill me. I’m just a simple merchant—I had no choice! They would have killed me if I hadn’t given them what they wanted!

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Please, I beg you, I—I can give you information, yes! The Imperials, I have information, you can find the components they ordered logged into my personal terminal, you’ll need access codes, and I can provide you with them, please!”

Lexiine looked down on the Devaronian as he bargained and pleaded for his life, her expression unchanged, cold. She shifted the weight of her assault cannon to her left hand, resting it on her left hip and used her right hand to unclip her sidearm from its holster on her right hip.

“No!” The Devaronian started to panic, clawing at his leg still pinned under the crates. “No, please! I’ll do anything, I beg—”

Without hesitation, she fired a single shot into his head, killing him instantly.

HK-51 watched. “Approval: Very good, master. Leave no troublemakers alive.”

Holstering her sidearm, Lexiine turned to HK, giving the droid a thumbs-up gesture, her demeanour changing in an instant.

“Naturally,” she replied before taking a quick look around the aftermath at her feet. “Do me a favour and run a final scan, make sure everything in here is actually dead, then access these logs the merchant was talking about.”

“As you wish, master,” HK nodded as it initiated its scanning protocols.

Lexiine turned away from the assassin droid and activated the communications unit embedded in her right glove, holding it up to her mouth. “Stikks,” she said, speaking into the back of her wrist, “the Imps done loading that cargo onto their ship?”

A squeaky feminine voice replied to her through the comm. “Yeah, boss, they’ve almost got the last one fully loaded. Whatever the Imps are taking looks pretty unusual.”

“Good. You better get your tiny butt out of there,” Lexiine teased the disembodied voice, “I’m about to blow the charges.”

“Already way ahead of you, boss.”

Deactivating the comm, Lexiine turned to find HK-51 standing

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next to her.

“Report: Scans complete, master. There are no survivors. Additionally: I have downloaded the merchant’s encrypted logs. Decode time is approximately two hours, sixteen minutes, thirty-seven seconds, mark.”

Lexiine gave HK a quick nod as she slung her assault cannon over her shoulder, making her way around the mess of fallen crates and corpses laying on the ground. The two emerged through the open cargo bay doors and stepped into the main cargo area. Just like the smaller room they entered from, this larger area also consisted of a large collection of durasteel crates stacked all around them. Lexiine watched as automated cargo droids filled the crates on the far end of the cargo bay with what appeared to be substandard and obsolete components of various types. It seemed as if the only thing the Devaronian was dealing in, other than highly specialised refinery components that interested the Sith Empire, was a collection of junk.

On the other side of the bay, a small, skittish female Cathar hurried toward them, her orange-gold striped fur standing on end for a moment as she skidded to a halt in front of Lexiine.

“You weren’t kidding,” Lexiine told the Cathar with an amused look on her face.

The smaller woman looked up at Lexiine with her big blue eyes. “I didn’t want you to blow me up with the Imps,” she replied, catching her breath.

“Cute, but you’re giving me ideas,” Lexiine teased the Cathar who looked quizzically back up at her superior officer. “Plus, you wouldn’t believe the things I’ve had to do to make sure you had enough time out here.”

Stikk’s eyes fluttered for a second. “Oh, really? You so need to tell me!” she said excitedly, almost bouncing as she did.

“Later,” Lexiine assured her small Cathar companion, “right now we still have Imps to fry.”

Stikks led the way toward the large shielded opening on the far side of the cargo bay. As they stopped in front of the shield, Lexiine

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took a moment to look up at the endless collection of bright neon lights of the advertisements littering the sides of the towering buildings above, the collective glow creating a perpetual aurora of light shining all the way down here to the undercity of Nar Shaddaa.

From the corner of her eye, Lexiine noticed Stikks applying more nasal numbing agent to her nostrils. “So, you’re the one who took all of it,” she deduced.

“What?” Stikks whined. “My sense of smell is so much stronger than yours, you have no idea.”

Lexiine sighed in response. “Alright, alright.”

“Anyway,” Stikks said, pointing across to the open bay on the far side of the rundown cargo port. “We’re here in bay one, the ones on the right are bays two and three and the one across from us is bay four where the Imps are parked. We’ve got a great view from here but you should wait—”

Before she had a chance to finish, Lexiine activated the detonation switch.

A flash of light followed by a heavy thud caught Stikks by surprise, making her ears snap to attention, as the group witnessed a small cargo shuttle fall from the opening of cargo bay four. Their eyes followed it down as the rest of the explosives within the shuttle detonated, ripping the rear section to shreds, raining razor-sharp shrapnel and chunks of durasteel down on the slums below. What remained of the shuttle’s hull impacted a smaller building below, crushing through the roof before the shuttle’s fuel cells exploded causing another flash of light followed by a plume of black smoke that began to cloud the area as fiery chunks of shrapnel still rained down.

After a moment, the roar of explosions and screech of grinding metal finally died down, allowing the mass of terror-filled screams of the slum residents to cut through.

Lexiine watched silently, trying to assess the damage caused to the shuttle through the black smoke blanketing the area, totally uninterested in the massacre it caused on the way down. Stikks jaw

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dropped open, unable to say anything for a moment, trying to process what just happened. HK-51 actively scanned the area below with its precision optics.

“O-okay,” Stikks rattled off nervously, finally able to form words, “so, it looks like the charge on that last bit of cargo they were loading detonated first, the force of the kinetic energy was channelled enough to propel the ship out of the bay and then the rest of the charges detonated on the way down.”

HK finished its scans. “Assessment: Deletion rate exceeding mission estimates. A job well done, master.”

“All in a day’s work,” Lexiine replied to the assassin droid, still assessing the massacre below before looking over to her two companions. “I enjoyed myself, how about the two of you?”

“Answer: Deleting troublemakers is my primary pleasure, master.”

Stikks rubbed her left temple for a moment. “This has been fun and all, but isn’t General Garza going to chew our heads off over all this?”

Lexiine gave Stikks a quick wink. “Don’t worry, we got to kill some Imps and blow stuff up, I know I’m happy. Besides, they don’t call us Ravage Squad because we go on diplomatic missions to some snarky Alderaanian’s villa.”

She didn’t know why, but even with all the trouble her commanding officer has gotten her into, Stikks felt reassured when Lexiine winked at her. This wasn’t the first time this squad had gotten themselves into this kind of mess and it certainly wouldn’t be the last.

“Hmm,” Lexiine mused, “it smells like smoke and ash around here now, an improvement from what it was before.”

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