Chapter Text
“The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.
An evil soul producing holy witness
Is like a villain with a smiling cheek,
A goodly apple rotten at the heart.
O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!”
Jedi Master William Shakespeare
Nal Hutta, 26 A.B.Y.
Most planets in the galaxy shine like gems against the vacant tapestry of infinity, rarities that vibrate with a promise of refuge and sanctuary from the emptiness of space. Even on a corrupted backwater, or even within the chaotic din of Coruscant, the arrival at planet always conveyed relief with a long journey ended and fresh food imbibed. But as Kira gazed at the debris-ringed, fetid green sphere hurtling toward their violently shuddering freighter, the nauseous anxiety rising in her gut screamed at her to commandeer the ship’s controls and turn back into open space.
Even from 1000 miles above the planet’s surface, there was no denying that Nal Hutta was a disgusting place. Kira turned away from the view and scanned the decrepit interior of their shuttle, a greasy, foul-smelling contraption built by the Hutts and held together by desperation. For the dozenth time through their journey, she stifled a wave of nausea induced by a potent cocktail of rancid odors. Dozens of eyes peered at her from the shadows in the back of their cargo hold as the ship’s payload of Kowakian monkey lizards stared at her insolently from the darkness. Kira turned away from the obnoxious creatures toward the silent form of her friend and mentor, Leia Organa.
Leia sat in silence; her eyes closed. By the tranquil energy radiating from her mentor, Kira could sense that she was deep in meditation, insulated against the disgust and anxiety that Kira was failing spectacularly at keeping at bay. A pang of frustration rang within Kira as she envied Leia’s serenity. After a brief surge of fear and pain in the night from Leia a week ago, which precipitated the sudden, hastily planned mission they were now committed to, Leia’s purposeful tranquility had left her opaque to Kira. The opacity bred a sense of disconnection in Kira, stirring up feelings of frustration and anxiety as she tried to make sense of Leia’s sudden about-face regarding the Hutts. Leia had spent the last year preaching the necessity of avoiding direct contact with certain elements, with the Hutts at the top of the list. And now, suddenly, Leia and Kira approached the heart of the Hutt Empire, hoping desperately to strike a bargain.
Kira’s focus drifted away from Leia, and a torrent of anxious thoughts roared through her mind. The galactic situation had deteriorated in the past weeks. Mandalore was now in open revolt against the Republic, and skirmishes had followed the arrest of the Mandalorian leader. The Resistance’s efforts to help the Mandalorians had led to the capture of Taila Zevala by Republic commandos along with the failure to obtain the help they so desperately needed to turn the tide of popular opinion. Taila had been deep into training Jax, and he had become more distracted and unsure of himself at a critical point in their attempts to reveal the truth about the Republic’s corrupt leadership. Every avenue they pursued led to walls that closed in on all sides. The public had grown tired of the frigid civil war between the disgraced former Chancellor and a corrupt, loathsome current Chancellor. And between public indifference and the increasingly cold feet of their allies, Kira was beginning to think their Resistance was limping to an anti-climactic end.
Increasingly unsettled by her ruminations, Kira instead turned her focus to her data pad, hoping for a distraction in mulling over the last paragraphs in a history of the Hutts that she had browsed through on the long hyperspace jump from the Resistance’s secret base on Cophrigin V. The history concluded at Rotta the Hutt’s rise to the head of the Hutt Families. As she read the conclusion, Kira found herself wishing that the Resistance’s desperation had never pressed her into learning more about the species. Corruption, slavery, human trafficking, spice running, gambling – the list of salacious activities, which had continued unabated for centuries despite the Republic’s efforts to stop it, confirmed the galactic mythos that the Hutts were the vilest of the vile.
The Sail Barge Disaster occurred at the hands of Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa, and the murder of Jabba the Hutt followed by a decade of chaos on the Outer Rim had fundamentally altered the delicate power balance of the major crime syndicates. In the vacuum, various competing syndicates picked over the carcasses of the Hutt operations until the Hutts eventually played the various syndicates against each other. After a five-year war among the syndicates, the Hutts, led by Jabba the Hutt’s son, Rotta, re-emerged as the dominant power figure in the Outer Rim underworld, their stranglehold on the major crime activities stronger than before.
Perfect, Kira thought to herself. She knew that the Hutts had watched their territories and activities crumble under an onslaught by the Chiss Ascendency and the Republic but flying into the nest of a cunning species that had survived just about everything with the woman who recently murdered their leader seemed like a horrible plan.
“You’re doing it again,” Leia said, her eyes closed as she reclined against the metal fuselage.
“Doing what?” Kira asked, putting the data pad down and looking over at her Master. She felt a twinge of resentment toward Leia’s preternatural calm despite hurtling toward one of the most wretched hives of evil in the galaxy.
“Let go of your thoughts and come back to the here and now,” Leia admonished, her eyes still closed.
Kira glanced around the hold, and the disgusting conditions of the ship turned her nose. “Do I have to?” she asked in disgust.
Leia smiled slightly and said, “The Force can’t shout over all the noise in your head. Quiet your mind.”
Kira registered the admonishment, but the kind tone softened it. She closed her eyes, attempting to tune out the rattling from a ship that felt like it might fall apart at any moment. She could feel the current of the Force flowing beneath the babel of her mind, but as she allowed herself to sink into the Force, she could feel an insistent whisper of danger ahead.
As the whisper of danger grew louder and more insistent, she could sense something dark and catastrophic looming ahead, and the Force whispered a warning. Her thoughts rushed back into the void, attempting to solve the mystery at the edges of her mind.
Casting aside her attempt at contacting the here and now, she asked, “What makes you think they’re going to listen to you?”
“I half expect them not to,” Leia admitted. She paused, then added thoughtfully with her eyes still closed, “But - selfish and cruel though the Hutts are, they are singularly concerned with their own self-preservation. They might be amenable.”
“You killed Jabba the Hutt,” Kira noted, turning away from the portal, her eyes bearing down on Leia.
Leia opened her eyes and turned to Kira. She responded with a grim smile. “Then they should know to take me seriously.”
Leia closed her eyes again and resumed her meditation, and as her mentor sank into apparent calm, resentment crept into Kira’s awareness. She hated the thought of harboring resentments toward Leia, and not wishing to have any bad feeling lingering as they approached the Hutts, she said, “What are you not telling me?”
Leia’s eyes snapped open, and for the briefest of moments, Kira thought she could see fear in her mentor’s eyes. Leia turned toward Kira, eyeing her curiously, and said, “Kira, we’ve been over this.”
“Your dream. One day you’re adamant that we stay away from the Hutts, and the next day you’re insisting we go,” Kira said, her voice a touch harder than she intended.
Leia inhaled deeply, then exhaled. She responded, “The Force revealed a path. We’re following it.”
“When I listen to the Force, all I can sense in front of us is death,” Kira responded, her voice tense with fear.
Leia opened her mouth as if to speak, then closed it again, giving Kira the impression that she was struggling to find the right word.
In the brief pause in their conversation, their captain, a crude, malodorous Rodian named Bolius, announced that they were entering Nal Hutta’s atmosphere. Their ship shuddered more violently than Kira was comfortable with as they passed through the upper levels of the atmosphere and dropped toward the fetid green cloud deck below. As they sank into the cloud deck, the squalid rain clouds nearly extinguished the light from the planet’s star as the ship sank into a shadowy black-green world. Gray water streaked the exterior of the portal as the planet’s incessant rainfall coated the ship with aerosolized chemicals churned out by the Hutts’ pollution-rich industrial quadrants. Kira cast a glance back at Leia, who had returned to her silent meditation, which meant their conversation was over for now. With the city approaching and their encounter with the heads of the Hutt families ahead, Kira waved aside her misgivings and half-heartedly sank back into meditation exercises to clear her mind of distractions.
The ship neared the planet’s swampy surface and leveled out as it approached the primary city, Bilbousa. It was no longer customary for the Hutts to entertain off-worlders on the planet – most of the traffic was diverted to the planet’s moon, Nar Shaddaa. However, one of the contingencies for the meeting was that Leia arrive by unusual methods, as it was believed that a Hutt freighter hauling a shipment of Kowakian monkey lizards to Bilbousa would arouse less suspicion than a Resistance ship traveling to the well-monitored moon. Kira watched as fetid swamps flew by below as the ship sputtered its way toward the city. The ship rose slightly, passing the city’s outer limits on its way toward a cluster of dimly lit, cylindrical, domed towers that Kira assumed marked the residences and offices of the Hutt families.
The ship’s momentum slowed as it approached a landing pad, then came to a stop before dropping ungracefully to the ground with a shuddering clunk. Relieved that they had landed without the ship coming apart, Kira rose from her seat, steeling herself. The captain entered the cabin from the cockpit and wordlessly jammed his elbow into a compartment. The compartment sprung open, revealing a set of breathing masks designed to filter out the polluting chemicals and stench from the air. He donned a mask, and Leia and Kira followed suit. The ship’s ramp descended with a hiss of steam, and the captain stalked down the ramp toward a small delegation awaiting them fifty meters away from the ship under a portico sheltering the entrance to the council chambers. Kira noted it as an ominous and inconsiderate sign that the delegation refrained from offering rain covers to keep the foul Nal Hutta rain off their robes.
The two women stepped forward and reached the base of the landing platform. Attempting in vain to minimize exposure to the chemical rain washing over the cityscape, they walked briskly across the platform, polluted rain soaking their robes. Upon reaching the portico, they halted before the delegation led by a Twi’lek with pallid, psoriatic skin and richly embroidered robes. The Twi’lek was flanked by a sextet of Gamorrean guards and a Mandalorian bounty hunter whose face hid behind a red mask with a black visor. She was clothed in black and red body armor partially covered by a black cape with silver trim. Kira recognized the bounty hunter from a recent botched operation that had cost them their best chance at gaining access to the codebreaker capable of decoding the encrypted transmissions they had spent a year attempting to access. The bounty hunter, Panga Meesh, nodded to Kira, and the face mask obscured whether it was a challenge or a greeting of respect.
The Twi’lek stepped forward and announced himself in Huttese, saying, “Bu iddustrious Hutts bids uba chowbaso.” He then gestured toward a gonk droid that was fitted with a lock box atop its circuit housing. The Twi’lek gestured toward the open box and said, “Jee-jee oom-quire bettap uba orop uta-sha lightsooers wata bu Hutts.” He leered toward Leia and then to Kira with a malicious glint in his eye.
Leia opened her robe and removed her lightsaber, settling it into the box. Kira glanced up at the Twi’lek, regarding his malicious grin suspiciously as she removed her lightsabers and placed them in the box next to Leia’s. The Twi’lek’s grin widened as the box’s lid slammed shut, and an electronic locking mechanism signaled that the weapons were secure.
“Gooddé! Noddow jeesh,” said the Twi’lek as he turned and walked briskly toward the door on the far side of the portico. The Gamorrean guards followed, waddling along with their axes cradled in their arms. Panga Meesh regarded Kira for a moment longer, then turned to follow the Twi’lek. Leia and Kira set out behind them, with Kira continuing to stretch out her senses for signs of duplicity.
They passed through the door and followed the delegation toward a sickly, yellow-green glow radiating through the doorway at the end of a hall. Upon reaching the end of the hall, they passed into a large, circular room with a pallid yellow light shining down upon a grimy mosaic set in the floor before a concave, rounded platform. The Gamorrean guards took their places before the platform adjacent to a colorful, sordid assortment of counselors, slaves, and a handful of favored bounty hunters lounging about on pillows and smaller platforms. The motley rabble regarded Leia and Kira as if calculating whether it would be worth it to break protocol and turn them in to the Republic. A clear transparasteel barrier rose beyond the rabble, holding a faintly glowing pool of liquid from which rose five ornate rostrums. Behind each rostrum sat five massive, slug-like creatures with large, gaping mouths and bulbous, rounded eyes, each leering appraisingly at their guests. Kira felt a wave of disgust at the half-dozen bikini-clad women chained to platforms adjacent to the male Hutts. The Twi’lek paused before the main rostrum, which stood slightly higher than the rest, and announced, “Maee jee oozeshah bu of bu k'wannah Hutt namilies, Rotta, Vurga, Oarnoosh, Versh, and Lors.” The Twi’lek gestured in turn to each of the five Hutts, all of whom peered down suspiciously and magisterially at their guests.
Upon completing his introduction, the Twi’lek stood back to watch the conversation unfold. Leia and Kira both bowed, and Leia shook her sleeve away from her wrist, revealing a device with a three-inch-wide dish. She pressed a button, and the device projected a hologram of a golden protocol droid. As C-3P0’s image sprung into life, the droid startled at the sight of the five Hutts; he had never quite forgotten his misadventures at Jabba’s palace on Tatooine. Remembering his protocol, the droid introduced himself, saying, “Hello. I am See-Threepio, human-cyborg relations. As a convenience to all involved, I will be translating today’s negotiations.”
“Jee tweesha uba oolan wipe bu doohdeka 'z thinka-we joppay uba'laz oone,” spoke Versh, a pale-skinned Hutt with a large abscess growing from his forehead.
Threepio turned toward Leia and translated, with mild alarm, “The venerable Versh says that he hopes you will erase my memory files upon completing this conversation.”
Leia stepped forward, removing her hood, and nodded, recognizing the trouble Threepio had caused Supreme Chancellor Bolsko a nine months ago when she stole the droid from under the Chancellor’s nose and revealed examples of his corruption stored in Threepio’s memory files.
She then said, “Please let me begin by expressing my gratitude that you’ve agreed to host this meeting. We recognize the risk you are taking, and we believe we will be able to make the risks well worth the trouble.”
The Hutts maintained a silence that communicated that Leia was welcome to continue. Leia proceeded with her entreaty, saying, “As you know, our Resistance faces ever greater levels of enmity from the Republic’s agents. At the same time, Hutt business interests have shrunk by 75% thanks to Supreme Chancellor Bolsko’s abuses of power under the false pretense of protecting the galaxy. Both of our organizations have been attacked ruthlessly and methodically, and now, while we may never be allies by choice, we have found ourselves in a position where we may be of service to each other.”
Oarnoosh, a purple-tinged Hutt with streaks of mottled gray striping his flanks, spoke, and Threepio translated. “The honorable Oarnoosh seeks to remind Madame Organa that she and her husband spent two decades making business dealings more difficult for the Hutts. He asks why they should trust you now?”
“Because now there is little choice,” Leia said grimly. “The Republic, with support from the Order of Ren acting under the guise of the Chiss Ascendancy, has virtually eliminated your human trafficking efforts, the spice trade, gambling outside of Hutt space, and dozens of other side pursuits. If left unchecked, you will have Chiss soldiers patrolling the streets of Bilbousa. My proposition will give both of us an advantage in that we will expose the charade, restoring the Republic.”
This time, Vurga spoke, and she spoke in Basic, being one of the few Hutts on the council who chose to speak the common language, “Which will then continue its disruption of our enterprises.”
“Indeed,” acknowledged Leia. “But we are all aware that the mechanics of democracy make it impossible to eradicate crime. Even at the height of the Republic, the Hutt Empire flourished, and despite my government’s efforts, your business only slowed in areas that the Senate found unacceptable. Yes, you will have few friends in a restored Republic, but this is far more friends than you have in the government now. Moreover, a restored Republic will require decades to re-establish itself after the setbacks of the last year – decades in which the Hutts might recover or even expand their business operations.”
Oarnoosh shifted uncomfortably behind his rostrum, sending murky water sloshing around. Some of the water splashed onto the chained slave adjacent to his rostrum, and she struggled to mask her disgust. He asked a question that Leia sensed was inevitable, which Threepio translated, “The mighty Oarnoosh asks what a disgraced politician with no power and a price on her head has to offer that the Hutts cannot get for themselves?”
Leia pressed another button on her wrist device, and a separate projection appeared before her. She explained, “Days after Supreme Chancellor Bolsko assumed power, we received a series of transmissions – candid recordings – from the Chancellor’s office. The Security Secretary installed a new encrypt originating from the Order of Ren. Our codebreakers have found it impossible to break. With this information decoded, we believe we will be able to expose Bolsko and the Order of Ren while restoring the Republic. We know that at least one of your associates can break this code.” Leia paused, making eye contact with each Hutt. “We request his services”
Threepio translated for Lors, a younger male Hutt, who had not yet spoken, saying, “The respected Lors points out that this is a mere belief, not a fact.”
“Yes, but as you recall from recordings provided by this very protocol droid,” Leia gestured to Threepio’s hologram before continuing, “there was more to those conversations, and we know whatever else was said can be found here.” Leia paused, allowing the intrigue to settle. She then continued, saying, “We also offer our intelligence capacity, which as you’ve undoubtedly deduced from our knowledge of your current business operations, is extensive. We offer it to aid your organization’s survival in this challenging time.”
Vurga responded incredulously, saying, “The former Chancellor of the Republic, the good and honorable Leia Organa, offering to help the Hutts survive? Once that is found out, you will never hold office again.”
“I don’t intend to hold office again,” Leia said, allowing herself to show a trace of vulnerability as proof of her sincerity. “That part of my life is over. What I do now, I do for the survival of the galaxy.”
A long pause followed this pronouncement, and Leia could sense that the Hutts were processing and considering Leia’s claims. Rotta, the only Hutt who had not spoken, eyed her malevolently, even greedily. Kira noticed the other Hutts looking toward him, and she understood that, as their leader, they would not speak again until he had spoken. He shifted his weight upon the plinth behind his rostrum, sending another wave of fetid liquid sloshing over the transparasteel barrier, then cleared his throat, saying through Threepio’s translation, “But Organa has not addressed the most pressing question of all.”
“Which is?” Leia asked, eying the Hutt warily.
Threepio’s translation revealed his response. “The illustrious Rotta the Hutt notes that Leia Organa and Kira Palpatine both have one-million credit rewards on their heads. Why should the Hutts play this little game when they can simply capture you now and reap the reward?”
Leia smiled, then added with a hint of steel in her voice, “Because even with the two million credits, the Republic is not going to stop. You’ll buy your way through to tomorrow, but the day after will bring you right back to where you are now.”
Threepio translated Rotta’s response, “Which means we’re guaranteed to survive another day, which is more than we can say now that we’ve agreed to host you here.”
Kira tensed as she sensed that Rotta was considering capturing them. She had known that a fight was a possibility, and she had hoped it would not come to that.
Leia replied with uncanny calm, saying, “Yet, you can’t help but wonder how much more you might gain should my claims prove true.” She smiled, allowing her words to sink in before continuing. “Sure, you might be able to keep your enterprises afloat for a month with that money, and after that, what then? You’ve lost the spice trade, the trade in beings, and most of the gambling. The Pykes are out of business now. Black Sun is all but dead. The Zygerrians are reeling, even despite helping the Republic apprehend my old associate. Think of the opportunities for your families should we succeed.”
Rotta’s eyes narrowed, and Kira could sense his anger at Leia’s daring despite the typical inscrutability of Hutt emotions. Tension filled the room as Rotta held the pause, and that tension ebbed at his response as he said, “What would Leia Organa ask of the Hutts?”
“The codebreaker Krax, who is currently frozen in carbonite within this very building,” Leia said, sensing opportunity blossoming.
“Impossible,” said Vurga, reasserting herself into the conversation. “He is being held for crimes against the Hutt families for exposing their finances. No doubt some of your information came from him to begin with.”
“We do not wish to free him,” Leia elaborated. “We wish to borrow him, under your supervision, for long enough to decrypt our transmissions. After which point, we will return him to you to be encased back in the carbonite.” Leia paused momentarily, then added, “I may remind you that it was also Krax who enabled the assault on Bilbringi, which nearly resulted in our deaths and the deaths of millions. We have no desire to see him free.”
Threepio translated Rotta’s response, “Then, you exchange your intelligence for the use of our codebreaker. Bolsko is exposed, and things go back to the way they were.”
Rotta the Hutt looked around the Council. To the extent that Kira could read Hutt emotion, she had the sense that the Hutts, while not favorable to the deal, at least felt that it was worth considering. Rotta set his gaze on Leia, and Kira had the sense that he was calculating the reward of turning her in to the Republic against the potentials of Leia’s offering.
After a long, pregnant pause, the Hutt spoke, with Threepio translating, “The Hutts agree to this bargain.”
Leia broke into a wide smile, and a sense of relief stole over Kira. That relief came to a screeching halt when Rotta added through Threepio’s translation. “With one condition.”
“Which is?” Leia asked, a flicker of apprehension and suspicion crossing her face.
Rotta turned to appraise the slave chained to his rostrum. She was slightly older than the other ones, and her hardened, jaded appearance suggested a woman who had seen too much and had shut down emotionally. Kira knew that Hutts grew tired of their slaves right around the time when their fear and vulnerability transformed into full emotional shutdowns. As Kira regarded the woman, she had the sense that this slave would soon be fed to a rancor. Rotta then looked to Kira, a wicked, leering smile stretching grotesquely across his slimy, sallow face.
Speaking basic for the first time, looking directly at Kira, he said, “I will have the girl.”