Chapter 1: Dressed to Kill, Bleeding to Live
The rain on Coruscant wasn’t water. It was a greasy slurry of atmospheric runoff and industrial particulates that made everything smell like a burned-out speeder. Rut adjusted the hem of the charcoal-gray skirt, his fingers tracing the once-sharp line of a stolen Imperial officer’s uniform. He’d done significant alterations. The original severe cut was now something shorter, asymmetrical, and decidedly impractical for any Imperial function. Practicality wasn’t the point.Camouflage was.
A holographic billboard flickered above, washing the alley in a sickly puce glow as it advertised questionable neural implants. The light caught the sleek, dark length of the pike staff strapped to his back. To any casual glance, it was just a piece of junk, a tool for a lower-level maintenance drone. The faint, almost subliminal hum from its emitter cage told a different story.
His boots made no sound on the permacrete. Five-foot-two of compact muscle and white-haired silence, he became another shadow in the canyon of looming, crumbling spires. The distant wail of a siren spliced through the constant mechanical drone of the city levels above. That was for him. Or, more specifically, for the smashed-up gambling den three blocks over and the rather upset Huttese lieutenant currently missing his favorite blaster and a significant portion of his dignity.
A strategic withdrawal. That’s what he called it. The tactile feedback of the Lieutenant’s jaw under his knuckles had been satisfyingly illogical.
A dumpster exhaled a wave of decay. He paused, not breathing through his nose. The synth-leather of his modified corset top creaked faintly. Not ideal for stealth, but it shaped a silhouette nobody here was looking for—a slight, possibly lost pleasure-worker, not the cause of a minor syndicate war.
A voice rasped from a recessed doorway. “Hey, sparkle. You’re a little far from the glossies.”
Rut turned his head, his black eyes absorbing the scant light. The man was a mountain of gristle and street-tier cybernetics, one ocular implant whirring as it focused. A enforcer.Probably freelance.
“I am exactly where I intend to be,” Rut said, his voice calm, devoid of the fear the enforcer expected.
The man grinned, showing synth-steel teeth. “Nice legs. Let’s see if the rest of the package is worth the trip. The Droid Dogs are looking for someone. Costume’s different, but the height’s right.”
Rut’s logic processor—the one in his head, not the city’s mainframe—clicked through options. Fighting was viable but noisy. Flight was preferable. Negotiation was unlikely.
“The Droid Dogs have poor operational security,” Rut stated. “You announcing their search parameters compromises their objective.”
The enforcer blinked. The words didn’t quite fit the image. He stepped forward, a meaty hand reaching. “What?”
In one fluid motion, Rut wasn’t there. He’d pivoted on the ball of his foot, his body dropping low. The enforcer’s hand grasped air. As Rut rose, his hand found the middle of his pike staff. There was a sharp snap-hiss, a blinding bar of crimson energy erupted from one end, and a single, precise upward arc severed the whirring ocular implant and the flesh around it in a sizzling line.
The man screamed, a raw, animal sound, stumbling back and clutching his face.
Rut didn’t watch. The crimson blade vanished. In the same second, his thumb found a pressure pad on the staff’s grip. He pointed the other end at the groaning man. A concussive THUMP emitted from the emitter, not a blaster bolt, but a focused kinetic pulse. It hit the enforcer in the sternum, punching the air and the fight out of him. He slammed into the dumpster and slid down, unconscious.
“Pistol function. Less lethal,” Rut muttered to himself, reconfirming the setting. He reset the staff on his back magnetic lock. The whole encounter had taken less than six seconds. The smell of ozone and scorched meat joined the alley’s perfume.
He moved faster now. The scream was a beacon. He slid into a narrow service conduit, the metal walls sweating condensation. His heart rate was elevated, but his mind was serene, assessing. The skirt was a problem. It limited his stride. Yet, it had made the enforcer underestimate him by 0.8 seconds. A worthwhile trade.For now.
He emerged onto a slightly broader walkway, a transit tube humming overhead. A cluster of beings in patched cloaks huddled around a bubbling vent. Their eyes tracked him, noting the staff, the clothing, the purposeful stride. One, a Twi’lek with faded lekku, gave a minute nod. He’d passed some unspoken test.
A commotion erupted behind him. Glowing yellow optic sensors pierced the gloom of the conduit he’d just exited.Droid Dogs. Two of them, quadrupeds with needle-filled grilles for faces, scanning the area. They locked onto the downed enforcer, then their heads swiveled, scanners painting the area in invisible grids.
Rut didn’t run. Running triggered chase protocols. He walked, quickly, into the stream of scant pedestrian traffic, adopting a slightly uneven gait, a limp that suggested vulnerability. He let his shoulders slump.
He felt the scanner wash over him. He focused on the texture of the damp skirt against his thighs, the weight of the staff, the acid taste of the air. He was a young thing, scared, moving away from trouble. The droids’ analysis would prioritize height, weapon signatures, gait patterns. The limp altered the gait. The staff read as inert. The clothing generated cognitive dissonance.
The yellow lights lifted from him. With a metallic snarl, they continued down the alley, hunting for a phantom martial artist, not a fleeing courtesan.
Rut allowed himself a shallow breath. His logic was correct. The dress was armor.
He needed to get off this level. The gambit with the Hutt had provided credits, but also complications. He needed a ship, or at least a berth on one. The lower docks were a possibility, but required navigating syndicate checkpoints.
A flickering sign ahead read “The Cog & Flame.” A drinking pit. Information flowed there like spilled rotgut.
He pushed the door. The air inside was thick with smoke and the tinny throb of jizz music. A dozen species hunched over drinks. He went to the bar, ordered a shot of something clear and potent, and placed a credchip on the stained counter.
The Bith bartender’s large black eyes noted the chip, then his clothes. “Rough night, sweetie?”
“A negotiating party ended poorly,” Rut said, his voice flat. “I require passage to the Mid-Rim. Freight, courier, anything with an airlock.”
The Bith chuckled, a dry rustling sound. “You and every other ghost on this level. Got nothin’.”
Rut took the shot. It tasted like hydraulic fluid. He placed a second, larger credchip beside the first. “Now you do.”
The Bith’s fingers crept over the chip. “Might be a Trandoshan with a barely-spaceworthy light freighter. Leaves from Bay 78, Sub-level G-9.Before third cycle. He asks no questions, if the credit’s good. He also answers no questions.”
It was a start. Possibly a trap. Probability: 60/40.Acceptable.
As he turned to leave, a large human in a stained flight jacket blocked his path. The man’s eyes were glazed, his smile unpleasant. “Don’t see many like you down here.Pretty thing. That a costume?”
Rut looked up at him. “It is clothing. You are in my way.”
The man laughed, reaching out to touch Rut’s hair. “Feisty. I like—”
Rut’s hand shot up, not as a strike, but as a frame. He caught the man’s wrist, fingers pressing into a specific neural cluster just above the ulnar bone. It was a simple, painless pressure lock. The man’s arm went completely numb, his eyes widening in confusion.
“I said,” Rut repeated, his tone still conversational, “you are in my way.”
He pushed the limp arm aside and walked past the bewildered pilot, out into the corrosive night. The interaction was already erased from his immediate memory. It was irrelevant.
Bay 78, Sub-level G-9. The air grew colder, smelling of rancid fuel and rust. The promissory note from the Bith felt heavy. The freighter, an old Ghtroc\-class, sat in its cradle like a sickened beetle, patched and weeping fluids. The Trandoshan captain stood at the ramp, scales dull, assessing him with reptilian eyes.“Credit. Up front,” the Trandoshan hissed.
Rut handed over a data chip with the agreed amount. The Trandoshan bit it, then grunted, gesturing up the ramp. “Cargo hold. You stay there. We jump in one hour.”
The hold was dark, cluttered with crates that smelled of unknown spices and machine parts. Rut found a clear space, sitting with his back to a cold metal wall. He unstrapped his pike, laying it across his knees. The hum was a comfort. He listened to the distant clangs and shouts of the dock, the low groan of the ship’s aging systems coming online.
For a moment, in the profound darkness, he allowed himself to feel the disconnect. The strange stars outside would be different again. The fight was constant, the adaptation endless. He smoothed the fabric of the skirt over his knees, a tactile anchor in the galaxy’s chaos. It was a choice. A tool. A piece of himself he understood perfectly.
A heavy thud resonated through the hull.Then another. Not the normal sounds of pre-flight.
Boots on the ramp. Harsh, confident. Too many for a Trandoshan crew.
A voice, filtered through a helmet vocoder, echoed in the hold. “Scan the area. The Hutt wants his property back. And the little rat who took it.”
Rut’s black eyes opened, glinting in the sliver of light from the doorway. His fingers closed around the shaft of his pike.
The ship, it seemed, was not leaving just yet.