Chapter Text
The streets of Aran-4 were hot, dry, and dusty. Hunter pushed his way through the throngs of humanoids frequenting the central marketplace of the capital, a hectic mess of vendors shrieking out the content of their stalls as customers studied their wares with a practiced eye. Aran-4 was relatively undeveloped by galactic standards, an Outer Rim planet populated by various species. Hunter had so far seen Aqualish, Devaronians, and even a Wookiee, but most inhabitants seemed to be either human, Twi’lek, or Rodian.
Hunter scanned the streets as he walked. He was looking for a flash of red that would indicate the presence of the Red Flags, a group of Separatist-allied guerilla terrorists who called this planet home. A complicated agreement had been negotiated between the Red Flags and the Republic, which basically boiled down to the Republic sending in one unarmed man to confirm proof of life of the scientist. Normally the Republic would have sent in an undercover Jedi, but for some poorly-explained reasons they had elected to send in the Bad Batch instead. Officially, only Hunter was on-planet.
Unofficially, Crosshair was currently covering him from the rooftops and Echo, disguised as a droid, was shuttling a crate containing Hunter's weapons. The idea was that once Hunter made contact with the hostiles, Echo would leave his weapons nearby and make himself scarce. What happened after that was anyone's guess, despite having a strategy things rarely went according to plan.
In an effort to blend in, Hunter had left his armour on the Marauder and changed into civilian clothes - a green tunic with brown trousers were held together with a heavy-duty belt Hunter had secured a long time ago.
He had been instructed to meet the Red Flags in a nearby alleyway. When he saw a piece of red cloth hung on a wire outside the alleyway, he was to head down it, where he would be met. They would secure him and escort him to where they were holding Doctor Patell.
The only issue was, he'd been standing outside an open-air cantina, sipping ichita tea, for a good half an hour. Then he saw it. A human, their face obscured by a red facewrap, hung a small red cloth on a metal prong sticking out of the wall before disappearing down the alleyway.
Hunter drained the rest of his ichita tea, placed it on the counter with a nod of thanks to the bartender, and strolled lazily towards the alleyway. Once he reached the entrance, he quickly scanned either side before stepping in. You never knew what to expect
when dealing with hostiles.
His concerns, as it turned out, were well-founded. Before he could start moving, he felt someone step up behind him and press a blaster to the small of his back. "No sudden moves," the Red Flag, because who else would it be, told him.
Hunter walked forward slowly. As he moved, he could see more shadowy figures wearing red facewraps, carrying blaster carbines. His apparent kidnapper stopped as they moved forward. One of them, obviously the leader, stepped forward.
"You are the man the Republic sent?" he asked. He was a taller Twi’lek, with a strong Ryloth accent.
"Yeah," Hunter replied.
The Twi’lek motioned for one of his men to come up, a green-skinned Rodian. The Rodian patted Hunter down, searching for any weapons. He plucked Hunter's comlink from his belt and dropped it, crushing it beneath his foot. Then, finding nothing else on him, he stepped away and nodded to his boss.
"Cuff and blind him, then bring him along," the Twi’lek ordered.
Hunter felt more than heard the click of the binders pulling his wrists together as a sack was dropped over his head and roughly tugged into place. The Red Flags were clearly taking no chances.
Then he started walking. He could sense the electric currents in the equipment carried by the insurgents around him - comlinks, blasters, vibroblades. They were walking through the back lanes of Aban Tiraq, obviously to avoid the crowds.
It took them five minutes and around seven hundred steps to stop. Hunter heard the whoosh of a door sliding open and sensed the currents running through the building in front of him. Then he was being forced up a flight of stairs which soon levelled out on what Hunter assumed was the second floor. His suspicions were proven correct as the sack was ripped from his eyes. The sunlight poured into the room from a large window on the wall to his left and he took a second to ascertain how many people were around him.
There were around seven Red Flags in the room, all of various species. The Twi’lek leader spoke first. "The Republic is refusing our terms of 500,000 credits for the scientist. Yet here you are," he boomed in his thick accent.
Hunter raised an eyebrow. "The Republic never said they were refusing the terms. They merely said they would negotiate a price after proof of life was given."
"We sent a hologram," the Twi’lek retorted.
"48 hours ago. A lot could have happened in 48 hours," Hunter countered. "Show me the hostage, I walk out of here and tell them they're free to negotiate."
The Twi’lek shook his head. "Show him," he ordered.
A door to Hunter's right slid open. Doctor Patell stepped through with a sack over his head, escorted by a Devaronian who had one hand clutching the doctor's shoulder and another holding a blaster to the doctor's head.
"Remove the sack," the Twi’lek ordered.
The Devaronian ripped the sack from Patell's head. The doctor gave a brief wince and looked around with wild, unfocused eyes.
"Put it back." The sack was replaced as quickly as it had been removed and the doctor was bundled back into the room. The door slid shut behind him before the Twi’lek spoke.
"You have seen the hostage. Tell your Republic to start negotiating."
Hunter nodded, but before he could say anything, the telltale whizz of a blaster shot rang out and one of the guards crumpled to the ground. Hunter seized his chance and shoved into the nearest guard, knocking him down. He struck him, twice, as two more shots rang out.
The guards, confused as four of them suddenly fell dead, turned their blasters towards Hunter and opened fire, but the commando was faster. He kicked a nearby table and sent it flying into a fifth guard while Crosshair, perched on the roof across the street, picked off another.
The final guard started shooting at Hunter with his pistol. Hunter dodged the bolts and grabbed the pistol by the barrel before shoving it against him, aggressively hitting the metal against his chin. The guard cried out and Hunter wrenched the blaster from his grasp, knocking him on the head with the grip. The guard went out cold and Hunter raised his arms. A blaster bolt came flying through the broken transparisteel of the window and shot cleanly through the binders. With his hands free, Hunter raised his newfound weapon and shot the door controls of the doctor's makeshift prison cell. The door slid open and Hunter approached the quaking figure of the highly-esteemeed Doctor Patell.
"Don't shoot," he whimpered. Hunter raised his blaster and shot through his binders before pulling off his makeshift hood.
"Doctor Patell? Name's Hunter. I'm here to extract you."
The doctor stuttered out a thank you, but Hunter shushed him. "We still have to get out of here. Stay close to me whatever you do. My team is waiting outside the city."
To Hunter's relief, the building itself didn't seem to be the Red Flag's headquarters or even a stronghold. The building was remarkably quiet. And hostiles they encountered were usually dead before they could reach them, courtesy of Crosshair’s excellent aim. But things got awkward on the stairwell. Without his brother to cover them, Hunter got trapped in a drawn-out firefight between himself and three remaining Red Flags.
The insurgents had pinned him on a landing halfway down the stairs. For some peculiar reason that turned out to be incredibly lucky, this particular landing was covered in various crates. Hunter and the doctor hunkered down between them as blaster shots
flew at them from above and below.
It took Hunter several hot seconds before he managed to take out the lone gunman downstairs. The blaster he'd grabbed had a scope attached to it, which meant it was a little bit easier to aim at the well-concealed attacker. He'd never have Crosshair’s incredible accuracy, but he was still the second-best shot in the Batch.
With the route downstairs finally clear, Hunter grabbed the doctor and sprinted down the stairs, firing upstairs as he went. Pushing the doctor though the open door, he burst out into the street. A group of workers peered at him for a split second before
reaching into their landspeeder and pulling out blasters. Hunter shoved the doctor down the nearest alleyway and together they pressed themselves against the wall.
"How much more shooting do you think there'll be?" Doctor Patell inquired between breaths.
Hunter turned to look at him. "A lot, knowing my luck," he replied dryly.
The doctor nodded. "I see."
Hunter smiled briefly to himself before something in the alleyway caught his eye. Most planets made use of trash chutes which lead to the main compactors, but Aran-4 still used trash containers which were then transported away by droids. One such container was sitting next to them, and as Hunter looked, he could see a red 99 amongst the other graffiti surrounding it. He knew Echo had placed his equipment in a nearby alleyway but when the workers had opened fire, he hadn't exactly had time to confirm which. It was only by pure luck that he'd landed in the very one he was looking for.
"Look in that container there. It should have my equipment in it." He ordered Patell. The doctor nodded and opened it before pulling out its contents and making a pile on the street. Hunter paused his firing and crept towards the doctor. "Take this," he ordered the doctor, handing him the blaster he'd captured, before checking his equipment. He fastened his belt and holster on, which carried a DC-17 on his hip as well as his knife on the back. A standard-issue pack was there, filled with thermal detonators and a medpack among other things. The detonators caught his eye and he snatched one from the pack along with his carbine.
The shots from the undercover Red Flags were coming closer. Hunter crept back to the mouth of the alleyway and primed his detonator and throwing it in their general direction. There was a split-second's pause, and then an explosion. Hunter was quite deafened by the noise, as he was more used to being somewhat protected by his helmet.
"You alright?" he yelled at the doctor and received an emphatic nod in return. Hunter turned back to the entrance and peered out carefully, carbine at the ready. Those who weren't caught in the blast were crouched behind whatever shelter they could find.
With the few seconds of peace he'd secured, Hunter sucked in a deep breath and refocused. He reached for the comlink in his pack and switched it on, switching it to the squad's frequency.
"This is Havoc-1. I have the package."
"Affirmative, Havoc-1," Tech replied. "The Marauder is standing by."
"Copy, Havoc-2. Package en route."
As Hunter clicked off his commlink, he had no way of knowing just what he had unleashed. The Red Flags' fury was notorious, and they would fight tooth and nail to retrieve what they had lost. Unfortunately for them, Hunter would, too.