Landspeeders and cargo-speeders went by in a wave of rushing traffic down the gray streets as hovering traffic lights indicated it was safe to do so. While they did, Myrto sucked in the putrid air sharply and turned to his men.
“Fool Rodian! Do I look like a man with Kelanorian Ratbits?!” Myrto shouted almost at the top of his lungs now.
No one dared answer.
Myrto cast a glance up and down the street. “Did anyone see where they went?!”
“Out here sir?” One of his men offered.
Myrto gave him a deadly look, causing his face to return to the look of despair it had a moment ago. They were all sharing that look now, all six shared that look. Again, the only sound among them was that of the speeding traffic.
“All right, you three go that way, and you three come with me,” Myrto gestured down the street, “we’re going to find them now. Understood?”
“Yes sir!” The men said in chorus.
Myrto took off down the filth-encrusted street at a rapid pace. Behind him three of his men did likewise. Ahead of him loomed the towering buildings that made up the walls of the labyrinth of streets of Cedrekharon. They grew tall enough that only a strip of the eerie glowing sky could be seen. The gray and black of the night streets were broken periodically by glowing traffic lights, and repulsorlift driven street lamps hovering overhead at intervals of ten meters. They created pools of illumination, which were in a state of constant and eternal deterioration by the sucking darkness around them.
Irregardless of traffic, Myrto strode out into the street at the first crossing. Several speeders had to swerve out of his way, and a string of exclamations in four different languages trailed after him. His men waited for the traffic light to turn in their favor before rushing after him. They’d seen him like this before, and they were afraid.
Myrto glanced both ways down the street before proceeding towards the next corner. The process repeated itself several times before he finally spied what he was looking for. Up ahead, a mere half a block, was a Bothan making wide strides beside an R-droid which was rolling rapidly beside it.
“There!” Myrto shouted and picked up his pace to a run, holding one hand on his blaster pistol at his side. His men rushed to keep up.
He was almost upon them when there was a dull crack and a thud behind him. He drew up short, spinning around and pulling his blaster.
A man in a brown robe that both concealed his features and build stood not three feet from Myrto. Behind him a second man, dressed in frontier-style clothing and wielding a snap-baton was busy making quick work of his men. Myrto paused in shock, gun hand held out but only vaguely training his weapon on the cloaked man before him. His troops were trained commandos, and the strange frontiersman with the light blonde hair was using a simple snap-baton and some sort of strange martial art form to make quick work of them. He was dancing through the three men like they were rank amateurs instead of highly trained commandos. It appeared as though they simply couldn’t hit him, even when they outflanked the man he seemed to know when the blows were coming before Myrto’s troops threw them.
“It is a pity you will forget this,” the cloaked man said, bringing Myrto’s attention back to him. “Very few people in the Galaxy have the opportunity to see what you are about to see.”
“Who in the Maw are you?” Myrto asked, the acid in his voice returning with his wits.
“No one you need remember,” the man responded. Behind him his companion finished off Myrto’s men with a swift and flashy one-two punch.
Growling Myrto went to pull the trigger on his pistol, yet as he brought it up the man in the robe moved. His right arm disappeared beneath the cloak and began to reappear in the same motion. There was a flash of blue and then one of white light.
Suddenly Myrto found himself on his knees on the slate street. His men still lay before him, groaning in pain and coming to slowly on the ground. In his hand he still held his blaster, or rather half of his blaster. The other half was on the ground a few feet from him, and both halves were smoldering as if something incredibly hot had passed through them when then had been whole.
“What the?” Myrto asked the acrid air around him. Try as he might, he couldn’t remember what had happened.