The works sector in Nar Shadda where a large quarter of huge power plants, and one of the more important areas. As a result, it was mostly cleaner than many other sectors, and less riffraff to be seen.
Like the whole moon, it did however have secrets. One of these secrets where a small marked known as ‘the Black Bazaar’, a hole where anyone could find anything, even hidden from the watchful eyes of the Hutt cartel. And this was where a small trio led by a pink mare skipping gleefully down the streets.
“Do you know for sure this is the place, Pinkie?” Rainbow still couldn’t shake the bad feeling, especially after she had been told she needed to disguise herself. The disguise in question where just a large tunic and some dirty rags tied around her legs in order to hide the armor, but it still did the job.
Fluttershy made sure Angel where hidden in the pocket on her long robe. “Yes, I mean, is it a good idea to go into a black marked with two republic soldiers?”
“Why of course! Our contact is a scaredy-cat, she wants to meet somewhere she can be in control, and she won’t be happy when we tell her I lost the crates she wants! And here it is!”
The soldiers exchanged glances as they followed her through a small door next to an exhaust pipe.
They soon stood in a large hangar, filled with desks, tables and stalls, ponies in all shapes and colors trying to sell goods and services, everything highly illegal.
They followed Pinkie towards a small weapons dealer wedged between an adrenal vendor and a droid store, and stood behind her as she greeted the mare behind the desk, a scarlet unicorn with a dangerous smile.
“Pinkamina Diane Pie… famed around the galaxy as ‘Pinkie’, a notorious smuggler. Known in both imperial and republic customs as ‘That random pest’. How may I aid you tonight?
Pinkie smiled in reply. “Hia! I got some crates I was supposed to deliver here!”
“Ah, true… You are late. Barbell is not pleased… and when he heard rumors that the Pubs got you, he became furious. No one steals from him and lasts long.
Where. Are. The. Crates?”
Pinkie threw her a disarming smile. “I got into some issues! You see, it turned out those crates didn’t contain overclocked hyperdrive foci’s like I was paid to smuggle… Instead I get captured, charged for smuggling imperial high energy bomb components. Isn’t that a good joke? I don’t like being lied to, you see. I don’t like being tricked into working for the empire either. So then I took a better offer!”
Fury raged in the unicorns eyes. “REPUBLIC SCUM!” she screamed, as she quickly rose up, reaching for her blaster. Rainbow quickly prepared herself, but before anyone else in the room managed to react, Pinkie had drawn her gun and fired a shot from the hip into the mare’s gut, before she quickly released a round from her scattergun into the skull of her former employer.
The echo of the last shot lingered through the large room as a pregnant silence filled it, everyone staring at the trio.
Eventually someone in the far end of the room started yelling: “They are republic troopers!”
The magic silence broken, every single pony in the room started pulling out weapons as Rainbow tipped a table over, dragging Pinkie and Fluttershy into cover just as the shots started hailing towards them.
“Well, that was smooth.” Rainbow deadpanned, shooting Pinkie a glare.
“Don’t ya worry, we can do this easily” She chippered in return, planting a shot between the eyes of the owner of the droid shop, stopping his attempt at flanking them.
Rainbow just grunted in reply, releasing a quick burst into the attackers, smirking as the screams revealed she struck the target.
“We just gonna be intelligent about it.” Pinkie continued, carefully taking aim on a fuel tank near a group of stallions. They soon disappeared in a ball of fire at the same moment as a thermal detonator flew in a wide arc, striking a earth pony square in the head, before it exploded, taking out three others.
“That’s true. Pinkie, Distract them a little!” Rainbow hunched down, quickly running behind some large containers as Pinkie started shooting like a mad.
Soon she had sneaked up behind a group of six earth ponies, and jumped out, activating the ion pulse generator on her rifle. A long waving stream of blue energy coursed through the hapless victims, frying them from the inside.
She quickly ejected the empty power cell and launched a grenade behind one of the other crates, throwing the ponies hiding behind it across the room.
As this got the attention of several others, she quickly dived into cover, starting reload the grenade launcher and the pulse generator.
“Seem like Dashie needs some help! Cover me!” She quickly activated a device on her belt buckle, disappearing in a ripple of blue energy.
Angel saluted her, and jumped up onto his owners shoulder, pumping out shots like a maniac at the riffraff.
Rainbow on the other hand, had enough to worry about. Someone had gotten in a shot at her shoulder after she took cover, as she had been careless about a crack between two crates. The armor did take the gist of it, but she couldn’t hold her weapon properly.
The attackers had noticed this, since they ignored the other two and pumped out blaster fire at her.
One of them suddenly heard a low giggle, and a low dump as one of his mates hit the floor with a vibroknife between he shoulders. He turned his head, the muzzle of a scattergun the last thing he ever saw.
Despite her good aim, close combat was where Pinkie truly excelled. Using her knives and the scattergun with deadly skills, her opponents didn’t stand much chance against the random mare, disappearing and reappearing everywhere.
Soon the shooting subsided, the last of the attackers hitting the ground after a pin point shot from Angel.
Fluttershy came out of cover and rushed towards her companions. “I am so sorry I am of no use in combat” she rambled as she kneeled down, examining Rainbow’s shoulder.
“Seems like it’s just a shallow wound…” she muttered to herself as two of her probes woke up, a larger one starting to clean Rainbows shoulder-wound before it filled the hole in the armor with a white hardening foam, as a smaller probe circled Pinkie, spraying a fine mist of kolto at the sparse cuts and bruises she had suffered in the brawl.
Pinkie giggled at the tickling sensation of the kolto, before she suddenly jumped up. “Wait, I forgot!” She rushed over at the stand where the whole brawl had begun, and started shifting through the pockets of what once was the scarlet mare, removing a datapad and a bag of credits.
The latter earned her a glare from Fluttershy.
“What? A mare gonna eat, right? And we need the info from her datapad if we want to find our target.”
“I agree. But it does not mean I approves.”
“Where are we heading now?” Rainbow interjected, getting to her hooves now as the probe had finished healing her wound. She rubbed her shoulder, still feeling slightly numb.
Pinkie fiddled with the data pad for some seconds. “From what I can gather here, she used to work as a quartermaster for the gang, with responsibility for all the smugglers they hired.
It seems she has been all over the moon, but it’s a warehouse near the slum borders that she visited twice as often as the other places. It is as good a shot as anyone.”
“I have a feeling this is gonna end badly… Do you all still have enough supplies?”
They nodded, and Pinkie took lead towards the slums.
…
“Judging by our surrounding, I guess we are getting close. Do you have any idea how we are getting in?” Rainbow sneered at a broken pipeline emptying waste onto the street.
“Why, silly! We are going to knock on the front door. Isn’t that the polite option?”
Rainbow facehoofed at the innocent looking mare smiling at her.
Soon they walked up towards the front doors of the huge building. Pinkie gestured at Fluttershy. “Please distract the guards a little, will you?”
The guards in question, two pastel maned mares wielding some old carbines, stood chatting near a small door in the middle of the building. Fluttershy went up and greeted them.
“Excuse me, but is this a gang hideout?”
The guards were out of words, staring empty at this pink maned mare dressed in a ragged robe.
Eventually one of them snapped out of it. “Wait, are you wanting to die? Kill her!” She grabbed her carbine and slammed a hoof onto a wall computer.
Soon a panel split up beside them, and a large auto turret rose from the hole, taking aim at them. The blooming laughter died on the guards faces as the turret started spewing sparks and smoke before it fell heavy to the ground.
“I did it!” Pinkie waved slicer pad in her hoof. Rainbow slammed her stock up the chin of one of the guards, exploiting the distraction. Following the motion of the strike, she released a shot into the chest of the other guard, while Pinkie finished of the first one.
“How did you know there was a turret here?” Fluttershy couldn’t help but wonder as she tried to unlock the door.
“My left ear twitched, so it had to be one here!”
Rainbow looked at her with a raised eyebrow. “o~k… I’ll take your word for it.”
The door opened, and they went into a large hangar filled with huge crates, powerlifts and shuttles.
A considerable number of workers and armed guards looked at the trio, who stood dumb folded at their own short-sightedness. Rainbow swore lowly as Fluttershy cowered backwards.
“Any good ideas, Pinkie?”
“Grenades, Dashie?”
“I can work with that” She quickly grabbed a plasma grenade from her belt and threw it towards a group of guards that had taken aim at them, while Pinkie’s thermal detonator rolled in below a powerlift. The following explosions created enough chaos for them to run towards cover.
“I feel we find ourselves behind crates getting shot at more than I can say I like.” Fluttershy cowered as the other two started shooting back.
“We need to flank them. Pinkie, you head right. I’ll run left. Fluttershy, give me a boost, Angel, start distracting them!”
Pinkie disappeared in a blue ripple as Angel saluted her and started shooting, back onto his shoulder perch.
Rainbow turned around and started running with a low head towards the left, as a stream of green energy from Fluttershy’s cannon filled her veins with adrenalin and energizers.
Some quick flaps of her wings threw her into a long jump over the ponies behind the cover, and she twisted her body mid-jump, releasing a long burst as she landed.
They didn’t stand much chance from her, and she turned around to continue her assault when she saw a huge stallion laughing, aiming an assault-cannon at her.
She swore and rushed towards some durasteel plates between them, hoping they would suffice as cover, as a hail of blasterfire tore up the ground around her. Judging her options, she peeked past the plates.
An idea struck her, and she threw a grenade over the plates, hoping to strike gold. A loud curse made rainbow smirk as she threw herself around the corner, taking aim at the now cryogen-covered stallion. He fell to the ground, and she rushed past him, opening fire as she ran.
In the other end of the room, Pinkie sneaked around placing small pink, balloon-shaped charges at strategic places.
The job itself was a lot easier with Dashie and Angel keeping everypony’s attention, but as a hoof struck her jaw she couldn’t help but wonder if her luck had run out.
She made an innocent face at the mare pointing a large rifle at her. “Smile!” she cheered as she whipped out a small detonator. Pushing the button, a series of explosions from her charges gained the attention of the mare, and Pinkie exploited that with a swift kick.
She quickly scooted to her hooves. Jumping behind a crate, she stifled a short giggle when the grenade she left behind went off, before she drew her weapons and ran towards the next group, nimbly dodging fire. After a quick jump, he descended upon them like a pink meteor.
The gunfire eventually subsided, and Fluttershy came out to aid her companions.
Rainbow had only suffered scratches, but Pinkie had a large bruise on her jaw from where the mare struck her. One of the large probes started using a thin surgical laser to reduce the swelling and coating it with a thin mist of kolto to ease pain.
Rainbow reloaded, walking towards one of the elevators.
“We better prepare us for anything from now on.”
Fluttershy removed the long robe and picked up the support cannon, following after her.
A short elevator ride later, the door opened.
They looked into a room filled with heavily armed guards, standing around a large six-legged artillery droid easily four times the size of a stallion.
“Burning hay…”