The Butcher: Only the Quiet and the Waves

Written by Siegfried86 for @MTrac1000 – July 14, 2020

Note: @Siegfried86 was relatively new to publishing their works online as of joining the Red Fleet Project, and used the collab to publish some of his first ever realized works on Wattpad. As of now, he doesn’t have a whole lot else published on his account, but if you’re looking for someone to discuss your own stories with and get some feedback on them, he’s always more than happy to help.

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Kamino, 5 BBY

Alaren Colar sat alone in his bureau and took a sip from his drink. The ice cubes silently clinked against one another in the alcoholic fluid as he put the glass back on the table next to him. The room had a very scarce interior, with a simple wooden chair, a table, a bed, and a glass vitrine full of culinary treasures, such as the rare drop he was currently drinking. He sighed, closed his eyes, and savored the flavor still lingering on his tongue. The door to his room was locked, but he somehow knew that it no longer mattered.

He was hiding out in a safe-house that sat on atop a cliff on a small island located on the planet Kamino. Apart from a once-renowned clone factory, there was nothing else of value ever to be found on this planet, as it was covered almost entirely by murky waters. The Human had thought that this would help in making it the perfect hideaway, but alas, he was mistaken. The dampened screams of his men permeated through the front door of his room, accompanied by blasterfire and small explosions.

Alaren was almost impressed by himself for staying as calm as he had. His “little safe house” was actually a three floor high villa, with the only entrance being on the ground floor, while his bureau was perched atop.

Although they were positioned on a cliff, the backside of the building was protected by an unusually high wall of stone. It was a very fortunate place to build a fortress, seeing as the cliff itself was not too high above water, but just enough so that the oceanic influences wouldn’t cause any problems.

35 of his best men were stationed here for his protection, armed to the teeth and with orders to shoot everything that moved and nothing else. Each and every one of them knew the terrain and interior workings of the villa as well as their own pockets, and they had every reason to be proud and confident in their skills.

So it was almost natural that they underestimated their opponent when the highly anticipated assassination attempt finally appeared in form of a single ship.

At first, Alaren had wanted to wait and watch the pitiful fool who dared to approach them so openly and almost offensively underprepared. They allowed the ship to land, as they couldn’t just blow it out of the air. That would attract some unwanted attention, an Imperial Star Destroyer was currently occupying the space right outside the planet’s atmosphere, and right above Alarens position. A nuisance, but nothing to be too worried about.

At least not if there wouldn’t have been this one ship approaching them while ignoring their warnings of intruding on private “ground.” It shouldn’t have even found its way to his location in the first place. He had put up scanning and communication jammers all around the perimeter, and the whole point of hiding on Kamino was the fact that nobody ever went there to look for anything. After all, who would voluntarily live on this Force forsaken ball of nothing but blue?

Five of his men had approached the ship armed and ready, while Alaren was standing in front of the entrance behind a small energy shield, the rest of his 30 men shielding him. The sensors had only shown one life form aboard the craft, but they were still cautious.

Sadly, that preparation did not help against the absurd amount of explosives that had gone unnoticed in the ships storage bay. As soon as the men had gotten into range, the ship had burst in a bright ball of flames, killing three of them instantly and setting the other two ablaze.

The rest of his men had instantly turned around and shoved him back into the building. And not a second too late; moments afterwards, every man outside the energy shield in front of the gate had been assaulted by rapid blaster fire, each shot a deadly hit.

The sniper fire had come from the landing platform, the shooter hidden behind the smoke of the burning shipwreck.

The building’s defense mechanisms were instantly activated and the shield generators provided the fortress with an immediate array of protection. The men took formation and positioned themselves outside on the balconies, all aiming at the smoking remains of the cargo ship and just waiting for that single attacker to come out and show his face.

And that’s when the shield generators had collapsed.

Without hesitation or mercy, the attacker opened fire again before the men could react, and only a handful of them managed to fully flee inside.

Alaren had been inside the surveillance room and had observed the terrifying accuracy of each shot as his bodyguards were struck down one after another.

After that he had been transported to his safe room and had locked himself inside. He couldn’t follow the rest of the occurrences as his room didn’t have surveillance monitors, but if the screams from outside were any indication…

Then the odds weren’t exactly stacked in his favor.

According to the sounds, the last of his men had just fallen, with their scream suddenly cut off, followed by the sound of a body dropping on the floor like a puppet that suddenly had its strings cut.

He still wasn’t nervous.

Alaren remained calm, even though the silence would have been unnerving under normal circumstances. The only thing he was able to hear were the waves from the ocean brushing off against the cliff.

Then, after what felt like an eternity, someone began to attempt to work on the door from the outside. Codes were entered, then denied. Another attempt. And then another. Until finally, the door unlocked and slowly revealed the attackers behind it. Or rather, the attacker.

One simple Parwan.

​​​​​***

Benexto put the unlocking gear back into a pocket on his belt and stood up. His four tentacles silently slithered over the ground as he entered the comparatively small room contrasted by the rather large hallway behind him.

Seven bodies decorated the hall, all killed by precise shots to either the head or chest. All but the last one, whose blood was still leaking from cuts to both their femoral and carotid arteries. It was a hideous death. Rather slow and agonizing, unlike all the others.

The soldier behind him still shuddered for a moment, then took his last breath as his life waned away.

Benexto didn’t have to kill him like that. He could have done it with a well-aimed shot from his short or long range blasters, but he had killed already killed 29other Humans like that today. And he didn’t even consider the first five that burned to death through his decoy ship.

Killing the same way became mundane and monotonous after a couple of times, so taking that last life in such a drastically different way was refreshing for Benexto. Everything else had been surgical and calculated, but that last one… had a certain animalistic thrill to it.

But the satisfaction lasted only a brief moment, then it disappeared again. Benexto slithered forward and stopped about two meters away from the last living person on this island apart from himself: Alaren Colar, slave broker, owner of a couple rather lucrative mining operations on a few remote planets across Wild Space, and some other things Benexto didn’t bother to read up on. It wasn’t necessary for him to know these details.

“Just you?” Aleren asked and picked up a glass with what was probably alcoholic fluid in it. His tone sounded surprised, almost astounded, but not scared. “Is that really all it took to take out my highest elites? A single Parwan?”

“It would appear so,” Benexto politely answered.

“How did you do that?” Alaren asked curiously, “this is one of my most secure hideouts. One of my most secret hideouts. It’s impossible that you just so happened to stumble upon this place. No one does. This is Kamino.”

“Correct,” Benexto answered. “This place has been very well chosen. Whoever it was that made this decision was very wise. I must admit, at first I had my difficulties discerning where and when to take your life, but after injecting a little fear of death into your associates, they became very compliant.”

“So someone betrayed me?”

“After some rather intense questioning from some of my peers, yes,” Benexto said and opened another pocket on his belt. “You shouldn’t let it bother you”, he continued as he absentmindedly mixed together the various fluid components he had taken out. “Everyone starts to talk when they stare death into the eyes. It has an uncommonly universal effect.”

“Does it now,” Alaren said and sighed, somewhat disappointedly. “Oh well, nothing I can change about things now,” he said and took another sip of his drink. Benexto was about to say something, when he heard a faint cough behind himself. He turned around and saw that one of the men he had shot was beginning to move again.

“Huh,” Benexto thought to himself. “Not precise enough.” He put the vials down on the table and slowly moved over to the man that had slowly fought himself back onto his feet. He coughed up blood and supported himself on the wall in order to not collapse back onto the ground. Benexto slithered over to the man, casually grabbing him by the throat and pressing him against the wall to suffocate him. Benexto’s hands were large, so large in fact that his fingers almost touched on the other side of the man’s neck.

The soldier struggled for a couple moments, his efforts barely louder than the crashing waves outside. They remained in this position for a couple seconds longer, then the Human went limp and the life permanently escaped from his eyes.

Another raw death. Benexto shuddered a bit as the satisfaction of a job well done surged through his entire body, only to disappear a couple moments later. He dropped the body and slithered back into the office, where the slave trafficker still sat at his table. Still without fear.

“Does this even phase you?” the Human asked as the Parwan picked up the vials and finished the mixture. “I mean, do you feel anything at all? Not that I care, seeing as I’ll soon be meeting a similar fate to these poor couple fellas back there.” He nodded towards the hallway, “but honestly, with that kill count, which I assume is about the average per mission for you; how do you sleep at night?”

“Sometimes I do, and sometimes I do not, but not for the reasons that you would think,” Benexto said. “To be perfectly transparent, I’m somewhat of a nihilist. I do not really feel much of anything, aside from two things. Fear and satisfaction. Fear of death and satisfaction from when I cause it. In all it’s varieties, forms, and lengths. A wicked cycle, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Wicked indeed,” Alaren chuckled as he emptied his glass. “So how am I going to die? Slow? Like the last two of my men?”

“Painless, like most of your other men that I shot in the head. My contractor wishes for you to not be in pain, as you have his utmost acknowledgements. Which is why you will have to drink this,” Benexto said and poured the finished mixture from his vial into the now empty glass opposite of him.

Alaren picked up the glass and stared into it for a bit, before he looked Benexto in the eyes. “If I may be so impertinent and ask you to forgive a dying man’s curiosity; why do you occupy yourself in a business so steeped in death if it is apparently the one thing that you fear so much?”

“I don’t think that it matters all that much at this time. At least not to you.”

“Yes, and you are certainly right, but seeing as I’m about to leave my mortal coil behind, I’d like to do so with at least some of that satisfaction you mentioned…

“And you know, you were right. Death does have an uncommonly universal effect on people. For example the re-evaluation of one’s priorities. Considering the fact that you’re standing right in front of me, there is not really a lot I can do. I’m a rational man. Seeing as you did what you’ve done, you probably won’t have difficulties dealing with one senile old man, especially after dismantling at least 35 people all younger and more capable than I in a matter of minutes. All I have left that I can really achieve at this moment is to maybe get some answers to my questions about my killer. So here we are again, with me once more apologizing for my curiosity and you internally groaning over it as I ask: why be so close to death when you fear it so much?”

Benexto sighed. “Maybe because I believe that I’ll find answers as how to no longer succumb to it one day.”

“Through seeing how others deal with it?”

“Indeed,” Benexto answered.

“And just when you think you’ve seen it all…” Alaren muttered, “oh well.”

He sighed, picked up the glass, and emptied it in one gulp. “I wish you good fortune on your journeys then. Seems as though you’ve still got many long clicks ahead of you.”

Benexto watched as the mogul before him chuckled and sighed. Then his eyelids fluttered for a bit until they inevitably began to slowly close. His body became limp, and finally the glass slipped out of his hands, shattering on the ground.

Benexto didn’t say anything. He didn’t utter one last sentence to the dead man in front of him, nor did he make the effort of a gesture to honor the dead. He simply turned around and moved out of the room. Through the hallway littered with bodies, down the staircase that was covered in blaster marks, past the surveillance room and its disfigured dead residents, and through the rest of the building and the dead remains of it’s once living population, all while complete silence reigned over the area. There were no creaking stairs or floors, no enemies left breathing their last rattled breaths, nor anything else. Only the quiet and the waves, still brushing up against the low hanging cliff.

Benexto left the buildings disfigured entrance and calmly moved over to the scorched landing plateau and the six charred bodies on it. The sixth body had belonged to a broken slave that could say no longer speak anything but pure gibberish, mentally destroyed by the sustained suppression and torture once-owners.

Benexto had picked him up when he had captured one of Alarens more trusted “caretakers” for questioning. He didn’t know the name of the scorched carcass in front of him, but even if he did, the Parwan doubted that it would have made a difference. The man was well dead.

Glancing around at the haunting environment surrounding him once more, Benexto called his true ship via remote control, quickly moved aboard when it landed, and left for orbit.

One job done, another would begin soon.

And he would quickly forget that this day even happened.

Leaving behind nothing but the memories of the dead.