With Jabba's personal vault finally found, I finally set a time for us to leave. At this point, we had been here for almost fourteen hours, including our first round through to clear it of hostilities. That was by and far long enough to clear most of the structure for anything worth keeping. At this point, we were running out of room for more things, and with Cheki and her twenty friends coming with us, we would likely have to leave some of the furniture and lesser stuff behind. Already we planned to deactivate the labor droids and basically stack them on top of each other, dealing with whatever damage was done afterwards.

  About three hours after it was found, Jabba's vault was cleared, and it was time to go. One last pass through the palace to make sure we weren't leaving any slaves locked up, and the two ground teams met down at the entrance, where two of the freighters were waiting. Corvak had also led Jabba there, standing ready to record the criminal kingpin's death.

  "Well, Jabba, it looks like your time is up," I said, gesturing around us. "Looks like no one is coming to rescue you."

  The fat slug was looking considerably worse for wear by now, pale and sickly looking as he was sternly faced with his own mortality. He was also bearing some wounds, a few blaster marks along his torso and a single slice along his tail. Apparently, he had attempted to escape a few times, never getting very far before he was forced to surrender again. Now he had half a dozen bands of cord wrapped around him, labor droids and Mandalorians holding them tight to keep him from trying anything.

  "How, how did you manage to hide this!?" he demanded in a croaking, pained voice, practical shaking. "Where are my people!?"

  "Well…Maybe people just don't like you?" I suggested, before acting like I had had some sort of grand epiphany. "Or maybe it has something to do with how we took down your communications array before we kicked everything off. Or maybe it was the very deliberate move to cut off the hangar bay, meaning no one could escape to get reinforcements."

  As I talked, the slug's fear and panic were replaced by anger and fury. He yanked and pulled against the cords restraining him, even managed to shift some of those holding it, but ultimately failed to free himself.

  "You tricked me!" he roared, spittle flying from his mouth.

  "I did no such thing!" I said with mock offense. "You assumed help was coming, and I was more than happy to accept your help in robbing yourself blind. Really, we may have missed a good chunk of our loot without your help, so thanks again. Now, unfortunately, it is time for us to go, which means it is time for you to die."

  The Hutt struggled again, pulling so hard on his restraints that they cut into him, all while screaming and cursing, freely switching between Huttese, Basic, and at least another three languages. Eventually, after a full three minutes of shouting, he stopped, breathing heavily, staring at me with eyes full of hate.

  "You've caused a lot of pain, Jabba," I said, shaking my head. "Your whole criminal empire is built on the suffering of slaves and innocents. You used your influence to hurt millions and cause misery across the galaxy. I think it's only fair they get their due."

  I motioned for Vaz, who was carrying a long object hidden under a tan blanket. She stepped forward slowly, eventually holding out the covered item for me. I pulled off the sheet and revealed a T-7 ion disruptor, taken from the very same batch hidden in Jabba's armory. Jabba began to shout and curse again when he saw it, but this time, I talked over him as I took the weapon from Vaz and inspected it.

  "We could have killed you simply, cleanly. We could have fed you to your own rancor, or dropped you from near orbit," I said, flicking the rifle on, a low hum reverberating from it. "But considering the wear on these rifles, they must have seen some considerable use. Which in that case, think of this as some sort of poetic justice."

  I fired the disruptor, rocked back by the powerful blast. The beam of energy blasted through Jabba's lower torso and continued on, slamming into the stone behind him and exploding. From the through-and-through hole the blast put in the Hutt's body, glowing cracks began to spread. Soon, he began to crumble along those cracks, falling to pieces and turning to dust as some sort of reaction ate into him. The Hutt screamed, his body wriggling and squirming as it came apart, whatever reaction the disruptor caused taking its sweet time as it disintegrated him. Finally, the slug died, with only a few chunks of charred, cracker meat remaining. The rest was dust piled on the ground.

  "Well… That was horrifying," I said mildly, looking over at Corvak, who nodded, confirming he had gotten the footage.

  Technically, all of us had recorded it since our helmets automatically stored their footage, but Corvak's job had been to pay close attention, making sure to get everything with a good angle.

  With the video captured, we spent some time cutting it to the proper length, before spending a few minutes making sure no one had accidentally revealed themselves. Once we were done, we used one of Jabba's ships to broadcast it openly. Once we were certain it was spreading around the planet, we quickly prepared to take off, warming up the ships and waiting for word to reach us that we were clear to leave.

  About fifteen minutes after the broadcast, we received word from the , which had stayed in the system and far outside of orbit, to monitor the situation. Now it relayed that information to us, showing that the defensive fleet was already having a power schism. Many ships had simply jumped away from the planet, essentially claiming the starships for themselves, while the ones that remained split into two general sides, soo opening fire on each other. Now, with fleets distracted, it was time for us to leave,

  Together, our freighters lifted off, slowly pulling away from the palace. Just a few moments later, nearly a dozen ships flew out of the hangar, ranging in size from a and a trio of to several well-maintained smaller starships and starfighters that seemed to be antiques, worthy of museums or showcases.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  All of us headed across the desert, staying low and traveling fast, picking up speed as we flew out from under the primary conflict, which was drifting lower closer to Jabba's palace. Clearly, those who wanted to seize power thought that grabbing his palace would mean something. Considering I had seen corpse myself, I had no idea what would happen next, or who would be able to grab enough of the reins to put themselves on top.

  Once we were far enough away from the space battle, we pulled up and headed directly for space, pushing the older starships to the limit as we finally breached the atmosphere, left the planet's gravity behind, and jumped to lightspeed.

  After a short jump, we dropped out of hyperspace, only a short distance away from the Salvage Fleets twos. One by one, our ships landed inside the large salvage ships, where the labor droids and helpers quickly unloaded everything. Once all of the loot, including the stolen ships, were on board, the four freighters, along with a fifth transport ship, turned and jumped to lightspeed, heading out to the old CIS base we had looted with the Rebels oh so long ago. There they would sit, basically mothballed until we needed them again, completely disconnected from our group.

  Before they left, however, I had a long conversation with Cheki, discussing her group's future. The whole group had been kept from seeing anyone, including the salvage team and the hangar itself, to keep our identities secret.

  "So, when do we get our ship?" She asked as I sat down, still dressed in my disguised armor.

  "If they weren't connected to robbing and killing Jabba, I would offer you the four freighters we used," I admitted, which caught the blue-skinned humanoid off guard. "We are still in the process of tabulating all the loot, but from what I can see, you damn near doubled our profits Cheki, I have no plan to go back on what I said. I do, however, have an alternative offer."

  Her surprise shifted into suspicion, though I couldn't exactly blame her. It absolutely sounded as if I was trying to swindle her, so I put that to rest quickly.

  "I offer you two hundred and fifty thousand credits for you and yours to split up," I explained, her eyes going wide. "I also offer you a place to live."

  "A place to live? What, like join you?" She asked, raising an eyebrow. "I'm not sure why we would, we don't exactly have combat skills."

  "Fighting is only a portion of what we do," I assured her. "But in order to explain more, I would need you to trust me for a moment by closing your eyes and answering some questions."

  She looked confused and suspicious, but having saved them from Jabba must have counted for something as she agreed eventually and closed her eyes. I quietly cast Calm on her, and I watched as the tension in her arms, shoulders, and back loosened. I had to imagine this was the first time she had truly relaxed in a very long time.

  I asked her a couple of questions, recasting Calm three times before I was satisfied. When the spell finally faded, I pulled off my helmet and smiled at the former slave.

  "Hello, Cheki, my name is Deacon Roy, leader of the Skyforged Vanguard," I explained. "We have a growing colony deep in a secret system, and I would like to invite you and your friends to come join us."

  We talked for a while longer, eventually introducing her to Ahsoka and some of the crew. Apparently, she had actually heard of us, though not in the best way. Jabba still had a bounty on us when he died, something I had almost completely forgotten about. Hopefully, the bounty would die with him.

  After running through her group with the Calm spell, asking them all questions without hitting anything worrying, all of them were invited to join as well. After Cheki confirmed that anyone who didn't want to join would still get a cut of the credits I was giving them, four of them chose to return home, while the rest wished to join us.

  Eventually, finally, when everything was sorted, and everyone was being sent where they wanted to be, we started our trek home. During the trip, we began the process of cataloging everything we had stolen. It was only a rough estimate since we would need various appraisers to get real detailed values, but with access to the holonet, we could make some pretty safe estimates.

  In total, we had four million credits in expensive alcohol and five million in expensive weapons, though we would only be selling around two million credits worth of the latter. Nal estimated we had between five and seven million credits in art, both statues, paintings, and more, while the collector starships were worth at least four million, assuming we could find buyers. On top of all that, between various small caches spread out around the palace, we found around a million in credits and another million in jewels.

  Last but certainly not least, in Jabba's personal vault, we found six million in pure credits, between four and five in jewels and jewelry, and eight million in precious metals, in either ingot or coin form. Then, as a final prize, we found two chunks of, neither of them larger than my thumbnail, and a single-shapedsmaller than the tip of my pinkie.

  The metal and gem were worth eleven million and seven million, respectively. The gem would be more, but it was of relatively poor quality, even if it was the most beautiful gem I had ever seen in my entire life.

  When we finished with the rough estimate and added everything up, the number settled at around fifty to sixty million credits. Of course, most of the precious metals would be used in our beskar creation. On top of that, Ahsoka pointed out that some of the art would make perfect political gifts, especially since the art was created by a wide variety of people and species. I could imagine returning an expensive statue that had been stolen from your people would be an impressive political tool.

  I planned on handing a pair of Alderaanian statues we found to Princess Leia myself. Or I could give them to Han and make myself a lifelong friend. Though, considering we had probably just cleared Han's bounty, that probably wasn't necessary.

  In the end, after subtracting the precious metals and various other things from the list, as well as adding what Racer had gotten from Jabba's personal accounts, we were looking at a total of around forty to forty-five million credits, give or take

  We sat there in a cramped meeting room on board one of the Salvage Fleet transports, dazed as we tried to understand what we had gotten away with.

  "So… is robbing crime lords our new thing?" Julus asked, getting a snort out of Tatnia. "I mean… we just doubled the skyforged banks with that, right? We to do that again."

  "Doing it too often will make a lot of powerful people very nervous," Vaz pointed out. "Though the occasional heist…"

  "I agree. Occasionally knocking over a crime boss is fine, but if we start hunting them exclusively, then bounties from Hutts will be the least of our worries," I pointed out, both Ahsoka and Tatnia nodding in agreement. "Let's let everything calm down for a while. Also, Tatnia, tell the 3rd Group to wait another day before landing and starting to offer aid."

  Ahsoka and Julus both leaned forward to complain, but I waved them off with an internal wince.

  "We cannot afford to be linked to this in any solid way. I have half a mind to cut off the aid altogether," I admitted with a guilty frown. "The only reason I'm not is that we have a reputation for rescuing and hiring slaves already. If we were looking to grow, it makes sense we would show up at the place with a lot of freed slaves, looking to expand our ranks."

  That seemed to placate them, though, internally, I wasn't happy about it either. Unfortunately, I needed to put Nirn first, beyond anything or anyone else, which meant Tatooine would have to wait just a bit longer. Hopefully, by the time our people got there, the major cities weren't just massive war zones.