A/N: Most people who have read "Lies" and "Truth" are probably gone now, so I made this a stand alone story as much as I could. Took me some time to write this since my PC crashed twice last year. As a result I had to rewrite it twice. I ended up with this one: a rewrite of the end of the Refugee Sector-Exchange drama. Hopefully, it will be as entertaining as the two other stories. Enjoy!
The Quarren crimelord's image was fading, yet Aranel and the rest of the Ebon Hawk crew continued to stare at the comlink for a few more minutes.
Atton broke the silence, "Well, good thing it's not a trap."
"No Atton!" Mical snapped, "I think it may be a trap."
Atton shook his head. Some people could not seem to take jokes. "Could you please lighten up for just one second?"
Aranel did not seem to hear them. The matter was serious. The Exchange was summoning her alone. It was obviously a trap.
"It may be a trap," Kreia pointed out. "But traps work both ways. This Visquis—his kind are spread through the lower regions of Nar Shadaa. But the choice is yours. If you go, you will have to go alone."
Aranel sighed. "I guess I have no choice then."
An hour later, Aranel was headed to the docks. She felt a strange awkwardness at the thought of going alone. Ever since she met Kreia, Atton, Mical, Bao-dur, Visas and T3, someone always came with her. She smiled a bit. She knew that she would never be truly alone since knew her friends were waiting for her, supporting her. That gave her some measure of comfort. "Focus on the positive," she told herself.
As she wandered through the city's main roads, she listened to the rhythms of the planet once more. Once more, it gave her a vision, a mental map of the planet's uneven divisions: the Exchange, the indifferent middle classes, and the squalid cramped areas of the refugees. She reminded herself of her vow to help the suffering refugees at whatever it might cost her. That rekindled her determination. She suddenly became aware of someone walking beside her. She felt somewhat warm in the presence of a scoundrel she knew so well.
Atton flashed her a wry smile. He leaned to her ear and whispered, "Aren't you tired?"
She shrugged. "Why?"
"Well, you've just been running through my mind all daylong…"
Aranel rolled her eyes. He always practiced his worst pick-up lines on her. She guessed that it was his way of cheering her up. "Really? You better ask Mical to examine it then," she quipped.
He feigned an offended look.
"Seriously, that line is too old."
They walked in silence for a few minutes. Suddenly, she took his arm and leaned against his shoulder. "Thank you."
"Yeah, yeah. Of course in a few seconds, I'm going to piss you off again by describing how deadly you look with a blaster and your underwear."
She laughed as she playfully pushed him away.
Some minutes later, they approached the elevators to the docks. She cleared her throat. He knew that it was her way of telling him to leave her. He took her hand and seriously uttered, "Hey look, I wanted to tell you: be careful. I won't be able to contact you via comlink if something happens, and I'm betting that Squidhead knows it."
"I'll be fine." She smiled as she looked up to his face. "Really."
He took her hand and placed two red packs on it. "Take these—they're healing packs. If your suit gets breached, you'll have to inject these fast if you don't want your lungs to seize up. Trust me—once the seizures start, you'll be dead."
She nodded. "Thanks for the info."
He smoothened her hair with his hand. "Take care…not to destroy too much of this moon."
She made a face and shoved his hand away. "Alright, alright. I can handle this. Now go." She playfully shooed him off and turned away.
"Alright. Don't say I didn't warn ya in case more Hutt-spawns come your way." He turned to leave. "Me, I've got better things to do." As he slowly walked away he stole a few glances at her, wondering if she would ever look back at him or call him back. As always, she had to go to a place where he could not follow.
When he was far enough not to hear her, she closed her eyes muttered as if he was listening, "And by the way…I think I love you."
She turned to his direction and waited to see if he would walk back to her or call her back. From a distance, she could almost hear Kreia breathing down on her, telling her to stay away from the "Fool," but she could not help it. Kreia, in her cryptic and sometimes cruel ways, obviously loved her. It is what formed their bond, aside from her their near-death experience. She feared that the same bond would form between her and the one who was walking away from her. She gave up. Her hand lightly pressed the elevator button. She sadly walked in. Had she turned back as the doors were closing and looked out once more, she would have seen that which she wanted. As soon as she stepped in the elevators, Atton came running down back down to the closing doors. When he heard that the elevator's wheels had stopped rolling, he removed his gloves and lightly caressed the button where her hand dwelt a few minutes ago.
Half an hour later, Atton found himself sipping juma in the entertainment module. Juma always kept him on his toes. Pazaak kept his mind busy. It was a lot better than pining for her on the ship. He gestured oncemore to the bartender, "Give me a hint of juma and keep'em coming." He felt two pairs of arms drape themselves on his shoulders. He turned to both sides of him and saw that they belonged to two beautiful twileks. "So, I don't think I caught your names. Do you work here?"
"We are dancers, yes," replied the one on Atton's left in Twileki. She introduced herself as Seer'aa and her companion as Teer'aa. When he asked them about their master, they told him: "he was made deceased" and that at present they served no one but themselves. While they were speaking, Atton noticed vibroblades hidden under their skimpy clothes. In turn, they asked him about his business in Nar Shaddaa.
One of them leaned her face seductively to his ear and whispered, "Perhaps you are looking for something…perhaps us?"
He felt for his blaster. "No actually I'm here protecting someone. Keeping them out of trouble by acting as a distraction for people looking to harm her."
"Harm her?" asked Seer'aa as she moved two fingers up his sleeve. "Do you think we are assassins?"
"We are not assassins," corrected Teer'aa. "Assassins kill for money. That is not what we do."
Seer'aa pointed a blade at his chin and continued, "We only wish the exile: submit or we shall kill you and find other bait."
Both watched him intently as he carelessly sipped the last drops of his glass. He slowly took the end of the blade and slipped from them. He shrugged and lazily smiled as he threatened, "Why don't you two schuttas try it, and we'll see what happens."
Seer'aa's beautiful face twisted as she replied, "If that is what you wish, then we shall end you."
Teer'aa viciously smiled, "It has been too long since we have killed."
Both of them dove and rolled away from him. They took out their spinning blades and activated their shields. By this time, the cantina's patrons had all run away. Atton took out his blaster and blasted away. He moved quickly through the Force as he burnt Teer'aa's shield and several bolts on her arms, knees and shoulder—enough to knock her down. However, less than a second after he fired his last shot at Teer'aa, one of Seer'aa's blades crushed Atton's blaster. He barely evaded the other blade that was aimed at his throat.
He activated his lightsaber just in time to block another attack. He had never used his lightsaber in combat before. He only used it for sparring practice. He focused and listened as he moved to block each attack. Suddenly, he felt that everything moved slowly save him. He heard every clash of their blades like ticks on power couplings. He quickly moved to one side, sliced through her left shoulder and sent a wave through the Force, which sent her flying to the other side of the room to a wall and knocking her unconscious.
Once he was certain that both his opponents were down, hedeactivated his lightsaber. Well, that's it, he thought. The bounty hunter truce is off. Before he ran off to warn the others, he threw a few credit bills over the two twileks' unconscious bodies.
Aranel checked her pace as she ran through the ventilation maze. She had to remind herself not to breathe. She was still not used to the breathing technique that Kreia taught her, yet it helped her survive the bar's poisonous fumes
She reviewed the events of the past few hours: her waking up after being gassed by Mira, hearing the voice of Zez-Kai Ell, Mira's capture, her impulsive entrance into the Jekk'Jekk Tarr, Kreia rescuing her by teaching her a new technique called Breath Control, her slaughter of the gand in self-defense and her current situation in the ventilation maze. She had been wandering that maze for more than an hour. Although she had denied Atton's assertions of her bad sense of direction, she was beginning to believe that he was right.
She crept to the side as she became aware of a small frag mine. It was bad enough that she did not know anything about disabling mines, yet she did not want to use the Force too much. She stopped and observed the arrangement of the mines: they reminded her of an old padawan tale called "Hans and Gret." Perhaps the mines will lead me somewhere, she thought. True enough, after following it for some minutes, she came across a corpse with a note, through that note, at least she understood where she was.
As she opened one the tunnel's last metal door, she came face to face with a High security door. She finally reached the other end of the maze yet she had no way of opening the high security door. As she stepped towards it, it suddenly opened in front of her.
She silently entered the empty dark hallway. A body on one side told her that that area had been cleared and that someone opened the door for her. A moment's pause helped her realize that it was Mira. Even though Mira had left, signs of her presence still lingered in the halls. At least she's safe, she thought.
She turned to another hallway that was littered with Ubese bodies. She sensed that life was concentrated in an arena. She decided to head there. When the door opened for her, she entered it and came to face the Quarren at the center.
"You have arrived," uttered Visquis in his own language. "Both much sooner, yet much later than I had hoped."
She placed the lightsaber on her belt as a gesture. "I was hoping for a civilized discussion." Although calm and poised like a Republic senator, she used a deep authoritative tone as if it was Visquis who invaded her territory not the other way around.
"I will not be the one violating etiquette," he replied. "See you do not do the same." Yet even with that statement, she felt that he was afraid. "Based on your actions alone, I take it you are not familiar with the organization I serve or my responsibilities." He noticed her small figure and tried staring her down, yet she returned his gaze with equal ferocity. He continued, "I run the Refugee Sector. I decide what happens there, I control the flows and currents of this sector." He crossed his arms. "You have caused a great deal of trouble for the Exchange here on Nar Shaddaa, and I wish to know why."
"Tell me first," she commanded. "Why are you squeezing the life out of the Refugee Sector?"
Visquis explained that the reason for the pressure on the Refugees is so that they could attract Jedi. "It is curious though," he surmised. "We have been applying pressure on the humans in this sector for sometime, yet only now do you show yourself."
Aranel bowed her head and sighed. "I wasn't aware of the situation here on Nar Shaddaa, or I would have come earlier."
"The Jedi have always been slow to act when danger threatens, more so now than in the past, and you are no different. Still if you are a recent arrival…that would lend some validity to the rumors of another Jedi being here on Nar Shaddaa."
He looked to her for some information. Her face, which stared defiantly at him, betrayed none, although inside her serene defiance was a righteous anger ready to explode at any moment.
"Fortunately for me, I require just the one."
"How much did it cost you to look for me?" she asked almost threateningly.
"Oh you mistake me," Visquis raised the strange shape of his hand before her. He explained that he too had his master. "My soon-to-be-deceased boss," he pointed out. "Goto is the one who placed the monumental sum of credits upon your head. Your price is so high that any bounty hunter who captures you would be able to buy their own planet. You must have angered Goto greatly for him to hunt you so."
Aranel spotted a wicked smile on his strange octopus-like mouth.
"And that is why you are the perfect bait! And I will bring you to Goto, then kill him."
As he was speaking, Aranel could hear the hiss of gas around her. She smiled. He did not know that she was still not breathing.
He waited for a few seconds for the gas to overwhelm her. When she became invisible through the green gas, he heard the hum of a lightsaber and saw two purple blades break through the green smoke. He moved back in fear. "The gas…it isn't…you…" The next thing he knew, one purple blade was aimed at his throat. For a few seconds, he did not move, but seeing that the Jedi would not kill him, he called out his Ubese guards who emerged inside the arena. "I order you all: attack the Jedi!"
Aranel turned to face them, positioning herself in a defensive position. So much for civilized discussions, she thought. Yet as she moved to strike one, he evaded her and headed to Visquis instead. They were all heading to attack Visquis.
Visquis retreated to the point that he almost reached the beast pen. He desperately raised a commanding finger against their swords. "You all…attack the Jedi!" he shouted. No one moved. To his horror, he realized who they were really working for.
An authoritative voice shot out from above the pit: "While the Jedi remains on Nar Shaddaa, my eyes shall watch her."
Aranel watched the Quarren beg for his life, offering her as a gift.
"Enough," commanded the voice.
"Stop this!" Aranel shouted defiantly. "There has been too much killing."
Still no one seemed to hear her. She watched one Ubese soldier fatally stab him. She heard silence, as if the voice was observing her. Perhaps if the voice had emotions, it might have admired Aranel's courage. "What an amusing Jedi specimen you are."
Without warning, electricity shot from the circumference of the pit to Aranel. She felt shocks through her limbs, her chest and through her brain. She could not move. Her body slumped to the floor. As her lightsaber rolled away from her hand, she desperately called out to it until she realized she had no strength left. "I must not f…I cannot …" With the last bit of her conscious self, she let out a whisper, "Atton…Atton…"
Before darkness took her eyes, she faintly heard his voice reply: "I'm coming! Just hold on!" It was too late to give him an answer. She succumbed to sleep before she could reply to that.
Atton was in the middle of a fight with a Duros bounty hunter when he heard Aranel call out to him. He had already destroyed his opponent's blaster and knocked him down. Her voice distracted him. All he wanted to do was to get to her. The only way he could get to her was to shout back even though he did not know if she heard him. That gave his opponent time to draw his small sword. It would have been the end of him had not Mical blocked the sword's path with his own lightsaber and finished Atton's job.
Atton came back to his senses in time to block a blaster bolt from hitting him. When the Duros hunters all fell dead at their feet, more bounty hunters charged at them. Bao-dur, and Visas ran to meet them. Kreia, from a distance, let lightning rain on them from her hands. Atton stayed behind. Mical stayed with him. "Is something wrong?" he asked.
Atton hated being rescued or being asked that by the 'kid' as he called Mical. Something was obviously wrong. "Look, we have to get to her. We just have to."
Mical was puzzled at first by what he said. Since Atton was the one who told all of them earlier that they were in a lot more trouble than she was, it would probably look strange for the onlooker that at the present Atton was the one who was pressing them to rescue her. He then understood that Atton must have felt something through the Force. After Aranel told him about her force bond with Kreia, he devoted himself to study those bonds which he also knew was something Aranel was developing with all of them, even Atton. "Then we have to hurry."
Kreia rained down another lighting storm at the bounty hunters that killed most of them instantly. The other bounty hunters wisely ran away. Atton felt the old woman's sightless eyes on him, wordlessly uttering 'Fool."
As they came out to the docks, they came face to face a daunting sight: a sight of at least 20 bounty hunters waiting for them. They prepared themselves for another onslaught when a rocket landed on where the bounty hunters stood, killing all of them.
Mira emerged as if out of the smoke. She addressed Atton, "Uhhh…You're running a little late. Your friend already walked into a trap at the Jekk'Jekk Tarr. We took out Visquis, but Goto has her…and that means, no bounty for me."
Atton deactivated his lightsaber. "Care to tell us how we could get her back?"
"There is no way to get her back," Mira flatly stated. "No one knows how to reach Goto except Visquis, and that squid-head died at the Jekk'Jekk Tarr. The only way to reach Goto is if we had a Jedi, but now, he's got your friend, he doesn't have anybody else he wants captured."
Kreia went forward. "What of his ship? He must have a way of hiding his ship."
"He's got a cloaking device," Mira replied. "He's the one that arranges the meetings on his ship, and until then, he can't be found. Trust me, if anyone knew how to track his ship, he'd have every bounty hunter and criminal on Nar Shaddaa gunning for it."
"There has to be a way." Atton stipulated. "I say we hit orbit and start hunting." He felt Kreia's gaze on him again. He knew that his suggestion was stupid, but he all he knew was that he could not rest until he could find her once more.
Mira frowned. "If you are hunting for Goto's yacht your freighter would be flying blind…well, unless it was one of Vogga the Hutt's cargo ships, then it would be snapped up by Goto pretty quick." While she was speaking, her eyes surveyed Atton's companions: a Miraluka, an old woman, a Zabrak, a small droid and a young blonde guy whose eyes seemed to search for an explanation of her statement about Vogga's ships and Goto's yacht. For everyone, she explained, "Goto's been preying on Vogga's freighters for a while now: it's the reason Vogga's had to haul his bulk up here to Nar Shaddaa from Nal Hutta. Even with all the traffic around Nar Shaddaa, Goto seems to always know which ones are Vogga's, and his ship just snaps them up."
"How does he do it then?" Bao-dur asked.
"Probably does it by tracking their transponder codes, but no one knows how he's getting them."
"So if we got one of Vogga's transponder codes," Atton posed,"then Goto's ship might come to us?"
"I guess. You'd need to get the codes first, then retrofit your ship so it had the right transponder signal. Problem is, Vogga's shut down the droid warehouse until he can find out who's leaking the codes. You'd haveto be a droid to get in there."
Atton spied T3 from the corner. His lips widened to a wicked grin. "Well, there's one I'd like to get rid of…"
Aranel woke up on a cold metal floor. She felt around her and realized that even though she was a captive, she was still fully armed. She looked around the large round room where she was contained. Even though the room was big, there was nothing inside it except two black orb droids and a security console. The huge windows around it gave her a view of a gray planet below. Recognizing it quickly as Nar Hekka, she was somewhat relieved that she was still in the Y'Toub system. At least they could still reach me, she thought.
One of the round droids floated to the center of the room and started projecting an image of a slightly short man, only slightly taller than she was. She approached it. Whatever he started to lack in terms of hair (for he was slightly bald), he more than made up for it in terms of facial hair and his beard. Although he dressed in simple business-style robes, he was armed. Aranel bit her lip to keep herself from laughing when she realized that he looked exactly like a gangster she saw in a holo-vid. She realized that the projected man was examining her as well, his eyes surveying her from head to foot.
"I was expecting someone taller," he commented.
Aranel bit her lip again. She knew that he was not that much taller than her.
Their conversation proved to be interesting. He surprised her for profession to be a 'patriot' and for asking for her help in aiding the Republic. He told him about an invisible threat to the Republic, similar to Kreia's speculations. Unlike Kreia, she observed that he could only think in terms of statistics. Although they did agree about protecting the Republic, they did not see eye to eye when it came to the Jedi and her release. He believed the Jedi and the Sith to be only religious factions. She could not make him see that the Sith were the real threat. He also did not agree to release her because according to his calculations, the damage she had done seemed to outweigh the good. As she was still trying to negotiate her release, an alarm sounded. She instantly understood the reason for that. Goto's image disappeared after he excused himself to see to defending his ship.
Aranel did not seem to move from where she was. Of course they would come for me, she thought. As two guard droids floated to her, ion shot from both her hands, causing them to crash on both sides of her. She sat down and meditated. They are coming.
The members of the Ebon Hawk waited for their ship to be pulled in by the yacht. While the others prepared to defend themselves and their space from intruders, Atton and Mira silently crept on board the yacht wearing stealth generators. The yacht was heavily guarded by droids. Mira signaled to him that she would head to the yacht's other side to acquire more programs and raid the ship for more weapons.
Atton could not wait. He needed to be near her more than anything. Since he had acquired a program entitled "Shut Down," he decided to try it out on the turrets and release Aranel himself. When he issued the command, the controller gave him the following message:
Failure. Warning! Perform diagnostic immediately!
With that, the alarm sounded.
He tried to remedy it by performing a diagnostic. The controller gave him the following reply:
The turrets are malfunctioning and targeting both hostile and friendly units.
Stupid trash compactors, he almost muttered as he unhooked his lightsaber from his belt. He ran to the direction of the audience room, fighting his way through the droids. When he reached the audience room's exterior defense, he only saw scraps of metal: at least the stupid controller did his work for him. He opened the massive door in front of him, and saw her in the meditation position beside the two broken droids where we had left her. She looked like a padawan who just came from a field trip, ready to be picked up. It was as if she did not need rescuing.
When she saw him, she got up and grinned widely at him. "What took you so long?" she said as she threw her arms around him.
"I wanted you to pine for me a little."
"Thank you," she whispered while repressing happy tears that were forming her eyes. "But I did not miss you that much."
He could tell that she was lying. He did not care. He held onto her as tightly as she held onto him.
Still with her stealth generator on, Mira watched their reunion outside the door. She watched them bicker a little before she gave them a breezy, "Just kiss him and get it over with."
Of course, Aranel never did. She shook both Mira's hands and thanked her. An hour later, the Ebon Hawk sped away from the exploding yacht.
There are days when the sun does not shine. Aranel sat on Ebon Hawk's exterior early one morning. They were going to set out to Onderon in a few hours. After the early morning meditation she usually had with Mical, Bao-dur and Atton, she wanted to see the sunrise one last time. She was dismayed when her chrono showed that it was past Nar Shaddaa sunrise time at it was still cloudy.
Atton, emerging from nowhere, sat down beside her. "I'd hate to break it to you sister, but sunrises are rare in Nar Shaddaa."
Aranel smiled. "I know, but there are always chances of rain. Rain is good too."
Loving the rain was one of the many strange things about her. She always found happiness in the smallest and weirdest things. He hated having to make her sad, although he did it a lot. "Sometimes it is neither sunny or rainy: just cloudy."
She stared at him. It was unlike him to use metaphors or be philosophical.
He leaned his face closer to hers and gestured to her to do the same. "This is me saying: Cheer up."
Aranel closed her eyes. She felt his soft lips on her forehead. Although it made her tingle, in a second it was gone.
They were silent for a few minutes. "Disappointed?" he asked.
"Yes." Then she suddenly realized her mistake. "N—"
She was still shaking her head when his lips had stopped hers. Her lips were dry, almost tasteless but somehow delicious to him. When at first she did not respond, he almost panicked, but later her lips moved and tried to mimic his. It occurred to him that although she did not know how to kiss, she was trying to meet his lips with the same fervor. He pressed her close to him. He wanted time to stand still, because may be the only time he could have her like this. After they had parted, she leaned her head on his chest and lingered in his arms.
"I don't love you," he whispered tenderly.
"I don't love you either."
She knew that he was lying. He was not perfect. He was a liar, but she forgave him because she knew he had his reasons. Even angels have to lie and disguise themselves to be with those they wanted to protect. She knew what he felt for her because he heard her when she called and she heard him. That comforted her even though they could never truly tell each other how they felt, even though they would have to lie to each other to stay together. She knew that it was a miracle to be loved, especially for a Jedi. For Jedi, timing for love was always wrong. Attachments always ended badly. They could not stay too long in each other's presence so she decided to take as much time as she could. The sun did not shine and the rain did not fall, but at that moment, she did not mind.