The Search for the Weapon
Chapter 2: Avoiding Shots
I own not those situations I borrow from Disney Properties, Lucas, Mechalich or Thomas Benjamin DeMayo. This is a dramatization from my mind on a character created from the meld of table gaming and so on. Special thanks to ideas Drew Karpyshyn and Tim Lebbon fermented. Special thanks to Morihei Ushiba who formed Petre with his wisdom. Like any mind construct this is an exercise and my own work building on other ideas from the past.
This is a Zeison Sha story, set in what is known as the Star Wars EU.
Averam
.4 BBA
Weeks later Jahn was leaving yet another freighter where he worked as a mech for passage and walked through another space port. He had lost count of anything but his hard cash funds as the ports were a blur. He found his next "tramp" job from a captain with tattooed eyes before asking where the best gossip was. That was a cantina down the way. He wandered a bit trying his best to look "not like prey" wearing his confusion suit and carrying a mostly empty possibles bag which carried just more "confusion" suits, a book and his sketch pad with a stylus.
He walked the markets and ghetto before finding his way to the cantina, his sweep fruitless so far. So he ordered a nerf burger and spacer juice.
"What's a matter with you?" the guy next to him at the bar "Can't hold your liquor?"
"Can't afford the liquor." Jahn said jokingly not looking at the man as he paid upon receipt as was custom and comfortable for him.
"I have a way to make money if you don't mind getting your hands dirty."
"I've farmed before" Jahn quipped as a joke "mucked stalls, painted, carried water, turned a hydrospan and worked with chemicals."
"Funny, I have some stuff that needs moved." Jahn sighed as he shifted a bit.
"I have a job, this is a celebratory lunch for finding something that agrees with me. But I have not been paid yet."
"Well whatever it is, this pays better." The man persisted but Jahn just began eating his food, really enjoying it which covered his senses meditation. He tuned that man out to use the Tikbalang technique enhancing his senses to hear and see everything in the room (while eating) and pay attention to all. He heard nothing of interest, no real conspiracies, just drug deals, gripes, affairs and normal miserable stuff, just like every other place he had visited so far. When he returned to himself the guy next to him was still persisting, 30 seconds after being told to piss off.
"You should take my deal." The Nikto beside him said with his hand out to shake on it. "I am not someone to be trifled with." He added when the shake did not come.
"Yeah, wanted on seven systems, got that. You go your way and I will go mine, no deal, no hard feelings." Jahn replied simply as this was the phrase that ended 75% of this man's involvement in his life as he spiraled in to zoom out and then back to center using the network he had set up on just about every electronic device.
"I don't like you." The Nikto declared and Jahn thought and here it goes he thought as finished his meal to turn to leave because he really had nothing left to say to the man.
"Hey I'm talking to you!" with that the man grabbed Jahn's right arm and the future spun as he saw all the new possibilities available. Most ended with the man dead, by blaster, by knife or throw or some especially vicious dark side techniques that seemed to enjoy popping to mind since Shanev… Jahn just took his arm out of the man's grasp as thew rapture affected both like static shock giving the boy time to get out as he was stunned by the quick sensory overload inflicted on him. He looked around before he and his wingman exited shortly after him but Jahn had made it around behind carts and they quickly lost his trail in the press of humanity (and altitude, rooftops were Jahn's favorite place) until he dropped into those heading home from the factories.
Still, using the roundabouts Jahn made his way to the Starduster "Reporting for duty Captain Dantels."
"Enjoy your tour of Averam?"
"If this is Averam, nope, just another place." the kid deadpanned.
"The beaches around the oceans are nice but you can run into some interesting idiots here. Many that want you to take loads you do not want any part of."
"I think I met one but I gave him the slip when no seemed to be a word he misunderstood." She looked at him differently as he went to put on his "bounty hunter eva suit" and her eyes rose "He is not looking for this." Then she nodded.
"Those are people that will not like it if you reject them or stir the pot, so its good you just gave him the slip. Be warry and watch for them to return."
"Or hope the Nikto forgets." Jahn shrugged. "What do you want me to do first?"
"Take my skip loader and pick up this delivery." Nera Dantels handed him a tablet.
"Right on it Chief."
"Do you ever take off goggles and mask?" she asked pointing.
"If I could paint "autistic" on me in all languages, I would, but that would stand out. This just feels right to me, my land was very windy, and is not so unusual it attracts attention." Jahn said getting moving while Nera nodded at the choice as he put all his gear together… always like he had one foot out the door.
"Just move the droids from KJA for us… they are a better droid than the drek Zann is selling. Of course, because Zann is not upgrading the blasted things. The damn hyperdrive routine in those astromechs is worth more than his stang droids.
For two months Jahn was Captain Dantel's errand boy, making deliveries mostly for the nascent Alliance to restore the republic. There he was able to meet the alliance often though as a "dude running the skip loader" Jahn was invisible. He also delivered via subroutine introductions to Organa, Windu and Kota, basically his art and letters filtered in. Speaking of Art, he kept his sketchbook somewhat secret almost always on his person, people knew he had it, people were not allowed to see the private works. Jahn had decided to sketch with a stylus and thus for that reason it always looked like a blank piece. "Just practicing" was his answer when the real thing was how fine could he control the Force, wearing this suit around those that were strong in it.
With him out on a delivery back on Averam with his bag and gear and his berth empty except for his sketch pad this time. This was odd, he always took the pad and never took his whole kit so Dantels decided to take a look at what he worked on during the down time on runs that was not spent exercising, doing combat moves with speed and grace with his electro-staff while he ran diagnostics with his mouse droids.
So Nera decided to scratch a pencil over them as her dealings were quite sensitive and too many people could be betrayed if she had a spy on board. She even winced as she let the kid work on the droids she was transporting. Too many people could be affected.
What she found, blew her mind and spurred her to immediate action.
Jahn, waiting on the crates to be packed at a freight consolidation terminal took the time to munch down a cheap but highly nutritious canned lunch like he tended to do of late. A meal in a can packed in water so it provided everything his body would need in a hurry.
"If its not the biggest fool in the galaxy." He heard from behind him and he sighed, ok, maybe he should not always carry the kyuzo helm.
Jahn put the empty can into the recycling bin and stepped out for space and four bodies moved around him.
"What can I do for you?" Jahn did stepping in a slow, complex sequence until he was surrounded but had space.
"We have a job for you to do." One said.
"I have a job." Jahn deadpanned.
"I did not offer you a job, I told you that you will take a job." The leader said.
"And no, is not a choice?" Jahn asked to their laughter. "I really approve of choices."
"Skarp in one hand and choose in another, see what holds weight." The leader taunted.
"You would be extremely surprised in the universal power of choice." Jahn said dropping his "flow choke" and drawing on the Force while the thugs unaware laughed. Only a few systems away Ral Gorgon turned… and Jahn felt her too, damn! he had been quiet and she should not be there!
"Here is what you are…" the leader began and Jahn heard blasters drawn.
"NO!" Jahn said, cutting the thug off torso, point at my torso "I choose to NOT deal with you, EVER!"
"Kill him." the boss ordered as Nera Dantels, Jahn's sketchbook in hand when she saw the showdown occur. As fast and combat trained as she was, her draw seemed almost in slow motion and she could swear Jahn's finger was wagging her way in a NO gesture while his legs and body shout down into a coil.
Jahn, standing surrounded at the freight consolidation point had watched, his swirl only choked slightly until everyone else had cover but he did not count on Nera Dantels' presence. What will, be will be he dropped to the ground at Zeison Sha speed as he had hindered trigger pull just enough the thugs could not take back their actions, jerking the trigger when his choice was revealed.
Nera Dantels rushed up to where the shootout occurred as the four Nikto thugs dropped like sacks of grain after firing in concert, hitting their partners, killing them all. Jahn moved, almost cat like on all fours behind a row of crates near an alley nearby. She stopped and looked around trying to find Jahn, seeing no sign of the boy or his bag. She went to the crate and saw a woman there cowering.
"The kid, is he safe? where is he?" Nera demanded.
"He went that way." she pointed and Nera was torn looking around quickly before laying her eyes on an obvious mercenary, ignoring the chaos that had just happened, strolling up to the meat roll cart to buy lunch. She needed to be in two places at once, maybe even three. She scratched her "worry spot" on her off hand before opening up the now shaded etchings Jahn had wrought. The second to last page before "sorry, gotta go" was her shaking hands, with THAT mercenary. She trotted up to him as others rushed to check on the Niktos.
"Hey, do you need a job?" she asked as she noticed him digging for money.
"Depends on the job." He responded hand on his weapon casually.
"Can you drive a skip loader?" She asked breathlessly.
"Passibly."
"Good, get that load" she pointed at her loader and the cargo being lashed on it "to the Starduster on dock G-33 "A" slot." She handed him two 100 credit markers. "I will be there sometime soon. So guard it until I get there for 100 an hour. My name's Dantels and yours is?"
"Serin, consider it done." He answered.
She turned away in pursuit of Jahn, to help him connect to those he drew about.
Hours later she realized her "guard" had just been paid for a week at Jahn's rate and hustled back having left blind drops to her rebel contacts to meet. When she arrived at her ship she paid the man and began a quick interview for he was a man of few words. Had it not been for the sketch, she would not have hired the clone wars vet as he fought for the confederacy. But now she had to move to be at her assigned place and time.
"I have to finish my business so I have a load later. So pick a bunk and stay." Nera said adding "But not on that one!" as Serin started to take "Jahn's bunk". She really hoped the kid who had her ship running better than brand new could come back.
"Ok, see you later Boss."
Nera Dantels quickly dressed for a night on the town with a skirt, veil, knee high boots, hide out blaster in her thighs and a teddy top. This was so her contact could meet her in a place where privacy was the one meter they stood in, but no surveillance would be able to break their conversation.
A shadow in the nightly mists silently followed.
The sultry brunette went to a dance club with a pounding beat and danced with multiple men and women for about an hour when her contact reached her and they started dancing toward an alcove in the club.
"Before we get a drink, mind telling me why this was so urgent?" the young man she danced with whispered into her hair.
"Does the name Lee Or mean anything to you? Maybe Dri Ku? Or the name Deathstalker?" she asked into his ear.
"Someone used those names?" Her contact seemed surprised as they danced close, hands moving all over each other.
"Those were the false IDs one of my crew used on our runs, the Deathstalker name caused a bit of fear on one person he interrogated or it may have been something else as it smelled wierd." She paused "I remember someone with the same Kiffar face tattoo he used that time on a jaunt to Serreno a couple of years back." She said "Never saw the Kiffar again and was glad for it. And then" she reached a table and her escort held a chair out for her to sit "there is this sketch pad thingy." She slid the picture of her and Serin at a hot dog cart "This happened today after I found the pad."
Her contact started at it for 5 minutes before she kicked him and he snapped out of... something. "I recognize the style, how did he introduce himself?"
"As "Jahn Zeison Sha". Name is clean." She said "I did a background check. He does not exist and insists on goggles and a mask."
"I think I know who your "ghost" is and would love to thank him again." He whispered into her ear. "Give him the directions for the vetting and pack his sketch pad into the shipment for us." And he drew back flipping the drawing over once to look at the back before folding it into a pocket.
"That is the problem, he disappeared after taking four Nikto," her contact frowned "or more accurately, let them kill themselves."
"That sounds more like the "Jedidiah Smoak" I know, to me."
"Interesting name" Nera responded.
"Not nearly as interesting to me as the name he gave you." He left the statement cryptic. "The Zeison Sha are who threw the empire out of the Kalat in the final battle of Shanev."
Nera turned bloody serious, Shanev was known galaxy wide as a bloody engagement "How will I give him directions?"
Two Zenji needles fell to the table top from the ceiling sticking straight up startling both but Leo said "I am sure you can leave him a message somewhere only he can read." He slid over a face up time and date that she folded and put in her cleavage. "Take a needle as well, destroy the note with it and discard it out there somewhere where you can."
A veil could not mask Nera's confusion and Leo raised her veil for a kiss. "I'll catch you later." He rose up to leave "I have 100% confidence he will pass the vetting. You have given us an asset I have been looking high and low for once I began working with my father and his friends again." He drew back "But right now his warning" he held up a needle "may have saved our lives." he said looking around and getting up warily.