"So do we have a deal?" Sharrak leaned across the grimy tabletop, leering suggestively at her. "Or can you think of some other way we could arrange your payment?"
Kira looked at him, a tightening of the small muscles around her golden flecked eyes the only indication of her distaste. The cool weight of her new blaster was reassuring against her side. "We have a deal. No other arrangements are necessary. Do you have it with you?"
"What do ya take me for? A swaggin' nerf herder? It's someplace close. Someplace safe. What say we take a little walk?"
"Of course. Shall we?" She motioned him out of the dark booth, rising with a subtle signal. He smirked at her and got up, heading for the door. Swirling her cloak around her shoulders, she trailed along behind him. Against the far wall, a large shadow rose up to follow them out.
They arrived unharried at their destination, which was fairly amazing considering the reputation for Nar Shadda. Quite distant from most galactic commercial centers, the planet known as the smugglers' moon is controlled by Hutts and various smuggling guilds and is now widely regarded as the center of smuggling operations in the known galaxy. Kira looked around them at the dilapidated buildings and wrinkled her nose at the offensive stench that seemed to emanate from the street. Sharrak tapped on the unadorned side of a dirty abandoned warehouse. A door opened along a formerly hidden seam, and he motioned for her to precede him into the dark. Her body tense, she entered.
Kira heard him come in behind her and close the door. She vainly tried to adjust her eyes to the pitch black, but before she could a light came on in Sharrak's hands. "Come on, it's this way," he said, motioning with his glowrod. She followed him along a narrow corridor, searching for any sign of deceit in his furtive motions. As they came to an old office door, he turned to her. "It's in there. You sure you got the payment? My, uh, partner don't exactly take credit."
"Of course I have it with me. What do you take me for?" She smiled sweetly at him.
"Right," he muttered, "Come on."
He ushered her into the room. The small space was all shadows and wavering light and without the aid of Sharrak's glowrod it was hard to tell what everything was. She heard the door click behind her and whirled at the sound. Sharrak was gone. She felt an icy shiver of terror as she turned back to survey the small room. It was lit only by a flickering glowlamp in the corner, the light casting large ominous shadows along the walls. Kira tried to slow her harsh breathing as she saw a stooped person standing in the center of the dingy office. She looked at the hunched figure standing seemingly cloaked in darkness. She shivered, despite the warehouse's warm temperature. She felt cold and strange looking at this small figure. Suddenly, it moved. "So. This is the young lady who so desires what I have to offer." It's voice felt like a cold hand running down her spine. It seemed to regard her with interest, which made the skin on the back of her neck crawl.
"Do you have it?" She blurted out, then swallowed nervously.
It chuckled miserably. "Yes. Do you have what I asked for?"
"Yes." She reached into her cloak and hesitantly pulled out a small amulet, encrusted with small, brilliant jewels set in a strange bluish metal. The most striking part of the piece was its center stone, a large blood red jewel that seemed to emanate a strange sort of power. When the stooped figure saw it, it thrust out a knarled fist.
"Here is what you desire. Make your use of it, young one, you will. Just remember: the power you seek is closer than you think." It snatched the amulet out of her trembling hand and held it's thin arm out further towards her. Her breath caught in her throat as she looked at what she had bought: a real lightsaber.
Kira reached hesitantly for the pummel of the ancient weapon. Plucking it gently from the knarled fist, she grasped the cold metal of her new purchase, and backed slowly out of the room, her eyes glued to the hunched figure as it drew its hand back inside the folds of its robes with the amulet firmly in its grasp. She turned and all but fled down the narrow hallways, back to the hidden door. She wrenched it open and flew out into the night. As she faded into the darkness, a figure detached itself from the shadows along the building and followed in her wake.
Sharrak watched the girl flee the building and felt a slight shiver of fear. He made his way back to where the creature was waiting, slowly opened the door of the office and went in. He regarded the lumpy figure in the center of the room. "I did what you asked, now I want my payment." The figure turned and the smuggler fidgeted under its gaze.
"Do not fear, my dear Sharrak. You will receive your just rewards." Sharrak swallowed nervously. The figure seemed to grow as it took a step towards the now cowering man. "We all will."
Kira slowed as she reached the lights of the middle class portion of the mainly human 'data' district of Nar Shadda, the location of her most recent home, a small but clean apartment located in a slightly dilapidated stone building. She paused before entering her building, sensing something behind her. She thought of her small holdout blaster concealed in her jacket. But as she whirled around, her hand reaching into her cloak, she saw only a large rodent scurry into the sewer drain. Her heart beating, she fled to the safety of her apartment.
Kira pulled her dark cloak off of her shoulders and tossed it onto a small table by her door, as she glanced around her sparse apartment, making sure everything was in its place. Her apartment had few things in it of her own, most of the furniture belonging to the owners of the building. She wouldn't stay much longer now that she had what she came for. She tossed her blaster on to the closest seating as she walked towards it. She sat down on the long white nerf-skin couch and pulled her purchase out of a hidden pocket in the lining of her jacket. Examining it carefully, she felt a shiver of excitement ripple through her. "Finally," she whispered softly to herself as she traced the swirling lines of the lightsaber's etching with her fingertips. It really was a beautiful weapon, and at twenty-six centimeters long it had a milky white base, with strange, curving lines entwining around the grip, that flowed up towards the concave disc where the blade would extend. She held it away from her body and depressed the button on the grip of the 'saber, extending the blade. At about a meter in length, the blade was pure white light at the center with coursing amethyst shining at the edges. Kira gasped as the shining blade bathed her already glowing face in light, distorting the shadows on her wall. "Multiple crystals," she breathed.
Kira knew that a lightsaber works by use of a power cell and multifaceted crystals or jewels that focus the energy from the power source and release it through the disc topping it, where it appears as a tight, colored beam of light and energy. A saber with a single jewel has a fixed amplitude and blade length. Those with multiple can alter their amplitude and change their blade's length usually by rotating an exterior control to vary the distance between jewels. The emitted beam arcs back from its positive charged energy continuous energy lens to a negatively charged high-energy flux aperture set in the disc atop the handle. The power amplitude determines the point at which the beam arcs back, setting the blade's length.
The two distinct colors of the lightsaber's blade meant that there had to be at least two different jewels used. Kira switched the throbbing blade off and turned the pommel over in her hands. Towards the base, there was a small band of blood red stones encircling the weapon. She flipped it back on and turned the dial. The blade extended another twenty centimeters. Kira smiled. "It's perfect."
Kira jumped at the slight noise at the door. Her heart leaped into her throat. She had been followed and she had disregarded to lock the door. Too late for kicking herself, she'd have to do it later, Kira thought to herself as she switched off the glowing blade, pocketed it, and threw herself across the couch towards her blaster, banging her shin on the small glass caf table. Scrabbling for the grip, she whirled towards the door as it burst open, revealing a large dark figure blocking the light from the hallway. Kira gasped in horror at the sight of the imposing figure. Time seemed to slow as Kira vainly struggled with her weapon. The figure raised a gloved hand and motioned at her weapon, which tore itself out of her grip and went sailing towards the ominous figure.
Kira sighed. "Slobbering Hutts Val, you scared me! What have I told you about knocking first? I could have killed you!"
Valtrioc Deluman chuckled. "I don't find that at all likely. If I hadn't taken it from you, you would simply kept trying to fire at me with the trigger guard still on." Kira glanced at the blaster, held loosely in his grip. Her face flushed red as she furiously reached for her weapon, which Val obligingly surrendered. "Hey, don't take it out on me just because you won't let me show you how to use it."
"I know how to use it, I just forgot because I was busy having a heart attack!" she threw at him, angrily, pocketing the blaster and rubbing her sore shin. Val's face sobered. "Come on Kira, you should have sensed me coming from a mile away. You haven't been practicing, have you?"
"So what if I haven't? I'll never be as powerful as you, ya big show off, and why should I be? I've always got you following me to 'keep me out of trouble'. Well I don't need your help, and I don't need your dumb exercises! I'm getting things done my way." Kira stomped over towards the small kitchen unit and poured herself a tall drink of a bitter liquid that the manager had supplied to her when she moved in. Taking a large gulp, she suddenly leaned over the sink, coughing. Her throat working, she choked, "Now I remember why I don't drink." She leaned heavily on the side of the sink, placing her forehead on the cool surface of the wall. Does he want to me my mentor, my older brother, or something more? She quietly fumed to herself. The mixed signals were giving her a headache, but so did most things lately.
Val sighed. "This is no way for you to be acting. You get so angry at the smallest things; it makes me worry about you, Kira. You're at a very vulnerable age right now, an age where you can easily be lead down the wrong path. Beware the quick and easy path. It may seem good to you right now, but you have no idea the price you will pay. And forgoing that, you are going to have a heart attack one of these days if you can't learn to calm down."
Kira grimaced as she tried to wash the bitter taste out of her mouth with a drink of water from the tap. Taking slow, even breaths, she calmed herself down before replying. "I know. I'm sorry for snapping at you, I've been on edge all night."
"That reminds me, did you find what you went for?"
She smiled, "I have it right here." She removed the lightsaber from her pocket and handed the shining handle to her friend. He reached out and took the ancient weapon from her gingerly, admiring the etching and jewels inlaid along its grip.
"This is truly beautiful. And you say you got it from a rare weapons dealer?" Kira squirmed and looked away, but Valtrioc didn't seem to notice as he examined the weapon.
"Yeah, a smuggler contact of mine set it up. The funny thing is, Sharrak came to me without my even having to contact him. I guess word must have gotten out about my wanting one." Kira shrugged. "I don't really care how I got it, just having it makes everything worthwhile." Despite her words, Kira thought with a slight pang about what she had to trade to get her lightsaber. Raised by two loving foster parents on a rather successful farm on Corellia, just outside the mid-size town of Bela Vistal, the amulet had been her only link to her real parents, it having been left with her at a small orphanage in Coronet. She still had not been able to find out anything about her real parents or the origin of the amulet. Kira regarded the recent exchange to be symbolic of her trading her old life on Corellia for a new one with her new friend. She had always wanted to find out about her strange powers and when she met a handsome and charming humanoid on Onderon while searching for her birth parents, she had jumped at the chance to befriend someone who could help her realize her true potential. Valtrioc had agreed to teach her what he knew of what he referred to as the Force in exchange for passage to the next star system. What started out as a business agreement slowly became a friendship. Kira glanced over at the tall humanoid. He looked almost perfectly human except for his imposing height, and even more prevalent, the slight ridges that ran back from the corners of his eyes to mingle with his head of jet-black hair, which he now ran his fingers through. This action messed up his hair enough to make him look rakishly charming, Kira thought. He felt her gaze on him and looked up. She hurriedly tore her eyes off of him, blushing harder this time as the corners of his mouth lifted in a jesting smile. "Now we both have one, and you can finally teach me how to fight with it instead of just showing me different stances." She studiously ignored his gaze as he looked at her.
"Of course, all in good time," he said with a laughing tone, amused by her discomfiture. "But now, it's late, and young Jedi need their sleep as well." He rose from the couch and handed the lightsaber back to her, butt first. She nodded, suddenly feeling the effects of her long day, and yawned. She stumbled towards her bedroom, the lightsaber dangling loosely from her hand. Valtrioc smiled and bid her goodnight, silently slipping out of the door, making sure to lock it on his way out.
Kira looked at him, a tightening of the small muscles around her golden flecked eyes the only indication of her distaste. The cool weight of her new blaster was reassuring against her side. "We have a deal. No other arrangements are necessary. Do you have it with you?"
"What do ya take me for? A swaggin' nerf herder? It's someplace close. Someplace safe. What say we take a little walk?"
"Of course. Shall we?" She motioned him out of the dark booth, rising with a subtle signal. He smirked at her and got up, heading for the door. Swirling her cloak around her shoulders, she trailed along behind him. Against the far wall, a large shadow rose up to follow them out.
They arrived unharried at their destination, which was fairly amazing considering the reputation for Nar Shadda. Quite distant from most galactic commercial centers, the planet known as the smugglers' moon is controlled by Hutts and various smuggling guilds and is now widely regarded as the center of smuggling operations in the known galaxy. Kira looked around them at the dilapidated buildings and wrinkled her nose at the offensive stench that seemed to emanate from the street. Sharrak tapped on the unadorned side of a dirty abandoned warehouse. A door opened along a formerly hidden seam, and he motioned for her to precede him into the dark. Her body tense, she entered.
Kira heard him come in behind her and close the door. She vainly tried to adjust her eyes to the pitch black, but before she could a light came on in Sharrak's hands. "Come on, it's this way," he said, motioning with his glowrod. She followed him along a narrow corridor, searching for any sign of deceit in his furtive motions. As they came to an old office door, he turned to her. "It's in there. You sure you got the payment? My, uh, partner don't exactly take credit."
"Of course I have it with me. What do you take me for?" She smiled sweetly at him.
"Right," he muttered, "Come on."
He ushered her into the room. The small space was all shadows and wavering light and without the aid of Sharrak's glowrod it was hard to tell what everything was. She heard the door click behind her and whirled at the sound. Sharrak was gone. She felt an icy shiver of terror as she turned back to survey the small room. It was lit only by a flickering glowlamp in the corner, the light casting large ominous shadows along the walls. Kira tried to slow her harsh breathing as she saw a stooped person standing in the center of the dingy office. She looked at the hunched figure standing seemingly cloaked in darkness. She shivered, despite the warehouse's warm temperature. She felt cold and strange looking at this small figure. Suddenly, it moved. "So. This is the young lady who so desires what I have to offer." It's voice felt like a cold hand running down her spine. It seemed to regard her with interest, which made the skin on the back of her neck crawl.
"Do you have it?" She blurted out, then swallowed nervously.
It chuckled miserably. "Yes. Do you have what I asked for?"
"Yes." She reached into her cloak and hesitantly pulled out a small amulet, encrusted with small, brilliant jewels set in a strange bluish metal. The most striking part of the piece was its center stone, a large blood red jewel that seemed to emanate a strange sort of power. When the stooped figure saw it, it thrust out a knarled fist.
"Here is what you desire. Make your use of it, young one, you will. Just remember: the power you seek is closer than you think." It snatched the amulet out of her trembling hand and held it's thin arm out further towards her. Her breath caught in her throat as she looked at what she had bought: a real lightsaber.
Kira reached hesitantly for the pummel of the ancient weapon. Plucking it gently from the knarled fist, she grasped the cold metal of her new purchase, and backed slowly out of the room, her eyes glued to the hunched figure as it drew its hand back inside the folds of its robes with the amulet firmly in its grasp. She turned and all but fled down the narrow hallways, back to the hidden door. She wrenched it open and flew out into the night. As she faded into the darkness, a figure detached itself from the shadows along the building and followed in her wake.
Sharrak watched the girl flee the building and felt a slight shiver of fear. He made his way back to where the creature was waiting, slowly opened the door of the office and went in. He regarded the lumpy figure in the center of the room. "I did what you asked, now I want my payment." The figure turned and the smuggler fidgeted under its gaze.
"Do not fear, my dear Sharrak. You will receive your just rewards." Sharrak swallowed nervously. The figure seemed to grow as it took a step towards the now cowering man. "We all will."
Kira slowed as she reached the lights of the middle class portion of the mainly human 'data' district of Nar Shadda, the location of her most recent home, a small but clean apartment located in a slightly dilapidated stone building. She paused before entering her building, sensing something behind her. She thought of her small holdout blaster concealed in her jacket. But as she whirled around, her hand reaching into her cloak, she saw only a large rodent scurry into the sewer drain. Her heart beating, she fled to the safety of her apartment.
Kira pulled her dark cloak off of her shoulders and tossed it onto a small table by her door, as she glanced around her sparse apartment, making sure everything was in its place. Her apartment had few things in it of her own, most of the furniture belonging to the owners of the building. She wouldn't stay much longer now that she had what she came for. She tossed her blaster on to the closest seating as she walked towards it. She sat down on the long white nerf-skin couch and pulled her purchase out of a hidden pocket in the lining of her jacket. Examining it carefully, she felt a shiver of excitement ripple through her. "Finally," she whispered softly to herself as she traced the swirling lines of the lightsaber's etching with her fingertips. It really was a beautiful weapon, and at twenty-six centimeters long it had a milky white base, with strange, curving lines entwining around the grip, that flowed up towards the concave disc where the blade would extend. She held it away from her body and depressed the button on the grip of the 'saber, extending the blade. At about a meter in length, the blade was pure white light at the center with coursing amethyst shining at the edges. Kira gasped as the shining blade bathed her already glowing face in light, distorting the shadows on her wall. "Multiple crystals," she breathed.
Kira knew that a lightsaber works by use of a power cell and multifaceted crystals or jewels that focus the energy from the power source and release it through the disc topping it, where it appears as a tight, colored beam of light and energy. A saber with a single jewel has a fixed amplitude and blade length. Those with multiple can alter their amplitude and change their blade's length usually by rotating an exterior control to vary the distance between jewels. The emitted beam arcs back from its positive charged energy continuous energy lens to a negatively charged high-energy flux aperture set in the disc atop the handle. The power amplitude determines the point at which the beam arcs back, setting the blade's length.
The two distinct colors of the lightsaber's blade meant that there had to be at least two different jewels used. Kira switched the throbbing blade off and turned the pommel over in her hands. Towards the base, there was a small band of blood red stones encircling the weapon. She flipped it back on and turned the dial. The blade extended another twenty centimeters. Kira smiled. "It's perfect."
Kira jumped at the slight noise at the door. Her heart leaped into her throat. She had been followed and she had disregarded to lock the door. Too late for kicking herself, she'd have to do it later, Kira thought to herself as she switched off the glowing blade, pocketed it, and threw herself across the couch towards her blaster, banging her shin on the small glass caf table. Scrabbling for the grip, she whirled towards the door as it burst open, revealing a large dark figure blocking the light from the hallway. Kira gasped in horror at the sight of the imposing figure. Time seemed to slow as Kira vainly struggled with her weapon. The figure raised a gloved hand and motioned at her weapon, which tore itself out of her grip and went sailing towards the ominous figure.
Kira sighed. "Slobbering Hutts Val, you scared me! What have I told you about knocking first? I could have killed you!"
Valtrioc Deluman chuckled. "I don't find that at all likely. If I hadn't taken it from you, you would simply kept trying to fire at me with the trigger guard still on." Kira glanced at the blaster, held loosely in his grip. Her face flushed red as she furiously reached for her weapon, which Val obligingly surrendered. "Hey, don't take it out on me just because you won't let me show you how to use it."
"I know how to use it, I just forgot because I was busy having a heart attack!" she threw at him, angrily, pocketing the blaster and rubbing her sore shin. Val's face sobered. "Come on Kira, you should have sensed me coming from a mile away. You haven't been practicing, have you?"
"So what if I haven't? I'll never be as powerful as you, ya big show off, and why should I be? I've always got you following me to 'keep me out of trouble'. Well I don't need your help, and I don't need your dumb exercises! I'm getting things done my way." Kira stomped over towards the small kitchen unit and poured herself a tall drink of a bitter liquid that the manager had supplied to her when she moved in. Taking a large gulp, she suddenly leaned over the sink, coughing. Her throat working, she choked, "Now I remember why I don't drink." She leaned heavily on the side of the sink, placing her forehead on the cool surface of the wall. Does he want to me my mentor, my older brother, or something more? She quietly fumed to herself. The mixed signals were giving her a headache, but so did most things lately.
Val sighed. "This is no way for you to be acting. You get so angry at the smallest things; it makes me worry about you, Kira. You're at a very vulnerable age right now, an age where you can easily be lead down the wrong path. Beware the quick and easy path. It may seem good to you right now, but you have no idea the price you will pay. And forgoing that, you are going to have a heart attack one of these days if you can't learn to calm down."
Kira grimaced as she tried to wash the bitter taste out of her mouth with a drink of water from the tap. Taking slow, even breaths, she calmed herself down before replying. "I know. I'm sorry for snapping at you, I've been on edge all night."
"That reminds me, did you find what you went for?"
She smiled, "I have it right here." She removed the lightsaber from her pocket and handed the shining handle to her friend. He reached out and took the ancient weapon from her gingerly, admiring the etching and jewels inlaid along its grip.
"This is truly beautiful. And you say you got it from a rare weapons dealer?" Kira squirmed and looked away, but Valtrioc didn't seem to notice as he examined the weapon.
"Yeah, a smuggler contact of mine set it up. The funny thing is, Sharrak came to me without my even having to contact him. I guess word must have gotten out about my wanting one." Kira shrugged. "I don't really care how I got it, just having it makes everything worthwhile." Despite her words, Kira thought with a slight pang about what she had to trade to get her lightsaber. Raised by two loving foster parents on a rather successful farm on Corellia, just outside the mid-size town of Bela Vistal, the amulet had been her only link to her real parents, it having been left with her at a small orphanage in Coronet. She still had not been able to find out anything about her real parents or the origin of the amulet. Kira regarded the recent exchange to be symbolic of her trading her old life on Corellia for a new one with her new friend. She had always wanted to find out about her strange powers and when she met a handsome and charming humanoid on Onderon while searching for her birth parents, she had jumped at the chance to befriend someone who could help her realize her true potential. Valtrioc had agreed to teach her what he knew of what he referred to as the Force in exchange for passage to the next star system. What started out as a business agreement slowly became a friendship. Kira glanced over at the tall humanoid. He looked almost perfectly human except for his imposing height, and even more prevalent, the slight ridges that ran back from the corners of his eyes to mingle with his head of jet-black hair, which he now ran his fingers through. This action messed up his hair enough to make him look rakishly charming, Kira thought. He felt her gaze on him and looked up. She hurriedly tore her eyes off of him, blushing harder this time as the corners of his mouth lifted in a jesting smile. "Now we both have one, and you can finally teach me how to fight with it instead of just showing me different stances." She studiously ignored his gaze as he looked at her.
"Of course, all in good time," he said with a laughing tone, amused by her discomfiture. "But now, it's late, and young Jedi need their sleep as well." He rose from the couch and handed the lightsaber back to her, butt first. She nodded, suddenly feeling the effects of her long day, and yawned. She stumbled towards her bedroom, the lightsaber dangling loosely from her hand. Valtrioc smiled and bid her goodnight, silently slipping out of the door, making sure to lock it on his way out.