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A Friend in Need Ch.2

MandalMotors Birgaan Class Freighter Model-46s, Designation: The Forgotten

SC-139, S-Cee for short, sat in the Forgotten's co-pilot's seat keeping an eye in the scanners that Vet had installed on the old vessel which were just a few of the things she had on this old ship. He noticed that despite the age of the ship, it ran remarkably well albeit the horrendous amount of fuel it used, which was something he was looking into. Payment for Vetrova giving him a ride, it was the least he could do since she refused take credits for helping her vod.

While he searched the ship diagnostics, Vetrova's heart rate spiked on his medical scanners. The droid didn't react as he knew that Vetrova had nightmares about a childhood trauma that she refused to talk out. S-Cee allowed her to keep it secret, one's past hardly mattered anymore, Cin Vethin as the Mando'ade referred to it as, a clean slate as anything prior to one's adoption into the ranks of the Mando'ade was forgotten.

Regardless of her past, Vet was a phenomenal bounty hunter. She had only ever once lost a contract in her long career since she turned fourteen. Ever since her Father and Mother took her on her first hunt she had aspired to be a decent one. However, she never took bounties over nine thousand credits. While many of Mando's would see that as laziness only by adding to the Zeltron sterotype, S-Cee found that was not the case for when she chose her targets, they were usually the slippery con-artists and embezzlers that led her on many chases and hunts from places like city underbellies to swamps and deserts which to her was a challenge.

S-Cee was about to check the scanners once more when the door to the captains quarter's whished open revealing a very groggy Vetrova. With her sleep addled eyes she walked over the navigation counsel at typed in a different course while barely even looking at the screen. They dropped out of hyperspace at a lane change and the new coordinates kicked in sending them toward Coruscant. S-Cee would have inquired if Vet had not stood up and moped out the cockpit and back into her room. S-Cee was glad he had stopped trying to understand organics long ago and went back to trying to increase the Forgotten's fuel efficiency.

…

Vetrova was exhausted as her dream kept her from getting any restful sleep. They were always the same. She and her friends were running, trying to get away. She watched as most of her friends were shot as they were chased through Coruscant's streets until finally she herself was shot.

That was when she woke up every time and they kept getting worse. She had no idea why. Well that wasn't entirely true and that made her even more nervous than if her assumptions about the bad dreams turned out to be correct.

She shook it off and went about her morning routine, crunches, situps and pullups on the bar on the wall next to her lockers. After that she jumped in the fresher. After drying off, she went the process of putting her armor on. She put on her faded red boots and then her black thigh plates and knee guards. She pulled her black breastplate and clipped her purple shoulder pads on. She then went to a mirror and brushed out the snags in her crimson-black hair. It was certainly odd, it was black, but gave off a crimson sheen in sunlight. It was cool as went well with her dark pink skin. She looked at herself for a moment, she was attractive which was to be expected of a zeltron, she supposed, never really had to give looks much thought when she wore a helmet most of the time.

She brought her hand up to trace the scar that ran straight back along her right cheekbone. It was years old, but it still carried a memory of that karking night. She shook her head, trying to shake the memory away for now and donned her black helm which looked out of place, it was black like her chest and armor pieces, pock marked with various scratches and blaster scores. However, the lining around the t-visor was a dull orange however. Her HUD lit up with an amber glow and she cycled through all her presets to make sure all her gear was working properly. She then donned a faded purple kama, a traditional Mandalorian belt-skirt that hung from the waist down to just under her knees. She threw on a pair of one her various types of gauntlets that hosted many different gadgets that helped her in her trade such as flame throwers, missile launchers, and various blades and disk launchers which she used for varying jobs.

She walked into the cockpit only to find it empty and S-Cee was nowhere to be found. She sat down and checked the navicomputer to see when the ship would exit hyperspace. It still read thirteen hours. What the haran? She should have been at least a couple hours away from the Mandalore system by now. What was with the change of course? There was only one other person on this ship who could have done that.

She got up from her chair and stormed throughout the ship looking for S-Cee. She found him in the engine room. He stood up as she entered, "What the haran, S-Cee? Why the haran did you change the navicomputer's coordinates?!"

"I did not…" S-Cee replied only to be cut off.

"Really?" she placed her hands on her hips, "Am I supposed to believe that I got up and did in my slee…" She stopped as S-Cee held up a holo that was projected out of his arm guard of her walking into the cockpit and change the coordinates herself. "pah"

"You did it in a sleep addled state." Cee said as he zoomed on her face enough to see her red eyes staring out into nothing without really moving. She shivered. Vetrova continued to watch the picture as she saw herself change the coordinates and walk to her room. She removed a hand from her hip and rubbed the forehead of her helmet.

"Great, just great, now I have to buy more fuel for this rust bucket and there goes the profit I made off the last bounty." She sighed.

"I have fixed your fuel efficiency by approximately thirty five percent," S-Cee stated in that metallic yet menacing voice of his.

Vet looked back to the droid, her helmet hiding her surprise, "What? How? I have been over everything there is to go over and haven't found anything out of sort."

"One on your fuel lines was lose and caught in between the frame casing pinching it slightly, forcing your engine to draw more fuel from the tanks as it forced the fuel through the punished hose. I secured the hose properly and made sure any others were secured as well." S-Cee explained.

Vet rubbed the back of her neck, "Thanks S-Cee, I am sorry for accusing you earlier. So does that mean we have enough fuel to possibly turn around and head back to Manda'yiem because a pint of ne'tra gal doesn't sound half bad right now… or ten?"

S-Cee nodded, "Negative, a stop at a fuel depot will be required."

Vet sighed again. When the Republic fell, fuel became increasingly more regulated by the Empire. Stopping at a depot was generally a pilot's last resort as the price of fuel had nearly doubled since the empire took over. So Vetrova made point to buy fuel on-planet were it was less expensive but not by much.

"Fine, we'll go to Coruscant, and fuel up, maybe we can check the bounty board for a local bounty. Earn some extra creds since we are all the way out there? In the meantime I am going back to my room." S-Cee did not answer. Instead he just nodded his head in acknowledgement as she left.

Why was this happening to her, it had been so long and now the memories were driving her back? Back to that force-forsaken place. She hated it, this curse that she was born with. It brought about only misery. She opened the door to her quarters, pulled off her helm and threw in on the bed on the opposite side of the room. She sat down in her desk chair. She needed to take her mind off of well… everything at the moment. .

She sat down and began going through her ship logs, trying to keep herself busy, her eyes scanning datapads adding up her expenses and profit margins for the majority of the year. It wasn't her favorite task and she had been putting it off for some time. She frowned when she finished. She looked over at the chrono on the desk. Two hours was all it took. She resisted the urge to smash her head into the desk. She groaned. She looked around her cabin and cringed. She hardly ever cleaned in her room, not that there was anything to clean other than dust. She didn't have much other than her armor and weapons and some civilian clothes for special missions.

The thought had often crossed her mind and she had even considered taking up larger bounties, finally moving up to the big leagues. It wasn't that she feared to catch very dangerous bounties, they were the fun part always running and giving her a good hunt. The notoriety was a different story, nobody scrutinized a simple nobody and staying out the bigger hunters' way was a great way to seem uninteresting. The creds from the bigger scores would help greatly in buying a new ship, not that the Forgotten was a bad one it was just old. The fuel line issue wasn't the first problem she had had on this ship. Once she had to actually repair the life support before she died of hypothermia as the ship lost heat. In hindsight she should have just gotten a new ship then but…

She rubbed her head as it began pain throb through her temple. Images flooded her mind, a small café, a hooded figure sitting next to the window at a table with a steaming cup of caffa, while gazing out at the ruins of the old Jedi temple. She released a breath as the images faded away. She leaned back, her hand still on her head as the pain faded with the vision. Something was up, the nightmares, the sleep walking and now this. All of this was happening so fast. She knew deep down what it was, what she kept buried inside her and it seemed the karking dam was breaking. It was something that never happened this bad before so she knew well that the dreaded nightmares wouldn't end until this warning vision was headed, this much she was certain. She pulled out a datapad and began searching for any cafés or diners in range of the temple ruins.

...

Coruscant

The planet has always been the center of galactic politics for millennia, even the hyperspace coordinates read (0,0,0). Vet hated this place as it was like any other city, full of crime and poverty. Haran, it was even beginning to put Nar Shadda to shame with the power that the criminal syndicates were now wielding. She breathed in the air in all its smog filled goodness as she walked down the ramp of her ship.

"S-Cee, you mind taking care of the fueling, I might be gone for a while. Somethings come up. I would appreciate it if you watched the ship." S-Cee nodded and walked off toward the refueling station without complaint and she made her way to the edge of the fueling pad.

Many back home wondered why she put up the droid so much on many of the jobs they worked to together on, and she couldn't blame them for wondering. To be honest, S-Cee's lack of emotion helped keep her calm. Being Zeltron, she could read the emotions of others, and was effected by others emotions as well. If a person felt happy it would rub off on her and the same was true for negative emotions as well. It did some in handy for interrogations though. So S-Cee being a droid who couldn't feel anything at all made him a good fit which is why she was going to ask him after all this weird osik was over with to be her partner full time.

She hailed a taxi when she reached the edge of the pad and told the driver to drop her off about five blocks outside the Jedi temple sector at a local cantina. From there she walked to the rim of the Jedi Temple Sector. She noticed that many buildings were abandoned, most where gift shops and restaurants that had made money off tourists they came from various parts of the galaxy to see the temple. After the purge many businesses must have had to shut down due to the Jedi Temple being marked off limits and any trespasses into the temple itself where met with death.

Her research into possible places that the figure would be hiding went well and she was able to narrow down the side of the temple which the figure where the figure was viewing it from. She found an elevator and took it up to the upper levels. It wasn't hard to find the café and she walked into the doors, pushing one open. The place was dilapidated and looked to have been looted once or twice, some tables still had plates and eating utensils on them while the rest were either broken or knocked over.

Despite being in the right place, there was no sign of her mystery figure. She looked around and found the table he was supposed to be sitting at with an abandoned mug on it. She was about to dismiss this foolish trip, when she noticed the cup was full of caffa and still steaming. She drew her blasters from their holsters and she scanned around the room. She checked the three hundred and sixty degree camera in her helmet and still found nothing which made her very uneasy. She felt a presence, but before she could react however she felt a barrel of a blaster press into the back of her neck in between her armor plates. "Shab," she muttered. Should have worn a gorgot or at least looked up.

"Drop your weapons," the voice, male, ordered, "I don't know how you tracked me down hunter, but I would rather die than be turned into Imperial custody."

Vet smirked under her helm and did so letting her pistols fall, but before blasters hit the floor she sprang into action. Sweeping her elbow back and knocking the blaster from the man's hands. She swept her other fist into his face knocking his hooded head back. He recovered quickly throwing his own punch that impacted on her beskar'gram chestplate. She felt her breath leave her lungs as the punch carried unnatural strength behind it. She barely dodged the next one and backflipped away pulling out her DC-17m blaster rifle and fired at the robed figure. She managed to wing his shoulder, but it did little to deter him as he jumped off a table and leapt at her. She rolled as he landed and while kneeing on one knee, fired again. She heard a pop-hiss of a weapon she knew well. The blue lightsaber deflected the shots. She growled and drew her beskad knowing a blaster wouldn't do much now. She then holstered her blaster rifle quickly as she circled the Jedi. They gauged each other before finally the figure the jumped at her slicing down with his saber. She parried and twisted around beside him and caught his back swing as he turned around. Her sword held against the blade as Mandalorian Iron or beskar was one of the only materials in the galaxy to effectively block a lightsaber.

The figure jumped back and sliced a table in half. He then threw at her using the force and she ducked as both pieces passed over head and impacted on the transparisteel window, cracking it slightly where each half struck. He charged her and she ducked. She changed tactics and let go of the hilt of her blade with her offhand and caught him in the jaw with an uppercut.

He let out a surprised grunt as his hood fell back revealing his face. Vet didn't move, just stared at the man. He had pale skin, and a light beard and mustache graced his strong features. His blond hair fell a little past his shoulders. He was about her age, early to middle twenties. He glared at her and she tried to discern where she had seen him as he spoke.

"Leave hunter, let me remember my friends in peace. It is not worth your life to face a Jedi for mere credits."

She shook her head, she needed more info. Something told her she knew this man, "What's a Jedi doing so close to that cursed place anyway. The Imp's have Shadow Troopers all over the place." She nodded to the temple.

He looked back at the temple, "That is none of your concer…" She jumped at him, while he was mid-sentence knocking his saber out of his hand, and sent a roundhouse kick at his head in a blur of motion. He landed on the ground, but reached out with his arm sent her flinging back with the force. She slammed hard into the back wall, but he held her there. She tried to move as he approached with his unlit saber in his hand.

"Hunter, you made a mistake…" she didn't hear him instead focusing on her mental strength, reaching out using her own long buried connection to the blighted force.

"Let. Me. Go." A small wave exploded out from her body knocking the jedi back to the ground. She didn't hesitate and jumped on top of him planting her knee on his chest. She reached out with her arms and both her beskad and his lightsaber flew into her hands.

In his confusion he reached out and probed her through the force, "Impossible, your dead, I saw you die!"

It was her turn to be confused, "What?" He seen her die, but that would mean…

"Violet?" she pulled the blade back and started to step back. It couldn't be, there was only one other human in her group when they went to Ilum, a boy with a penchant for terrible nicknames. She saw it now, his green eyes, and the faded scar on his neck from a training accident in the courtyard.

"Crous?"