I think I already mentioned that this story is finished and I'm just taking my time uploading it and stuff. There's gonna be ten chapters overall. Thanks so much to everyone who's read so far! I hope you're enjoying yourselves and that this newest chapter is as fun for you as it was for me!

Chapter Three: Abduxi

Daplona stood in the middle of the industrial complex like a beacon amid the smokestacks of factories surrounding it, the spires of its tallest buildings reaching up to pierce the veil of smog and clouds. The streets wound through and around each building like a maze, multiple routes to any one destination.

After the isolation of Ambria, Zannah found herself hard-pressed to maneuver through the throng of bodies pressing in on her from all sides. The stink of sweat and foreign foods mingled in the air, exacerbated by the heat of the sun pressing down on the uncovered marketplace until she very nearly gagged. Her composition was not so delicate that she wasn't able to overcome her body's biology, however, and she continued on with her mission with a sneer of distaste just barely twisting her expression.

The marketplace, much like others she had been to, was an open-air construct with rows and rows of stalls lining both sides of a street that had been blocked from vehicular traffic. Merchants sold high quality fabrics, shimmersilk, armors and shields from every quadrant of the galaxy, hoisting the best of their wares in their arms like newborn children and shouting their prices at passerby with all the subtlety of a charging bantha.

Few booths hocked weapons, but that meant very little to Zannah, who was used to finding those willing to engage in the sort of black market dealings she had become accustomed to over the course of her lifetime.

Ignoring the allure of a clean, fresh outfit, she continued down the road until the path opened into a large courtyard bracketed by more shops than she had ever seen before. The yard spanned at least a kilometer in every direction and the shacks evolved into actual, permanent storefronts. It was, by far, the largest marketplace she had ever seen, testament to the planet's good fortune as a central trading hub.

In the time it took her to locate the section of marketplace that dealt most in food and dried goods, she had already compiled a mental checklist of other items that she and her Master didn't necessarily need, but would certainly appreciate. An extra set of clothes, for one, would go a long way in improving her mood, Zannah decided.

All of their worldly possessions had been left on Ambria, most likely destroyed or stolen in the time Bane had left for Tython, leaving them with only one spare set of trousers and tunic each in addition to what they already wore. Luxuries had been sacrificed in exchange for secrecy and subtlety, but the time for that was now past.

The Jedi thought the Sith were wiped out of existence, for good this time, and Zannah could think of no reason why she couldn't indulge in clothing that didn't permanently smell of dirt and musk.

Accumulating the essentials took hours longer than she had anticipated, though, and by the time the sun dipped low in the sky she didn't have the time to shop around for anything else.

The bacta tank she had found was lighter than the older model aboard the ship but still cumbersome to carry, and the three hover-crates she had rented had no more room to spare. She had managed to fashion a sling through the handle of the tank and had slipped it over her shoulder and back to distribute the weight evenly, but she wasn't looking forward to the hike back to the Loranda. The darker it became the more difficult it would be navigating over the foreign terrain.

With one last, longing look at a pale blue shimmersilk shawl that had caught her eye earlier, Zannah activated the magnetic train of hover-crates and began guiding them toward the edge of town.

"Hey! Hey!"

The call, while most definitely directed at her, could not persuade her to turn around in acknowledgment. Over the years her looks had evolved into a beauty approaching alluring, and she was thus used to being on the receiving end of catcalls and had learned long ago that the best policy was complete and total disinterest.

"Hey, I'm talkin' to you!"

Some men, of course, were not so easily dissuaded, forcing her to get creative in her rejection. More often than not a few broken fingers were enough to do the trick, but every now then there was that one insistent would-be-lover who just couldn't take the hint, no matter how many bones she broke.

Unfortunately, the hover-crates possessed a single speed setting—unbearably slow—and the pounding of footsteps grew loud as the suspect caught up with her. Zannah slid her hand beneath her tunic and touched the hilt of her lightsaber, determined not to use it even as an intimidation tactic, but taking comfort from its presence all the same.

"Lady—geez, slow down, will you? You dropped something!"

Eyes narrowed, Zannah turned and gave the man her attention. To her surprise, he was an Iktotchi, slightly taller than her with dusky red skin and a sheen of sweat coating his forehead. His horns swept down toward his shoulders, shorter than she had seen on others of his species, but sharp at the tips.

Keeping the sneer from crossing her face, she stared at the him with wide-eyed innocence, pretending, for her own sake, to be interested in what he had to say.

"Oh?" she replied sweetly, tilting her head the side.

"Here," the man said, holding out a fifty-credit chip between two thick, clawed fingers. "You dropped it a while back. I've been trying to catch up to you."

"Thank you," Zannah said, suppressing a frown. She hadn't noticed she had dropped anything, but accepted the chip all the same. It wouldn't have hurt them to have lost fifty credits considering Bane's wealth, but she dared not risk her Master's ire over something so simple, that she shouldn't have allowed to happen in the first place. She was Sith, and she should have been more aware of herself.

"You have to be careful around here," the Iktotchi said, shrugging. "You never know who's out there trying to take advantage of you."

He aimed a bright smile at her and for a moment all Zannah could see were the uneven, white rows of his sharpened teeth and the dimples in his cheeks. His eyes, she now noticed, were bright blue and crinkled at the corners as he continued to grin.

In that moment, she didn't trust him or his intentions. She didn't even believe that the credit chip had been one that she had 'dropped'. Either this one was a pickpocket of considerable skill or he just thought her to be stupid.

"I appreciate your honesty," she said stiffly, turning away to resume her journey back to the ship.

"Yeah, well, I'm an honest kind of guy. Name's Jex. What's yours?"

"Rainah," Zannah replied automatically, the falsehood an easy assumption at this point. "I'm busy, if you don't mind."

"I don't mind," Jex said, falling in step beside her and thrusting his hands in the pockets of his flight trousers. He was a pilot, Zannah thought, catching the patches on the sleeves of his shirt and the modified goggles that hung roguishly around his neck. Flyboys were the worst of the bunch; they never knew when to give up, and, worst of all, they usually traveled in pairs.

Anticipating an ambush at any second, Zannah tried to quicken her pace but to no avail—the hover-crates were locked on the lowest setting, forcing her hand.

"Well, I do mind," she said, tone hardening as the gloom of twilight crept through the streets. "I have a job to do and you're in my way. Now, leave me alone."

She waved her hand in a subtle gesture, directing her will and the strength of her suggestion toward Jex, pushing with the Force to alter his mindset and turn him away.

Not making a scene was high on her list of priorities; the blood in her veins hummed in apprehension of what would happen if she were to somehow blow their cover and so she endeavored to do exactly the opposite, lest she risk her Master's wrath a final time. As with all instances of Force manipulation, she watched as Jex's eyes glazed over as the suggestion took root in his brain, altering his neural pathways until he repeated the phrase back at her.

In the next moment, however, Zannah was forced to school her expression into rigid neutrality as Jex shook off the effects of her suggestion and frowned.

"I mean...I'd like to leave you alone," he said, as though confused as to where the errant thought had sprung from, "but you've got a lot of supplies with you and it's getting dark. You sure you don't want any help?"

Unbelievable. Out of all the people she had to cross paths with, it would be someone with a will strong enough to resist the temptation of the Force.

She cursed herself for remembering, almost too late, that Iktotchi were gifted telepaths. Her mental barriers were strong, though, and she had done well to keep her Force signature muted; if there was any danger of Jex finding out what she really was, the knowledge would not come from her. She needed to do something about him, though.

Zannah hesitated, warring with herself over the desire to be left alone and the need to not draw attention to herself. If she tried to use another Force suggestion on him there was no guarantee he wouldn't overcome it and begin asking questions.

The Jedi were well-known throughout the galaxy and most of their tricks were spoken of as mystical legend, if not fact, making it possible that he might put two and two together and out her as a Force user. He might even try to probe her, telepathically, and that was something she preferred to avoid altogether. It would be unfavorable if she was forced to kill him. Bane would be displeased….

"I'm sure," she said, biting the inside of her cheek until she tasted blood. "I'm fine on my own. I made it into town and I'll make my way back out. I appreciate it, but I don't need your help."

Nor do I want it, she thought savagely.

Jex was one of the persistent ones, she could tell. He wasn't used to being told 'no', but to his credit he did seem to be taking it a lot better than others she had met. Not that it meant anything to her.

She supposed, if he cleaned himself up, he could be presentable...maybe even handsome, for an Iktotchi. Her thoughts immediately catapulted to what he'd look like in her bed, naked and writhing and begging, and she brought herself up short, catching the brakes on the magnetic train and nearly tripping over her own feet.

That was a mental image she hadn't wanted.

"You alright?" Jex asked, concern wrinkling his brow as he crouched to pick up a few meiloorun fruit that had tumbled from the top of one of her overflowing crates.

Zannah stared hard, trying to decide what to do.

On one hand, she didn't want to waste anymore time dealing with Jex, who seemed to be an earnest sort of man looking for a bit of companionship. He wasn't completely harmless, but her confidence in her own abilities left her with little expectation as to what might happen if he had chosen to not act so gallantly.

On the other hand, now that the idea had taken root, she didn't see why she shouldn't be permitted a little fun. Bane didn't care about whom she took for a lover, so long as it didn't interfere with her training or their goals.

'As long as the attachment doesn't fester beyond your need for physical pleasure, you may bed whom you please,' had been his exact words to her when, at the age of fourteen, she had dared ask him about the hormonal changes ravaging her child's body into something alien and cumbersome.

She had learned afterward that the rounding of her hips and the swelling of her breast were as much a weapon as her lightsaber, and had quickly discovered how to use her assets to her advantage. Passion and pleasure were not forbidden among the Sith as they were with the Jedi, a fact she had relished with every new lover.

It had been several months since she had last manipulated Kelad'den to his death, and though their 'relationship' had proven beneficial, Zannah had not mourned his loss. Now, with the temptation of Jex standing right before her, she found herself hard-pressed to simply dismiss the notion of taking on another lover.

It would do her good to work out some of her pent-up energy; her earlier connection to the dark side had only heightened her senses and she was now painfully aware of the heat in her bones and the twitch of her muscles as something beyond what the Force was capable of inciting.

There was only so much tension one could burn off in one training session, and even then there were aches that could not be soothed by the repetition of lightsaber forms or meditation. Bane had understood that, and had never tried to stop her when she had wandered off in the few hours of free time permitted in order to take care of her business in her own way.

Thinking of Bane did nothing for her budding lust, however. Compared to Jex, her Master was a specimen of physical perfection, and unlike Jex, she knew the power coursing through him, knew exactly what his hands would feel like gripping her arms, knew the weight of his body from their training where he put her through various grappling holds until she learned to counter each and every one of them.

Zannah shook her head. Something definitely needed to be done, if she was allowing thoughts of her Master to distract her.

"I'm fine," she said, forcing a smile. "Listen...I'm really busy right now. I have to return to my guardian with these supplies otherwise he'll worry about me."

"Oh, alright," Jex said, sounding rather put off. "Maybe I'll see you around?"

"I'd like that," Zannah quickly said. "In fact...I might be able to sneak back in town in a few hours. I'm not doing anything tonight and it'd be nice to have someone show me around. I bet you know where all the fun is."

Stroking a man's ego was as good as stroking his cock, Zannah had discovered a long time ago. Most were willing to do anything for a few words of praise, and manipulation was something of a specialty for her. The insincerity came easily to her, and she spoke the words as though they were truths carved into stone for time immemorial.

Few had the power to resist her when she set her mind to it, and to her delight she rarely needed to draw on the power of the Force to get what she wanted.

Even so, she allowed the Force to flow from her again, reaching out to Jex and coaxing him to be more open and receptive to her ideas. It wasn't true suggestion, not in the way she had first attempted to use it; this way made better use of her time.

If they thought everything she fed into them was their idea to begin with, plans tended to flow a little more smoothly. It was how she preferred to work, and the few times Bane had observed her in action, she had felt the pride within him even though he had never once said anything to her regarding her abilities.

Jex grinned—an easy, terrifying smile if she allowed herself to dwell on it—and he removed one grease-stained hand from a pocket to rub the back of his neck.

"I'd like that," he said, a little too eagerly, so that Zannah almost pitied him. "I've got a place in town, so...maybe you can come over for a cup of caf and we can hang out?"

"That'd be fine," she sighed. "I'll meet you at…," she cast her gaze around for a discerning landmark, finally alighting on a pole that rose thirty feet in the air and hoisted the city's flag at the top, "...there. At the flagpole in about, say, four standard hours?"

"Yeah, yeah, that'd be great," Jex breathed, taking a step closer. Zannah stood her ground and stared into his eyes, resisting the urge to shove him back.

"You might want to take the time to clean up," she suggested without any hint of the Force behind her words. She made a show of looking him up and down and arched her brow.

"Oh," Jex laughed, looking down at himself, covered in stains from what could only be ship maintenance. He plucked at the baggy bit of his trousers and shook his head. "I guess I am a mess. Don't worry, you won't even recognize me later."

"I hope that's not the case," Zannah murmured, and just for show she reached between them and pretended to dust something off Jex's shoulder. Her action had its desired effect and the man drew in a sharp breath, lifting a bright gaze back to her face.

Feed the flames of his desire and he'll give you everything you want, she told herself with a small, secretive smile she was sure came across as coy.

"I'll see you later," she promised, parting with a final, benevolent smile and a twist to her gait that she knew accentuated the curve of her hips and ass. She could feel the heat of Jex's gaze as he watched her go and the sense of power she received knowing that she was completely in control almost stole her breath away.

Men were too easy.