While Others Became Specters

by Lux's Sister

Some were very much alive. It's rebel versus thief when the crew of the Ghost encounters a group of Onderonian con men, that is until it comes to light that they both work for Fulcrum. With more than enough corrupt Imperials to go around, a new job for both teams is in order. After all, every good rebel must know how to steal. [While Others #6]

10. This One Doesn't Deserve An Apple

CHAPTER TEN – THIS ONE DOESN'T DESERVE AN APPLE

SABINE

There are a few vendors on Lothal who sell paints, but only one has the honor of being my personal favorite. He carries a wide array of colors and types of paint, from the palest pink watercolor to the deepest burgundy textured paint, and that's just the reds.

He doesn't try to overcharge, either: even though he's hard to talk down, all the paints are fairly priced. He even gave me a free brush on my birthday. And to top it all off, he doesn't ask that many questions besides what I think of the weather that day.

As you can guess, I'm a customer for life.

"Chopper, do I need more green?" I ask while inspecting the colors.

"Waugh?"

Of course he wasn't paying attention. "Green, Chopper. Do you remember how much I have left?"

"Who-waugh-wow?"

"What kind of green? Green like Hera. Remember, I painted that picture of her for her birthday?"

Chopper makes a sound of realization, then says he doesn't know.

"Great." I roll my eyes and turn to the vendor. "I'll take one small bottle of your light green, please. A purple and orange, too."

The vendor places the paints in a bag and looks suspiciously at my head. "You want to go back to your old colors?"

"I don't use paint on my hair." I announce. "I have dyes for that."

"I thought so, I just never know." The vendor says. "That'll be twenty cred."

I hand over the chip and he gives me the bag of paints. I put it into my pack and say goodbye to the vendor.

"All right Chop, let's get out of - Chopper?"

Chopper isn't by the stand. I look around. Come on, where can a loud, vulgar, obnoxious droid possibly hide?

Oh, there are lots of places. My common sense says.

But luckily, fate smiles down on me. Across the market, I hear a droid beep out an insult I hope no small children could hear.

My head snaps in the direction of the insult. Sure enough, there's Chopper rolling down the street at nearly top speed.

"Chopper!" I bolt down the street, apologizing to a person who I nearly knock over and shouting "excuse me" every two seconds. "Chopper, wait up! Where are you going?"

Chopper doesn't answer. Instead, the little droid keeps on going.

"For the love of Mandalore…" I grumble and take off after him.

…

Chopper doesn't slow down until we're far from the market, in the Lothal warehouse district. He turns sharply to the left and rolls into a building.

In the middle of the floor, he finally stops.

"What's so important that you had to leave and proceed to ignore me all the way here?" I demand, tired from running and of Chopper's antics. "And why didn't you warn me?"

"Wo-WAUGH, Woh-WOH-waw!"

"What do you mean, someone made you?" I ask, a cold feeling germinating.

Chopper extends his arms, waving wildly and beeping his story.

"You mean to tell me that someone took control of you and brought you here?"

"WAH!"

I can only think of one reason why someone would want Chopper. Hera makes sure to wipe his memory regularly, so that's out. And why would they make him come all the way to the warehouse district when they could have easily had him roll into an alley where they waited?

And why let me follow him?

The cold feeling which began in my spine now sweeps down it, shooting down my limbs and pooling in a knot of dread in my gut. Because the only way this makes sense is if Chopper's not the target.

I am.

Why would somebody want me? The Imperials usually don't set up stings like this, so I don't think it's them. Vizago? Kidnapping isn't his method of choice. Azmorigan? If he knows we're working with Ahsoka's people, then he might. But if he wants back at them, then why wouldn't he go after them or their kids?

Ketsu? This isn't her style at all.

The realization hits: this is someone I don't know and haven't dealt with before.

Someone very, very bad.

"Chopper," I implore. "We're leaving. Now!"

No sooner have the words left my lips than the warehouse door slams shut.

AHSOKA

"Warehouse district." Sierra mutters. "Of course, it has to be the warehouse district. Tor could have thrown her into a fighter and been off planet by now."

We have to assume they're still in the district. If they aren't we've already lost.

I cast a nervous look to my sister-in-law. Sierra Bonteri doesn't look like the galaxy's most stable individual right now.

"Everyone else is looking for her too." I reassure as we race through the streets. "With all of us on the hunt, he doesn't stand a chance."

But Sierra isn't buying. "He's had fourteen years to perfect his strategies, Ahsoka. And once he lays eyes on Sabine he won't be able to resist."

"What do you mean?" It's usually not a good idea to egg her on, but having Sierra talk is a good idea right now. Her family's always been good at channeling their emotions out their mouths.

"Just think about it." Sierra frets. "Sabine and I have the same color eyes-."

"No, you don't. Yours are dark brown, and hers are more golden brown."

"Close enough! He's not very picky. All he cares about is that we fill his role. Sabine's eyes are close enough to mine to count. And her hair… oh, by the Temple of Unifar."

The mention of Sabine's hair sends chills down my spine. Tor took Sierra's hair as a trophy, and it was just plain brown. Sabine's bright blue hair is a rarity, a work of art in itself, and would make a much more interesting trophy.

It's our job to make sure he never gets close to bringing a pair of shears to Sabine's head.

"Forget about that for a moment. We need to find out where he is." I look around. "We know he needs some kind of isolation to keep her; we can bet she won't go down quietly."

"This whole block is isolated." Sierra comments. "If he gets her into one of these, he has all the privacy he needs."

"All right, what about a way in? He can't just walk and hope the stormtroopers don't see him."

"A speeder?" She suggests. "That would work."

"Do you see one?" I ask, looking up and down the alleyway.

"No." She rubs her temples. "We're missing something. There has to be another way to narrow it down."

All right, Ahsoka, think back to when you were taken. You were incapacitated by a nerve gas and Tor picked you up from a battlefield. But you were the first victim; they're the most important but the modus operandi is almost never set in stone. With Sierra, Nightwine tore apart her alias and Tor had his men bring her in after they incapacitated her with a Taser. We both were kept in Tor's prison facility…

"Hutch?" I ask into the comm. "Are any of these warehouses owned by the Empire?" Nothing but static. "Hutch? St James!"

Sierra swears. "Nightwine's jamming the frequencies again. He did that before. Great. What are we supposed to do now, manually go through the deeds?"

"We can eliminate anything directly off the street, or next to an alleyway that isn't big enough to fit a speeder through." She says, looking around for any potential candidates.

It's hard to see much of anything with the dirt and garbage on the street, obscuring the view of the warehouses. But what am I looking for, anyway? A mark of some kind? A blinking neon sign reading HERE with a giant arrow pointing to the door?

Garbage…

"Wasn't the alias supposed to inspect all aspects of the farming operation?" I ask.

"Livia Blane? Yes." she says. "We just stopped it at the fields with the phony nitrate test."

"She was slated to inspect the warehouses, and they knew she was coming." I start my search again, this time with criteria in mind.

"If the Empire knew an inspector was coming, they would have spruced up their warehouse." Sierra realizes. "And that means they would have cleaned it."

"How clean do you think it'll be?"

"We should be able to see our reflections on every surface." She says confidently. "My health inspector alias nailed a mess hall on a few clods of dirt."

Spencer clearly wouldn't risk not passing inspection. "So, they probably cleared the shelves of cleaning products?"

"For sure. Do you smell bleach anywhere?"

"No, but if they're going to spruce up a building dirty as these, they'll need a power washer. And a hookup to a hydrant…"

"Has to be this way." She takes off down the street. "Hurry!"

…

As we run down the hallway, the feeling that something's wrong only grows stronger.

"Sierra, wait up."

"Wait up?" she asks, so wired that her voice comes out in a girlish squeak. "We can't wait up! We have to get to Sabine before Tor gets her. Before he does God-knows-what to her! Before -."

I shake her, hard. "Sierra, would Tor set up operations in a place like this? Would he want to spend any length of time here?"

I look pointedly at the piles of rubbish. One thing about Tor, he keeps things clean. He yelled at a guard smoking a death stick because it stank up the hallways and every crease in his uniform was perfectly pressed when we found him the interrogation room. He would feel like he needs a Hazmat suit in Lothal's filthy warehouse district.

Sierra picks up on it too. "Even if the warehouse was cleaned?"

"He'd still have to go outside sometimes." I explain. "This place isn't sterile enough for him. He wouldn't set foot on this block."

She closes her eyes. "Which means…"

"It's not Tor. We just took Nightwine's bait hook, line, and sinker."

SABINE

The second the door shuts, my survival instincts take over. I leave Chopper behind and stick on my helmet, flipping on the night vision to navigate.

There are some crates stacked against the wall. I dash for those and slide myself between a few, in a little cubby that hopefully, whoever's come for me won't remember to check.

I pull one of my pistols from the holster and check it. Hopefully Chopper's circuits are on straight enough that he doesn't try to follow me. If he tries to get through here, he'll certainly knock something over and give away my position.

"Shut that droid off!"

A few noises of protest from Chopper, and that concern is no more.

Footsteps echo through the warehouse and I hold my breath.

"You told me she would be here!" An impatient, female voice snaps.

"She is," Nightwine growls. "We sealed her in. She's just hiding."

"She'd better be."

"She is. You have to admit this is entertaining after being locked up for all those years. And I still haven't received my payment, Ms. Vikil."

"You'll get it once I have the girl." Vikil says.

Vikil? It can't be the same Vikil as before, right?

I shift to get a better view. Come on, I can do better than this! There are only two people here and I have a night vision visor. Shooting them should be a piece of cake.

But I still can't see them when I look around the corner of the crate.

I need a better position. If it's not that I simply can't see them, but that these people aren't in the main part of the room, then they're hunting me. My best bet is to find a position where I can stay concealed yet have a decent shot if they come into my sightlines.

"It's all right, Sabine." Vikil coos. "I'm not going to hurt you."

All thoughts of finding a new hiding place cease when he says my name. That clinches it: I know this woman. Lin Vikil was the head of espionage training at the Imperial Academy on Mandalore, and I was her star pupil. Think, Sabine, think. Did Ketsu say anything about Vikil losing her job after we escaped?

"Clan Wren, House Vizsla," Vikil muses. "You know, my dear, I haven't had the pleasure of working with someone of such lineage for a good long while. Or with anyone, in fact. No serious employer would hire an instructor who'd been fired by the Empire after losing two of her brightest cadets. I can only teach women's self-defense for so long before going insane from all these henpecked housewives."

Looks like she did lose her job.

"But you?" She whistles. "You completed my class faster than anyone I'd ever seen, Sabine. I admire your fighting spirit. How about you come out and show me what you can do?"

I'm not that much House Vizsla to respond to what's clearly a trap.

"You saw the picture. Can you believe what she's done to her hair?" Nightwine adds.

"I did. Colors like that are completely against regulation." Vikil snorts. "She showed such promise as an agent and a representative of the Mandalorian people. It's such a shame she decided to throw her heritage away. You're certain this crew of Onderonian jungle freaks won't find us?"

"It was easy as planting the right name." Nightwine says confidently. "Once Lux Bonteri sees the name "Torrance," there'll be no stopping him. I sold his sister to Torrance when she was a child; he won't pass up an opportunity for revenge."

I swallow hard. If the Bonteris are looking for Tor, they'll probabaly have Kanan and Hera working for them. That means nobody will be looking for Vikil and coming for me. The only way I can get out of here alive is with my gun.

I swallow hard, steel myself, and stand with the pistol out. "I'll show you a Mandalorian gunfight, you-!"

"WAUGH-WOH! WOOOOOAH!"

My head snaps toward the noise. Chopper rolls toward me at top speed, electroprods out.

"Chopper, what are you doing?" I shout, jumping out of the way. But it's not enough.

Chopper's probe arm extends, jabbing me with the prod and filling my body with electricity. The bucket of spare parts beeps frantically; they must be remote-controlling him again.

I don't have time to concern myself with that, because I can't move.

Someone catches me before my head hits the ground.

"Careful, now." Vikil says, her breath fiery on my ear. "We don't want to bruise your lovely face."

A/N: We all remember that one teacher we didn't like, but Sabine's teacher problem trumps all of them. At least it's not Tor.

Thank you to starwarshobbitfics, Johnt12345, and Rose Ravenclaw for your lovely reviews. And speaking of which, please review!

Until next time,

Lux's Sister