"This isn't the first time I've been stranded."
"This isn't the first I've been stranded here," Saerith countered. Krae nodded in reply.
"Lucky for us too. You've been pretty helpful in navigating this place."
The praise was lost on her. It had been three days since they were attacked. Three days since she'd watch the Specter plummet into the lower regions of Nar Shadda. For three days the outside world had been a distant thing. The emptiness in her chest seemed to fade out the worlds sensations.
"We are not stranded."
Tivari's eyes glittered in annoyance from within the dark recesses of her hood.
She keeps saying that.
Tivari had assured them from the first that acquiring a new vessel and leaving Nar Shadda would be simple, but Krae had insisted they locate the Specter. Despite Saeriths hatred for the moon she had been inclined to agree.
There remained a slim hope. Hax was not an organic, and even if he had been severely damaged in the fall. There was some small chance the she would be able to recover his essential parts from the wreckage, and restore him to working order. Either way she wouldn't leave Nar Shadda without his remains.
The path of destruction left by the several ton ship was proving to be more elusive than she'd expected. It had ricocheted off buildings several times during it's fall. The impacts had made its trajectory chaotic, and the debris it threw off in it's tumble created many false trails.
Saerith hooked a finger into the wrap that covered her face, exposing her mouth to take in some fresher air. Krae had insisted they all hide their faces directly after the accident. A wise decision it turned out. Within the hour bounties had been posted for anyone fitting their description.
Hutts don't like it when you destroy their stuff I guess.
It didn't matter now. They had followed the ships path deep into the lower city of Nar Shadda. Even the poorest wretches didn't come this far down. At least not so long as they could still find more favorable conditions above. These levels stank of all the refuse living beings were known for, and far away from the heavily trafficked cantinas the silence was oppressive.
Her eyes swept across the room, and fell on a scattering of bones fetched up against the interior wall, partially concealed by some rubble. It was a grim reminder of the things she'd learned during her enforced occupation.
There are only two reasons anyone comes down this far. To kill or to die.
She tore her eyes away from the scene and walked to the other side of the room to peer out of the window, inspecting nearby structures for signs of damage.
"Krae"
He hurried to her side and she pointed wordlessly. A piece of the Specters hull had broken away, and lodged itself firmly in the side of a building. The wicked eyed Mandalorian emblem was recognizable, even with the paint partially scraped away. Saerith threw back the dark robe they'd acquired to hide her distinctive coloration and tattoos. Freeing her hands, she vaulted through the window to land on the narrow ledge outside.
"Hey," Krae called after her in protest.
Saerith ignored him as she searched the levels below and her heart jumped as she saw it. The twisted remains of the Specter had punched through a wall, half in and half out of the building where it had finally come to a stop.
"I see it, it's a couple levels below us."
Movement caught Saeriths eye, and she noticed a pair of shuttles hovering on the far side of the ship.
"Scavengers. Doesn't look like they've been here long."
She turned back and saw Krae already headed off to find a way down. She jumped back into the room, unsnapping her holster as she moved to follow. She hadn't gone more than a step when Tivari grabbed her shoulder.
"I see no reason for you to accompany him."
Saerith felt a brief sense of shock, followed quickly by a pulse of anger.
"Hax is down there, I have to go get him."
"You cannot believe he is still operational."
Saeriths anger pulsed again, stronger this time and Tivari jerked her hand back as if she'd been shocked. Saerith opened her mouth to refute Tivaris claim, but the snapping retort she'd prepared was stalled by the echo of Krae's voice calling back to them. He had found the way down.
She closed her mouth, satisfied herself with a brief glare and turned away; hurrying in the direction of Krae's voice. The soft sound of Tivaris footsteps telling her she was followed.
Hax scrabbled at the wall, and just managed to flop himself over the ledge as his magnet lost power. He had been climbing all over, sorting through as much data as he could manage trying to find Saerith and had recklessly run his power stores dangerously low.
Things were not working out like he'd expected. He predicted with his aptitude for slicing on a tech world like this would've made finding Saerith practically easy. When the wealth of information proved too much for him to sort through at speed. He had commandeered a couple servers and launched some crawlers to dig through it for him.
From there he'd set out on foot. Heading to the locations he calculated Saerith would most probably arrive and monitored information flowing through those areas, but apart from a bounty notice that fit her description. There was nothing.
Everywhere a ship could be found for hire within a reasonable proximity to where the Specter had initially landed was watched. Hax ran over his probability results again, for the millionth time that hour. Everything indicated that Saerith, and the other organics should've arrived in one of these spaces.
Hax watched a ship come into dock, feeling as hopeless as a droid of his exceptional ability could feel. He ran through the bounty descriptions again. They were pretty apt. He dug up the footage of Saerith fleeing the landing pad with Krae and Tivari.
Well that's odd.
The camera that watched that landing pad had obviously been neglected for a lengthy period of time. A thin layer of gunk on the lens reduced the clarity of the image sharply. Many of the details listed in the bounty notice couldn't be obtained from the recording. Hax had initially assumed the owner of the pad had gone through their security footage and acquired their description from there. Obviously, someone would be upset if you broke their landing pad.
This conclusion had now become improbable. Someone else had provided their descriptions. This brought Hax back to wonder about the fighter. Who had attacked Saerith and Tivari. Whoever it was, he was sure it was connected to one of the other two. Saerith didn't have any real enemies that Hax knew of, and he devoted a significant amount of attention and his considerable talents to knowing.
He watched a different ship at a different dock preparing for takeoff absently as he mused, but was forced to set the problem aside. He didn't know enough about Tivari or Krae to answer his questions.
A situation I plan to rectify… as soon as I find Saerith.
He was sure she would show up in one of these locations and wait for him soon. Something about this though rubbed him the wrong way. Like he'd made a mistake, but he knew he hadn't. Sure, Saerith had tried to abandon him on Dantooine, but she'd come to her senses in the end. Hax was sure she learned her lesson.
This would be easier if they weren't hiding!
Hax could acknowledge it as a prudent course of action. You did not want to be recognized as a mark on the Smugglers Moon. It didn't make him feel any better about how hard it was making his job.
You guys could at least be helping me to find you.
Again this bothered him. The entirely unfamiliar sensation that he was missing something kept coming back to him. He ran the numbers, and turned up what he expected. The odds that Saerith would do anything she could think to reach out to him was one-hundred percent.
So why can't I find her?
In addition to being confident that Saerith would be trying to make contact, was also a list of the most probable methods she'd use. He was certain she would employ one of them and yet three days had passed with nothing. His math was never wrong. Reality had never outguessed him before. So why now?
Unless…
"Ah crap, she thinks I'm dead."
Hax popped himself unto his feet and scurried along the ledge, running the new numbers. If Saerith believed Hax had remained within the ship during it's fall, then there was only one place she'd be heading toward, and all his data agreed.
How could that green idiot think I would die like that?
Hax had to admit to himself that this was his fault. A relatively new experience for him. He had assumed Saeriths estimation of his skill was at least equal to his own. It had flawed his calculations and now he had wasted three days. It was a humbling experience.
It's not my fault she doesn't know how great I am.
"It's a damn shame."
Saerith peeked from her hiding spot on the outside window ledge, studying the scavengers carefully. The voice was gruff enough to match any of the four coarse men pacing around the exterior of the Specter, shifting rubble to clear out a work space.
"Waste of a fine ship."
Saerith couldn't help but agree with the sentiment to a point. From her view on the outside, she could see the extensive damage. If others saw a wreck, it was nothing compared to what she saw. This was the death of something beautiful. It was more than a waste, it was tragic.
She peeked around the corner again and saw Krae's pale hand waving at her from the far side of the room beyond the group of scavengers. Letting her know he was in position. Normally Saerith would've been more inclined to try and talk it out, but this bunch had two things working against them. She wasn't going to risk Hax on the half-chance of a peaceful resolution, and this was Nar Shadda. There were no peaceful resolutions.
She pulled her blaster from it's holster and fired two shots into the scavengers grouped around the wreck. The first shot went wide, but the other took one of them in the shoulder; sending him toppling to the ground. Saerith jerked back behind cover just in time. Return fire tore chunks out of the edge of the window, and with her job finished she saw no reason to hang around. She began to scoot back along the ledge. Moving for the window to the adjacent room.
She hit the floor running, and darted for the doorway back into the other room. She arrived in time to see the last man go down under a barrage of blows from Krae. Saerith passed through the door and Tivari detached herself from a shadow and fell into step beside her.
Saerith felt the same pulse of anger at her presence, though with their goal in sight Saerith had to admit that her anger at Tivari was due to the fact the woman had given voice to her fears. That Hax had been rendered entirely inoperable by the ships fall. Still her anger didn't dissipate, and she picked up her pace as she approached Krae.
The would-be scavengers one and all sported bruises and lumps where Krae had struck them, and were unconscious to a man. Saerith leaned over to inspect the one she'd shot. Luckily for him, he'd been wearing some light armor and her blaster was not a powerful model.
They're alive
"They are alive?"
Tivaris words mirrored Saeriths thoughts, except for the cold inflection.
"Sure, no reason to kill them. They're nobody."
Saerith wasn't going to let this get any bloodier than it needed to. She turned away and inspected the ship.
"I'll make this quick, there'll be more soon."
"Wait, you aren'-"
Saerith turned back to look at Krae. Her eyebrow raised, and he stopped speaking.
Who's gonna crawl around in a broken ship if not me?
The pause was brief. Krae was never one to be indecisive.
"Alright, just make it quick. Be sure to grab my pack."
"I just said I'd make it quick. Be done already if you'd stop fussing."
The ship had created a great deal of rubble when it plowed through the wall, and Saerith picked her way through chunks of slag half as tall as she was until she reached the side of the mangled vessel. She dragged the tips of her fingers across the crumpled metal, recalling the first time she'd seen the ship, and briefly mourning its loss.
I'd fix you if I could.
The twisted wreck was beyond her skill to fix, she shut her eyes and watched it tumble away from her off the landing pad in her minds eye. The only chance she'd had to save it from this fate slipping away from her. She knew that was false, if she had managed to board the ship she would have died with it. The absoluteness of that truth didn't change her mind. If it all happened again, if Krae didn't stop her. She would try.
The outer plate came away easily under her probing fingers. She shifted the heavy Durasteel, sliding it sideways. Once the plate was clear enough for her to duck in. She found herself facing a new obstacle almost immediately. The ship had been built with a secondary hull. This wasn't exactly surprising, though it did present a problem.
She pushed against the plate and felt some give. It had been damaged in the fall. She heaved her weight against it, trying to break it loose. The plate bent a little under her exertions but would give no more than a few centimeters. Her feet started to slide from the force of her efforts, and she stopped. Staring at the stubborn blockage.
I'm sure those guys brought some tools with them. They must've planned to cut their way in.
She looked back over her shoulder, intending to call out to Krae and was mildly startled to find Tivari standing behind her.
"Let me help."
The woman kneeled down next to her, not waiting for Saerith to answer.
Even both of us aren't going to budge this thing.
Saerith turned again resuming her search for Krae, and was more than little annoyed to see he was entirely absent.
"I apologize for what I said about your droid."
She spoke fast, and Saerith could almost call it a mumble. The declaration itself was nearly as surprising as Tivaris obvious discomfiture in speaking it. Saerith had begun to imagine her incapable of dropping her stiff formality. The apology must have cost her pride a great deal.
"and I appreciate you saying nothing about what happened up on the landing pad."
This confused Saerith briefly, and then the red of those deflected blaster bolts flashed before her eyes. The bolts Tivari had turned aside to save them.
Actually I just forgot. I wasn't really keeping it a secret.
"Be that as It may."
"What?"
"Nothing, I just wanted to say I spoke out of turn. I assure you it will not happen again."
"Hey, you don't need to apologize for the same thing twice. I should apologize myself. You didn't say anything I wasn't already thinking."
Tivari nodded, a clear acceptance.
"Let us leave it in the past and return to the business at hand."
"The business at hand is that, that plate isn't going nowhere."
"Anywhere."
"What?"
"Let us try this."
Tivari reached up, resting her fingertips on the Durasteel that blocked their entry into the vessel. At first nothing, and then slowly it started to bend. The creaking of metal folding under immense pressure was like music to Saeriths ears. After only a few moments the hole was wide enough for her to squeeze through. Tivari stopped whatever she was doing and released a pent-up breath in a rush.
"That's a pretty neat trick. Would save me a lot of time on repairs."
Sweat dripped from Tivaris face and she quickly wiped it away.
"Many things are possible with The Force. It is taxing however. I am sure your tools are a more efficient alternative."
Judging from how pale you look I'd agree.
"Alrighty, I got it from here. Princesses shouldn't be caught kneeling, you know."
Tivari's mouth turned up at the edges, and she pushed herself back up on to her feet.
"Of course."
Hand resting on the side of the ship, Saerith paused before she ducked in. One thing, out of all the things that had happened up on the landing pad had nagged at the back of her mind.
"Tivari."
"Yes?"
"Why would you tell a complete stranger what you told me? The stuff about you being a… on the run. I mean you don't know anything about me."
Tivaris crystal blue eye locked unto Saeriths own deep green. Her face composed and entirely unreadable.
"Not so. I told you already. I know everything."
"How can you-"
"Hey!"
Krae's bark tore through their conversation. Saerith intent on it was caught entirely off guard and forgot she was halfway into the hole they'd made. She jerked towards Krae's voice and smacked her head.
"I thought you said you were going to be quick!"
Saerith rubbed the tender spot on her forehead and called back.
"Hey, Durasteel plates don't bend themselves. These things take time."
Despite the throbbing pain, she saw Tivaris mask crack for a second as a tiny smile flitted across her features. Saerith grinned more openly and winked. She turned to crawl into the ship and was halfway through the newly opened hole when her levity melted away.
The ship was upside down, and she found herself in the curious position of looking up at the pilot and co-pilot seats. Most everything was bent, or broken and debris littered the floor.
Formerly the ceiling.
The damage wasn't bad as it should've been. The ship had fallen several miles, bouncing this way and that with all the momentum of several tons answering the call of gravity. The outer-most layer of the hull had been designed to crumple in an impact to protect the interior, and perhaps through sheer dumb luck no particular area had taken repeated hits.
Still, the ship was done. Even its wonderous design and top of the line materials couldn't save it, and the destruction of her home reminded her why she'd come. She levered herself all the way into the cockpit. Ducking around the pilot's seat and heading slowly down the hall.
The ships power would've failed pretty early in it's journey downward, and the area directly beyond the hole she crawled through was pitch black. She pulled a small light from her belt, and clicked it on. Her hand against the wall as she walked deeper into the vessel.
It was harder to piece together the full extent of the interior damage with the narrow beam of her light. She scanned back and forth and gasped despite herself when she found the back half of the galley had been caved in. The hallway to her room looked open, and she wanted to rush toward it. She figured that was most likely where she'd find Hax.
She ignored the thought of him crushed between the ceiling and floor in the galley. If that were his fate she didn't want to know yet. She resisted the urge to charge down the hallway to her room and turned the other way. Heading for the only remaining cargo room that hadn't been blocked by the damage. It was fortunately where Krae's precious pack had been stored.
She passed through the doorway, her light on the floor so she could navigate the debris strewn across the floor without tripping. Her eyes turned downward she caught sight of the initial sparks on the upper edge of her periphery and stopped flicking her flashlight up.
A shower of sparks exploded from a loose cable dangling inches from her face and she jumped back. Her heart racing with the acute knowledge of how close she'd come to dying. Saerith had been working on and around ships for most of her life and had witnessed the unfortunate results of coming into contact with hot cables.
She stood there for long moments, observing the cable and trying to calm herself. She had no way of dealing with the problem on hand, and she highly doubted she'd be able to access the grid via an interface. She was going to have to duck the cable. A cold sweat broke out across her skin at the prospect.
Briefly she wished she was ignorant enough to think she'd be alright if she didn't touch it, but she knew that under the right circumstances, the charge could arc into her body from across the gap. from there it would go to ground and she'd be dead. The only bright side was that it might short the line and the person who found her smoldering corpse wouldn't suffer a similar fate.
She knelt down and crawled closer, trying to keep her flashlight turned up so she could watch it. Not that this would accomplish anything if the worst happened. She doubted even Krae could dodge lightning. At the last moment she gave up the awkward position needed to keep her eye on the cable. Took a few deep breaths and moved forward quickly, keeping herself as low as possible.
When she knew she'd cleared the danger she continued to crawl. Just to be sure, and she made sure to check above her before she stood back up.
Damn it Krae. This pack of yours better have something really important in it.
Now much more cautious, Saerith followed the curve of the hall to the first door. It had been damaged, and was partially ajar.
Finally, some luck.
She squeezed through the gap and quickly located the obnoxious pack. She shined her light over the black material. Searching for a way to open it. More than a little tempted to see if it was even worth carrying out. The impulse faded quickly, she'd already promised Krae she'd bring it to him.
The pack proved more difficult to fit through the door than she anticipated, and only after several minutes of shoving did it finally fall out on the other side. It thumped to the floor and she felt a vindictive pleasure at the rough treatment. It was slowly becoming a thorn in the side of her life.
"Hope it's not breakable," she muttered insincerely as she squeezed back out.
A short, but even more terrifying trip back under the cable pushing the pack along the floor in front of her, and she was back in the galley. She stopped and leaned against a wall, wiping sweat from her face. With any luck the hardest part was behind her.
She searched the debris on the floor passively, while she waited for her heart to return to a normal pace. Hoping she'd find some bit of Hax should could use. Hoping not to find anything at all. Not sure which she wanted more. After several long minutes of fruitless searching, she pushed herself away from the wall and looked at the pack.
I'm not carrying the thing around with me.
She left it sitting by the hallway that lead back to the cockpit, and headed for her room. Mentally preparing herself to find Hax in a thousand pieces.
It's okay. So long as I can use them.
Saerith was by no means confident she could repair him to a working state. Even if she abandoned reconstructing his chassis. He was in all respects an extremely complex droid. She found the door to her room undamaged, but open. Saerith searched up and down the hallway outside. A sense of dread growing in her stomach. The only reason it would've remained that way was if it had been opened shortly before the ship lost power.
She saw nothing, and quickly crossed the threshold into the room. It was jarring to say the least, to be in a space that had become familiar and to find it so alien. The bed, bolted to the floor was above her, and given that she owned very little. There wasn't much out of place, beyond the fact it had been turned upside down.
She searched in vain. She knew Hax wasn't going to be here before she'd come in. It had been her last hope. She scanned what had been the floor of her room absently. Tears slowly streaming down her face. She imagined what it had been like. Tossed around by the turning ship. The impacts that would've smashed him into walls. The unfortunate circumstances that had lead him to be in the galley when it gave way, for she was certain now that's why she found no sign of him.
She pushed the imaginings away, and tried to focus herself. Her eyes swept over her bed and she laughed through her tears. It was often enough she'd seen Hax standing on the ceiling of her room, looking down at her. She smiled at the memory, even as it pained her.
So this is what it feels like.
Her smile slowly faded into a frown, and her thoughts once more returned to the tumbling ship, but now instead of Hax helplessly tossed in the spin, unable to escape. She saw him anchored to the floor by his powerful electromagnet. The fact she'd found not a single fragment of his body took on a whole new meaning.
He's alive.
I'm dead
Hax scrambled between crates, trying to evade the creature. He had never thought too much about being small. As one of the few things that could really comprehend the sheer size of celestial bodies he felt that relatively he really wasn't that much smaller than other droids or organics. As it turned out, the problem with relative measurements is that it didn't take a planet to kill you.
He skittered free of the crates cover and made a break across the walkway. He heard the crates scatter as the thing plowed through them hot on his tail. Normally he would've run up a wall to escape, but he was still low on power. Failing that he would've just ignored the threat. It wasn't like he was edible, and being made of alloys had its perks.
But this beast was something else and he was in no hurry take chances with his life. It'd be a complete waste of his efforts over the previous days. The monster came on slobbering, massive and more teeth than you could count.
More than you could count, not me. There are one-hundred-twenty-eight.
He darted between the legs of organics on the street. Most of them were armed, and he was sure if he lead the monster towards enough of them eventually someone would shoot at it, and when the shots started he almost slowed down to watch the monster get what was coming to it.
Then the searing plasma burned a scorch mark into the ground to his right.
They're shooting at me?
Shouts went up behind him and if there were any follow up shots he didn't notice. He saw his out, and bolted for a pipe running up the side of a building. Narrow enough for him to easily grasp in his dexterous claws. Once safely hidden on top of the roof he spun around, just to see.
The street below had turned into a battle royal, and the beast that had chased him was only making up a small fraction of the chaos. Blasters were being fired indiscriminately, raining brightly colored death on anything and everything.
Hax shook his small reptilian head and darted away across the roof. He didn't want to be anywhere around when the dust settled, and everyone was dead. Well, everyone except him.
He leapt from rooftop to rooftop. Contemplating his narrow escape.
If organics would behave rationally every once in a while, that wouldn't have turned into such a mess.
It wasn't until he paused at an especially large gap between one roof and the next that he realized his problems weren't over. The mad dash had used up more of his remaining power stores than he'd anticipated. A lot more.
Damn this moon. If it wasn't for the haze I could…
It was amazing how many thoughts could flash through a mind in it's final moment of consciousness. Especially when that mind is so superior to others. More amazing was in this instance, how few there were.
He'd leaned over the edge of the roof before he realized his trouble, and as the last reserves of his power left his limbs and he tumbled forward. Hax was simply glad there was a street not far below and that he hadn't come to a ledge over one of the many voids in Nar Shadda.