"We do need to stretch this out," said Asajj, "we do another one too soon, there'll be a short burst of activity, then that's it, we'll be out of ideas."
"Agreed," said Barriss, looking at a datapad, "There's a gas giant just outside Eriadu's orbit, Eriadu's coming up on it, we might be able to give ourselves a predictable window of maximum imperial distraction if they think that's what we're trying to hit, I mean, when you think of the bang of a star detonating, it's true that a gas giant doesn't have the mass of a star, but a gas giant took way more time to accumulate it's mass and is a lot colder and therefore denser than a star, the brisance you'll get from that will be like nothing else."
"Sionver's going to love this proposition," said Asajj, "you know these missions seem to be scaring the shavit out of her?"
"Yeah, but I can't think of anything else for her to do, I mean, her main expertise is in genetic research leaning towards cloning," said Barriss.
"Ye- ... Hey, you know, I don't think it's doing Talzin any good to be sat alone on Dathomir," said Asajj.
"Clonin' Nightsisters," commented Barriss with a nod. She then looked at Asajj and said "Okay."
Ahsoka wandered the edges of Mos Eisley.
She had gone through the bounty board and found no one she could in good conscience pursue. Dissident voices. Critics of Palpatine. Jedi not killed by them karking clone troopers (thank kark she'll be putting an end to their manufacture).
She would have to come up with another earner. What, she didn't really know. A bounty hunter had a lot of mobility, she don't show up at a particular place for months on end, no one questions it. Other optiosn for a sentient with a ship are shifting things such as spice, ordnance, dissidents (if any would trust her following that broadcast from Eriadu), security detail ...
Security detail would mean being next to whoever she was contracted to protect for the length of the contract. That didn't suit her.
Shifting spice wouldn't pin her to a location, and in fact she could evade a lot of the checkpoints, her knowledge of ways around was now extensive. Some went uncomfortably close to stellar remnants, black holes and neutron stars, but that would be a fairly full time job too. And then there's the fact this stuff was eating the barely adequate wages of some poor karker that really ought to be getting off this stuff and sorting their lives out.
Some of this stuff could even be being used to enslave people, particularly sex slaves where physical strength would be a disadvantage in the eyes of the clients.
Illegal weapons. ...
Those could support the rebellion.
Or support some fairly nasty characters.
Yet more less bad options amongst some of the worst options.
Super.
Ahsoka was going to have to check another world. Well, there was Corouscant, should be some 'clean' bounties knocking about there. More people after all.
Her montrals picked up someone shouting "sold, alright, alright, next lot, female Pantoran, mature adult, diplomatic background so-"
Ahsoka looked away from where she had heard the auctioneer. Karking slavers. Karking Tatooine. Karking Hutt worlds.
Anakin had been a slave to someone on this world. Couldn't have been an innocent factor in making him a karking Sith Lord.
Ahsoka spend about a minute mulling over whether or not she wanted to disrupt this thing. Well, not so much does she want to, that like 'do rancors shavit in the woods', but she wanted to be able to interact and trade on Tatooine and other Hutt worlds, so if she did do this, she had better not get caught doing it.
Hang on ...
Pantoran female, mature, diplomatic background.
Ahsoka knew three of those.
She put on her best "not really bothered by any of this karked up shavit going on around me" face and made her way to the auction.
It was an open air auction with circular rail outside of which a crowd of potential customers stood, a stage ahead of that, and a Devaronian male holding a remote control telling the current item to hurry up getting her clothes off ...
Ahsoka's composure was threatened as she realised it was Che Papanoida.
"Come on, get it off, turn around, let them see you, spread your arms, spread your legs," Che complying, her shirt and skirt (no underwear visible) held out at arms length as she showed the audience every nook and cranny, "as you can see, she is in prime condition, only scar's from the control implant, she can carry moderate loads, represent your business, and she's clean of sexually transmitted infections at the moment, so, if you need a new mattress, so, starting at 4000 credits, anyone-" he noticed Che starting to put her skirt back on and told her "I didn't tell you to get dressed, don't make me confiscate your clothing, you want to walk these streets naked do you?"
She stood up, remaining naked as the auctioneer took bits.
That was really getting to Ahsoka, but Ahsoka wanted to talk with Che, even if she couldn't free her. What the karking hell was she doing being sold into slavery?
Ahsoka could sense Che mentally going into a sort of numb state, which can work, and was easier when you can't sense the lust a lot of the male and some of the female customers felt for Che's form.
She watched as members of the crowd submitted bits, rising to 9000 credits, ultimately she was sold to a Toydarian named Watto.
Ahsoka waited through three more lots, two teenaged male humans and a female Nautolan before she drifted outside.
Eventually customers started filing out, some with sad looking sentients in tow. Including the Toydarian, who had Che and a male zeltron.
He looked at Ahsoka and waved at her saying "Heyyyyy, Ahsoka," approaching her, Che and the zeltron following.
"You know me?" asked Ahsoka.
"One would have to be blind deaf and living under a rock to not have heard of you, eh? Such a pity about your friend Barriss, I, never paid much attention to the news until the clone wars started, but when every system everywhere started getting sucked into it, it seemed sensible, you know?"
"Understandable," nodded Ahsoka, she then greeted Che "Hey Che."
"Hey," replied Che.
"You, errr, you know her?" asked Watto.
"Yeah, Che Papanoida, one of chairman Papanoida's daughters," Ahsoka turned back to Che and asked "probably not your favourite topic at the moment, but ... how did this happen to you?"
Che recounted "apparently, I had long standing debts. Which is strange, because I watch my accounts carefully and I spend carefully, so even before I got shown into a room where Riyo was being worked over by this spherical torture droid and it's use on me was suggested in order to get Riyo to give them a bunch of names, that looked well shonky."
"Riyo," Ahsoka noted, and asked "she still alive?"
"Can't tell. Soon as she gave the names and they told her they would be able to find me if they thought she was feeding them a load of shavit, I was brought to a magistrate and sentenced to be sold into slavery to contribute towards my so called debt, and you know what, I think this was more about leaning on me dad, the was talking about doing something about the way the Emperor is dealing with all the EPWs we accumulated in the clone wars."
"What's he doing?" asked Ahsoka.
"This," said Che, gesturing at herself, "karking selling them off as slaves."
Watto nodded commenting "Something I learned long time ago, military service is a mugs game."
"Karking Sith ... " commented Ahsoka, she then said "I'll see if I can do something about Riyo."
"No," said Che, "don't look for her, no putting out feelers, I know you're force active and all, you can't go near her, they'll be waiting for you to try."
Che was right
Having said that, she had broken Barriss out of imperial custody before. How hard can this be?
There is one thing Ahsoka can do though. "tell you what, I'll buy them off of you for ten credits," she then tried using force persuasion on Watto to convince him "it's an excellent deal."
Watto just hovered there for a bit before heading off shaking his head.
"Just leave it Ahsoka," said Che, "I'd rather the Emporer think he's getting away with it for now. Harder to surprise him if he knows who to look out for." Che then jolted, letting out a shout of pain, slouching as she rubbed a portion of her neck, breathing fast.
Ahsoka looked over to Watto, who was holding his remote, waving Che and the Zeltron kid along.
Che, eyes wide and scanning feverously, shaking slightly, walked after Watto saying to Ahsoka "well, see you around I hope," trying unsuccessfully to seem calm.
Ahsoka nodded at Che, but then said "Oi, Watto."
Watto looked at Ahsoka.
"By Tattoine Law, if it can be referred to as such, you may own Che, but she is a friend of mine, keep that in mind if you harm her or allow harm to come to her, right?"
"I just spent nine thousand credits getting her, of course I'm going to look after her," said Watto, shaking his head commenting "stoopah Jedi," as he continued on, Che and the zeltron kid following him.
Ahsoka returned to her ship.
"Clone the fallen?" asked Talzin.
"If it's viable," commented Sionver as she looked over a corpse, noting the decay, "Asajj, you know how people often joke about radiation giving people two heads? I use a genetic sample that's been damaged by the putrefaction process going on here, the clones I knock out could emerge with four heads. ... For real ... "
"I could just raise the fallen ones as zombies," said Talzin.
"Yeah, that's undeniably useful, but I have to say, aside from not being very conversationalist, and I don't want to speak ill of the dead here, but ... they stink," said Asajj.
"You may not have to use cadavers," suggested Barriss.
"I should clone Talzin?" asked Sionver.
"Sort of," said Barriss, she addressed Asajj and Talzin saying "you would normally shag the Zabraks from the village to reproduce, right?"
"Well, yeah, but the two of us can't squirt out the number of babies we'd be after to have a decent Nightsister clan up and running," said Asajj.
"You wouldn't have to," said Sionver, "I could take the samples from your Zabraks and from you and Talzin, it would be like part clone part invitro-fertilization, they'd grow in the tanks, then once your clan's as big as you like again, go back to how you did things before."
"Okay," said Talzin, "that should work."
"What kit will we need?" asked Barriss.
Sionver thought it through saying "you got your invitro fertilisation, that means manipulating ova under a microscope and poking sperm into them, then there's your synthetic womb pad that you have to attach the embryo to, that's going to be the give away item if we order those off the shelf, we need to source or refine the nutrients and send them in a solution through the synthetic womb pad, we can usually source those easily enough, we just claim to be a food company if they ask, which they probably won't, dialysis gear to remove the toxins from the solution, now, the clone tanks, those just have to hold your clone and water, those can be just about any plastic or ceramic tub. You'll need a clean room, that one's fairly easy to achieve. Making the synthetic womb and the dialysis kit would mean getting a bunch of tools, once we have those tools, it'll be the membranes, we can order membranes without anyone batting an eyelid."
"How much are we looking at?" asked Asajj.
"Haven't looked at a catalogue in a long time, I'm going to say anywhere between 5000 and 300000 credits as a first itch guess. I'll need a while to design the equipment and set out the method statements on their manufacture, then I'll know the tools we'll need, then I can look those up and get a price for you."
"Or we could steal it," said Asajj.
"Five finger discount," added Barriss.
" ... Okay," said Sionver. She then asked "where do we hit?"
Back on Corouscant.
Security was almost neutrino tight these days.
One of the clones working security had idly speculated on what Togrutas might be able to hide in their montrals with a little surgery.
Was it her imagination, or were these clones getting dumber?
No matter. Check a bounty board, see who's wanted for things Ahsoka don't mind nicking them for.
The kinds of things people got wanted for here were things such as causing injury through dangerous flying, street robbery, assault, rape, failing to appear in court, crimes that didn't really exist on Tattooines law books, should anyone bother to write this stuff down and bind these writings to actually make a law book for Tattooine.
Well, be more like a law pamphlet, or a law business card if they did.
Still, with the numbers of crooks relatively high, in proportions, these bounties were likely to be miniscule per person. That would mean nicking more crims for the same money.
Ahsoka caught a holographic news feed.
Riyo Chuchi, having recovered enough from a speeder accident, apparently back to work in the senate.
Speeder accident.
Nice cover.
Riyo's face was covered in dressings, Riyo's walk was stiff and slow, it was like ...
It was like what had happened to Barriss in that jail.
Spherical torture droid.
Yep.
Exactly why the return of the Sith was a bad thing.
Riyo was probably not going to be injured or further mutilated any time soon, Ahsoka thought, but there was ...
Ahsoka ran for the taxi rank and ordered a cab.
Riyo looked at the busbars behind the flat's consumer unit.
11000V AC Three Phase.
She had the wrong kind of screwdriver.
She had been told that as long as she was useful to the empire, Che would be safe. Enslaved, but safe.
But if her suicide looked like an accident, if there was just enough doubt ...
No point killing Che when there's no certainty this was intentional. Finger accidentally came into contact with the shaft of the screwdriver when tightening one of the terminal screws on one of the breakers. Ruling: Death was accidental.
The front door opened.
Riyo looked towards the front door. It was Ahsoka.
Ahsoka could see the situation.
Probably felt her mood. Her Force signature probably carrying her suicidal feelings.
For kark's sake.
Riyo could come back to this later. She put the face panel back on the enclosure and secured it asking "Hey Ahsoka, what brings you here?"
"Just wanted to see how you were doing," said Ahsoka, "something in the force told me now would be a good time."
Riyo nodded. "okay."
"I encountered Che on Tattooine," said Ahsoka as she and Riyo sipped at a glass of a brand of whiskey Riyo liked.
"How is she?" asked Riyo.
"Watto bought her from a slave market, has this remote control torture implant in her," said Ahsoka.
Riyo nodded, taking another sip. She then covered her eyes, looking every bit a depressed drunk, even though this was their first round.
They were sat at a table in a far corner in an EM shielded boozer where usually only dangerous people who kill you for looking at them wrong go. Ahsoka could hear Riyo sniff back tears behind her hand.
Ahsoka continued "I did some checking on Watto. He doesn't appear to have any sadistic tendencies, and as much as I would like to get her out of that situation, Che was insistent I leave her be. Other than the forced labour, I think she'll be fine. Long and short of it, Empire would have to end before we can free her."
"I suppose that's better than what happened to ... ... To the ... ... " Riyo was completely struggling to string a sentence together, tears falling off her chin.
"This is the hardest thing to do, but when you can do nothing, wait until you can. You'll find a use at some point. You're of no use to anyone if you're dead."
"I gave away people who trusted me, good people, brave people who would have made a difference," whispered Riyo.
"Che said there was visible evidence you were tortured when she saw you," noted Ahsoka.
"I couldn't let her go through that. I should have but I couldn't." She kept her hand over her eyes as she picked up her drink with her other hand and finished the glass in one long sip.
Ahsoka remained silent. She couldn't think of anything to say at this point.
She thought about whether or not she should tell Riyo about what she had to do, or felt she had to do ...
There's no way she could have nerfshavitted her way out of that one, was there?
She had ruled out lying because Anakin could just as easily have checked for himself. She could have imprinted false memories, ut for all she knew, Vader already knew of the group of Jedi.
He might even have been able to detect the tampering itself.
Che had a good point though. There were limited opportunities to do any good, and some opportunities would be at the cost of others, and Ahsoka had damn well better pick the correct moment.
Her montrals were picking up every conversation in the room and beyond, and one of the conversations happening outside stood out by including a human sounding male saying "Not Ahsoka."
Another said "No shavit. No Pantoran senator alongside either."
"What's to say they didn't split up?" asked the first one.
"What would be the point of that?" asked the other.
Ahsoka whispered to Riyo "Rozzers inbound. Talk me through this accident you supposedly had."
Riyo nodded and started explaining the cover story she had been given.
Eventually two imperial officers entered the bar, the owners of the voices Ahsoka had been hearing. "There," said one.
They approached.
Ahsoka looked up and greeted them "Hey," before returning her attention to Riyo.
"Riyo Chuchi and Ahsoka Tano," said one of them, "I trust you've been staying out of trouble?"
Ahsoka and Riyo looked at each other. Ahsoka then idly rubbed one of her forward lekku tips as she asked "either of us particularly?"
The two imperial officers then looked at each other, unsure what to do next.
Ahsoka then asked "anyone ... want to fill me in here?"
"I think it relates to the accident I was involved in," said Riyo, "I'm pretty certain I wasn't doing anything wrong, and I saw nothing indicating afterwards that I had caused the accident, but ... "
"Right," nodded Ahsoka.
"Uh-huh," nodded the imperial officer looking sceptical.
He then realised he might be defeating his own mission and turned, walking away, but then he stopped asking "why did you feel the need to come here?"
Ahsoka replied "change of scenery. Tattooine was doing my head in."
"No, this bar, that just happens to be electronically opaque?"
Ahsoka looked around and said "I'm a bounty hunter. Hang around places like this, one of the crims you see could have a reward tagged to them."
Few seconds of silence and the two imperial officers filed out.
Few seconds after they left, Riyo quietly said "I could have done with being a lot more drunk for that, you know?"
"Yeah," nodded Ahsoka, "I hear that."
Having gotten Riyo back home, Ahsoka started doing what she came here to do.
Having checked the local bounty board, she picked some crims she felt she had reasonable odds of finding.
Not many bounty hunters are force active, so she could go after higher hanging fruit, so, now she has a buncha bounty notices, away she goes.
There was a balance to be struck here.
Following someone around had to be done without them noticing. Same with approaching them. Someone makes a beeline for you, they can work that out. Stay in view too much, they may ask 'why do I keep seeing her?'
This being Coruscant, it was more likely she would have a crowd to hide in, but that worked both ways, unlike trees and ferns, people move around and take offence when you act weird around them, and make it easier for them to hide from you and elude you.
You don't always get crowds to hide in though.
Like this street Ahsoka was on now for instance. There were some people there, a load of younglings that seemed to be just waiting around, couple of adults that seemed to be ... waiting around.
She hadn't acquired any of these wanted persons yet, so this wasn't a problem yet, aside from this would be a shavit location to set up an OP, this lot looked like they were looking out for something, all their attention was on their environment, so ...
One of the younglings, a twi'lek male, approached her asking "hey babe, need a body pillow?" using an inappropriately familiar tone.
The other younglings also seemed to be giving her a seductive ...
Ahsoka was slammed by the realisation she was being propositioned by child prostitutes.
...
On Coruscant.
...
Okay, clearly Corouscant hadn't eliminated crime, or there wouldn't be criminals operating here, let alone a bounty board for those which skipped bail, but ... ...
"You gonna pick one, or just window shop all day?"
Ahsoka looked up at one of the adults, a Weequay. She looked at the other adults, there was a Zabrak back the way she had come and a human further along.
Ahsoka eventually booted up again and chucked looking at all the younglings saying "Oh, wow, I didn't think this was available here. I mean, look at this, what sort of rates are we talking?"
"Thirty creds per whore hour," said the Weequay.
"Right," nodded Ahsoka, idly massaging the tip of one of her forward lekku, as if in thought. "Yeah, this is just like Nar Shadaa ... except for one thing," she then looked up at the Weequay.
"What's that?" he asked.
"All those rules about how people who kark younglings have to spend time in these really secure buildings-" Yep, here we go, all three adults were now alive to the fact she wasn't a nonce like them, going for their blasters.
They didn't immediately shoot, the two others just pointed their weapons at her while the Weequay walked up to her, bringing the muzzle of his blaster up to her breast, getting right into her space. Trying to establish his command over the situation.
It would probably be a bad idea for her to underestimate their capabilities, arrogance wasn't just a path to the dark side, it's a recipe for getting the shavit kicked out of you. But none of them seemed particularly concerned about her posing a threat to life and limb, so it seemed a reasonable assumption for the time being that they were unaware she was force active.
So, painfully grinding the muzzle into her left breast, the Weequay says "Listen carefully, little miss moral crusade, in real life land, living costs credits, and we get credits, by exploiting a niche in the market, in this case, a niche that can only be filled by some cute little youngling. Now, I've been presented with a problem. I can solve it one of two ways." He moved the muzzle of the blaster up her breast, the path of the muzzle feeling like it was going to bruise up as he ultimately brought it to her throat, poking it hard up into the area just above her larynx, straight up, saying "I could shut you up forever," his other hand snaked down the front of her trousers as he said " ... or ... " his fingers started stroking her pubic mound as he continued "I could give you some free time with my stable ... on camera ... I believe, that would make you one of those to whom these rules demanding your time in a really secure building would apply, would it not?"
Yeah, well, Ahsoka was just about done with this bollocks. She used force telekinesis to pull the blasters off of the other two casing them to grunt in surprise. This caused the Weequay to move his eyes side to side to check his periphery, but by now, the blasters were out of his view, in her hands. Ahsoka's next move was to poke the blasters into the wrist and elbow of his blaster hand and fire.
As his blaster fell between them, bouncing off their chests and legs on its way to the ground, the Weequay's cry of pain hurt her montrals, but it was well worth it. Her next move was to shoot the other two in the daddy bags. Mean time, the Weequay crumpled before her, pulling his molesting hand out of her trousers to cradle his damaged arm.
With the three adults curled up, immobile, howling in pain, the younglings, who had basically been standing around trying to process what is going on, eventually decided they should be somewhere else and ran off.
Ahsoka commented "I don't think I saw any of you on the bounty board, but honestly, and sincerely, Your kind of criminal I will hunt down for free any day."
Barriss announced the five minute alert.
There was no point deploying the fighter since they may have to just get out of it. This wreck could still have the things they're looking for, or it could be completely salvaged at this point. No way to know until they arrive there.
This would be the safest way to thieve if the stuff was still there and the imps weren't.
They had crudely rigged a station for Sionver so she could pick out the bits and pieces from the wreckage worth picking up, she could then pain them for Barriss and Barriss would swing by so Sionver could grab them with the tractorbeam.
Asajj would manage the weapons and would have final authority over whether or not they stick it out or kark off.
They had included a codex that would keep the rotation of the picture consistent with the galactic plane through any erratic manoeuvres so she wouldn't York up on the keyboard.
"Tactical ready," said Asajj having checked her systems.
"Salvage ready," said Sionver.
"Got that. Four minutes."
...
"Three minutes."
...
"Two minutes."
...
"One minute."
...
"Dropping out, ... ... now."
They were some point outside the debris cloud, which hadn't drifted much further apart since they were last here, mutual attraction of mass gravity was slowing things down slightly, but not by much, the scale of the explosion had caused a lot of bits to reach escape velocity.
Sionver directed Barriss at the approximate location of where she expected the bits of the laboratory to have ended up.
The heat and force of the explosion could potentially have damaged a lot of the instruments, but if she could cobble together enough of the devices insides, they could potentially be in business.
"No detectable signals, no active scans," commented Asajj, "don't necessarily mean we're safe, just means I can't pick anything up," she scanned everything for anything.
Including gravity.
"Shavit. Mines," said Asajj as she flagged a whole bunch of centres of gravity that weren't going anywhere and were invisible.
"Got that," said Barriss, "I can navigate around them at the moment, but I'm going to keep us pointed along an escape trajectory as I do, any of them start moving, we do one, then return and shoot the cunts in our way."
"Alright," responded Asajj. Barriss was getting a lot more casual with her language these days. 'Probably a coping mechanism,' reasoned Asajj, 'not a bad thing in and of itself, but ... ' Asajj quickly realised she was overanalysing Barriss and restored her whole focus on those little gravity wells.
The sensors didn't detect much going on with the mines for a few seconds, and then four of the closest mines registered a power spike, the kind of spike that gave the computer the impression of- "Escape, escape, escape."
Barriss hit the hyperdrive and took them a coupe lf AU away before asking "What was happening?"
"There was a power spike that matched that of a hyperdrive spooling up," said Asajj.
"Karking hell," said Barriss. "We can't counter that, moment we start firing, all the remaining mines will acquire and hit us before we can hit them."
"We Could make up a load of missiles or beacons to trick the mines into launching," said Asajj.
"We could," said Barriss, "thing is we're starting to defeat the point of the five finger discount we were after."
"Yeah, so, find another set to steal or resort to buying it," said Barriss.
"We could hit the mines with a pinch," suggested Asajj.
"That'll destroy the devices we're trying to salvage," said Sionver.
"Right," said Asajj. She then asked "wait, what would those mines consider worth blowing up?"
Barriss responded "anything big enough to grab stuff with a tractor beam and run away with it presumably."
"Would it chase people in EVA suits?" asked Asajj.
Barriss thought and said "that would be a hell of a gamble. I can see the logic though, set the target parameters too wide, you run out of mines before any thieves even get there."
"We could really do with testing this," said Asajj.
"Yeah," said Barriss, "back to base then?"
"Yeah, we'll need some bits and pieces to do this anyway," said Asajj.
Upon returning to Polis Massa, Bail approached them asking "have you had a chance to talk to Ahsoka yet?"
"Not yet," said Asajj, "unless she shows up at an RV point and signals us, or unless the force tells us we should be looking for her, Barriss and I aren't exactly respectable company."
"What if you want to contact her?" asked Bail.
"Request a meet at co-ordinates disguised as an advert for erectile dysfunction meds," said Barriss.
"Have to assume-" started Asajj.
"That Imp intel's seeing her comms, got it," finished Bail, he then said "Alright, guess you two can't set foot on Shili, I'll check in on her village, see if they care to tell me anything." He then walked off.
Asajj then said "We really could do with financial help if we're going to get that cloning kit for the Nightsisters."
"Yeah, but if Bail decides the Nightsisters are actually a certain future threat, I mean, I know they're your family, but they do have this rather hostile relationship with the Galactic Republic," said Barriss.
"Yet you're on board with this?" asked Asajj.
"She helped you and Ahsoka rescue me, it would be spiteful of me to refuse, besides, Talzin might be more minded to build alliances from now on rather than continue with her clan's previous history, right?" asked Barriss.
"Err, sure," said Asajj. In all honesty, Asajj didn't really have much of a clue what made Talzin tick, she seemed to be highly loyal to Asajj in spite of being the one to decide to just give Asajj to that ... ... eww ... ...
But Talzin had Asajj's back against Dooku and Grevious. That could have been guilt for having to give Asajj up. Hard to fully trust her though. But Talzin was, as Barriss pointed out, Asajj's family.
"We have an empire to overthrow," said Barriss, "last I checked Talzin was in the mood to kill Sith Lords, so, if we can get her her Nightsister clan back, we might be able to convince her to help us."
"Well, we raise them right, Nightsisters are good at clandestine operations," said Asajj, "but even if they declare neutrality, it'd still be nice to have a family to go to again."
Barriss nodded suddenly looking like she's faking her happy disposition.
"Shavit," realised Asajj, she said "sorry, I know-"
"No, leave it, losing Luminara was my own fault."
"Yeah, because I remember you telling me how you made her stick that starship in the way of your nuke," said Asajj.
"I know I couldn't have predicted that," said Barriss, "Just ... ... I don't know, how did I end up karking that operation up so badly? I left Kamino intact and my master to melt from a karking great dose of ionizing radiation."
"Well, she was working against you, and seriously, keep brooding on past failures if you want to take up self harm for a hobby, how many times have I had to put up with mission failure?" responded Asajj.
"Yeah, still though, could have stemmed the flow of Clone Troopers into the galaxy, and failed to decapitate that karking Sith Lord, this isn't so much 'oh damn, wasted effort,' more like 'oh damn, galaxy ruled by psychopathic evil overlord that tortures people for fun and depopulates whole worlds over the slightest opposition'"
"Well, when you put it like that, it does sound ... a bit bad ... " mused Asajj.
"Well, nothing to it but to keep at it really," said Barriss, "so, shopping ... "
Barriss finished negotiating with the parts dealer and started back to the ship with the box full of parts.
The idea was to first off, make a flying humanoid sized guided suit that would move and change direction to see if that gets the attention of the mines.
Couple of hundred credits. If this reveals a viable way forward, they get free ova wrangling kit. If not, this would be a little extra money on top of what they'll need to pay to get the kit they need.
"Hey Barriss."
Barriss looked to her side, a male human was walking with her. "Yeah?" asked Barriss.
"Want to go on a date or something?" asked the human.
Barriss stopped ant looked at him in astonishment as she asked "Erm ... I don't know you from ... someone else I don't know, what makes you think ... I'm also busy, I mean, what's your thinking here?"
The human went from friendly to stern as he said "you know, you can't choose to be picky, you're just about shaggable, but your face creeps people out."
Barriss snorted incredulously as she replied "Wow, with charm like that, how can I resist?"
"Oh Kark you then, I'll just leave you to die of lonliness," said the human as he turned and stalked off.
"Prick," commented Barriss as she resumed her journey, until this whisper in the force she hadn't been particularly paying attention to made itself known, a whisper of that human's thoughts, 'they won't give it, I'll take it.'
The surprise on his face as Barriss telekinetically pulled him by his ear towards her.
Barriss confronted him with his thought, asking "if they won't give it, you will take it?"
"Not you, I'm not stupid, what do you care, you're evil now aren't you?" replied the human.
"How so?" asked Barriss.
"You blew up the Jedi temple, made this chick feed her husband nanoscopic bombs, then strangled the chick to frame your best friend, then framed your friend for a bunch of murders, then framed your friend for the whole plot, then irradiated your master, what's good about that?"
"It was my best attempt to stop Sidious taking control of the galaxy. That failed. I did dirty deeds out of desperation to stop the fall of the republic, you want to commit rape out of vengeance for being turned away by everyone you hit on? In what universe are we comparable?" asked Barriss.
"I guess we're not," said the human. She then felt self pity flood his consciousness.
Barriss felt disgust flood her own consciousness, but also sensed this individual was damaged by something other than basic values. Underlying that was a group of other humans who looked down on him for not having a girlfriend. "You can't find a different crowd to hang out with? Women don't exist to be trophies."
"I grew up with them, who else am I supposed to hang out with?"
"So hang out with no one," said Barriss, "figure yourself out, do your own thing, just ... ... get a karking life."
He eventually said "Right."
"Word of advice," said Barriss, "people don't like being raped, and friends of people who get raped tend to take a dim view of the rapist that hurt their friend."
"Right," he replied.
"Then there's me," said Barriss, "present me with any reason to regret letting you walk away unscathed, I have ideas that would make those clone troopers that tortured me throw up in the back of their mouths a little."
"Yeah ... yeah ... Okay, thanks." He then walked off.
Barriss focused on some of the faces she had seen in his mind and the locations in which he had seen those faces.
These people were on this station.
She should be able to find them.
Then what?
This just wasn't her problem.
Right?
Then why did it feel like her problem? There was no other like this individual in that crowd, and she had rendered this guy safe, his mental state had genuinely broken the flawed priorities being hammed into him by those karkwits.
Still, this needed looking at for some reason. She knew not what, but a reason there was. ... somewhere ...
She got back to the ship where Asajj had arrived back with her share of the shopping.
Ahsoka emerged from the office with some more targets on her datapad, feeling happy. She had been on a serious winning streak. It turned out that she was up against a couple of other force active individuals, but she had managed to avoid coming into conflict with them over bounties, because apparently, there really were enough dipshavits to go around.
And these individuals really were dipshavits.
Drink driving.
Spice driving.
Hit and run.
All followed by failing to appear in court.
And there were just so many of them.
And that weequay, she'd seen him before-
Ahsoka grinned a predatory grin and walked up to the Weequay in the high vis picking up bits of trash. 1m behind him, she said "Hello."
He tensed, and then slowly turned to face her, looking annoyed. "here to gloat then?"
"A bit ... Mainly here to round you up for being unlawfully at large, you know, being outside of prison while you're supposed to be inside, that sentence you got for controlling child prostitutes, yeah?"
"Eh?" there was no way this guy should be this karking confused. He then asked "that shavit was suspended, I'm picking litter for free, and I have- ... ... " Ahsoka was now looking as confused as he was, but this sounded dodgy. He then seemed to realise something and asked "you didn't stick around to hear the sentence did you?"
"No," admitted Ahsoka.
"Well, call the ADA that prosecuted, we struck a deal, I do this for three years, don't get caught doing anything else, sentence that was suspended goes away, everyone wins," he said.
Ahsoka used her comm., watching him closely as she selected the prosecutor's office and asked about the crim before her.
"Yeah?"
"Ahsoka here, you know that pimp that was controlling child prostitutes I arrested?"
"Yeah?"
"He's not in prison and saying he got a suspended."
"Yeah?"
Ahsoka waited.
"What's the problem?" the ADA finally said.
"You ... ... don't think that's a touch lenient?" asked Ahsoka.
"Well, there's not much point jailing someone who can be given a chance to set themselves straight."
"And the likelihood of him raping some preschooler up the arse don't concern you does it?" asked Ahsoka.
"Look, I'm sorry if this seems like the wrong thing to you, but a decision was taken, based on the circumstances of the case, that it just wasn't in the public interest to push for a harder sentence, alright?"
Ahsoka considered replying, but then gave up and hung up.
At this point the Weequay mentioned "For the record, I didn't partake, I just made sure the kids showed up and made sure no one harmed them, well, in the sense of not making them unrentable, because I imagine you'll counter that their use does some kind of harm," he put a hand in his pocket and reached behind him as someone walked past, that person's hand seemed to make contact with the Weequay's hand out of Ahsoka's sight, and the Weequay checked what he had in his hand now, a couple of five credit chips, and pocketed the credits. He then remembered Ahsoka was there and said "going to let you in on a secret. All the money made by dealing spices and controlling child prostitutes, etc, etc, etc: I get two and a half percent. Rest goes to the government to pay off all the costs of that big war that finished recently. If the prosecutors office was too hard on us, we wouldn't do it, as you'd imagine, not for the government anyway. Only reason I was pimping those kids was to put a layer of deniability between the nonces and the orphanage."
"Orphanage?" asked Ahsoka.
"Yeah, millions of kids from those warzones, no where near enough adoptors, so, few years ago, someone approaches me while I was on remand for spice dealing," said the weequay.
"I see," said Ahsoka. She then walked off, annoyed as kark.
She could sense a pang of sympathy from him, but it was irrelevant nest to exactly how low everything had sunk.
More than 'a few years ago', meaning before Palpatine unmasked and changed the Republic to an Empire.
This wasn't just Palpatine and his clone army, whole karking planet was rotten to the core. DA wasn't GAR, what they doing conspiring to pimp war orphans?
But doing anything else about this would directly bring her into open conflict with the government. And that wasn't survivable without a solid plan with a reasonable chance of success. This was something else she was going to have to leave be for the moment.
She had a plan that would help towards the overthrow of the empire, there'd still be a karkload of work following that, but she could do something provided she don't become too visible to the emperor too early.
