The Subtle Approach

"If you don't want to be noticed, you don't use a Star Destroyer."

- Timothy Zahn, Heir to the Empire

Troop barracks, Eyat Command Base, five klicks outside of Eyat city, Gaftikar, Outer Rim, 21 BBY (24 days after the first bombing & 17 months after the Battle of Geonosis)

Wren had taken more than his fair share of prisoners and he knew that when dealing with a man like Kezner, force was far more eloquent than words. The likes of Avnen Kezner understood force; they understood a blaster to their heads. Words just rolled off of them like rain off of the hide of a Dagobah swamp sloth.

So once he got back to the barracks, he headed straight for his weapons locker, already going through a mental catalogue of all the weapons he had available to him and which might be the most useful. In this case, useful was not just limited to firepower.

He picked up his DC-15A blaster rifle first. The rifle was a big weapon and few troopers used it voluntarily, though it was a standard issue weapon. For one, the rifle weighed 4.4 kg; a not inconsiderable strain on a trooper's arms, when a single engagement could last hours, if not days. Its length, a whole 1.3 meters, also rendered it almost completely useless in close-quarter combat, which was what most ground engagements deteriorated to, seven out of ten times. Unless you wanted to use the rifle as a club, a trooper could lose valuable seconds in switching blasters. Lastly, the unstable nature of the tibanna gas used for the plasma rounds decreased the weapon's accuracy under sustained fire.

But despite its obvious drawbacks, Wren preferred the DC-15A to the DC-15S. In the right hands, the rifle was a precision tool, capable of firing a shot accurately over a distance of ten klicks. And Wren's hands were the right hands and he'd often enjoyed the challenge of pushing himself and the rifle past the limits, aiming for targets eleven or even twelve klicks away. And when going to capture a high-profile target, precision was a must.

If there was a type of combat situation Wren enjoyed as much as hand-to-hand, then it was sniping. Though, much to his regret, it was a skill rarely needed in the type of engagements he'd been sent to. Sniping was...a special ops thing. And he was no longer an ARC.

Grimacing with his thoughts, he nonetheless went carefully over the rifle with his eyes and the sensitive pads of his fingers. Like any trooper, he serviced his gear religiously, but it always paid to give it a last once-over before going into the field. You didn't survive a fight just by leaving things to chance. And there would be a fight; he knew that. No way Kezner was going to come with them peacefully.

"That's a big gun," the Jedi said from behind him. She'd followed Wren to the barracks, claiming curiosity.

"You should see my personal piece," he replied absently. He hadn't really paid her much attention since they left the MTCC. He had other things on his mind than a mystifying, crazy runt of a Jedi cheeka.

Wren checked the Deece's charge, then grabbed a few extra powerpacks just in case. He wouldn't need them. The DC-15A had a charge of 500 shots when turned to the lowest setting and he doubted he'd encounter the kind of opposition that would require him to empty his clip, but Wren believed in P for plenty.

Satisfied with the Deece, he slung the rifle over one shoulder and took out a single hand blaster next. Like all clones, Wren was ambidextrous and could shoot with both hands, but he'd opted for only a single side arm. He preferred the greater mobility it gave him, the possibility to shoot with one hand and stab or punch or deflect with the other. It paid to keep your options open.

He gave his hand blaster the same careful once-over he had given the rifle, once more using the pads of his fingers to check for any imperfections or scoring along the outer casing.

"You like guns, don't you?"

He finally turned towards the Padawan, who had taken up a seat on the bunk opposite his. She was watching him with considerable interest, her teal eyes carefully fixed on the movement of his hands. Her feet, covered in boots of leather so scuffed it was almost suede, were swinging gently back and forth over the ground. Somehow, the alcove in which the bunk was receded created a space that seemed to dwarf her small figure. All in all, she looked like a little bird perched in the knothole of some metallic tree.

"I like anything that packs a punch," he told her, quickly bringing up the blaster into the firing position, checking its heft in his hand. He'd recently made some modifications and he still hadn't been able to restore the balance of the weapon properly. Wren knew himself to be a good mechanic, but this kind of work had never been easy for him. That had always been Asher's forte. He would have had this blaster up to specs the same day, he thought moodily.

The old, familiar pain came rushing up again, but he pushed it back down and covered it with the dull, pulsing rage that always accompanied his memories of Asher's death.

The Kaminoans had reconditioned Asher over eight years ago, when they had been three standard years old. His loss was an old wound Wren had come to accept as part of himself. Just like the scar at the right corner of his mouth; a gift, courtesy of Jango Fett and incurred on the same night Asher had died. One boy's useless gesture to try and avenge his murdered brother. Odd though, how something that had happened so long ago could still affect him so deeply.

He stored the hand blaster in a low holster at his thigh; not standard issue, but a custom-made job that he preferred. Wren reached into the weapons locker again and next pulled out a knife. The knife was well over eleven inches long, with a seven-inch blade, wickedly serrated on one side. The leather wrapping of the hilt was worn from use and darkened by sweat. Also not GAR standard issue. The knife was a little souvenir he had taken off of a Jabiimi Nationalist, during his tour on that hellish mud pit. The taking of souvenirs from the battlefield was strictly prohibited by GAR regulations, but Wren had never considered the knife a mere souvenir. The blade had been a gift, as far as he was concerned. After all, the man who'd owned it prior had tried to jab it into his jugular, just before Wren had gutted him.

"It that a dead blade?" Ro asked and Wren saw that her teal eyes had gone nearly completely round with incredulity.

"Sure is," he said, carefully running his thumb over the blade to test the metal's edge. The one thing about dead blades was that they were basically only sharp pieces of metal and they did not hold an edge for long. Not a problem you had with vibroblades or songsteel; those you could cut durasteel with and they'd still stay sharp. It was why dead blades had largely vanished from the military forces in the "civilized systems". Now, most of the galaxy considered dead blades to be crude and barbaric, but he had seen the damage they could inflict and had grown a healthy respect for them. Guess that means I'm not particularly civilized.

"No electronics to malfunction," he said out loud. "Easy to replace and you can slug them through a dust storm on Geonosis to the jungles of Haruun Kal and they won't effing break down." He slid the knife into a sheath on his left bicep.

"You think you'll need all of that?" she asked and gestured to the various armaments he already had strapped on and to the gear he continued pulling out of the weapons locker.

Wren slid EMPs, smoke and sonic grenades into the pouches on his belt. "Probably not, but I like being prepared."

"You are a shining example to scouts everywhere," she said, her tone grave, but Wren saw a definite twinkle in her eyes.

"Let me ask you something," he said, turning to face her fully. "Why the hell did you want me for this and how the fek did you convince Gaff to let us go off on our own?"

Ro cocked her head to the side, a gesture Wren was beginning to recognize meant she was actually thinking over what he had said and her response. A definite difference from her usual manner, which seemed to be to blurt out whatever thought came into her head first.

"That's actually two somethings you're asking," she pointed out helpfully. When all he did was scowl at her, she smiled and explained, "You seem like someone who knows what he's doing. I respect that. I like Gaff, but for something like this, I'd like even more for someone next to me who knows what to expect. And you've been itching for this fight," she added drolly, waggling her finger at him. "Don't deny it."

"That's pretty impressive," he said coolly, crossing his armored arms over his chest. "Can you tell me what number I'm thinking of now?"

She actually laughed at that. "Don't be silly. We Jedi aren't mind readers. I'm just good at knowing what people feel and how that might affect their actions."

"You're an empath," he said with dawning realization. Of course, how effing thick could he have been? That was why she kept talking about feeling things. He'd thought she was just spouting the usual Jedi mysticism crap. The startled and admiring look on her face confirmed his suspicion and added a note of gratification to his discovery. He'd clearly surprised her with his deduction.

"That's right. How did you guess?"

"You're not my first empath." He infused his tone with the proper amount of salaciousness, letting her know just exactly what kind of empaths he was talking about.

She rolled her eyes, muttering in a resigned voice, "Why am I not surprised?"

He felt the next sarcastic rejoinder already forming on his lips, but suppressed the words. She had proven herself unusually tolerant of his biting remarks and was even entertaining in some of her replies, but he still had questions he wanted answers to. If today was anything to go by, then her teasing could easily draw him in, distract him from his objective. But he was a clone and had learned to focus through any distraction, from crippling pain to the cacophony of battle.

Pulling on his gloves and checking the fit of his gauntlets, he said, "You still haven't told me why Gaff is letting us go out without a whole kriffing platoon following behind."

As soon as Ro had declared her intention of taking only Wren along to arrest Kezner, Gaff had – in the most polite and respectful manner possible – tried to persuade her against it. Wren hadn't actually heard the entire argument – if you could call it an argument, since Gaff would never actually argue with a Jedi. Ro had pulled the young commander to one side and they'd had a very low, very private discussion that had lasted a few minutes. And they'd turned their backs on him, so he hadn't been able to read their lips either and he was still trying to decide if that had been an accident or contrived. So now he was curious, because Wren was pretty sure Gaff would rather shoot himself in the foot than leave a Jedi in Wren's company for any amount of time. Particularly this Jedi, because if Gaff thought he was succeeding in hiding his little crush on her, than he was even more deluded than Wren had thought.

"It wasn't really hard," she said blithely. "I simply told him that it was obvious you wanted a go at Kezner, to which he replied he'd already ordered you to steer clear of him." Her lips twitched, as she fought down an obvious smile. "I told him that that was counterproductive, given your type."

"My type?" he asked her suspiciously. "And what fraggin' type would that be?"

"The type that jumps into a gundark's nest, because someone told him not to," she shot back.

Wren had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling. She had him there. "Can't argue with that," he told her.

"No, you can't," she agreed loftily. "So I told Gaff that it would be better to give you a legitimate excuse to confront Kezner, so that you don't wookinate him and he winds up fashionably dead in a ditch somewhere. No longer breathing tends to cut down on the incriminating statements."

Now it was Wren's turn to cock his head at her, because he'd only understood about half of what she'd said. Wookinate? Was that even a real word? Kripes, where had she learned to talk like that? Never mind, he'd gotten the gist of it.

"And that convinced him?" he asked, just to make sure.

"Well, that and I told him I trusted you to have my back."

Wren paused for a very, very long moment at those words. With an almost detached interest he watched his fist clench, the plastoid plates of his gauntlet clacking together with the motion. The last time anyone had trusted him with anything had been on Kamino. Back then, Thrush, a command clone trainee, had trusted Wren to lead him and his men through the dangerous training exercises the clones had been subjected to on a daily basis. It hadn't lasted long. After a training exercise had ended with the death of more than half of the company, including its commanding officer's suicide, Wren hadn't been placed in a situation where others could entrust their lives to him. He'd made sure of it. It was why he was still a sergeant, despite all of his abilities and the advantages he had over the grunts due to his early ARC training.

"You don't even know me," he finally said, his voice flat and cool with not a hint of his usual sarcasm or arrogance. He didn't look at her, but he could feel her eyes on him.

"You'd be surprised," she said quietly. He heard her shift on the bunk, as if she were settling in for a longer talk. "The Force lets me know things about people. Sometimes even about situations. It lets me know, for example, whether or not the people I'm meeting are good people." She paused, as if expecting some sort of reply, but Wren found his mind curiously blank of all animosity. He wondered briefly if she was using some kind of Force trick, like she'd done at Cebz's office, but decided that that wasn't the case. He'd know if she were. The few times when he'd made the acquaintance of a Zeltron female, had taught him what being influenced felt like; like being in the throws of a strong painkiller, when you felt like you were wrapped in cotton, including your brain and everything appeared soft to the touch.

"I know that you are a very fierce, very intense personality," she continued, pulling him out of his thoughts. "I can feel a lot of negative emotions inside of you, what other Jedi would call the dark side, but I've seen how you use them."

He finally found his voice – and his acidity – again. "And how would that be?"

"To protect people." The words hung in the air between them for a moment and Wren slowly looked at her. Her face was very calm, very relaxed. He'd expected that look of pious preaching some Jedi got when they started expounding on all the things they knew and that other beings didn't. Ro simply looked like she was having an interesting conversation. Her lips curled into a smile, one that was soft and which seemed to invite him to shrug off his suspicions and tenseness. Not kriffing likely.

"I saw you during the riot."

"You mean before you tried to kriffing drown me?"

She laughed a little. "Yes, before. And don't exaggerate. That little shower did you a world of good. But," and she pointed a finger at him, "I saw how you saved that other trooper from being trampled and when you started facing off the crowd together, you positioned yourself to take the brunt of the attack."

"I like a good fight," he snapped back, uncomfortable with her interpretation of events. "There was no way I was going to let a bunch of brainless shinies get the best of the action."

"I know," she agreed casually, but her eyes were twinkling, as if she knew something about him that he himself did not. He didn't like that, not one bit. "But my point is that you're good at keeping people alive, whether you know it or not."

The words almost made him drop a canister full of Nytinite.

"You seem to be rather good at keeping people alive, even if you might not be aware of it." Thrush's words echoed in his head, making him grit his teeth until the tendons along his jaw creaked. Back then it had been a compliment; now, it was a mockery. He'd never been able to keep people alive, not for long anyway. And certainly never those that mattered.

He slammed the weapons locker closed, nearly bending the thin durasteel in the process.

"I'm done," he spat out at her. "Let's go."

He caught a sight of her startled face, but didn't wait around for more. He stalked out of the barracks and down the corridors towards the garage, scattering shinies along the way. He could hear the soft patter of her feet behind him, trying to catch up with his longer strides. When she did, he noticed that she walked behind him, rather than coming to his side. That was good; he needed the space right now, because her inadvertent words had brought his anger out to flare and he wasn't sure that he wouldn't strike the first person that came at him the wrong way.

His temper had always been one of the few consistencies in his life; a constant companion that he could use as both a means of distraction, as well as a source of energy. Once he gave in to his anger, everything else melted away: pain, fatigue, loneliness, everything. But it also made him lose his head; undermined much of his self-control. It had made him kill a fellow clone in hand-to-hand combat and it had nearly cost him his life in more than one battle. But although he couldn't control these flashes of temper, he had learned to deal it out in small portions, to work through his rages in the gym or on the targeting range. Or, as he was doing now, on himself. Having slammed on his bucket with more force than necessary, he used the privacy it gave him to bite into his lower lip until it bled, letting the sharp pain suffuse him and suffocate the anger for now. He tasted blood and that too helped to distract him.

Then a small form slipped past him and suddenly Ro was standing directly in his way. She reached out one hand and gently put the tips of her fingers on his chest plate. The motion made him nearly jerk back in surprise, but he kept his body locked in position. No way was he going to be seen retreating from a simple touch, no matter how utterly strange.

"Are you alright?" she asked him, her voice very quiet now. She had her head tilted back, her eyes searching his helmeted face as if she were tying to look him in the eyes. "I'm sorry if what I said upset you. I meant it as a compliment."

"It's fine," he snapped, then bit his tongue in an attempt to gain just a bit more control over his temper. Wren was many things, most of them less than nice, but he generally tried to be a fair person and this hadn't been her fault. Ro couldn't have known that her words would echo those of a dead man, nor could she have foreseen the effect they would have on him. Wren managed to suppress a sigh. No, it wasn't her fault that she had inadvertently woken memories that were still a sore point for him. "We should get going." He managed to keep his tone a bit more civil. "We want to catch Kezner on the road between the tapcaf and his home. That way, we'll only have to deal with a minimum of his damned cronies."

Her eyes stayed fixed on his face for a moment longer and he tried to predict what she might do next. In his experience, Jedi reacted in one of two ways to being snapped at. Either they got all karking superior and reminded you of their authority, or they got all whiny, apologetic and morally agonized. He was usually quite good at telling which one it would be, but so far, he'd been wrong with Ro every time. Her performance on the parade grounds had made him think she might be another one of those rank-conscious would-be-officers, but when he'd broken into her ship for the sheer hell of it, she'd neither been angry nor particularly put out. She'd treated it like a game, had teased and laughed as if him catching her in nothing but a towel was nothing out of the ordinary.

So he wasn't sure how she might react to his sharp tone, or the fact that he - a regular spam-in-a-can-grunt - was telling her how to accomplish Kezner's arrest.

The only thing he was somewhat sure about was that she would most likely not react like other Jedi he'd served under. And she didn't disappoint.

Ro merely nodded her head, blew her unruly bangs out of her eyes and then stepped back. Her cheerful demeanour reasserted itself almost immediately and despite himself, he found his lips wanting to turn up into a half-hearted smile. It didn't seem like anything kept her down for long.

"A man with a plan," she said, clapping her hands together. "I like that and it's a good idea. Now," she shot a quick glance down the corridor, the door to the garage at the other end. "Ladies first!" she shouted and dashed off.

Wren was so startled by her sudden exit that it took him a moment to comprehend that: a) she had just challenged him to a race and was winning, b) she was usurping his right to lead and c) she would be driving.

"That little," he muttered, then sprinted after her. No way in all Corellian hells was he going to lose to some Jedi.

He was so distracted by Ro's antics that he completely forgot about his anger.

En route to Qualan Street, Eyat city, Gaftikar, Outer Rim, 21 BBY (24 days after the first bombing & 17 months after the Battle of Geonosis)

"Have you ever heard of a fekking speed limit?" Wren asked her about six minutes later.

Ro laughed, a sound he was beginning to grow used to. "What's the point of driving a vehicle that can reach two-hundred km/h, if you are never going to use it?" She changed lanes, shooting in and out of a gap between a truck and a lift-harvester that closed almost as soon as they had shot through. Wren grit his teeth, the fingers of one hand digging into his seat. At least this time there was more for him to hold onto than the spindly form of the mad Jedi trying to dash him to bits with her delusions of podracing.

Gaff had heard about Wren and Ro having to share a speeder on their inspection of the first three bomb sites and had, apparently on the prompting of some reg, reserved a proper landspeeder for Ro's exclusive usage. The Seraph-class urban landspeeder had been one of the many bits of hardware drafted by the Republic Senate from its member systems and was, in Wren's opinion, good for speed but not much else. You couldn't really expect much from a bit of tech designed by the Naboo, but he was beginning to realize that with Ro at the controls, a land crawler would be a lethal weapon.

"So," she asked, conversationally, utterly ignoring his death grip on his seat, "did your 'source' also tell you the route Kezner was going to take?" At the word "source" she had taken her hands off of the steering yoke to make quotation marks in the air.

"Would you for effing kriff's sake keep you hands on the yoke!" he yelled as the landspeeder swerved sharply, coming alarmingly close to a stand of cabbages set up at the side of the street. The owner yelped and leaped behind his cabbage stand for cover.

"You're yelling," she pointed out calmly, easily correcting the speeder's course.

"I can yell whenever I stinking well feel like it," he growled out. "Particularly when the person I'm sharing a vaping speeder with is trying to get me killed."

She snorted at his accusation, her expression utterly amused, as if he had just told her a great joke.

Hundreds of fekkin' crazy Jedi out there, he thought grimly, and I just kriffing well have to share a speeder with the craziest of the lot.

"You haven't answered my question," she told him.

"Ever considered being tested for mental instability?" he shot back.

"Yes," she returned without missing a beat. "I'm not crazy. I'm a genius."

"They say there's a thin line between the two." He slanted a caustic look at her. "Do you even know what a line is?"

She laughed at that. "Oh, good one, Cookie. You are so getting full points for that one. Now, as much as I am enjoying your conversational witticism," she said happily, "I can't drive us about all day. The route? You know that, right?"

"Yeah, yeah, I know it." He leaned slightly to the side, into the wind created by their passage, his face protected by his bucket. The Seraph was an open canopied model, which was its most recommending feature, although Wren knew in a real firefight, it would mean utter exposure for its occupants. But he still enjoyed the feeling of space and he quickly took in the surrounding landmarks to tell him where they were. He could have used the guidance system built into the speeder's dashboard, but he preferred to use his eyes.

"Turn right at the next crossroad, straight for another two klicks, then left. We should be able to overtake Kezner that way."

Ro nodded. Despite the open canopy, hearing the other occupant was no problem. The landspeeder featured a hypersound dampner shield, which filtered out all outside noise, as well as the worst of the wind.

Ro turned right at the crossroads, the speeder cutting off a speeder bike and running a red traffic holo. Wren decided that bracing his feet against the speeder's floor would be a healthy safety precaution.

"Why didn't you tell Gaff all of this?" Ro asked him.

"Tell him what?" Wren gritted out through his clenched teeth. He was too busy tracking all of the speeders they were cutting off to really pay her any attention.

"This. About Kezner and his tapcaf meeting, where to find him and all that jizz. Seems to me that's something Gaff should have been told."

Wren gave a humourless bark of laughter. "Because the noob wouldn't have known what to do with it. Everything he learns about Kezner he turns over to the fragging local police and they don't do shit. It's a waste of Intel."

She seemed to mull that over. Wren shot her a quick glance, - as much to see her reaction, as to make sure that her hands were still where they were supposed to be – and saw that she was not happy about his revelation.

"Doesn't anyone on this planet want to work together?" she asked of no one in particular.

Still, he answered her, saying, "I do my best work alone."

"But no one likes working alone," she contradicted.

The sight of another familiar landspeeder saved him from having to answer her. "There," he said, pointing at the grimy, dark blue landspeeder. "That's Kezner."

Ro nodded, but didn't stop. Instead, she revved the speeder's engine and came alongside Kezner's speeder, momentarily heading into oncoming traffic. She glanced to the side, at the other speeder, her teal eyes going out of focus.

"What the kriff are you…" but Wren didn't get the chance to finish his question. With another nod to herself, Ro overtook Kezner's speeder just in time to avoid a line of oncoming repulsor trucks. She cut Kezner's speeder off as she switched lanes, earning herself more than a few blaring horns in the process and then shot down the street at about a hundred km/h over the speed limit. For someone who was basically a glorified cop, Ro didn't seem to have much regard for traffic laws.

"This calls for a subtle approach," she told him.

"What's the subtle approach?" he asked with mounting trepidation.

She flashed him a toothy smile. "We ask him very nicely."

Another few minutes of driving and then Ro pulled their speeder up to the side, letting the engines idle as she jumped out.

"You coming?" she called back at him.

Yeah, once I get my kriffing legs to work again, he thought scathingly. Kripes, he'd thought her crazy driving earlier today had been because of the urgency of the situation, but it seemed she really was a maniac on the road. Remind me never to get on a starship with her.

"What exactly are you going to do?" he asked her, once he'd pried his hand off of the seat and followed her outside. Fekked up driver that she was, her handling of the local bureaucrats had been entertaining as well as impressive and he was curious to see how she was going to handle a man like Kezner.

"I'll get him to stop the speeder," she told him casually. "You have to take care of the speeder behind Kezner's. The people in there do not feel like a pleasant bunch."

Escort, he realized and unslung his blaster rifle from his shoulder. Guess Kezner is starting to feel the heat.

"I can do that, but how exactly are you going to get him to stop. The Force?"

"No," she said, laughing again. "With more subtlety." Which told him exactly nothing.

Kezner's dark blue landspeeder came into view. Ro watched it for a second or two, then simply stepped out into the road. Right into the path of the oncoming speeder.

"Holy kriff," he muttered, unbelievingly.

The speeder blared its horn, then the driver – whom Wren couldn't see through the tinted viewport – slammed the brakes. The speeder's repulsor's whined in protest at the sudden deceleration. Ro watched it all with only mild interest on her face, hands clasped behind her back, rocking slightly to and fro on her feet. Wren could have sworn he heard her humming a tune.

Kezner's speeder came to screeching halt, no more than an inch away from the Jedi. The force of the speeder's deceleration created a wind that briefly fluttered Ro's long hair and her electric blue shirt. She smiled at the men behind the tinted viewport, as if they were old friends she had been expecting. She speeder behind Kezner's was not so lucky. With the screech of tortured metal, it rear-ended the other speeder. Behind the two speeders, traffic was beginning to stall, horns honking as the following speeders were forced to come to an abrupt stop.

"This is subtle?" Wren muttered to himself. Fek, what did she do when she wanted to be obvious? Drop a kriffing Star Destroyer on a person?

Wren watched as Ro strolled to the passenger side of the dark blue speeder, lightly knocking on the window. "A word please, Mr. Kezner?" she asked politely.

The passenger door swung open and Kezner jumped out of the speeder, his face red with indignation. Not a tall man by far, he was still at least two inches taller than Ro and was looming over her in his anger.

"What the milking blue blazes do you think…" The leader of the GFH got no further. Wren didn't quite see what Ro did, but her hand shot out like a Corellian grass snake and Kezner doubled over, gasping for breath. That was when the passengers inside of the second speeder began stirring.

That's my cue. Wren came upon the second speeder from behind. The rear door was just beginning to open. He kicked it closed, denting the metal in the progress and catching the fingers of the Human within between the door and the frame. There was a satisfying crunch sound and a howl of pain, as the man's fingers broke. Wren actually let another man get out of the front passenger seat, before he slammed the butt of his rifle into the man's stomach. The man doubled over much like Kezner had, but still managed to reach inside of his jacket for the concealed weapon he'd kept there.

His fingers never even managed to touch the clasp of the holster. Wren grabbed the man by the forearm and jerked it up, while wrenching his own wrist forcefully to the side. The man's ulna broke with an audible snap and the hapless Human screamed in pain. Wren moved in close, slamming one of his armoured boots onto the man's foot, followed by a hard shoulder into the man's sternum. The impact sent the Human stumbling backwards, his head colliding with the edge of the open speeder door. Wren heard more bones breaking and the man went limp. Wren let the guy fall back into the speeder, then took out a Nytinite canister and threw it into the speeder with him.

With a mocking, two-fingered salute, he slammed the door closed on the astonished men within and walked away. There was a small, muffled boom as the canister went off, releasing the tranq gas within. Mission accomplished and it had taken less than a minute.

In the meantime, Ro had bent Kezner over the hood of his speeder, his arms behind his back and cuffed with a set of durasteel binders. The man must have regained some of his wind from Ro's earlier attack, because he was cursing up a storm, raging about government brutality.

Ro ignored him, too busy patting him down for any concealed weapons. Next to her, there was already a smile pile of knives, a knuckle duster and a thin, coiled piece of wire that looked like an improvised garrotte. Behind his bucket, Wren arched an eyebrow at her professionalism. She was actually doing a pretty good job of that, as good and thorough as any trooper.

Kezner's driver had apparently decided to join in the fun, because the man had taken out a blaster of his own and was swinging his legs out of the speeder. The blaster looked to be like a self-made job and Wren noted that fact with interest. It seemed the GFH was trying to arm itself again. Still in the process of getting out of the speeder, the driver nevertheless levelled the cobbled together blaster at Wren.

Big mistake. Wren lifted his DC-15A and fired off a shot directly at the man's feet. Since he'd turned the rifle to its highest setting, the shot clove clean through the permacrete, leaving behind a visible hole. The driver froze, his stubbled jaw dropping in surprise. He'd apparently not thought that Wren would actually shoot at him.

Wren gestured with the muzzle of his Deece, letting the man get a good, long look at it. This was the other reason why he'd taken the DC-15A with him. It was an impressive blaster and as sleek as any predator. Wren had found that for most wets – sentient, organic beings – just being on the wrong end of the rifle was intimidating enough. The driver was no exception.

"Back in the karking speeder, bishwag," he growled at the man.

The driver didn't need to be told twice. He dropped his blaster like it was about to bite him and practically dove back into the landspeeder. Wren pressed the trigger in quick succession, two blue bolts of plasma slamming into the speeder's hood; one so close to Kezner, it nearly scorched the man's nose. It had the added benefit of finally shutting the man up.

Ro hauled Kezner to his feet, looking from the two scorch marks on the speeder's hood to Wren. "You don't like the model?" she inquired.

"I don't like being followed."

"Uhh, you are a smart cookie," she said in delight.

"Call me that one more time," he ground out, "and the next blaster bolt is for you."

He expected her to take umbrage at the obvious threat, or at least reprimand him, but she only laughed with glee obvious in her voice.

"Anytime, Cookie," she said with a challenging wink.

"Who the milking frak are you?" Kezner shouted, outraged and confused.

Ro steered him towards their Seraph-class speeder, his words not even denting her cheerful manner.

"I'm Ro and this is Wren," was her chipper reply, then she pitched her voice loud enough for the curious crowd gathering about them to hear. "And you are under arrest. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say or do may be used against you in a court of law…" As she continued rattling off a list of rights to a stunned looking Kezner, Wren slipped into the driver's seat of their landspeeder.

While not challenging, taking Kezner had been fun and he was actually feeling pretty good. The first time he'd had that feeling since being transferred to this blue milk run of an assignment. He preferred to keep that feeling alive for a while longer and clinging to the speeder's upholstery while a mad Jedi was at the wheel would not be conducive to that goal.

Having deposited Kezner in the single backseat of the speeder, Ro slid into the passenger seat without comment at the changed seating arrangement. Quite the contrary; she slid down in the seat, hands clasped before her, looking utterly content. With a grand gesture she motioned at Wren to start the engines.

"Take us home, driver. There is much yet to be toiled for and the day does grow weary."

With a quick look at her - did she ever talk like a normal mongrel? - he started the speeder's engines and got them back on the road. "You do know you're utterly insane, right?"

"I told you, I'm not crazy; I'm intelligent. And you enjoyed every minute of it."

He couldn't argue with that, but Kezner apparently could. Leaning forward from his backseat, hands still cuffed behind him, he hissed at the clone and Jedi in fury.

"You won't get away with this. This is unlawful confinement. The commissioner will hear about this."

"Oh, no doubt," Ro replied blithely, twisting a little in her seat to give Kezner a charming smile. "What a happy coincidence then that I've been wanting to have a word with him anyway."

Wren shot her a surprised look, which she couldn't see from behind his bucket. "You planned this all along?" he asked her. "That's why you agreed to take Kezner in, because you knew it would get the commissioner to the base?" He couldn't believe this. This…this was devious. He hadn't thought Jedi even knew how to spell 'devious'.

"I really do want to talk with Mr. Kezner," Ro assured Wren and their captive. "I'm just killing two blister gnats with one stone. Subtle, remember?" she teased Wren, poking his armoured side with one finger and grinning like a tooka cat with a dab of cream on its nose.

Kezner's squinting eyes were shuttling nervously between the two. "Just who the hell are you?" he demanded of Ro.

Ro turned to face Kezner once more, her look of impish delight never leaving her face. "I'm Jedi Padawan Roweena Arhen. I'm here to help."

Wren, with the help of his HUD's wrap-around vision, watched with interest as Kezner's face turned first red with anger, then slack jawed with disbelief and finally settled on pale with fright.

"That's right pus-bag. We're all kriffed." Somehow, Wren couldn't keep the delight out of his voice.

Next to him, slumped low in her seat, Ro's brow wrinkled in puzzlement. "Why do people keep saying that?"