Chapter 14

Lapdog

I slept well the night after Danika, Hestra, Carth, and I broke into the Sith base. It was the first time since the attack on the Endar Spire.

Danika was fairly unimpressed with my mood in the morning, sipping on her caffa and poignantly ignoring me as I hummed contentedly to myself. Hestra and Zaalbar teamed up to cook breakfast while the rest of us looked on with varied interest. Bastila was cleaning her lightsaber, the different parts spread over the table. Mission was busy examining T3's insides while he beeped commentary at her.

After breakfast I stepped out the door with a fresh cup of caffa to visit the Twi'lek who sold energy shields to see if Canderous had left a message with him. Before I could walk down the hallway however I was approached by a rough looking man who wasn't wearing any colors indicating a gang affiliation. He was taller than me by about half a foot but I managed to give him a level stare anyway. "Are you Sabine Thade?" he asked, studying me from head to toe. I was wearing the racing pants, my armor vest with the new loose leather jacket over it, and all my equipment save my slugthrower rifle and blaster rifle. If I had a slimmer frame it would have painted a very contradictory picture but I had never been called petite like Danika had. Despite having blond hair and blue eyes I looked more dangerous than beautiful at the moment.

"Who's asking?" I asked, taking a casual sip of my caffa.

"Canderous Ordo," he replied confidently. "He wants to meet with you in the east side cantina."

"East side huh? I didn't know there was a cantina over there." I kept my voice and stance confident, cool. Talking with Exchange personnel was like negotiating with a rabid kath hound. One hint of weakness and they'd rip you to shreds. I'd had the good fortune to have a minimal amount of contact with them over the years.

"That's because it's very exclusive. Nobody goes there except by invitation." The man matched me in confidence and cool. He slung his thumbs through his belt in a deceptively casual manner but I did not fail to notice that his right hand rested lightly next to his blaster pistol.

"So how do I find this exclusive cantina?"

The rough looking man smirked. "You'll know it when you see it," he said with a chuckle. He then turned and swaggered out.

I snorted softly to myself. I'd heard that phrase before and it rarely meant that things were as clear as it lead you to believe. It was usually a fairly accurate statement unfortunately. The destination usually was quite obvious when you knew what you were looking for. It was knowing what you were looking for that was the trick.

Danika stepped out of the apartment just then, her gaze focused down the hall on the way the man had gone. "Exchange, huh? You just get your invitation to the ball?"

"Looks like it," I answered. "This should be tons of fun."

Danika grinned evilly at me. "Hey, you're the one who insisted you'd have to go alone."

"Oh, I know, believe me. I'm sure I'll be paying for that later."

"Yeah, well you should go collect the rest of your gear. Wouldn't want to keep them waiting."

I snorted into my cup of caffa and turned to walk back into the room to follow her advice. Danika followed me inside and plonked into one of the empty chairs. I proceeded to sling my rifles over my shoulder and settle down briefly to make sure everything was in place in my pack.

"Watch your back around Davik," Mission said. "He's got a pretty nasty rep around the Lower City."

"Thanks, Kiddo," I said. "Anything specific? That's pretty standard for Exchange personnel."

"He likes to set up traps," Mission said. "And he's pretty strict. He killed one of his enforcers just because he was a day late collecting protection money. Got him by settling a rakghoul loose in his apartment. Nobody knows how he got it, but it sure did a number on the enforcer."

"Right," I said as I made a sympathetic face for the dead enforcer. Being torn to shreds by a rakghoul was not a pleasant way to go. "So check out the turf before I step onto it and don't ever be late. Got it." I stood up and slung my pack over my shoulder next to my rifles.

Everyone saw me off, some with lower levels of enthusiasm than others. "Keep your head on straight, Blondie," Danika said with a straight face as I left.

"Stay out of trouble, Smartass," I replied with an equally straight face.

And that was it. I turned and walked out of the apartment complex and out into the daylight. It was a bright day and when I looked up I even saw some fluffy white clouds. My thoughts drifted up past them even as I looked back down to the streets of Taris. Somewhere up there was a yacht that held a ship with my name on it. The Sith blockade was up there too, along with whatever remnants remained of the Endar Spire. I wondered how long the snooty Tarisians would leave it up there. I also thought about Davik Kang and wondered if he was a Tarisian native and just how pissed off he would be about losing his ship. Pretty steamed, I thought. He was the boss for an entire planetary branch of the Exchange, you couldn't get much better than that. He wouldn't take kindly to having one of his ships stolen right out from under his nose. The only question now was what he would do about it, and when it would catch up with me, Danika, and the others.

Only time would tell.

I hummed to myself as I walked around the Upper City's east sector. It was a silly little drinking song I'd picked up in some cantina or another and the tune was nice enough to relieve some of the tedium.

I'll drink my way from here to the Outer Way,

Betch'a I can make it all the way.

Doesn't matter if you're short or tall,

I toast to you all.

I'll drink you under the table,

My favorite drink is Tarisian Ale.

Nobody's got the better of me yet,

My friends have never lost a bet.

If you think you can pass me by,

Step right up, you're welcome to try.

I've seen them all come and go,

Some drink fast, some drink slow.

It doesn't matter because in the end,

I'll never be the one to bend.

So come on down and drink with me,

It'll make all your worries flee.

It took me a while to find the cantina and I saw immediately why the Exchange thug had told me I'd know it when I saw it. It was tucked away in a dead end alley that was obviously little used. Security cameras were hidden in the dingy area just under the roof. I stopped humming immediately and walked right up to the door. The speaker next to the door buzzed and a hostile voice burst forth in Rodian. "What you want?" It asked.

"I'm expected," I answered, my voice holding the same hostile tone as his.

The Rodian proceeded to spit out a long string of insults to my bloodline, sexual orientation, and future offspring. Before he could finish he was interrupted very rudely, the tirade was cut off by a squeal of pain. The door opened soon after, revealing a very amused Canderous. I could see why, the Rodian who had previously been acting so tough was squirming on the floor and pleading in a voice several octaves higher than normal.

"You sure took your time getting here," Canerous said gruffly. To everyone here we had never met before.

"Blame your message boy," I answered just as gruffly. "He wasn't terribly forthcoming with an address."

After the posturing was over Canderous led me into the cantina. It was clearly maintained for Exchange personnel only, the crowd within was diverse in species and gender, but very similar in other ways. They all wore very similar scruffy clothing and most of them were strung out on one kind of drug or another. The remaining portion was very drunk. The air was permeated with the smell of spice and sweat, which made my sensitive nose twitch.

Canderous and I settled down at a table nestled in a small side room that was clear of any other patrons. It smelled marginally better than the rest of the cantina. "Good work," Canderous said. "You did quite a number on the Sith."

I grinned broadly at the Mandalorian. "It was kind've fun to watch them flip out." Even as I bantered jovially with Canderous I thought back to what the Sith Lord had said before we'd killed him. He'd called Danika and I Force Adepts. It didn't take a genius to figure out that it meant that we could use the Force like a Jedi could, and something about that really worried me. It threatened to tear apart my mind by the seams, so I shoved it down as I had just after I'd heard it.

"Davik wants to bring you to the yacht as soon as possible," Canderous continued. If he picked up on my inner turmoil he neatly turned a blind eye. "He's getting nervous and wants those launch codes before the Sith get too trigger happy."

An orange Twi'lek brought drinks, setting a Tarisian Ale down in front of me. From the smell of Canderous' drink he had ordered Corellian Whisky. I sipped at my drink appreciatively. "He's waited this long, he can wait a bit longer," I said with a smile.

"My thoughts exactly," Canderous smiled back and my stomach did a flip. I had initially just been planning on dinner, but I wondered just how long we could stretch this out. It could be the last time we could be alone together for a long while.

As it turned out Canderous had a better sense of self-control than I did. Even as I ate nerf steak I wanted to leave and go somewhere with him, anywhere where we could be alone together. I just wanted to sit next to him and feel him breathing with me, to know that he was there. I'd lost him once even though I couldn't remember it; I didn't ever want to be without him again.

After dinner we had one more drink and exchanged news. Through this I discovered just how patched my knowledge was, it was as if I had gotten it all secondhand. I didn't like to dwell on that, mostly because it made my mind squirm. Canderous picked up on that and smoothly changed subjects whenever it came up. The way he did it gave me a thrill every time, he knew me well.

"We should get going," Canderous said as he finished off his drink. "Davik doesn't like to be kept waiting and I don't want to antagonize him early."

"Right," I replied. "So how do we get to his yacht anyway?"

"He's got a private landing platform on the edge of the city. The Sith turn a blind eye to it because it's not big enough for any of their vehicles. There's also the fact that they confiscated all vehicles capable of getting past the blockade." Canderous stood as he talked and I followed suit. We walked out of the cantina with very few eyes following us, nobody wanted to give offense to Davik's head enforcer. As we passed the guard who had sworn so proficiently at me he cringed and cowered. I gave him a level stare as we passed to enforce my stance but I needn't have bothered, he wasn't even looking in my direction.

The walk out to Davik's landing platform was decent and took me to the very fringes of what I had explored. The Upper City kept going for a while, but not much. I had heard it been described as the 'Coruscant of the Outer Rim' but I wasn't that impressed. It didn't have a tenth of the variety and sheer scope that the Republic's capitol did.

Canderous had been right, Davik was impatient. A pilot was waiting by a ship already primed for takeoff when we arrived at the landing platform. He was looking distinctly bored and perked up when he caught sight of us.

The interior of the craft was plush and well-maintained. As the ship took off I appreciated that, the repulsar lifts moved it smoothly off the ground. The pilot was good; I knew because he turned the nose of the ship smoothly into an ascending angle. I sat back in my seat, enjoying the feeling of the vehicle escaping Taris' gravity. As much as I liked being dirtside it was good to have the wide freedom of the dark spaces between planets before me once again.

Davik had no idea what he was getting into. He probably thought it would be easy to get me to give him the launch codes. I smiled to myself at the thought. He was in for a very nasty surprise.

Danika sat cross legged on her bunk with her arms folded and glared at the back of Bastila's head. The teenager was in a similar position in the only clear space in the apartment, on the floor in the corner. Her hands rested gently on her knees. She'd been like that since Sabine had left and for some reason it was deeply irritating Danika.

The rest of the group picked up on the black-haired smuggler's mood change fairly quickly and had made various excuses to leave. The only ones remaining were Mission and Zaalbar, mostly at the Wookie's insistence. He had meant it when he'd told Sabine the blue Twi'lek wasn't going anywhere.

Danika couldn't figure out why Bastila could annoy her so by just sitting there. That in turn was frustrating her, and the more frustrated she got, the angrier she got. Finally when Sabine had been gone for nearly four hours, Bastila turned her head, opened one eye, and studied Danika critically. "It's called meditation," she said in her perfect Coruscanti accent. "And it is very difficult for me to do it while you're boring a hole in my head with your eyes."

"Why are you meditating?" Danika asked, her gaze unwavering.

"Because it helps me clear my mind. It is also calming. You might benefit from it yourself." Bastila turned her head away from Danika and resettled, effectively cutting off further conversation. That irritated Danika worse than the meditating had, so she huffed and stood up before she strangled the young Jedi.

"I'm going to go find Carth and Hestra," she told Mission and Zaalbar.

"Tell them to pick up some sweets," Mission said.

"And food!" Zaalbar added.

"Will do," Danika replied curtly. She didn't pause to take any further requests as she slipped out the door. T3 beeped at her mournfully as she went, probably saying something about Sabine. The little droid had pined for her ever since she'd left to go to Davik's yacht.

Danika had to admit she was missing the blond smuggler as well. She had been a solid partner for many years and the only person that Danika could fully trust after the old crew of the Urusai had died.

Thinking about the smuggler ship made Danika ache inside. She didn't know what had happened to it after the Republic Armed Forces had seized it. She hoped it was being put into use as a cargo hauler or something like that instead of being left in a warehouse somewhere or stripped down for parts. She'd been through a lot with that ship. She'd been through a lot with Sabine on that ship as well.

Sighing, Danika reflected that missing her lost ship and her absent partner was better than getting irritated with Bastila. She just took everything in that haughty, holier-than-thou attitude and for some reason Danika couldn't deal with that, not like Sabine could.

As she thought about it Danika realized that Sabine was the only one who could intimidate the young Jedi. Bastila had shrunk back from the blond smuggler and called her ma'am for Force sakes... What was it with those two?

Something stirred in the back of Danika's mind, making her stop in mid-stride and cock her head at the sky. There was something up there, she could feel it. Something that didn't have very good intentions for her...

High above Taris a man glared down the viewport of his flagship and felt something stir in the back of his mind as well. Strange, he had not felt that particular sensation in nearly a year. Could it be?

No. She was dead. They had not lied about that, he was sure of it. Why would they lie after all when her death benefitted them so much more than her living presence?

To Be Continued...