Two minutes later, and they were racing through the streets, the wind lashing through the blasted-open window. Vhetin grasped the control wheel and spun it swiftly to one side, sending the commandeered speeder racing down a side alley. It sent waste bins flying as the vehicle barreled into them, trash flashing over the front viewshield.
"Hold on!" Vhetin shouted as he spun the wheel the other way and they screamed out onto a main street again.
Jay grunted as she was thrown into the side of the speeder, her head bouncing against the window. "Ow! Be more careful!"
"Do you want me to obey standard travel procedures," Vhetin growled, flooring the accelerator, "or do you want to catch Uruc?"
Jay grasped at a safety rail over the passenger-side door and hesitated before asking, "Does this thing go any faster?"
"Let's see," he said, and gunned more fuel into the engine. The speeder shot down the street, the engine letting out a mechanical roar. Vhetin turned up the viewshield cleaners to clear rainwater from his line of sight and activated his comm again.
"Brianna," he said. "Transmit revised coordinates and activate your tracker. I need to know where you are."
"Transmitting now," Brianna said, sounding as if she had her teeth clenched.
They raced through the deserted streets for a few moments before Brianna's voice came back. She murmured, "Wait a minute..."
"What's wrong?" Jay asked, wincing as Vhetin took another sharp corner.
"Uruc might be heading for the spaceport."
Vhetin narrowed his eyes, focusing on the rain-slicked road ahead. Thunder rumbled through the air as he said, "Why would you say that?"
"Look at my coordinates," she replied. "Is there anything else in this sector of the city?"
"Check the map," Vhetin said to Jay, pulling up a map of Saiton on the speeder's holodisplay. "And compare it against the local underworld database I'm transmitting to the display now. Is there anything of value to Uruc in Brianna's part of the city?"
Jay consulted the map for a few moments, murmuring, "There's a... uh, there's a spice lab two blocks down from her... there's a black market fence who lives in an apartment complex on the street they're taking now... apart from that, I can't see anything."
"Shab," Vhetin swore. "So she's heading for the spaceport. Why would she do that?"
"Beats me," Brianna replied. She paused for a moment, then said, "Do you have my transmitter?"
"Yeah."
"Okay," she said. "I'm marking Uruc's speeder registration number. Do you think you could find her using that?"
"I could hack into the Imperial database and activate the speeder's tracer," Jay said. "All Imperial vehicles are marked with them in case they need to be quickly located."
"How do you know how to hack the Imperial database?" Vhetin asked, glancing over at her.
"Please," she said. "Do you think you were the only one training me? Jaing has been teaching me some rudimentary slicer skills."
"Good man," Brianna grunted.
"What are you going to do Bri?" Vhetin asked, gunning the accelerator again as they sped across a bridge.
"I need to find out what the hell is going on," Brianna said. "I'm going to go visit an old friend and ask him a few questions."
"You're bailing out on us?" Jay asked.
"I might be able to find out what Uruc's planning to do," Brianna said. "I'll catch back up as soon as possible. Are you two okay without me?"
Vhetin nodded. "We'll find Uruc. But if you're not back by the time we catch her, you're losing your cut of the reward."
Brianna laughed and there was the sound of a speeder's engine revving in the background transmission. "I'll make it back. That's a promise."
Her transmission cut out and Vhetin said, "Jay, get hacking. We don't have much time."
Jay chewed at her lip as she tapped at the holographic keyboard. After a few moments, she clapped her hands and said, "I'm in. Now it's just a simple matter of activating the tracer-"
She was working faster than she could talk, and before she had finished her sentence she sat back and said, "There. Do you have her location?" she asked.
Vhetin consulted his HUD for a moment, then sighed in relief as he saw a flashing purple dot light up on his map of Saiton City.
"Got her," he said, and took a sharp turn to the left. "She's two blocks down and a half-kilometer ahead. We can catch up to her in a minute at most."
"How far is she from the spaceport?"
He consulted the map before saying, "Five minutes. We can get her."
He cursed as a nearby speeder bus waiting station was blown over by the wind right in front of their speeder. He spun the wheel and they swerved to avoid it.
"If this storm gets any worse," Jay said as thunder cracked over their heads, "We're not going to be able to go after Uruc even in the speeder."
"That makes it all the more important for us to get to her fast. If she escapes, we'll never find her again."
It was only a few seconds before they barreled out onto an eight-lane speedway, only a few hundred meters behind a black speeder convertible with the thin durasteel roof pulled up against the rain. Jay grasped the safety handhold above her door and pointed, saying, "There she is."
"Hang on," Vhetin said as he floored the accelerator again and shot forward. Jay was jerked back into her seat from the acceleration, then pulled her pistol.
"What me to distract her?" she asked, racking back the charging rod.
"Go ahead," Vhetin said, swerving around an abandoned emergency vehicle parked in the center of the road. "See if you can shoot out the rear repulsor."
Jay retracted her door's viewshield and leaned out into the storm, the wind from the hurricane and their acceleration whipping her hair around her head. She gripped tightly onto the safety handhold as she stretched out her shooting arm and fired three times.
The yellow blaster bolts ricocheted off Uruc's black convertible harmlessly. However, she had obviously not been expecting fire, because her speeder swerved dangerously towards a side-street packed with abandoned vehicles. She pulled away in time, however, and shot away down the speedway.
Lightning snapped above their heads, forking across the sky before flashing down and striking a row of trees placed along the right side of the speedway. One of the trees was severed in half by the lightning explosion, and toppled out into the street.
Vhetin yanked the wheel hard to the left as Jay shouted in surprise, pulling herself back inside. The speeder slammed into the side of the tree, the front bumper crumpling up before Vhetin gunned the accelerator and the vehicle flew up and over the trunk, landing hard and screaming down the speedway once more.
Jay let out a long breath; the branches of that tree, some of which were almost the size of the speeder itself, had missed her head by inches.
"That was too close," she said, shaking her head as she leaned out the open viewshield again and continuing to fire at Uruc's speeder.
Suddenly, the black speeder skidded to a halt, and the driver's door opened. A dark figure sprinted into the rain, heading for a collection of dark buildings in the distance.
"She's heading for the spaceport!" Jay reported, pulling herself back into the speeder. "That place is packed with people sheltering from the hurricane. If she makes it in there, we'll lose her!"
Vhetin scowled as he slowed down slightly. "She won't stay there. She has a plan and whatever it is, she's going to stick to it. She's using the refugees in the spaceport as a distraction."
He opened the driver's side door, ignoring the duracrete of the street below him as he leaned out the door.
"Take over," he said. "Loop around the shelter and keep an eye on the exits. Head in when I call you."
"Vhetin," Jay said, leaning over and grabbing the wheel. "What're you going to-"
She was cut off as Vhetin simply leaped out of the speeder, hitting the duracrete below the speeder and rolling for a few meters before coming to his feet and sprinting towards the spaceport.
Jay scowled as she moved over to the driver's seat, pulling the door shut and grasping the control wheel.
Crazy Mandalorian, she thought, shaking her head.
Refugee sector, Saiton City
The door to Kitco's Speeder Repair was blown inward, duracrete chips flying everywhere. Tish Wouta shouted in surprise and dove behind the front desk, covering his tentacled head and reaching for a blaster he kept in case of emergencies.
Before his long-fingered hand could even touch the grip, however, a hard boot landed on his wrist, causing him to cry out in pain.
"You lied to us," Brianna growled, grabbing the Nautolan by the front of his grease-stained jacket and slamming him against the wall hard enough to send a cloud of dust puffing into the air. She grimaced, fire ripping through her side as she put stress on her blaster burn. With effort she ignored the pain and concentrated on the situation at hand.
She pressed a pistol to his chest as he cursed and said, "I don't know what the kark you're talking about Bellan. I gave you all the information I-"
Brianna pistol-whipped him across the face and said, "How much is Uruc paying you to keep her real plan under wraps?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," Wouta said, scowling at her with his huge black eyes.
"When she knew her plan at the banquet was foiled, Uruc ran. But she didn't run for her nearest hideout, didn't run for any trusted allies. She went for the spaceport. Somewhere she knew Imperials would be able to track her. Why would she do that?"
When Wouta didn't say anything, she tightened her grip on the pistol and said, "We already found out that Floren was her Imperial contact. Is he helping her off-planet?"
Wouta blinked slowly, then sighed and said, "Fine. Let me go and I'll tell you everything."
Brianna stared at his green-skinned face for a moment, then released her death-grip on his jacket and stepped back. She folded her arms, tapping one foot expectantly.
Wouta brushed dust off his jacket, then glanced at Brianna's torn and burned dress and grunted, "Nice getup. What, did you get invited to the lady's night at the local Bounty Hunter's Bar?"
"Don't be a smartass," Brianna snapped, holding a hand to the burn on her side. "Spill it. I want to know everything."
Wouta sighed and said, "Fine. For the past two months, Uruc's been getting bored of Mon Calamari. She's planning to leave."
"Like I suspected," Brianna said.
"No, not like you suspected," Wouta shot back. "I'm not talking about just her. It's her entire organization. Thugs, Warriors, local money launderers... she's paying everyone to pack up and follow her."
"Where?" Brianna asked.
Wouta shrugged. "I don't know. I really don't."
When Brianna took a menacing step forward he winced and said, "Come on, you think that information's bouncing around in the streets? Only Uruc and her affiliates know the location, and she's threatened to kill anyone who even thinks about snitching to the Imperials."
"So what about the stunt at the banquet? Killing the Governor?"
"Oh, Vonn's dead is he?" Wouta asked, a grin stretching across his thin lips. "He got what was comin' to him if you ask me."
"Why did she attack the banquet if she was planning to leave?" Brianna asked forcefully.
He shrugged. "I don't know. She wanted to end her time on Mon Cal with something extravagant. Wanted to go out with a bang, if you catch my drift."
Brianna nodded. Blowing up Saiton City with a custom-built hydro-conversion bomb sounded like just the kind of bang that would appeal to a psychopath like Uruc.
"So what's her plan?"
"She's moving out tonight," Wouta said, shrugging. "Packing up all her stuff onto a cargo ship at the spaceport.
"That's not good," she said out loud. "We're running out of time."
Without another word, she spun on her heel and limped back to her stolen speeder. As soon as she was inside she floored the accelerator and shot out into the stormy city, her face a mask of determination.
Hopefully Cin and Jay would be right on Uruc's tail when she got to the spaceport. Either way, they'd need her help to bring the bitch down.
Saiton City T-Sector Spaceport
"Okay," Vhetin said. "I'm clear. Jay, head on in."
"Any sign of Uruc?"
"No," he replied. "But you should keep tabs on the back entrance, just in case."
Jay nodded as she pulled the speeder over and stepped out into the storm. She pulled her jacket tighter around her against the driving as she ran for the back entrance of the spaceport. She paused for only a moment to pull a pencil-thin holoscanner from her belt and set it into a niche near the door. The scanner would record the area and send a message to Jay's datapad if anyone resembling Uruc passed through its line of sight. It would give them some warning in case she decided to bug out.
'Always have your exits and your enemy's exits covered' was one of the central rules of bounty hunting, one that Jay was determined not to forget. They'd gone through too much to have Uruc escape now.
As she moved on and stepped through the doors to the spaceport, she was instantly plunged into a sea of scared, rain-soaked refugees. She scowled as she made her way slowly through the crowd.
Great, she thought. We've gone from a crowd of hostages to a crowd of potential hostages. All its gonna take is a single stray blaster bolt and this entire situation will get real ugly.
"Vhetin?" she transmitted over the comm. "Sound off. Where are you?"
"I'm fine," he replied. "But I'm going to go silent for a while. See if I can't draw a little less attention to myself."
"Do you see Uruc?"
"No. But I'm going to try..."
She sighed as his side of the comm went quiet. She hated it when he did this; he got so caught up in the hunt that he sometimes forgot that he had a partner who was trying to watch his back.
She shook her head and focused, scanning the crowd for Uruc. Jay would have thought that, with a mechanical arm, Uruc would stand out in a crowd. But Jay couldn't spot the woman anywhere; there must have been three hundred refugees just in this single seating area of the spaceport.
The entire crowd seemed hostile as she made her way to the lifts in the southeastern area of the room. She was aware of every single gaze that fell on her, even if only for a moment.
She passed by a brown-skinned Zabrak with several broken cranial horns who was talking with a short, bug-eyed Gand wearing an environment suit. A little further on, a family of Wookiees were lowing to each other and shaking rainwater from their fur. Jay felt slightly guilty as she passed by them, knowing what Vhetin had done to the Wookiee who had worked for Uruc.
She passed by several Mon Calamari civilians and thought, screw this. I'm not going to find Uruc by just walking around.
So she approached one of the fish-like Mon Calamari males and touched his shoulder gently. He started and turned to face her, his large eyes gazing at her serenely.
"Excuse me," Jay said in the sweetest voice possible. She smiled and transmitted a holo of Uruc from her wrist-mounted datapad. "Have you seen this woman? I'm a friend and I need to speak with her."
The Mon Cal silently shook his head and turned away, and Jay moved on to a tall, silent Falleen female standing a few feet away. When the green-skinned female didn't know either, Jay wandered around for a bit, making her way to the other side of the room.
She stopped a passing spaceport tech, a Twi'lek male with dark blue skin, and asked him if he'd seen Uruc. To her surprise, he said he had.
"Really?" she asked, hoping that her eagerness didn't seem out of place. "Where?"
The tech pointed toward the stairs at the western end of the room. "She asked me for directions to boarding hall Tee-Fourteen. I told her that there are no outbound flights scheduled until this hurricane lifts, but..."
"Thank you so much," Jay said, smiling as she turned away. As soon as the Twi'lek man had moved on, however, her smile instantly faded and she activated her comm.
"Vhetin," she said, "I have a possible location. Uruc asked for directions to boarding hall Tee-Fourteen."
"I know," he said. "I'm there already. I can see her."
"What? How-"
"I have my ways. But I need you down here now; it looks like she has some friends here to back her up."
"On my way." Jay made her way as quickly as possible through the crowd, stopping for only a moment to consult a wall-mounted holomap to find the way to boarding hall T-14. Then she was off again, taking the stairs two at a time in her haste to catch up with her partner.
"What do you want me to do when I get there?"
"We're going to be slowed down by her thugs," Vhetin said. "But try and take her in either way. I have a plan."
"Oh good," Jay said. "Mind sharing it this time?"
"No," he replied. "For now, it has to stay with me."
"Great," she said, rolling her eyes as she headed down a transparisteel-plated hallway that - on any normal day - would have offered a fantastic view of the landing pads. Rain pounded against the transparent metal, making it almost impossible to see anything further than fifteen feet away.
When she emerged into boarding hall T-14, it didn't take long to spot Uruc. She was standing at the boarding gate, speaking to a blue-painted protocol droid. Jay ducked around a nearby corner, glancing around it to watch the terrorist leader without being seen.
"I know the spaceport is shut down you lousy clanker," Uruc snapped, flexing her mechanical hand, "but I'm telling you, I'm a storm-certified pilot and I need to deliver my cargo before-"
"I'm afraid that's quite impossible," the droid said in a stubbornly patient voice. "Local protocol does not allow for civilian pilots to leave the spaceport under any circumstances."
As Uruc argued with the droid, Jay whispered into her comlink, "Where's her thugs?"
"Plainclothes," Vhetin said quietly. "Look to your left and you'll see a big human in a Mon Cal tourist shirt."
Jay didn't even ask how Vhetin knew where she was; just like Uruc's thugs were hidden throughout the room, she knew he was out there somewhere as well, waiting and watching for his moment to strike.
She glanced to the left and saw a huge man in a blue-white tourist shirt and big black optical shaders covering his eyes. He was leafing through a holozine, keeping one eye on the conversation between Uruc and the spaceport droid.
"Not very stealthy, is he?" Jay observed.
"Unfortunately the others are smarter than he is," Vhetin said.
With his help, Jay identified the rest of Uruc's four thugs: a spindly-legged Dug leaning against the wall near an indoor restaurant, a tall, graceful-looking humanoid man with glowing red eyes and a braid that fell to his waist, and another human who was standing alone in the shadows at the end of the hall, pretending to look through a collection of souvenirs.
"So..." Jay said. "What do you want me to do?"
"Normal bounty hunting routine," Vhetin said. "Get out there and make a scene. I'll handle the rest."
Jay shook her head, not liking this plan in the least. But she followed his command, nonetheless; she stepped out from behind the corner and pulled her pistol, aiming it at Uruc.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a dark figure wrap its arms around the neck of the large man in the tourist shirt. With a wrench, the figure drove the man's head back into a support pole behind him, knocking him unconscious. Jay blinked and turned her attention back to her target. Whatever Vhetin was doing, he'd be able to take care of himself.
"Jolee Uruc!" she shouted as nearby civilians noticed her pistol and screamed. "Hands on your head! You're under arrest!"
Uruc's eyes were wide as serving plates and she cursed as she shoved the blue protocol droid aside and ran for a transparisteel walkway connecting the T-14 to another boarding hall.
Civilians were running everywhere, trying to get as far away as possible from the crazy woman with the gun. It turned the entire T-14 boarding hall into a nightmare, making it almost impossible to track a single target.
Uruc glanced over her shoulder, watching Jay sprint after her, then was knocked to the floor as another of her guards - the spindly Dug - was tossed bodily in front of her from somewhere in the crowd. They two toppled to the ground in a tangle of arms and legs. The Dug groaned, blood leaking from its mouth as it hit the floor with a dull thud. There was a smoking blaster hole in its stomach, smoke wafting lazily up from the wound.
Uruc moaned in disgust and shoved the Dug away, scrambling to her feet and looking wildly around as Jay jogged toward her, setting her pistol for stun.
Uruc spun toward a door to the outside, then backed away with a shout as she saw another of her guards sitting limply in a chair, a souvenir necklace reading Mon Calamari: The Galaxy's Paradise wrapped tightly around his neck, his face blue.
The last remaining thug saw what had happened to his compatriots and took off running, melting into the panicking crowd and disappearing from view. Jay considered shooting him in the back with a stun round as he went, but decided against it. He wasn't the target.
Uruc herself was almost backed into a corner, her eyes wild as she frantically searched for an escape route.
"Hands up," Jay said, taking a single step closer and aiming her pistol unwaveringly at the woman's chest. A single stun bolt would drop her, and this mission would be-
But Uruc wasn't beaten yet. She grabbed a passing young man in a blue-white tourist shirt by the throat, dragging him in front of her and using him as a human shield. She balled her mechanical hand into a fist and a silvery cylinder emerged from her metallic wrist.
Jay froze; that was a high-heat flamethrower. She'd seen the specs in Uruc's bounty file. A single burst from that weapon would kill the man.
"Put the pistol on the ground," Uruc growled, a ferocious look in her eyes.
"Let him go, Uruc," Jay said, the pistol remaining pointed at the terrorist leader. "It's over. Law enforcement is on their way, and you can either come with me alive or leave with them in a body bag."
"Drop the gun!" Uruc screamed, clenching her grip on the young man's throat. "Now!"
"P-please!" the man cried, struggling ineffectively against Uruc's grip on his throat. "Do what she says! I don't wanna die!"
Jay hesitated; Vhetin had long ago told her to do whatever was necessary to bring down her target, even if that meant sacrificing an innocent civilian to bring in someone who would kill hundreds more. And in hostage situations like this, the hostage-taker was most likely going to kill the hostage whether her orders were obeyed or not.
In situations like that, he'd told her, you have to objectively, impartially weigh the good against the bad. If the target is sure to kill hundreds more people if they escape, it's worth a single innocent life to bring them to justice.
Jay's jaw clenched, and she tightened her grip on her pistol, preparing to fire.
But when she looked at the young man's panicked face, saw the terror in his blue eyes, she knew that she had only one choice.
She lowered her blaster with a sigh and set it on the ground. As she slowly straightened again, she raised her hands in surrender and said, "Okay. You win."
Uruc snarled at her, then threw the man aside and dashed away, into the crowd. Jay glanced after her, then knelt by the young man, putting a hand on his shoulder.
"Are you all right?" she asked.
He rubbed his throat and coughed. "Y-yes. You... you saved me. How can I ever repay you?"
"Get as far away from the spaceport as you can," she said as she stood and dashed after Uruc again, shoving panicking civilians aside as she went. She had an uncomfortably strong sense of deja vu, and she was unconsciously reminded of Anchorhead, when she'd chased after a sniper who had tried to shoot her.
I swear my life is just going around in one big circle, she thought. Then she scowled and sprinted faster through the spaceport, just barely able to see Uruc's black dreadlocks as the other woman forced her way through the crowd. Jay tried to get a shot off, but couldn't ensure that she could hit Uruc without collateral damage.
A blue-uniformed man caught her arm as she passed, saying, "Excuse me, ma'am, but you need to get to-"
She didn't think; she just cocked back her arm and pistol-whipped him across the face. He cried out and staggered back, releasing his grip and holding his bleeding nose.
"Sorry!" she called back to him as she ran past.
She didn't know how long she chased after Uruc; halls seemed to flash by faster than Jay could see, and she had eyes only for the back of Uruc's head. She shoved civilians aside, struggling to keep Uruc in her line of sight. The terrorist was fast, easily faster than Jay, but the crowd was helping to slow her down.
"Attention all civilians," came a deep voice over the intercom. "The spaceport is on emergency lockdown. We must ask that all present make their way in a calm and orderly fashion to boarding halls T-1 through T-10 for emergency procedures."
Good. With all the civilians heading for the boarding halls on one side of the spaceport, it was safe to assume that Jay and Uruc would be the only two heading in the other direction. Jay felt a slight flush of relief as she thought, at last, some luck.
Ahead of her, Uruc sprinted up a staircase, shoving people over the railings as she went. She cast a fearful glance over her shoulder as she reached the top, then sprinted out of sight.
Jay was right behind her, shouting, "Move! Get down!" as she leaped up the stairs as fast as her legs would carry her. She didn't stop to help people up; she didn't have time, and they weren't her problem. She just did her best to dodge them as she went.
She spotted Uruc ducking down a side hall just as she came to the top of the stairs. She was about to head after her when someone caught her arm again. She spun to punch them again, but a familiar voice said, "Hey. Are you okay?"
"Vhetin?" she asked, tearing her gaze away from the hall Uruc had ducked down and facing her partner. She punched his chestplate - gently, though, so she wouldn't break her knuckles - and snapped, "Where have you been?"
"Covering your back," the Mandalorian replied, his expression hidden as always behind his helmet's faceplate.
"Yeah, well now we lost Uruc," she panted, resting her hands on her knees as she gestured down the hall. "She got away."
"Actually no," he said, shaking his helmeted head. "I managed to plant a portable tracer on her."
"A tracer?" Jay asked, frowning ass she straightened again. "How did you manage to do that?"
"A little chaos can go a long way," he said as they both jogged toward the hall Uruc had disappeared down. "I'll fill you in after we've got her in custody."
At the end of the tiny hall was a rusty brown door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY. Vhetin kicked it in, shouldering his rifle and covering the area as he stepped in. Jay was right next to him, squinting through the darkness as she roamed her pistol over the area.
They appeared to be in some kind of maintenance room, similar to the sub-basement where Uruc's thugs had placed the hydro-conversion bomb. There were coolant pipes everywhere, as well as power converter boxes taller than Jay was and circuit boards that controlled the flow of power to the entire spaceport.
The only sounds Jay could hear were the loud hisses as steam burst from leaking pipes and the steady drip drip drip of condensation falling from above. There was no sign of their target.
"Uruc," Vhetin called. "We know you're here. Give up peacefully, and this'll end a lot quicker and calmer for everyone involved.
When no one answered, Jay leaned close to her partner and whispered, "Where is she? Is the tracer working?"
She struggled to pick his dark armor out from the shadows as he gestured in front of them, to a thick support pillar wrapped with coolant pipes and hoses.
"She's right up there," he whispered as he stepped forward, his bootsteps surprisingly quiet for someone in such heavy armor. "On three?"
"Okay," Jay breathed, flexing her grip on her pistol "One... two..."
Before she could finish, a pillar of fire erupted from the shadows, enveloping Vhetin and sending a wave of burning heat through the room. Jay shouted in surprise and jumped away, somersaulting and raising her blaster.
"Uh-uh," came Uruc's voice. "You're in a room packed with coolant pipes. A single stray blaster bolt will send this entire spaceport sky-high."
"Like you tried to do with all of Saiton City?" Jay asked, getting to her feet again. She spotted Vhetin kneeling nearby on the floor, arms and legs glowing in the dark as his combat suit smoldered.
"Are you okay?" she asked him.
"I'm a little toasted," he grunted, getting to his feet and patting out a single tendril of flame from his elbow. "But I'm otherwise fine."
He looked around the room, his helmet's flag-like rangefinder sliding down into tactical position as he pulled his rifle into his shoulder again.
"Jay," he whispered, jerking his head to the panel of circuit boards behind them. "Get the lights. I'm the only one who can see in the dark."
She nodded and stepped back. As she crept toward the glowing panel of lights behind her, Vhetin moved deeper into the darkness, calling out, "Uruc... don't make us do this the hard way."
It didn't take long to find the controls for the maintenance room lights. Jay hit the button and blinding white light flooded the room. She squeezed her eyes shut, grimacing as they adjusted to the light.
She had barely opened her eyes before a huge weight barreled into her from behind, driving her to the floor. She rolled over as she felt a hard fist slam into her face. She cried out and she heard Uruc's voice screaming, "Bounty hunter scum!"
Jay struggled against Uruc, who was laying into her with both organic and metallic fists. She balled her fist and punched Uruc in the forehead, but the other woman barely flinched.
"You will not take me!" she screamed, punching at every inch of Jay that she could reach.
Vhetin grabbed the woman around the waist and tried to haul her off Jay, but Uruc elbowed him in the neck, sending him staggering back against the support pillar wrapped with coolant hoses. One of them burst, spraying steam all around him. He shouted in pain as the heated steam blasted his already-scorched skin. Within moments he was completely hidden from view in a cloud of coolant steam.
Uruc beat Jay's wrist against the ground until her grip on her blaster was forcibly loosened. Uruc snatched the pistol and pressed the barrel against Jay's forehead.
"Not this time, bounty hunter," she whispered, scowling furiously as her finger tightened on the firing stud.
There was a loud clack of a charging rod being racked back behind Uruc, and her eyes suddenly went wide. Jay relaxed as she saw a figure standing behind Uruc, obscured by the terrorist's head. Vhetin had finally found his way out of the coolant steam. And just in time, too.
But it wasn't Vhetin who spoke next. It was a woman's voice with a smooth Coruscanti accent that said, "Hands up, Uruc. Drop the pistol."
Brianna's voice.
Uruc raised her hands above her head and tossed the pistol aside with a curse as she stood and stepped away from Jay. She turned to Brianna, who was standing propped up against a nearby power converter box and holding her burned side. A pistol was in one hand, aimed directly at Uruc's head.
"Hands... behind your back," the huntress panted.
"Come on, Brianna," Uruc said, also breathing hard. "Let me go... for old times sake. We're friends, after all-"
Brianna punched Uruc in the stomach, sending the terrorist leader to her knees.
"We're not friends," Brianna snarled as she hauled Uruc to her feet again by the back of her neck. "We stopped being friends the day you slaughtered your first batch of innocent civilians."
"They deserved it," Uruc said, laughing as she clambered to her feet again. "They all deserved it."
"Put your damned hands behind your back," Brianna snapped. Uruc did as she was ordered, and the bounty huntress clapped a pair of binders over her wrists with a quick motion.
A heavy bootfall sounded next to Jay's head, and she craned her neck to see Vhetin offering her a hand. She took it and allowed him to haul her to her feet.
"Are you all right?" he asked her.
She rubbed at a bruise forming on her cheek and waved her other hand in the air, dismissing the question. "I'll be fine."
He nodded and stepped past her, to Brianna. He put a hand on her shoulder and said, "How about you? Are you okay?"
Brianna let out a shaky laugh. "I'm not as fine as Jay is, but... I'll mend."
"Here," Vhetin said, slinging her arm around his shoulders. "Let's get you to the nearest boarding hall. They've got to have a med kit somewhere."
He looked to Jay and motioned to Uruc, who was muttering to herself and throwing the hunters furious glares. "Can you take her? Just make sure she doesn't leave. I'll find a law enforcement officer who'll take her off our hands."
She nodded and reached down to scoop up her pistol. She pressed it between Uruc's shoulder blades and said, "I'll be here."
Vhetin nodded, thanked her, then helped Brianna limp out of the room. Jay smiled as she watched them walk together down the hall, then around the corner and out of sight.
Here were the signs of caring between the two that she'd been missing before. Vhetin and Brianna may not be the most noticeable couple Jay had ever seen, but as she watched her partner help his wounded girlfriend limp away, his devotion to her was so obvious that it was almost impossible to miss.
She was still smiling as she turned away. Here, finally, was the first sign of humanity she'd ever seen in the ice-cold Vhetin. And she had to admit that when she saw him like this, he was a much more likable person than she had first thought.
"You know," Uruc said suddenly, "I could use someone with your skills as a hunter. You did well to catch me, and I could pay four times more than whatever the damned Imps are giving you. Just let me go, and you could be set for life."
Jay slapped the woman across the back of the head, silencing her.