Chapter 21.
Latest edit; February 5th, 2015. First off, won't lie to you wonderful folks, I lost this chapter between edits and moves from one computer to another and to the laptop and back again. In short, I don't know where the original posted version is and I can't find it on any of my hard drives. Yay. That being said, I'm going to do my best to recall it all and rewrite it as close to the original that I can, but no promises. Thank you again for your continued support in this work. I know it's been a long wait and I REALLY appreciate your patience! Come find me(nyulacska) on Tumblr sometime, you may like what you find. Cheers and enjoy!
Their platform was located in Sector 74 of the lower levels of Nar Shadaa. Not a particularly bad sector of town, but definitely not one of the better ones. You could see signs of wear and tear, general decay as the area got less and less funding to maintain its appearance. This area was once a lush trading sector, now it housed a lot of factories that spewed forth their venomous fumes. The people who could be seen travelling through the sector did so with oxygen masks or purifying masks for the less well off. Torian had had a lot of time to spectate and decide he hoped to never spend much time in this area again.
This area had been abandoned and the criminals had moved in. Those who had remained were the desperate or the morally questionable. This was no place to raise a family, and yet, there was one. Three platforms away, approximately 25 clicks away. Human and Twi'lek woman with a child eating ice cream. It was yellow, what flavour was yellow coloured? Torian pulled his eyes away from the distraction and back to work as he scouted the in a 5 click radius around their platform waiting for the 'acquisitions' to show up. That's what Raidre was calling them anyway.
Speaking of the Champion of the Great Hunt. She stood playing with a transformo-ball on the very platform Torian was guarding from his bird's nest. She wasn't exactly far away, it would only take a jump and maybe five seconds of fuel from his jet pack to reach her. But it still bugged him. She leaned against the fueling station, back planted firmly against the concrete, one foot against the wall as well underneath her butt cheek. She tossed the transform-ball, a child's toy, watching it light up and change shapes with every revolution it performed in the air. It would change colours every time she caught it.
Yep, she was bait, again.
Torian was done arguing with this woman, she was proving to be as stubborn as he was… Which was incredible but that was beside the point. Torian chewed his lip, he knew that this plan was fool proof, but it did nothing to soothe his frayed nerves.
He blamed her.
"Starting to understand now."
She caught her transform-ball and tilted her helmet to the left side. "Hmm?"
Torian sighed. "The look Gualt gave me."
Raidre laughed. "Already regretting trooping with me?"
Torian snorted. "Maybe. You're suicidal."
Raidre snorted. "Hardly."
Torian shifted positions as he adjusted the scope on his blaster rifle, the wait was killing him, staying in the same position for three inactive hours was starting to nag at him. Everything was lined up and anyone who stepped on the platform where Raidre was standing would be picked off by Torian. He wasn't an expert sniper, no, Gault could keep that title, but he was good enough.
"Really?"
He saw Raidre stretch. "I just don't let people do what I wouldn't do."
Torian chewed his lower lip as he surveyed the platform. "Meaning?"
Time crawled by to their appointed meeting hour and a transport unit landed on their platform. Torian sighted the openings of the unit and the pilot.
"Meaning, if I am afraid to do something, I won't ask you to do it."
Torian scoffed. "That's no reason to always be in harm's way."
He could hear the smile in the way she exhaled; quick and short. It was likely wistful and nostalgic.
"Depends on the team mate, I guess."
Torian groaned and rolled his eyes at his own stupidity. The urge to slap a gauntlet at his visor was strong, but the job came first. Of course. He was the first member of her team aside for she who was melee oriented. Well, now he just felt like he was retarded.
"Sorry."
"Don't be."
Raidre advanced to the transport hands up, palms open. The main sliding door on its right hand side opened and a group of six vacated the vehicle. One person was held in the middle of the group with a bag on their head and their hands tied behind their back. Torian frowned as Raidre stopped halfway to allow them to assess that she was unarmed and compliant.
The arrangement had been simple which lead to their straightforward plan. The spicers agreed to meet here and exchange Obidiah's daughter for the sum of credits. But something was off.
Wasn't the girl about thirteen years old? She didn't look tall or well developed in her holos, but this person in the middle was both of those things. In fact, the person under the hood was a full grown woman.
"Raidre, she's a decoy."
"Yep." Raidre sighed. " Why can't a job ever be clean?"
Torian lined up his shots, waiting for her to signal. "Because then anyone could be a Bounty Hunter."
They always communicated by their internal comm-links. Private and encrypted. So when one of the six dropped a smoke canister it surprised and pissed off Torian. How the hell had they known he would be there?! Torian jumped up on his feet, holstered his gun and kicked off his archway to fly down and join the fray. What had seemed a reasonable distance was no another ridiculous mistake. How was it that he always felt like he was playing catch up?
Raidre hadn't seen who had thrown the smoke canister. The scene changed as soon as the thing started spewing its gray smoke. She almost felt bad for these people. Almost, you couldn't really feel bad for spicers.
Smoke was a shroud, it obstructed your vision and created shadows where there was no one. In short, it was a double edged sword unless you had heat vision. As soon as the canister came to life, Raidre crouched and walked into the expanding smoke. It was a high grade smoke det, the shroud expanded with haste and took up a greater area than expected. She could see the goons shooting their blasters at each other or imagined attackers as she quietly moved through it. Her heat vision showed her what Torian had already told her. The sixth person, who was supposed to be the captive girl Prixila, wasn't tied and wasted no time in unmasking herself. Raidre drew a serrated vibro-blade, her favorite hunting knife because it was matte and didn't throw off any sheen.
She edged towards the first of the five guards, the one who had wandered farthest away from the group. She took measured steps, aiming for silence and stealth. When she happened on him, he was turned away. His death was clean, she covered his mouth with her gauntlet, pinching his nostrils closed with thumb and index of her left hand. Raidre flipped the vibro-blade to its clean edge and then drew it across the spicer's throat. This vibro-blade was well maintained and she only needed to apply minimal force to go through the muscles and bone of this man's neck like butter. His nerves didn't have the time to register pain, her surprise when grabbing him was the only distress he felt prior to expiring. She laid his body down quietly, making sure that he was facedown so his arterial blood wouldn't splatter and make noise as his heart struggled even though he was done.
Raidre shook the blade out once and walked back into the smoke. She took three more this way before the panic set into the spicer crew. Once they realised some of them had stopped answering back they began to shoot erratically in all directions. Raidre dodged, entertained that they were ready to empty their blaster cells on their own fears, however well founded those fears might have been.
"Raidre."
Raidre smiled despite herself. Was it bad that she liked to worry the Mandalorian? Yea, it was pretty bad of her.
"Hey Tor."
She could hear him sigh even though she wasn't sure where he was, the smoke had begun to dissipate but not enough for her to distinguish him yet.
"Are you ok?"
"Of course, their move helped me make mine."
She could hear him snort across the comm-link. She wondered if he was rolling his eyes.
"You didn't leave me anything, did you?"
Raidre laughed, he sounded so disappointed and she wished she could see his face underneath his bucket. She would put money on his wearing a pout right about now.
"Aw, sorry. I'll let you have the rest."
Raidre found 'Prixila', disarmed her of her blaster and arm-locked her. Once she had slipped a pair of cuffs on the girl she pushed her to the ground face down and sat on her.
Once the smoke was gone, Torian picked off the last two men without even making an effort. She could feel his annoyance at this whole business. Not only did these spicers piss him off by worrying him, but they hadn't even had the common courtesy to give him a decent fight for it. Torian would be so mad once this was over. Raidre rested her chin in her left hand.
"You gonna be okay?"
He paced and didn't answer her, so Raidre looked down at their captive. Now that the smoke was gone, Raidre got a good look at the decoy. Raidre flicked the back of her head.
"Hey!"
Raidre waived. "Hi, we're looking for a young girl. About your height but she's 13. Her name's Prixila. Wouldn't know anything about her, would ya?"
The woman veered her head around enough to spit on Raidre's visor. She sighed, this MUST be why Mandalorians started wearing buckets everywhere they went. People just kept being rude and spitting everywhere. Raidre sighed and wiped the bodily fluids off her visor. She took a deep breath and counted to five.
"You realised I'm armed and you're not?"
Raidre took that moment to wave the jagged vibro-blade in her right hand. It caught the woman's attention because it was still covered in blood.
"Oh, now I have your attention? Good." Raidre nodded. "Let's try this again. Where. Is. Prixila?"
The woman bristled. Apparently jagged and bloody knife didn't mean much to her.
"Like I would lead your kind to her."
Torian was already looking at Raidre when she looked up to meet his gaze. They had less than an hour to make it to the feast and Raidre was loath to disappoint Mako. She was about to smack the woman again when her holo began to ring.
"It's Obidiah."
Raidre sighed but held her hand out to Torian. Torian watched as the woman Raidre was sitting up perk up at the name of their client. And that's when it clicked into place for him. He gave Raidre her holo, then pulled out his data pad and crouched next to their captive. He held the holo next to her face and compared the face of Prixila to this woman. The resemblance was striking.
"Hi Obidiah."
"Have you got her yet?"
Raidre sighed. "Not yet, I ran into a snag."
Torian pulled Raidre so that all three of them were in the holo conversations view. Raidre was about to protest, but Obidiah went white as a sheet and dropped something that had been in his hand. Torian put his datapad away.
"Guessing she's his 'late wife'?"
Raidre whistled. "Well."
Three Hours Later…
Mako flicked the little blue umbrella in her fluorescent blue drink. It was called Correllian Lagoon, which she guessed was why it was blue. Gault sat across from her, sipping on Alderranian whiskey and having a jolly old time as he looked at their menu. She sighed, loud and dramatically. Gault rolled his eyes and put the menu down.
"Is something the matter, Mako?"
Mako took a sip of her Lagoon from a purple straw. "What time is it, Mr. Renow?"
Gault quirked a brow at her, but played along and pulled out his datapad to check the time.
"It's exactly 8:31 in the evening."
Mako slammed her hands on their table. "They're late!"
Gault laughed and pulled her drink away from her. "I'm sure there's a reasonable explanation for it."
Mako let herself fall back into her chair, pulling her legs up and crossing her arms. "But I told her not to be late."
Gault just kept smiling.
Mako pouted. "She's always off working, and getting into trouble. I mean, does she know how much I worry about her?"
Gault let his chin fall into his right palm, elbow on the dinner table. "You do?"
Mako frowned. "Of course I do! Ever since Braeden and Jordy have been gone, she's become my only family. I want to keep my family around as long as I can!"
Gault's eyes darted to the left and then back to Mako. "But she's not out there alone."
Mako pouted and looked away for a minute and then back at Gault. "Do you think we can trust Torian with Raidre? I mean, you know Raidre?"
Gault laughed and put his drink down. "Yea, she can be a handful!"
Mako was about to add to that when a datapad was placed in her view. She frowned and looked to the person holding the pad. There was Raidre, still in armour save for her bucket, but she was there and only five minutes past her expected arrival time.
"Raidre!"
Mako hugged the Champion, dirty armour and all. Raidre held the slight girl back but nudged her once and then again. She looked at Gault, brows knitted.
"How much has she had already?"
Gault just shook his head. "Not much, but the lady is tanked."
Raidre's lips drew in and stretched across her teeth as she grimaced. She inhaled deep and then pushed Mako up to wake the girl up. Mako's eyes opened and she looked around, as if she didn't recognize where she was, disoriented.
"Hey, Mako, look at this!"
Raidre shoved the datapad into Mako's hands again and Mako frowned as she read what as on the pad. Her face lit up, eyes widening, lips forming and 'o'. She grasped the pad and pulled it into her arms, hugging it.
"Did you really?"
Raidre put both hands on her hips and grinned. "Yes, ma'am!"
Mako squealed. "Gault, oh my goodness, look at this!"
Mako ran to Gault and almost shoved the datapad against his nose. "LOOK AT IT! IT'S BEAUTIFUL!"
Torian laughed and looked at Raidre. "She's drunk?"
Raidre nodded, smile still on. "Oh yea."
Torian nodded. "Well, starving. Let's eat."
Mako jumped up from sitting on the table in front of Gault. "YES!"
Mako grabbed the drink she had been nursing. "To the electronic warfare pod! And the Bounty Hunters who bought me one!"
They all laughed and toasted. Raidre and Torian sat down, in gear and all and began pilling food on their plates.