Chapter 46: Runaround

Revan's eyes widened in shock and snapped to the police sergeant's. Dustil stared at him, just as wide-eyed. "Murder?" she repeated softly. "The murder of whom?" Her eyes darted to the grim-looking Vosaryk retainers. Dustil noticed that they were, all three, large, husky types: a tall, broad Twi'lek and two muscular Aqualish. They looked more like the type to pummel first and ask questions later, not the kind who'd go to the police.

Lies! You're lying! Dustil's Force senses screamed at him, but he couldn't determine what, in particular, the man had been lying about. He stood frozen next to Revan.

Murder... whom were they supposed to have murdered? His thoughts spun uselessly around and around in his head, batting themselves against the inside of his skull.

It... it couldn't be Lady Versenne, surely...? Dustil's blood ran cold at the thought, and he felt his palms start to sweat. But... no, Dustil though, trying to get a grip on himself. If such an important person like Lady Versenne, the only heir to House Vosaryk, had been murdered, it would've been all over the holonews. Since there hadn't been any such furor, she had to be alive.

Dustil shook himself back into the present, and sensed more sentients approaching them; he spotted the blue and silver uniforms of the Sluis Van police moving towards them out of the corners of his eyes. The three in Vosaryk livery tensed and began to move out from behind the sergeant, slowly sliding sideways to surround him and Revan.

Revan put on her most charming smile and moved her hands in frantic negative at the sergeant. Dustil managed to catch her hand signals for Danger--duh, no kidding, he thought dryly--and the signal for Wait while she'd been fluttering her fingers. Then he saw her flash the signal to follow. Dustil supposed that to mean to follow her lead.

"Sergeant, there must be some mistake! We couldn't possibly have murdered anyone in our very short stay in your lovely Transients Dome!" she exclaimed, distraught.

Laying it on a little thick there, Dustil thought, as he imperceptively gathered himself. His eyes darted to the Vosaryk retainers--assuming they were real--then to the ones in police uniform moving slowly to surround them. Light winked and glittered on the muzzles of the blaster rifles they were holding in no-nonsense grips, leveled at him and Revan. The other patrons got up from their seats and left a growing number of empty tables between themselves and the two being arrested at the sight of the weapons.

The sergeant shook his head ponderously. "There is no mistake, Captain." He took out two pairs of electronic cuffs from his belt. "By the authority vested in me by the Sluis Van Conglomerate, I hereby place you, Captain, and you, Stiller, under arrest. You may summon an arbiter of your choice to speak for you at the station."

Dustil could tell that whole speech was a lie; the 'sergeant' was as real as his own persona of a smuggler. That pretty much cinched it; these weren't real police officers, so it followed that those weren't real Vosaryk retainers, no matter how convincing they looked. He wondered if those blaster rifles were set to stun, or were adjusted to a more lethal level.

Revan looked convincingly horrified but resigned. "Oh, but... but there must be some mistake! But I suppose everything will be cleared up later." She scowled and shot the sergeant a dark look. "After I find a competent arbiter." No threat Master Uthar had ever uttered could've matched the menace in that statement.

Revan held out her hands meekly in a gesture of surrender for the sergeant to cuff. Dustil did the same, mindful of the hand signal she'd flashed him. The sergeant looked nonplused at Revan's quick capitulation, but recovered to cuff her hands, then Dustil's. And it occurred to Dustil that, in taking the initiative in offering her surrender, the sergeant had cuffed their hands in front of them. Being handcuffed was never a great experience, but having their hands restrained in front rather than in the back would give them greater freedom of movement.

The other 'police officers' had flanked them by now, looked relaxed now that he and Revan were restrained. The other patrons watched them curiously from a safe distance, and a buzz of conversation arose from the crowds as the sergeant relieved him and Revan of their weapons. Dustil felt horribly naked and vulnerable without the comforting weights of the blasters at his hips, and he stiffened when the sergeant frisked him professionally and swiftly with a weapons scanner. The sergeant came up with nothing more threatening than pocket lint when he searched Revan, though; Dustil wondered, with intense curiosity, just where Revan had hid her lightsabers, since the sergeant hadn't found them.

Dustil's blasters, Revan's slugthrower and blades in hand, the sergeant lead them off to the same garage Dustil had parked their speeder. The other men formed a diamond around them, putting them in the center of their formation, with the retainers following along behind on the outside. Dustil felt claustrophobic, with the four very large men hemming him in on all sides, and his back itched, even though the ones with blaster rifles had slung them back over their shoulders. And that was another anomaly; police didn't usually subdue suspects with anything heavier than a blaster pistol, surely.

They approached an enclosed speeder, standard for the police--so that their suspects wouldn't jump out, Dustil supposed--marked with the Sluis Van Conglomerate logo and equipped with flashing alarm lights. Dustil eyed it quickly, noting the rather convincing paint job and equipment on it. It looked like every other police speeder he'd ever seen here. He wondered where they'd gotten it from; perhaps it wasn't too hard to fake.

Their footsteps echoed in the large cavern of a garage, the sounds bouncing back and forth between the walls so that it sounded like a whole platoon of people. The smell of speeder machine oil filled his nose, and the floor vibrated with a subtle hum generated from the ranks of speeders and swoops sitting quietly at rest on their repulsorlift cushions.

Dustil's eyes darted to Revan's as they walked, When are we going to escape? Soon was the answer, written in the quirk of her brows and lips. Dustil suppressed an impatient sigh, wondering what she was up to. And he wondered if his father put up with this all the time.

The sergeant climbed into the driver's seat of the speeder, while the others chivvied him and Revan into the backseat. One sat next to Dustil, keeping him away from the door, while the other sat on Revan's other side, sandwiching Revan next to him. Revan's thigh pressed against his, while the hard, muscled leg of one of their erstwhile keepers pressed his on the other side. It was entirely too intimate. Dustil sighed inwardly. Why was it that people who captured him were never attractive, buxom, women wearing nothing much?

At least the 'policemen' had put away their rifles, though Dustil could see the blaster pistols at their sides. The three Vosaryk retainers sat across from them, while the remaining policeman sat up front next to the sergeant. Dustil glanced aside at Revan, who sat with her cuffed hands demurely in her lap. The speeder rose up, accelerating as it approached the landing, then they were back out in the sunlight. Dustil blinked as his eyes adjusted to the brightness after the dim confines of the garage.

Dustil fought to keep from squirming around impatiently. Just when was Revan going to make a move? He glanced over the side of the speeder. Although... perhaps it would be best if they waited until they'd gone back down to ground to escape. Perhaps Revan was waiting for their captors to reveal themselves, since they couldn't possible be going to a real Sluis Van police station; in fact, he thought they'd just passed one. It would make sense for them to find out just whom had set them up like this... Of course, they could just be planning to take them to an empty alley somewhere and blast them both in the back of their heads, no fuss, no muss. Not that either he nor Revan would just meekly submit to that.

The speeder continued to fly towards one edge of the Transients Dome, to one of the massive tubes that connected Transients Dome to the other Sluissi habitats. Maybe they were heading to one of the other habitats. He wondered if the 'sergeant' was getting at all suspicious of them, that they hadn't protested at not being taken to a local police station. He glanced at the retainers and at the two men flanking him and Revan. They looked relaxed, their guards down, though not enough to converse. If they planned to kill them, they were either stone-cold killers, excellent actors or they weren't actually, in fact, going to kill them. Perhaps they just intended to capture them.

Dustil thought about how easy it would be, to impose his will on theirs and unleash the fears everyone had, the fears that were buried deep down in their subconscious minds in the day, but came out to play at night... He pushed that urge aside; it was probably not a good idea when they were trapped like this, though. Damn, but he hated being helpless. Weak.

Revan glanced at him, as if reading his thoughts, frowning slightly. She twitched her head infinitesimally in a negative. Dustil jerked his own head, as if he were stretching cramped muscles, in reluctant agreement, probably looking the very picture of a surly, sullen prisoner. The Vosaryk retainers sitting in front of them paid them no apparent attention, looking bored. Their easy capitulation had lowered their guards.

Now if they could just damned well take advantage of that...

The speeder slowed as it slid into a queue of speeders and other craft at one of the tubes. Beside him, he could feel Revan's thigh muscles tighten. Dustil tensed, too, as unobtrusively as he could, and called on the Force to lend him greater speed, feeling Revan do the same.

Now!

Dustil jerked at that mental cry in his head, and brought his hands up and around to smash the cuffs into the face of the man sitting next to him. The bellow of pain was deafening in the enclosed space of the speeder, and the vibration of the impact rang satisfactorily up Dustil's arms. Blood spurted as he broke the man's nose with an audible crack. He kicked in the knee of the retainer sitting across from him, and was deafened again by the man's yell of pain.

Revan drove her elbow into the temple of the man sitting on her side, then threw her cuffs off and snatched the dazed man's blaster from his holster. Dustil found himself free of his own restraints; Revan must've used the Force to open them. Dustil snatched at the blaster from the man whose nose he'd broken, spun the setting quickly to stun and shot the man. Then he swung his arm around to stun the Twi'lek and Aqualish sitting across from him. They slumped back, falling unconscious in their seats. Revan had dealt the same to her opponent and the other Aqualish sitting across from her.

It had all happened in a matter of seconds. Dustil leaned forward over the bodies of the fake retainers and pressed the muzzle of his blaster to the back of the sergeant's head, while the one in the seat next to him was ruthlessly stunned by Revan. The other policeman's head slumped forward to rest against the dashboard. The sergeant had frozen at the touch of the blaster, but Dustil had to give him points for staying so calm.

"This is resisting arrest, Captain, as well as assault on a police officer, both of which carries heavy penalties. I urge you to surrender your weapons, and the court may show leniency for your cooperation," the sergeant said quietly, but a bead of sweat rolled down the side of his head, belying the calm in his words.

Revan draped herself over the seat, her knee pressing indifferently into a collapsed Aqualish's stomach so that she could see the sergeant's face. "I think it's time we gave up this pretense, don't you think? You're about as real a police sergeant as I am a Hutt." She slithered over the seat, pushing the man in front of her down off the seat until the unconscious man was crumpled against the seatwell. She sat cross-legged, pressing the muzzle of her own blaster into the sergeant's temple. Dustil reached down awkwardly over the seat and relieved the sergeant of his blaster pistol.

"Now, you'll take this speeder down, nice and easy, to the nearest landing pad. No sudden moves, please," Revan commanded, moving her blaster away once Dustil had pressed his blaster back to the man's head once more.

The man tensed suddenly, and his knuckles turned white on the controls. More sweat beaded on his forehead.

Revan leaned over to nudge the man's side with her blaster. "If you try to plunge this speeder down or do something equally ill-considered, I'm still fast enough to grab the controls when my partner stuns you. You won't accomplish anything worthwhile by being stubborn." She fluttered her free hand. "You want to cooperate with us," she said, Force compulsion laden in her words.

"I... want to cooperate with you," the sergeant repeated in a daze.

Revan beamed. "I'm glad you're seeing reason. Now, let's do get on with it," she said cheerfully.

Dustil eyed her, not slackening his blaster on the sergeant's head; she looked unnaturally bright and chipper. That was never a good sign, although whether it boded ill for their captors or for them, he didn't know.

The speeder was set down gently on the landing pad of one of the many rooftop garages that littered buildings in the Transients Dome. Dustil relaxed slightly now that they were back on solid ground.

Revan leaned forward. "Now, tell me who you really are, 'sergeant'," she murmured. "Who are you, and who sent you?" She poked her blaster pointedly into the man's side.

The sergeant stiffened. "I don't know what you're talking about," he growled.

Dustil pushed the blaster muzzle harder against the man's head. "I think you do know, 'sergeant'," he said. "You want to tell us who you really are," he added, using the Force to compel obedience.

"I'm..." the sergeant began, his face growing slack as Dustil imposed his will against his. The mind Dustil struggled to pin down was surprisingly slippery, and his mental hold skittered. "I... I don't..." the sergeant said, then his voice firmed. "I don't know what you're talking about," he repeated. Dustil saw the scowl forming on the man's face in the rearview mirror.

Damn it, it didn't work. A shadow passed overhead, then another. Revan frowned and stuck her head out the window, then she hurriedly stuck it back in.

"Damn!" she exclaimed irritably. "You called your friends, didn't you?" she asked the sergeant accusingly.

The smug look on the sergeant's face was all the answer they needed.

"What?" Dustil asked Revan, unable to look for himself since he had his blaster to the man's head.

"Two more speeders are circling suspiciously overhead," Revan said grimly. "No time to interrogate our friend here." She pointed her blaster at the man's face, whose eyes widened in panic before closing shut when she stunned him, and he slumped against the controls. Revan grabbed up Dustil's blasters from the compartment in the dashboard and strapped her slugthrower back on.

Dustil slid out of his side of the speeder, stumbling over the unconscious bodies. Revan had grabbed up her swords from where the sergeant had put them under his seat, and buckled them on after she'd clambered out.

"Come on, we have to get going!" she called to Dustil, and began trotting rapidly to the exit, an elevator next to the emergency stairs that went down into the building.

"It'll be faster if we take the stairs," she said, once Dustil had caught up with her. "We can both use the Force to move faster than any repulsorlift elevator."

The dots of the circling speeders were growing bigger when Dustil looked up over his shoulder, and the filtered sunlight gleamed and glittered on the muzzles of blaster rifles. "Right, but let's get moving already," he said impatiently. "I don't think they'll be as gentle the second time around."

Revan nodded and slipped down the stairs. "Would've liked more time to get some information out of them," she said plaintively. Then she blurred down the stairs, and he followed after, the Force moving him more quickly than was humanly possible.

The walls and steps blurred past as they went around and around, back and forth down the stairs. Then they finally reached the ground floor and nipped out past some startled Sullustans and out the door, where they found themselves in a loading bay. Several freight speeders were unloading packages at the back entrance of what looked to be a hotel. The space was filled with droids moving back and forth busily, lift platforms being maneuvered and the shouts of the drivers as they hurried to offload supplies. It was easy enough for two humans to slip through the bustle and out into the crowded street.

"Where to now?" Dustil asked as they mingled with the crowd. They appeared to be somewhere in the tourist shopping district, since merchandise booths spilled out into the streets, and colorful items were prominently on display, being examined by sentients of all races.

Revan took out her datapad and punched up a map. "Well, anywhere's fine, actually, but we really need to go to ground and take a breather. We need to figure out who's after us, and why."

A thought struck Dustil as he narrowly avoided being struck by a group of Duros moving past him. "Hey... how'd they find us in the first place, anyway?" he asked with some alarm. "And how'd they know who we are?"

"Good questions, and I have answers for none of them, Dustil," Revan said with a scowl. "I really wish I'd had time to ask that so-called sergeant..."

"If they know who we are, doesn't that mean they know where we're staying?" Dustil asked, his thoughts racing.

"Damn, you're right," Revan agreed, eyes widening. "And we've got all sorts of incriminating data in our rooms." She slapped her communicator. "JC-01, BR-01, activation code Revan-24601-alpha. Acknowledge!" she muttered. The dull roar of the crowd around them drowned out her soft murmur. "It's a good thing we're all packed and ready to go," she mumbled to Dustil.

The response came immediately. "JC-01, acknowledging," came the tinny voice of the servitor droid, his precise and correct accent rolling smoothly. "BR-01, acknowledging. What are your orders, Master?"

"Take all of our stuff, and I mean all of it, and take it to a hotel. Just pick one at random, something in the same class range of our current hotel will do, somewhere far from it. Remember to uninstall the countersurveillance devices from our suites," Revan ordered. Dustil rubbed his fingers against his thumb at her. "Oh, and don't use any of our accounts to pay for the rooms. There should be a bunch of credits in a red pouch in Carth's footlocker, there should be plenty in there to pay for three nights' lodging."

"Acknowledged. Shall I contact you on this channel once we have checked into the other hotel?"

"No, I'll contact you," Revan replied, fingering the braid wrapped around her neck in thought. "Maintain communications silence. Go on and make the preparations as fast as you can, because I don't know how much of a lead I've given you. If you have to, abandon our possessions, but make sure you don't leave behind any of our personal effects. Clothes and such can be discarded if need be, but not our data chips or the security computer. And we'll need all of our weapons."

"Understood, Master."

Dustil grimaced at the thought of losing his stuff, but he'd dump it all in a heartbeat if it meant not being captured.

"Revan, out." Revan slapped her commlink off. "Hopefully they won't think we've gone back there."

"Right. It'd suck if whoever they are got their hands on the logs we stole," Dustil agreed, eeling his way through a group of tourists lead by a human in a brightly-colored jumpsuit. "But what about us?"

Revan placed a hand on his arm, relying on him to navigate them while she perused the map on her pad. "We'll go habitat hopping," she said after a moment. "We can catch the transport module out to the Hes Dome, then catch another to the capital. And maybe we'll catch one of these guys to question." She sighed and pulled a sour face. "I should've been prepared for this eventuality. A real covert ops team would've established two or three boltholes just in case something like this happened. I'm still just a dabbling dilettante at this."

"But you're not a real covert ops agent, you can't be expected to know all this stuff." Dustil looked up when he felt a sudden twitch in the Force, the kind that usually alerted him to danger. "Uh, heads up, but I think they've caught up with us," he muttered.

Revan looked up, looking shocked, craning her neck to see over the heads of the crowd. She was too short, though, to be able to see anything. "Damn, how'd they find us so fast?" she muttered, disgruntled, giving up the futile search.

"They're dressed in police uniform, and they're coming this way," Dustil muttered to her. He began looking for exits. It was a shame they couldn't use their speeder, but it was too dangerous. If their captors could find out their names and faces, they would know about the speeder they'd rented.

"Here, this way," Revan said, tugging him in the direction of a crowded outdoor café.

Dustil dodged behind Revan around patrons at their small tables and server droids, making his way to the inside of the narrow café. They pushed past more droids and patrons who were quite miffed at their rudeness, and through the back into the hot, steamy kitchen. The head cook, a fat Zeltran, looked up, and bellowed shrilly at them to get out of her domain. Dustil scurried after Revan out the back delivery entrance, hurried along by the menacing ladle the cook brandished in one doughy hand.

"I can't sense any Force users around, Dustil, do you?" Revan asked as they pelted down a narrow alley, much cleaner than most in the galaxy. She cocked her head this way and that, as if listening for something.

Dustil shook his head. "No, I can't," he answered, dodging around neatly-stacked packing bins.

Revan jerked her head up, then pushed him into an alcove, a closed service entrance into the building forming one side of the alley. A speeder cast a sleek silhouette high up on the opposite wall before moving slowly away.

"Damn, we need to figure out how they're finding us, or we'll just be chased all over the planet!" Revan muttered, glaring after the speeder shadow.

They emerged out of the alcove and continued to run towards a transport module station.

"Huh. If you can't sense one, and I can't sense one, then it's either a Force user who's learned to mask his presence in the Force completely... or they're using more mundane methods of tracking us. Frankly, I'd put my credits on the latter," Revan said as they slowed their headlong rush slightly. "Only one Jedi has ever been able to mask himself in the Force so completely as to fool not only me, but also Bastila and Juhani, and he's back on Coruscant."

"You mean Jolee?" Dustil asked, keeping an eye on the sky for more speeders as he followed her.

"Yeah," Revan said, pausing at the alley mouth to look both ways down the street before continuing on. "I didn't sense him until I saw him fighting some katarns in the Shadowlands on Kashyyyk. He's taught me the trick of it, and how to penetrate such camouflage."

"Oh, that explains why you, uh..." Dustil said with dawning understanding.

"Don't light up like one of the Tatooine suns?" Revan finished for him, arching an eyebrow at him.

"Uh, yeah," Dustil agreed. "You look... normal to my senses, except when you're using the Force, and even then it's... quiet. Not like the, uh, auras I've seen around Force users on Korriban."

"That's the end result of a great deal of practice. Subtlety saves time and energy," Revan said primly. "Now, finding someone who's doing what I'm doing is a bit like finding a fifty-credit chit in a sea of ten-credit chits. Same shape, same size, nearly the same color... I'm trying to find a stillness where stillness shouldn't be, and I can't sense any such thing here."

"Then they're tracking us some other way," Dustil concluded as he dashed across the street, dodging around sentients. Revan followed right after, and they both began running again through yet another alley. Dustil could see a glimpse of a transport module waiting at the end of the alley.

"Right," she said, puffing slightly. "The question is, how? We'll answer why later."

They ran up a curving ramp to where a transport module waited at a platform; at this time of day, the platform was crowded with workers and the morning rush crowd. The module was long and vaguely cylindrical, with no particular distinguishing features, made up of equally-sized cars. This being the profit-driven world of Sluis Van, it was plastered all over with colorful holosigns and advertisement vidscreens.

The transport modules were the primary means of mass transportation within and between habitats. It should, thought Dustil, be pretty hard for their captors to find them while they were riding one. They could switch stations constantly, and it may make it harder for them to track if they went outside of Transients Dome to one of the other habitats. The electronic noise generated by the module's repulsorlift system might also serve to mask them from whatever was tracking them.

Dustil swung into one of the doorways just as it nearly closed. The doors popped back open when he blocked them, and he was able to get inside, Revan squeezing in behind him. The doors hissed closed with, it seemed, an exasperated finality.

It was damned uncomfortable for Dustil, being squeezed between a rather overweight Gran and an only slightly thinner human man, and claustrophobic. He wasn't used to being crowded like this; he'd been given a wide berth back on Korriban because he was a Sith, and no one had dared to jostle his elbow. Now he was being jostled all over his body. And the smell of so many sentients in such a small space was assaulting his nose.

Revan couldn't be anymore comfortable than he was, pressed up against his back. He immediately made a face when he found himself enjoying her warm presence. What am I thinking? She's Father's girlfriend, and she's... she's old, dammit! But he had to admit she was also pretty, and she felt nicely soft against his back...

Oh, no, I'm catching whatever it is my father has! He rolled his eyes up at the ceiling, feeling his cheeks heat, and stared studiously at the holosign up there advertising hyperdrives. It had to be claustrophobia messing up his brain...

A melodic voice interrupted his embarrassed ruminations, announcing the name of the next stop in Basic. They had arrived in Hes Dome, the next habitat over from Transients Dome. Revan tapped his shoulder, indicating to him that they should get off. She seemed, to his relief, to be completely oblivious to his thoughts.

Dustil popped out of the doors along with a horde of other sentients, and tried not to feel like a crumpled piece of bread. He breathed in deeply of the mechanical smells of the platform, and the air smelled wonderfully sweet after the crowded confines of the module.

Revan beckoned to him and they moved off down the platform. They ran into the crowds below, a little sparser here than the district in Transients Dome they'd just left, probably because the shops here catered to sentients interested in geological and items of a chemical nature. Revan took out her datapad again, and lead him at a fast walk along a street at random.

Dustil had been thinking over what had happened to them on the ride, when he hadn't been embarrassed by how Revan had been pressed so closely against him. "You know... they found us after you'd registered us for a shuttle," he said to her as they moved through the streets.

Revan looked up from her datapad to frown at him. "I suppose they could've kept watch at the registration booth, or they've got a line into the computer system, but that doesn't explain how they're tracking us."

They both halted right in their tracks as they reached the conclusion at the same time.

"The bloody token!" Revan cried, digging it out from a vest pocket.

Dustil stared at the credit-sized disc in her hand as they began to walk again. "Is it big enough to have a tracker on it?"

Revan closed her hand over it and put it back into her pocket. "A tracker can be as small as an insect dropping. Something this large wouldn't be a problem." She chewed her lip.

"Why would they have tracking devices in their tokens, anyway?" Dustil asked as they moved along the street, past stores selling all manner of mining equipment.

Revan shook her head. "I don't know. It could be a totally legitimate reason, such as using it to keep track of their clients while they're at the shipyard..."

"Do you think maybe it really is House Vosaryk that's after us?" he asked uncertainly, with a certain amount of trepidation at the thought. If that were true... what did House Vosaryk think they'd done? What did Lady Versenne think they'd done? And why?

"I don't think so... For one thing, it would've been so much easier to capture us while we were on our way to the shipyard. Where could we escape to, after all, once we were in space?" Revan mused.

Dustil shrugged. "Maybe they didn't want to scare the rest of their clients doing that?"

"Maybe... although I find it disturbing that someone managed to slice into the Vosaryk computer system to use this token to track us. It shows a mind that knows what these tokens are, and what they can do... And that we had one. I wonder if they know of the extent of our involvement with House Vosaryk." Revan shook her head vigorously. "Anyway, the man was lying through his teeth. We both sensed that."

"He was lying about being a police sergeant, not that those men weren't real House Vosaryk retainers," Dustil pointed out, just to be contrary.

Revan gave him a pained look. "I really doubt a House retainer would do such a thing, especially when they didn't show us their credentials. Besides, remember when I told you a House protects its own? They wouldn't bother with the police if they thought we'd murdered a Vosaryk subject. They'd kill us first and talk to the police later."

Dustil scrunched up his face. "Wouldn't the police be pretty pissed about the Houses taking matters into their own hands like that?"

"That's if the police knew in the first place," Revan said, shrugging. "Happily, something like that almost never happens."

"Almost never?"

"Well, need I remind you that Lady Versenne did get kidnapped?" Revan said dryly, pausing to peruse a display of gem cutting equipment in a store window. "What I mean is, resorting to violence in the Sluis Van milieu is considered gauche and unprofessional. A more cutting move that'd be admired by your enemies and friends alike would be a hostile takeover, not blaster wielding."

Dustil pretended interest in a rack of stone polishing machinery in the same store window, watching the reflection of his face screwing up. "That's... weird," he finally concluded.

Revan shrugged, straightening back up and continuing down the street. "I imagine it's because it's a less direct approach than a challenge to a lightsaber duel, I'll give it that. There's apparently no fun in gloating if your opponent isn't alive to be humiliated."

Dustil scratched his head, then gave up trying to make any sense of it. "Politics..." he mumbled darkly.

"Right now, it's the more direct sort of politics who're after us," Revan quipped.

"Speaking of which, what're we going to do about that token?" Dustil asked. "We can't have it actively tracking us."

Revan tapped her fingers against each other, then consulted her datapad. "I'm tempted to flush it down the nearest sewer, and let them go on a merry chase down there, but we need it to get to the shipyard and get our ship back."

"What about using the Force to short out the tracker?" Dustil suggested, remembering how she'd made the cameras explode in their hotel room as she tried to get the hang of using the Force to blind them.

"I could do that, but I might also short out the bits that have our identification encoded. I don't trust my control to be that exact yet," Revan said, shaking her head. "No, there's a much simpler way."

"What's that?"

Revan looked speculatively at the stores they were passing; these stores sold packing equipment and special boxes to carry volatile chemicals. "Buy something that'll block emissions."

"Like...?" Dustil asked, raising his eyebrows.

"Like those little handy boxes for carrying radioactive or dangerous materials, like the ones I saw some of those archaeologists using on Korriban to hold probable Sith artifacts they'd dug up. They should do well enough, don't you think?" Revan said thoughtfully.

Dustil nodded. He remembered those archaeologists doing that ever since that time an archeologist had gone mad when she'd touched a Sith necklace she'd found with her bare hand.

"Er, where are we going to buy one of those? They're not exactly commonplace items you can just buy from anyplace," Dustil said dubiously.

"No, but if there's one thing I've learned during our stay here, it should be that, on Sluis Van, you can buy damn near anything," Revan said. She tapped for a second on her datapad and showed it to him. "Here, I've found a shop, and one not four blocks from here."

Dustil nodded. "Okay, let's go. Do we have enough credits?" he asked, as they began to jog towards the shop.

Revan patted the many pockets on her vest before answering. "I think so. I always carry a bit of loose credits on me."

Dustil waited impatiently outside the shop to keep an eye out for sinisterly circling speeders and policemen who weren't policemen. A few minutes later, Revan emerged with a small box the size of a data case.

"Do you think that'll work?" Dustil asked as they set off again for another module station.

Revan nodded. "I think so, but it's hard to tell when I haven't got a scanner on me--"

"Uh-oh," muttered Dustil. "Too late." He didn't need to turn around to see several Sluis Van policemen heading through the crowds after them. He'd seen their reflections in the store windows as soon as he'd felt the subtle ripple through the Force.

"Yeah, I sense them, too," Revan muttered back. "I think they're trying not to draw too much attention to themselves, though, which may make things easier for us."

They eeled through the crowds faster, both of them using the Force to move more swiftly. Dustil glanced back over his shoulder, and was startled to see more sentients that screamed of trouble to his senses emerging from nearby alleys. They were all dressed in police uniform, and the crowds were parting automatically for them. So much for protective camouflage.

Looking around the boulevard, Dustil saw that there were a lot more sentients around as they left the geological equipment-inclined shops behind and entered the local restaurant district. The crowds in Hes Dome were slightly less packed than the ones in the Transients Dome were, at least.

He could inject a great deal of the crowd-goers around them with fear, which would have the salutary effect of tangling their pursuers up. And the ones he infected would in turn scare others... A riot would definitely stop their pursuers in their tracks for a while. It was something he could do offensively, not just running away. He hated feeling scared--so it was time to teach those chasing them a little lesson...

A little bit of concentration to gather the Force in his metaphorical hands to shape it to his intentions, and to amplify his power to spread fear to the greatest amount of sentients, then he was ready to mentally reach out to the nearest around him and--

Revan swatted his ear.

"Ow!" Dustil cried, more in surprise than in pain. Concentration completely broken, he turned to glare at Revan, raising a hand to rub at his ear. "What the hell was that for?" he asked indignantly.

Revan glared back up at him. "Do you want to be trampled into paste by a frightened mob? Because that's what you'd get if you used your powers to incite fear in so many people all at once!" she hissed coldly at him.

"But they're closing in!" Dustil said angrily. "If we don't slow them down, they'll catch us!" A flash of blue and silver caught his and her eyes, seeming to emphasize his words.

Revan's eyes darted left and right without moving her head. "Okay, you're right, but there's more than one way to skin a gizka." She began patting the many pockets on her vest.

"Have you got a grenade on you?" Dustil asked, keeping a close watch on the men closing in out of the corners of his eyes while also trying to watch his step and move faster through the throngs.

Revan snorted. "No, I don't need anything so ostentatious, and, um, violent. Although I won't guarantee anything if we don't get right out of here after I do this."

Her hands came out of her pockets overflowing with credits, which she threw out over the crowd. Showers of brightly-colored credit chits--ten, twenty, fifty and even a few hundred-credit chits--flew all over the place, hitting people on their heads and faces.

The crowds reacted predictably to the largesse from heaven, and soon the 'police' were blocked by hundreds of bodies in the street, all of them fighting over the credits. Dustil saw one or two of their pursuers go down under the press of the crowds.

Dustil and Revan pelted out of there, leaving the screams of outrage and grunts of pain from the scrimmage behind them.

"I'm not sure my way wouldn't have been better," Dustil panted as he ran.

"It would've been cheaper, certainly," Revan said, with a faintly pained look on her face at all the credits she'd just thrown away. "But trust me, a completely mindless crowd is a danger to everyone. Which is not to say that pack behind us is any too smart, but they're not completely senseless with fear. That should buy us a bit of time."

"Not a lot, not unless you put that tracker into that case you bought," Dustil demurred.

"Right. What we need is five minutes with some peace and quiet to think up a plan," Revan said.

They slowed their pace and stopped to catch their breaths. Dustil leaned on a wall and wiped the sweat off his face. The scent of some kind of stew from the restaurant entrance nearby wafted to him as sentients came and went.

"We have to get rid of it, or they'll catch us, sooner or later," Dustil said glumly.

"Right..." Revan's eyes unfocused slightly as she thought. "We can lose it, preferably in a way that would also get them off our trail." She stared across the street, where speeders were unloading and loading cargo containers of all sizes at the delivery entrance of a mail depot.

Dustil idly watched sentients coming out or going in with packages from the depot. Offworlders needed places that would take their mail when they arrived on Sluis Van and planned to stay for any amount of time, since they offered a fixed address for traders and merchants. Mail depots were scattered all over the place in the Transients Dome, and at least one were in each of the habitats.

A smile of unholy glee slowly spread across Revan's face as her eyes sharpened. Dustil stared at her with extreme wariness. "What're you thinking?" he asked carefully. Never trust a smiling rancor, and Revan now looked exactly like one, differences in species be damned.

"I'm thinking we should bloody well mail this problem," Revan said, holding up the disc. She straightened and trotted across to the mail depot. Dustil hastily followed.

"Mail it?" Dustil said, thinking about it. A reluctant smile quirked his lips. "So that they'll follow it while it goes through the mail system. A mail system that goes all over Sluis Van." His smile grew until it matched Revan's. "That's... evil." He gave her a look of grudging admiration.

Revan smiled wryly. "I know. I'd feel guilty, except they deserve it. Come on."

Fifteen minutes later, they were gone from Hes Dome and were now sitting at one of the Transients Dome's many outdoor cafés, on the other side of the habitat from where they'd been picked up, just in case.

"That took care of what was tracking us, but now what?" Dustil asked Revan, swallowing a bite of sandwich. He tried to ignore the shimmer in the air generated by Revan's white noise generator.

Revan idly peered over the side of the railing that kept people from pitching forward over and down a ten-meter drop. "I don't know yet," she answered. "What we need is more data. The only thing I can think of for someone to attack us like this is because we've been working for Lady Versenne," she mused, frowning thoughtfully.

"So... someone must've found out we're working for her, which might explain why they had people in Vosaryk uniforms when they came to get us, but who could it be? Could it be Khyrohn found out about us somehow? They've got the most motivation," Dustil said speculatively.

"Could be," Revan said absently, picking at her dessert. "They've got the resources, certainly. And they would have that knowledge of tracking us using the shipyard token."

"Do you think maybe it's time we called on Lady Versenne?" Dustil asked, trying not to sound too eager. "This looks like something she could help us with."

Revan nodded slowly. "I think maybe you're right. There's only so much legwork two people can do, even if we're both Force Sensitive. Besides, we're only in trouble because of her. Who knows, this might lead to a break as to whom had tried to kidnap her. She should be interested in that alone."

Dustil swallowed the last bit of his sandwich and wiped his mouth with a napkin. "When do we go?"

Revan waved down a server droid to settle their tab. "As soon as we acquire some... proof."

Dustil raised his eyebrows. "Proof?"

Revan nodded firmly. "Proof. I think one of those men chasing us will do."

"What're we going to do, box him up and gift wrap him?" Dustil said sarcastically.

"Hey, I didn't think of that. Good idea. There's got to be a place around here that sells packing crates in the right size..." Revan looked at Dustil's scrunched up look of skepticism. "What, do you think you can carry one of those hulking brutes further than ten paces? And explain what you're doing with what looks like an unconscious policeman to the shuttle pilot?"

"You mean we're really going to bring one of those people up to see Lady Versenne? Like a, a hunting trophy?" Dustil said in faint disbelief.

Revan raised an ironic eyebrow. "I plan to bring more than just a head, but yes. We need to show her something. Something that's plainly tangible. Remember, to her we're just a couple of disrespectful offworlders who're marginally smarter than the rest, and can do a few neat tricks."

"I think you're not giving her enough credit," Dustil said, crossing his arms and raising his eyebrows.

"Probably." Revan shrugged. "But we still need to bring something to prove our story. The one I'd like to get is the one who pretended to be a sergeant, the one who arrested us. He seemed to be the leader, so he might know something more than the others."

Dustil scratched his head. "How're we going to find him? They didn't exactly have calling cards."

"He should've recovered from blaster stun by now... he should be in on the search. As for finding him, well, we give them what they want." The gleam in Revan's eyes boded ill for that sergeant.

"We're bait, in other words," Dustil said bluntly.

"Yes, but the hunted are about to become the hunters, and they won't know what hit them." Revan smiled, slowly, a nasty smile that wouldn't have looked out of place on a firaxan shark.

Dustil felt his face stretch, remarkably enough, with a slow matching grin. Force help him, but he actually liked this idea. He didn't like feeling helpless and being... hunted. Time to turn the tables. And as an added bonus, he would get to see Lady Versenne after all this was over. He tried not to think about what he was actually doing, agreeing to one of Revan's plans.

"Right. When do we start?" he asked, resisting the urge to rub his hands together in anticipation.

"Now. Come on, I think I've got an idea..." Revan stood after paying their lunch tab.

"Uh-oh," Dustil said automatically as he stood also.

Revan wrinkled her nose at him. "You sounded just like your father when you said that."

Dustil tried to decide if that was a good thing or a bad thing, as he followed Revan out the doors and walked through the shadowy canyon of the tall buildings.

* * *

Dustil turned his head this way and that, trying to spot the blue and silver of their pursuers. He'd actually come across real policemen, who'd been easy enough for him to spot and dodge because they didn't chase after him. Which was good, because it meant whoever it was chasing after them hadn't corrupted the police force. At least, not yet. He wasn't sure if that was because they hadn't had enough time to do so, didn't think it was worth doing or didn't want to involve themselves with another organization.

He wore an unobtrusive earbug Revan had found in one of her vest pockets, found amongst some old sticks of chewing gum, a pad stylus, loose credits and some demolitions plaster, of all things.

The earbug was tuned to the channel their pursuers were using to organize the chase, a work of a few hours while Revan had used her datapad and her agent interface visor to tap into the communications net. Searching the personal communications channels had taken a bit longer, but they'd managed to find it and decode the encryption scrambling the channel. A short trip to a mail depot and they had their token again, and the bait was all set up.

"I thought I saw the boy run down this way," Dustil heard. It sounded like the sergeant. Boy? Boy?! he fumed indignantly.

He pretended to peruse a selection of jewelry in a shop window while actually looking at the reflection of the street behind him. The after lunch crowd swelled the streets, making it difficult for him to see anything. This particular district of the Transients Dome was full of shops that sold jewelry and accessories, not too far from the food shops. He could smell some of the cooking odors from here.

"Any sign of the woman?" Dustil heard as he straightened up and ambled down the street, attempting to move fast without appearing to do so.

"No, but I just saw the boy. He's on Glitter Street, moving north from Casner to Kobi."

"Finally. The signal is nearby, so the woman can't be too far. They must've thought we'd given up after this long. This has gone on too long already. They're making us look bad," the sergeant said.

"A woman who doesn't come up to your shoulder and a boy who's just started to shave? Yeah, I'd say we look bad, alright. It didn't help when they escaped from, what, seven of you?"

"They took us by surprise," the sergeant grumbled. "I still can't figure out how they got their cuffs off..."

"The others have set up an ambush at Kobi and Siro. Still no sign of the woman, but maybe she'll come out once we've got the boy."

"I'd better go and see, make sure they don't underestimate these two. This time we're damn well going to stun them first."

"Splashy. Look at how many people are out there."

"This is why we've got these uniforms. People will stay away from a police investigation."

"I'd prefer it if we took them quietly. And I'm not the only one who'd want this operation to be low-key. We don't want to do anything that'll attract attention at this late date."

"Too late for that. This is our best chance. Come on."

Dustil stopped to check out another window, this display showing the latest fashion in clothing on Sluis Van. That should've given enough time for Revan to pinpoint the sergeant's location.

I've spotted him. Ready?

Dustil nearly jumped out of his skin. This form of Force communication was something he'd only read about, not had it done to him. It was uncanny, even if it was a form of communication no one could monitor. Unfortunately, he wasn't proficient enough to answer back, so he just unrolled his left sleeve up and scratched the inside of his elbow, which was the prearranged signal for him to show he'd heard, and was ready to move.

He trotted to the corner of Glitter and Kobi, and didn't see the men who had to be lying in wait for him. Sweat started to bead on his forehead as he tried not to think about the fact that he was walking straight into an ambush. At the last moment, he turned into a store selling leather accessories and items, moving towards the back of the shop.

"Shit!" Dustil heard the angry curse ringing in his ear. "He's gone into that shop!"

"No need to panic just yet. We'll just cut him off in the back. This is good, actually. None of the crowd is going to see us catch him. You go with some of the men to guard the front entrance, and I'll take the rest to block the back," Dustil heard the sergeant say.

Dustil idly perused a leather jacket on the rack in front of him and waved away the sales droid when it asked him if he needed any assistance. He mentally took note of the location of the shop; his father might like some of the selections in here.

He took the brown-and-tan jacket off its hanger and moved casually to one of the fitting rooms. Once inside, he activated the stealth generator Revan had lent him. He bent down and crawled out from beneath the swinging doors, which was easy enough, since there were a few feet of clearance. He snuck by the sales droid slowly and caught sight of the 'police' just as he reached the side of the door. The sales droid immediately went to offer its assistance, distracting them, which gave him just enough time to slip out the door just after the last of the group of four had entered.

Dustil dodged around to the back into a narrow alley, trusting in the movement of the crowd to shield his shimmering stealth field from any observers their pursuers might've left behind. He slowed as he approached the rear exit of the shop, mindful of the alert men who had to be just outside it, and turned off the stealth field.

Looking up, Dustil saw the many bridges spanning the upper sections of the buildings here, so that it seemed there was an entire web of interlocking walkways from street level. It reminded him a bit of the Wookiee village he'd visited on Kashyyyk, with its interlocking wooden paths in the high branches of the wroshyr trees. The design portioned out limited space vertically, so that there were different shops on different floors, accessible by repulsorlift platforms.

Revan was supposed to be hiding right underneath one of the walkways, hidden in the shadows directly above the rear exit doorway. He couldn't see her, though. It could be she was hiding behind one of the thick durasteel girders; she was certainly small enough to hide there.

Dustil spotted a knot of blue and silver milling around near the exit, about four of them, counting the raven-haired sergeant he recognized from their first meeting. The sergeant gesticulated angrily; the other two spread out. Dustil activated his stealth field again and ducked behind a pile of cargo containers for good measure, as a Twi'lek and a Rodian went past him. The sergeant was left with another Twi'lek to guard the exit.

Revan made her move as soon as the two sentients had passed Dustil and turned the corner. She dropped straight down from beneath the walkway like a kinrath spider, the fine cord from her climbing harness barely visible in the light as she fell just behind the two men.

The Twi'lek dropped without a sound as he was double-tapped in the back of his head with one of Dustil's blasters set to stun. The sergeant turned around just in time to take a blaster bolt right in the face. Dustil winced in sympathy, despite the fact that the man deserved it.

Dustil ran over and helped Revan drag the sergeant around the corner into another alley, where the packing crate they'd bought earlier had been deposited.

Dustil grunted as he lifted the man, hooking his hands under the sergeant's armpits; the man was damned heavy, which shouldn't be surprising, since he was taller than Dustil and had a muscular build. The load lightened considerably when Revan used the Force to help him haul the dead weight up and into the crate. It was the kind used to transport expensive animals, so it was already foam-padded; the sergeant shouldn't be banged around too badly while inside.

Revan took a pair of cuffs from the sergeant's belt, and in a supremely ironic move Dustil approved of, clapped them on the sergeant's wrists, securing them behind him. She checked the life-support controls again, then closed the lid on the sleeping sergeant, locking it firmly.

Revan gave him a thumbs-up and handed him his blaster back. "Okay, everything's set. Let's get this show on the road."

Dustil activated the repulsorlift on the crate and took hold of the handle. "I hope Lady Versenne likes her present."


Sorry for being late once again; this chapter ran a little longer than expected. I see no one caught the little clue I put in Chapter 45... As a small consolation, I've got a pic cookie up on my kotorfanfic guestbook, a sketch of Carth and Dustil in the sewers in Chapter 36. Still unfinished, haven't drawn Revan in yet.

Calais: You see what happens to her in this chapter, no? By the way, Revan didn't kill the giant firaxan shark in my universe...

Menolly Onasi: Yep, still updating. Gonna finish my fic if it kills me. And yeah, the fact that so many people don't finish their fics irks me no end. I trust Carth and Revan's fight was sufficiently spectacular enough for you? :)

gamorrean princess: Yeah? What's your excuse? :)

Nyvanna: What's not to like, indeed. :)

Firera: Thanks. And yes, Carth will be rather... upset once he realizes what's happened to them. And yes, he's still that mad. But he's rather justified in his anger, no? And no, Revan wasn't taking revenge on him for making him that ugly, but she might've felt a bit vindictive anyway.

VMorticia: Rant no more! Yeah, that was the contact. Your dad's driving only takes place on a road. Imagine Revan's driving while they're hundreds of feet in the air... My fic may go to triple digits whether I want it to, or not... I thought I'd be finished at 50, but here I am with Chapter 46! :x

Feza's twin: Nothing like knocking a few teeth out to calm down, eh? Answers to your questions next chapter.

thesnowman: As you can see from this chapter, I doubt Carth would find out once he's behind enemy lines... And thanks for the kind words.

MoonStarr: Thanks. And I'm not one to kiss and tell... Mwahahaha.

snackfiend101: Thanks for reviewing all those chapters! Responses here:
Ch. 45: Heh, thanks.
Ch. 38: Made that explanation on the fly when Feza caught it on IRC... Big D'oh! on my part there.
And yes, I'm evil. I'm sure the "Dark Side points gained" dialogue box popped up over my head when I did that... Heh.

ether-fanfic: Thanks, and here you go!

D. Eldsoldier: Almost every chapter? Damn. :) Lots of people have done a male character or DS character post-KoTOR fic, you know. I think this'll be my first and last piece of fanfiction I'll ever do...

Sera Terranova: Thanks! And that was a clue, you know...

Prisoner 24601: Heh, thanks. Small homage to you in this chapter, by the way...

Rascarin: Here you go!

Lunatic Pandora1: Ugh, no. Carth's whole appeal is that he's a soldier, with absolutely no Force powers, and yet he's still brave enough to fight through everything despite that. And someone has written a "Carth with Force powers" fic, but since my mother said to say nothing at all if I've got nothing good to say...