Warriors in Red Armor
Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Star Wars: The Clone Wars or any related titles, characters, plots, settings, etc. These rights are the sole property of George Lucas, Lucasfilm, Dave Filoni, the Walt Disney Company, and their various publishers and distributors. I own only the original elements of this story, the writing and publishing of which earn me no money.
Chapter Five
Kai II
"Does everyone understand the mission?" Ransom stared hard in Kai's direction.
Kai scoffed. Just because her attention had drifted off a time or four didn't mean that she was going to be totally lost. "Who needs a debriefing? We're going to do the same thing we always do. I'm going to flirt with everyone until they give me information or get distracted. Ark will slice into their systems and get hard copies of the information we need. You'll be here, masterminding the whole thing."
Ransom stared at her hard for a moment, but Kai met her gaze with ease. Eventually, Ransom gave a little sigh and said, "Yeah, that's pretty much it. But be careful. We've got to get this job right. The merchant's guild has paid us a lot of credits for the information we need. Plus we stand to double our profit if we complete the mission on time. Maybe we should go over the plan again."
"Nah, I've got it," Kai assured her.
Ransom's eyes were like a med-scanner as she used her gift. Kai had always said that Ransom could spot a lie from five klicks with strangers and twice that with friends. Eventually, Ransom must have decided that Kai was telling the truth and nodded. "Fine, but be careful. Are you sure these layout schematics are up-to-date?"
"I'm insulted," Kai jokingly scowled. "Are my schematics ever outdated?"
"No," Ransom begrudgingly admitted. "Even I don't know how you find some of that information."
Kai beamed at the rare praise from her boss.
"You know," Ark started. Kai tensed - there was only one subject that could put that tone in Ark's voice. "We could really use you out in the field on this one, Ransom."
In half a heartbeat, Ransom was as on-edge as both of the other women. "You know that's not an option, Ark." She gave a forced-looking smile and shook her head. "Besides, you don't need me. You're both the best in your respective fields. This mission will be a total success."
The drastic change in mission outlook warned Kai that Ransom was ready to snap. All antics should be cut off immediately.
"Ark and I better go get ready, huh?" Kai said. "Sounds like we need to look the part."
"Comm me when you're ready and I'll activate your earpieces," Ransom said. She always could snap back into professionalism as naturally as taking a breath.
"We will," Kai promised, pulling Ark toward the door. "Ark, bring your outfit to my apartment, would you? You're better at doing hair than I am and I could use your help getting mine to look right."
As soon as they were in the turbolift, Kai puffed out a breath, trying to sound as non-judgmental as possible. "I don't know why you bothered asking her. She never reacts well to it."
Ark looked a little embarrassed. "I was going back over some of her old case files and I just- I got carried away. She was a legend. An actual one. There were stories about how good she was, and she didn't need to divide jobs like we do. She could flirt, slice, get everything she needed, and get out before anyone even realized there was a breach."
"I know, I've read the files, too," Kai reminded her friend. Ransom had been incredible back in the day. Granted, she was impressive now, but before she had stopped going out on jobs? She could have easily run Red Squad alone and made ten times what they were earning now... And then she would have no one to split profits with. "But you're starting to be a bit of a legend yourself… Ghost."
Ark's pale cheeks reddened with the compliment. "I don't even know how that one got started. And it's not good that people know about me at all."
Kai huffed out a breath at her friend. Ark was slender, pale in every sense of the word, and silent. She was also one of the fastest slicers Kai had ever seen… the fastest if they weren't counting Ransom. 'Ghost' was a natural nickname for her. Kai was only jealous that the nature of her designated task meant that she could never get notorious enough for a nickname. Being recognized would be the end of Kai's usefulness to Red Squad.
"Enjoy it, Ark!" Kai encouraged, squashing her own jealousy. "It's a compliment. Speaking of compliments, how is your trooper?"
"You mean Thire?" Ark asked, blushing a bit darker.
Kai chuckled. "Do you have another?"
"No!" Ark shook her head, smiling despite her apparent exasperation. "We talk a lot. Thire is a great guy."
"Are you going to see him again?"
"I'd like to," Ark admitted. "What about you and Thorn?"
"Thorn?" Kai asked, a bit taken aback. "No, nothing going on there. I had fun with him - you know, drinking, watching people on the dance floor, so on - but I don't think there's much of a future in it."
"That's disappointing," Ark said with a frown.
"No, 'disappointing' will be when we aren't ready on time and Ransom kills us both."
A little less than two hours later, both women were ready to go. There was a strange sort of line they had to toe in order to do their job well. Ark had to be dressed to blend in while Kai worked to stand out. All the attention had to be on Kai so that Ark could get in and do her job before anyone noticed what was happening. They had to arrive separately as well. Kai called two different speeders to her apartment, scheduling the second to arrive later than the first.
"So, who hired us again?" Kai asked when she was ensconced in a droid-piloted speeder.
Ransom sighed heavily through the earpiece. "Seriously, Kai? This is why you need to pay attention during briefings."
"The Bespin merchant's guild hired us to find out if the Felucian merchant's guild is spying on them," Ark informed her. Judging by the muted background noise from Ark's earpiece, she was just leaving Kai's apartment.
"They hired spies to see if the other guild hired spies?" Kai asked, chuckling.
"Merchants," Ransom said simply, sounding as if the word had been accompanied by a shrug.
"Arriving at location now," Kai reported. "Estimated entrance: two minutes."
"Two minutes, mark," Ransom replied.
Kai straightened her clothes and took a deep breath before she stepped into the guild hall. It was ornate and overdone, but that was fine: it matched everything she had done with her appearance.
There was a noticeable lull in conversation when Kai stepped inside. She wrestled her smirk into a pleasant smile as she accepted a glass of expensive wine from a serving droid. The form-fitting, low-cut dress floated around her, revealing shapely legs and the most delicate high heels she owned. Her versatile hair was done in a flattering updo. While her makeup was bold, it was tasteful enough that it didn't look overdone.
If Kai was honest, the hardest part of every mission was the pretending. She had to avoid all of the things she actually enjoyed in favor of appealing to onlookers as a sexual fantasy. She had to sip delicately at wine rather than guzzle hard spirits, she could only eat small bits of food that would be sure not to stick in her teeth or ruin her lipstick, and the tightness of her dress meant that she couldn't take a full step… or a full breath.
Being the bait was a nice ego boost, but everything else about it was kind of awful.
Even as Kai mentally tallied the negative aspects of her task, an older, orange-skinned Felucian gentleman sidled up to her. Kai vaguely recognized him as Ollo Set, the head of the Felucian merchant's guild. She continued giving her pasted-on smile.
"Good evening." Considering the height of Kai's towering heels, Set only just reached her chest. Undaunted, the Felucian put on a smile he clearly meant to be charming. "How can such a lovely woman be here alone?"
"Oh, I'm here with someone," she said, doing her best to sound both flirtatious and confused. "He was supposed to meet me here, but I haven't seen him yet."
"Well, whoever the lucky man is, he's a fool to miss even a moment of your radiant company," Set oozed. He took her hand so he could bow - very shallowly - and kiss the back of it.
Kai felt a rush of revulsion. She hated when they touched her. Still, she was a rather incredible actress, if she did say so herself, so she pasted a delicate smile on her lips. "Thank you, sir. It is comforting to find such kindness here, even if my date is later than I would have hoped."
Set patted her hand in a way that managed to be both fatherly and lecherous. "If he does not arrive shortly, I shall show you around myself. Your careless date should not cause you to miss meeting these incredible people."
"I may take you up on that offer! I'm Saro," Kai lied.
"Ollo Set," he returned, adjusting the jeweled cuffs of his jacket. "Leader of the Felucian Merchant's Guild. Pleasure to meet you, Saro. I must leave for a moment, but ask anyone to point you in my direction and you'll have no trouble finding me."
"Oh," she murmured, trying to sound impressed as she fluttered her eyelashes at him. Set watched her for a moment, looking stunned, then turned to meet with a group of well-dressed Felucians. The whole gathering shut themselves in a side room, leaving the party raging on without them.
Under the pretence of adjusting an earring, Kai activated her earpiece. "Meeting of the big guys - metaphorically big, anyway. Ark, what's your ETA?"
"Speeder trouble," Ark said, sounding irritated. "ETA: four minutes."
"Four minutes, mark," Ransom confirmed.
Kai circled through the room, chatting and picking at morsels of food while she kept an eye on the entrance. At least she didn't have to be subtle about it - her cover story allowed her to openly watch the new arrivals without looking suspicious.
"I'm right outside," Ark's voice crackled through the earpiece. "Are they still in the meeting?"
"Yes," Kai breathed, managing to work her answer into the conversation she was having with a drunk Felucian female.
Ark made her entrance seconds later. She wore a mousy brown wig and a tan dress tailored to disguise her slender figure. Carefully applied makeup had lent her colorless skin the appearance of more life. As a result, she didn't stand out overly much from the other humans in the room. Ark glanced at Kai, who subtly tilted her head toward the still-closed door.
With that, Ark made her way toward a hallway. According to the detailed schematics Kai had provided, the hall held both the refreshers and several data access points. At the last moment, a serving droid moved into Ark's way, intending to offer her a glass of wine. Ark, busy double-checking the door, tripped on the droid and flailed to recover her balance. Her small bag fell to the floor, spilling her slicing materials onto the carpet as the service droid beeped around frantically, trying to offer help. Kai watched with more than a little horror as the door to the guild meeting swung open. Ollo Set stepped out first, then paused and frowned over at the commotion caused by the serving droid.
Kai rushed over toward him. "Mr. Set!"
His pale orange gaze swung toward her instead, for which Kai was forever thankful. She had seen Ark starting to gather her tools, any one of which was recognizable as being part of a slicing project. Now, Kai simply had to hold the attention of Set and the other guild members, and she knew exactly how to do it.
Tugging at her dress in apparent distress, Kai revealed a bit more of her chest than she had previously been showing and forced tears to well in her eyes. When she reached Set and the accompanying guild members, she leaned down to speak with him. Her posture allowed the best vantage point for Set to see both the tears and the cleavage.
"What's wrong, my dear?" Set asked, looking first at her chest, then the tears, then her chest again.
"I just received word that my date isn't coming after all. He's stood me up!" she told him, letting one of the tears slip down her cheek. "Is there any chance you're still willing to accompany me this evening?"
"Why, Saro," he oozed, "I would be absolutely delighted. May I introduce the other leaders of the Felucian Merchant's Guild?"
Kai chanced a glance backward as she straightened up once more - leaning down in such a tight dress was killing her spine - and was pleased to watch Ark disappear safely down the hallway. Kai relaxed slightly and put a tearful smile on as she turned to be introduced to the other Felucians.
"Wait, I- I recognize you," one of the Felucians, this one a yellow-skinned female, said haltingly.
The smile slipped from Kai's face, but she had rekindled it a moment later. "Are you sure? I don't think we've ever met."
"I've seen your face somewhere before," the female insisted.
"What are you prattling on about, Ethoda?" Set asked, striving for a tone of boredom and achieving one of irritation.
"She's someone I know, and not in a good way," Ethoda insisted. Kai's stomach gave an odd little twist at the thought that someone had finally recognized her. The Felucian female at last said, "I'm fairly certain she's a prostitute!"
Well, that was unexpected. Kai gaped. "What? I'm not a- I am not a prostitute!"
"That's just what a prostitute would say," one of the other males muttered.
"Which is more likely: a beautiful human woman being interested in Ollo or that she's a prostitute?"
"That makes more sense than anything else I've heard tonight."
"I'll notify the Coruscant Guard," Ethoda offered, rushing away.
And that was that. Admittedly, the mission had been to keep attention away from Ark in whatever way was necessary, but Kai had never expected this to be the outcome. It wasn't the proudest moment of her life, but Kai sat quietly and waited for the Coruscant Guard. The only move she made was to 'fix her hair' and activate the earpiece.
"I can't believe I'm getting arrested for prostitution," she muttered. Ark and Ransom's frantic questions and sounds of outrage provided entertainment until the Coruscant Guard arrived.
A clone trooper in red and white armor marched into the room. "Commander Thorn. What's going on here?"
Thorn I
"This woman is a prostitute!"
Thorn was always the first to admit that he wasn't a lighthearted trooper. The laughter and jokes that came easy to his brothers weren't part of his repertoire. Still, even Thorn had gotten a kick out of the accusations that were being thrown Kai's way. It had taken him a minute or so to recognize her - especially with a group of Felucians insisting that her name was Saro - but her look of dread at his entrance had been a solid clue.
He had taken down the eyewitness details of the incident with care. Keeping his voice level was tricky, but no one could hear the mocking he knew was clear in his expression. When the long-winded Felucians finished talking, Thorn closed the document so he could place binders on Kai's wrists and lead her to his cruiser.
"I'll take her to the precinct," he told the Felucians.
He had to shut down the external speakers on his helmet when the leader of the group - an orange-skinned male who had introduced himself as 'Ollo Set', followed them outside. As he fixed Kai with a stern gaze and he said, "Let this be a lesson to you, young lady: there is no substitute for an honest day's work", Thorn laughed aloud.
Rather than risk reactivating his speaking and giving away the game, Thorn had nodded to acknowledge Set's thanks. He steered Kai into the back of the cruiser as soon as he could and settled into the front seat himself. They were in the air waiting to enter traffic when he finally thought it was safe to remove his bucket.
As he reached for the familiar plastoid curves, Kai snapped, "This is ridiculous. You know I'm not a prostitute."
Thorn broke the seal that had formed between his blacks and his helmet before answering. "Of course I know that. Do you think I leave the code to my binders in the backseat with every perp?"
"Oh," she said, ire deflating as she grabbed the scrap of flimsi and awkwardly typed the written code into the binders. "Then why-?"
"If I hadn't brought you in for a false claim like prostitution, they may have come up with something more difficult to fight." He met Kai's eyes in the rearview mirror. "Like industrial espionage."
There was no answer from the backseat and Thorn abruptly found the whole situation less amusing than he had previously. Industrial espionage was a nasty business, and he wasn't thrilled to find that Kai was wrapped up in it.
"Care to explain what you were doing at the headquarters for the Felucian merchant's guild?" he asked.
She sighed, looking conflicted. "What do you want to know?"
"Everything. As long as it's the truth. I don't like listening to lies."
"Hey," she said, leaning forward with an offended look on her face. "I don't lie."
Thorn snorted. "You want to try feeding that line to the crowd of civvies back there who told me all about 'Saro'?"
"I lie at work because it's literally my job," Kai snapped. "I don't have a choice there, but I do everywhere else. I am not a liar."
"So your job is to lie and you wear revealing clothing while you do so," Thorn mused. "Are you sure you're not a prostitute?"
"I'm on an information securities team called Red Squad," she told him irritably. "We were hired to get intelligence from the Felucian merchant's guild."
"And they sent you in alone?" Thorn asked with an unfortunate chuckle.
"No, I wasn't there by myself," Kai admitted. "But I couldn't stay, not after having attracted that much attention. I don't even know if the mission was a success or not."
"Another private sector success, then," he said, sarcasm thick in his voice. "I take it that jobs don't always end this way?"
She snorted. "Believe it or not, this is the first time I've ever been arrested under suspicion of being a prostitute."
"It's a small and glorious club," he said. "It also signals the need for a career change. Ever thought about doing anything else? This espionage thing may not be your strong suit."
She grew quiet and Thorn saw her turn to stare out of the window. His heart skipped a beat. Stars, don't let her start crying... He felt an unusual wave of pity wash over him. Kai's day had clearly gone wrong and here she was being taken away from a formal event in the back of a police cruiser. Plus, Thorn's vode had always told him he could be abrasive, so chances were good that he wasn't helping matters.
"Hey, I'm not going to charge you with anything. Why don't you give me your address and I'll drive you home?"
"You can just drop me off here," she said frostily. "I can find my own way home."
"The kriff you will," he shut down immediately. "It's almost midnight. Coruscant isn't safe for civvies dressed like you are at this time of night."
"Maybe at the next intersection," Kai suggested, pretending she hadn't heard him.
"Maybe I'll take you to the precinct after all," Thorn threatened. "That way, I won't be responsible if you end up attacked or killed for walking through dangerous parts of the planet at night, looking like a-"
He cut himself off and Kai leaned forward, a challenging look on her pretty face. "Like a prostitute?"
Actually, he had been about to say that she looked like royalty, but her tart response knocked some sense back into him. "Yeah," he agreed instead. "Something like that."
"You're impossible," she told him, sounding tired. "Just… take me home."
She gave him the address, but Thorn could hardly hear it over the pounding of his heart. Kai probably hadn't meant for her words to sound inviting - far from it - but they had caused a pang of something long-buried in his memory. The feeling of home hadn't been one emphasized in flash training or any day since, but he had always imagined it would be the way he felt when he had heard Kai's request.
Still, he forced his mind back to his duty and plugged Kai's address into the navicomputer on his cruiser. Shortly afterward, they had arrived at a plain-looking building. Kai still hadn't said another word to him, which frustrated Thorn for some reason. They may not have exchanged comlink info like Thire and his girl had, but Thorn and Kai had gotten along at 79's. He couldn't remember a time he had laughed harder than when she drunkenly told an equally drunken Nikto that he had "scored a perfect 30" on the dance floor.
Deciding to make things right once and for all, Thorn shut off the cruiser and got out to open Kai's door.
"Thank you, Commander," she said stiffly. "Drive safe on your way back to the precinct."
"Hold on, let me walk you inside," he offered, injecting enough suffering into his tone that she would think it was a punishment. She didn't say anything to encourage him, but she didn't say he couldn't accompany her, either.
So Thorn found himself following Kai down two flights of narrow stairs to her housing unit. When they arrived at the door, he noted an odd lock keeping it closed. Still, he thought little of it until Kai also frowned and made a confused little sound.
Every instinct Thorn had demanded that he act. In half a second, he had grasped Kai around the waist, spun to place her behind him, and drawn one of his blaster pistols. He ignored Kai's questions and focused on the area, but his HUD wasn't showing any signs of potentially hostile lifeforms. More importantly, the strange lock wasn't bringing up any warnings.
"What's on your door?" he demanded, still scanning their surroundings.
"It's a lock," Kai explained slowly.
"I figured that," Thorn's response was dry. "What kind of lock and who put it there?"
"How do you know I didn't?"
"Body language, tension, and observation, now focus," Thorn commanded. "Who put that lock on your door?"
"Probably Ark," Kai admitted with a sigh. "It's for me to practice slicing."
The answer was so far beyond anything Thorn had been expecting that he actually let the barrel of his blaster drop toward the floor as he turned to face her. He repeated, "Slicing?"
"Yeah, I'm over-" Kai stopped her sentence halfway through. "You know what? I don't want to explain this to you."
"Do it anyway," Thorn advised. "Because I'm not leaving, otherwise."
She crossed her arms, kicking up her chin. Right as Thorn thought he would have to press her again, Kai said quietly, "I'm sick of being the bait. I want to do something useful, like slicing, but I'm not very good at it. Ark is trying to teach me and she's big on practice. She bought me this lock and said it would give me motivation to learn."
"So, she put a practice slicing lock on the door to your apartment. You would have to use your new skill to get inside," Thorn summarized. It sounded like something that his vode would do. He silently supported the endeavor even as he mentally noted the implication that Kai and Ark worked as some kind of team.
Still, Thorn holstered his blaster and gestured at the door. He took a step to the side so she could access the lock. "Well, go ahead. Slice."
Kai looked at him, eyes severe. "I'm not any good at it and I'm tired. Do you know anything about slicing?"
"Not a thing," said Commander Thorn of the GAR, official head of the department overseeing arrests and difficult extractions that often included slicing.
"I could get a hotel room for tonight…" she mused.
Thorn rolled his eyes. She was as dramatic as Hound. "Or you could just try it. Your friend wouldn't put an unsliceable lock on your door, would she?"
"Probably not," Kai agreed with palpable reluctance. She sighed and pulled a small set of tools out from behind a potted plant in the hallway as Thorn watched with growing amusement.
Kai placed the scramble key on the back of the lock, but it was backwards and wouldn't work. "What are you doing?"
"Unlocking the door? I'm pretty sure," Kai told him, poking at the lock. "I don't know why the key isn't registering, though."
"Explain the process to me," he invited.
She turned to stare at him, seeming shocked. "You want me to teach you how to slice?"
"Why not?" Thorn asked. "Teaching a skill is one of the best ways to see if you've learned it."
"Fine," Kai huffed. "First, you attach the scramble key to the back of the lock… oops. That's definitely backwards. Anyway! Once the system has registered the key, it can start running possible combinations. Then your only job is to keep the security systems from booting you out."
Thorn watched the process, trying not to smile as Kai clumsily shut down security checks and shutdown attempts. Her methods weren't pretty, but they were effective, and the lock dropped from the door after a few minutes of work.
He retrieved the lock and the scramble key for her, taking a moment to study the key close-up. Thorn hadn't seen anything like it before. That was impressive, considering how much of his job revolved around slicing attempts. The key was homemade, like all the best scramble keys were, but on a level that told him how well the maker understood the process of slicing.
"Interesting key," he commented, hiding his interest. "Where did you get it?"
Kai glanced at it, unimpressed. "Ark gave it to me. She said it was trustworthy."
So Ark was a slicer. If she had been the one who made that key, she was kriffing good at it, too. Thorn made a mental note to ask Thire about the woman he had been spending so much time talking to. A moment later, that and all other coherent thoughts left his mind as Kai turned back and asked, "Do you want to come inside?"
He stared at her, dark brows furrowed. "You don't like me."
"I don't like when you mock me," she corrected. "But I like you just fine. Plus, you aren't arresting me when we both know you could. I think that's worth a cup of caf. Maybe even a cookie."
"Maybe even two cookies," he joked, following her into the apartment.
Kai gave a teasing scoff over her shoulder. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves."
Author's Note - Poor Kai. That would have to be a pretty hefty blow to your ego! Good thing Thorn was the one to respond - even if he did lie about knowing how to slice. On that note, do you know who knows nothing about slicing? Me. So if anyone is an expert about the process and this reads poorly, I'm sorry! I just started playing Republic Commando and did a lengthy skim on the Wikipedia page about slicing, but that's the extent of my knowledge.
Thank you to those who have favorited or subscribed to this story so far! Special thanks to my commenters on last week's chapter: KarajeJinsta and dieFabuliererin! You guys always make me smile when I read your comments!
Thank you for reading! I hope you had a great Star Wars day yesterday and that you'll have an even better day ahead of you. I'll see you next week!