Cail and Jax stopped, and noticed an expression of fear frozen on her face. Cail tugged at her arm. "Let's go Nel." She wouldn't shut up about how much she wanted to leave a few moments ago.
The Sklinth didn't move.
Jax cocked his head and walked to stand beside her. "What's the holdup?"
"She won't move," Cail told him. "Is she going to go crazy and kill people like she said?"
Jax shook his head. "I don't know. I don't think so."
"I hope not."
Jax waved his hand up and down in front of Nelkf's face. He received no reaction. "What's wrong, Nel?"
"Something," Nelkf said, her voice seemed far away. "Is very wrong."
"Well, what?"
"Look out!" Cail yelped. Before they had a chance to turn, Cail pushed them both to the ground as red blaster bolts whizzed overhead. Turning to them, he said; "I think I found out what's so 'wrong'."
Nelkf could barely see the people firing on the cantina, there was too much smoke, but to her, they looked like the same goons who had been chasing her. "Necho chee!" she exclaimed.
"It's an ambush!" Jax yelled.
"You noticed?" Nelkf replied sarcastically.
"Well, they're not after me!" Cail told them.
"You sure?"
"Yes! I cover my steps very carefully!" Cail acted as if he were pleading in front of a judge. "They must be after you!"
"Rakson."
Both Cail and Jax turned to face her. "Who?" Cail asked.
Jax shook his head. "It can't be. How could it be? You killed him, Nelkf!"
She shook her head. "That doesn't mean he didn't get the order out for our capture before he died." Her breathing began to grow short and rigid. "They're going to kill me," she whispered. "We have to go!" she started to jump up. "We have to go now!"
"Whoa, Nelkf." Jax pushed her back down. "Stay down, be calm. They might not be after us."
"They are," she told him. "They know we're here. We have to get out!"
"Okay," Cail said, trying to stay calm himself. "Not so bad. There's two doors, see? We'll take the other one." He started to move for the back door, cautiously and carefully.
Jax tugged at Nelkf's sleeve. "Come on, Nel. This way. Follow Cail and keep your head down."
Nelkf complied. As she moved along, she winced each time she put her hand down. Jax noticed. "You should get a bandage for that," he told her.
Nelkf ignored him. The wound had stopped bleeding a bit, and if it got infected, she would fight it off. If not, so was the greater good.
Jax saw that the look of terror was still haunting her face. But now, it seemed mixed with thought. She's really frightened. I wonder why that is. What has she done?
"They figured out who I am," Nelkf whispered.
"Why should that matter?"
The trio ducked for cover behind an upturned table. Nelkf shook her head. "Maybe sometime I'll tell you. But now is hardly that time."
Cail un-holstered his blaster and started to fire back at the goons. "Look," he said mock-calmly, "I hate to break up a perfectly interesting discussion and all, but we need something to slow them down."
Nelkf's eyes lit up. With her good hand, she reached into her pocket and pulled out the small grenade she had stolen on their escape. She held it out to Cail. "Will this do?"
Cail grinned maniacally. "Yeah," he said with an evil grin, "that'll do just fine."
"Hey, wait." Jax took it from Nelkf's hand, making sure Cail wasn't about to get his hands on an explosive device. He glared at his friend. "We only want time for a get-away, not to bring the whole cantina down on top of us." Cail nodded, but he didn't seem too sure.
Jax pried open the explosive casing and removed a few key parts. Shutting it back up, he handed it to Cail. "There. Now it won't explode, but it'll create a smoke screen and keep them on their toes."
Nelkf scowled. "But now it's a dud." she observed.
Jax grinned. "Right, but they don't know that."
Cail frowned, but readied himself to throw the dormant grenade. "Only you could take all the fun outta something that goes 'ka-bang'." he muttered.
Cail threw the little once explosive into the middle of the floor. Some of the goons made a mad dash out of the cantina, and some others hit the deck. The grenade itself gave a small hiss and began to spray smoke all around. Cail blinked in surprise, and then laughed. "I'm ready to eat my words. That was cool!"
Nelkf glanced at Jax. "How did you do that?"
Jax shook his head. "My parents owned a mechanic shop. I learned a lot about machines." The smoke was beginning to thicken. Soon it was hard to see. Jax nudged Nelkf. "Come on, both of you. We better get out of here before the smoke clears."
Nelkf nodded, and she and Cail followed him out.
The heat and light of the Tatooine day struck them suddenly, and made Nelkf wince, she had been born on a jungle world, and her species was more accustomed to humid climates then ultra dry ones. She shuddered.
Jax glanced around, and was about to signal them to leave the doorway, when he caught a movement out of the corner of his eye. He turned, then cursed aloud at what he saw.
One of the goons was rounding the bend and was about to call out to his friends when a blaster bolt struck him in the throat. A second bolt followed the first and sank into the goon's rib cage. The man fell over without so much as a peep.
Jax looked and saw Nelkf holding a blaster aimed still in the goon's direction. He looked puzzled for a moment before she explained.
"Had to destroy the vocal cords first or he would have screamed. The second shot was just to finish him off quickly," she told them. "We haven't got time to sit around and watch him suffocate to death."
Jax regarded her strangely for a moment, then decided she did have a point, no matter how twisted it might be. He turned his attention towards Cail, who was looking at Nelkf with no less then horrified confusion. Jax called their attention. "Okay, great. But how are we going to get out of here? We can't stay in Mos Eisley and get chased all over by these goons. How are we going to get transportation?"
"I saw two swoops a little ways down the street," Cail offered. "We could hot-wire them, but I'd need your help, Jax."
"What do you mean 'help'? I'm the mechanic. I'll be the one doing all the work," he said jokingly. To Nelkf he said; "You stay here, we'll be back."
"And if you're not?" As much as I hate to admit it, I'm starting to like this friend of yours. And you, Smuggler.
"Use your judgment," Jax said calmly. "If we're not back in a while, just come looking for us. Okay?"
Nelkf was going to say something in response, but she didn't have the chance. Jax and Cail were already gone, and she was alone. This is not a good thing, she decided. Checking her blaster's power, she discovered that it was nearly finished off. Okay, that does it. I'm not waiting around here. Besides, they could use my help, can't they? Well, if not, that's their problem.
With that thought firm in her mind, she began to follow Jax and Cail around the bend and out of the alleyway. She stepped out onto the street-
-And was nearly run over by a swoop. She leapt back and prepared to snarl something nasty at the driver, only to find that the driver was...Cail?
Jax spun the other swoop around the corner and offered Nelkf a hand up. "Come on Nel, get aboard."
But Nelkf was not done with Cail yet. "You jerk!" she snarled. "You ass! You half-baked, rancor-kissing, glitbiter idiot!"
Cail laughed. "Save the compliments for later."
"You could've killed me!"
"But I didn't," Cail countered. "So there's no harm done, right?"
Jax shook his head. "Come on, Nelkf. Let's go."
"Where are we going?" She asked.
"To a place where I can get some parts for my ship," he replied. "It's not that far."
"Not far as in 'in town?'"
Jax helped her climb onto his swoop. "Not far as in 'in Anchorhead.' Far enough away that we won't get caught, near enough that we won't die of old age."
Cail and Jax gunned the engines of the swoops and the small crafts sped off into the streets of Mos Eisley.
Something had been nagging at Jax's mind. It was the fact that Nelkf was just a little too vicious to be a Y-wing pilot. She was just too good at killing. She was so cold-blooded about it, it almost scared him. And she had actually explained how she had killed the goon and kept it silent. Where had she come from? He had only one way to find out. "Nelkf, who are you that the Imps want to kill you so bad? What did you do?"
Nelkf sighed heavily. "I'm sorry Jax, I'd like to tell you, but I don't know if I can."
"It's okay, you can tell me."
Cail glanced at her from his swoop, missing a Jawa crossing the street by chance. "Hey, tell me too."
Nelkf clenched her injured hand and winced at the pain. "No. Not yet, not now. Some other time, maybe."
Jax shook his head. "I get it. You think I won't understand. Nelkf, I'm a smuggler, I'll understand."
Nelkf let the animal growl grow in her throat as she spoke. "Jax, don't you get it? I just don't want to talk about it yet!"
Cail clicked his tongue, barely hearable over the din of the swoops. "I know the feeling. Can you at least tell us why they want you so bad?"
Nelkf let out a hiss. "That's kind of something that involves an explanation of my life. What I will say is that I was in trouble with Imperial loyalists before, and now that they know that I'm alive, I'm in worse trouble."
Jax laughed. "Aren't we all?"
"Not to my knowledge," replied Cail. Squinting over the horizon, he let out a small whistle. "Uh-oh."
"What uh-oh?" Nelkf questioned nervously. "I don't like uh-ohs. They don't mean good things."
"What is it?" Jax demanded, slowing his speeder.
"Speeders," Cail muttered. "it's those goons. We're in trouble."
Nelkf squinted into the sunlight. "How many are there? Maybe we can fight them."
"Maybe four. Moving fast." Jax shielded his eyes in the sun. "It looks like they might have blasters. I don't think we have much of a fighting chance."
"Do they see us?"
Before either Jax or Cail could reply, a laser bolt ripped between the swoops, turning the sand it hit into a tiny patch of glass. Jax slammed his foot down on the accelerator and the swoop lurched forward at an alarming speed. Cail did the same. "Yeah," muttered Jax, "they see us."
