Drenched
by shike77

Chapter II
- Recollect -

Notes: Okies. Due to semi-popular demand, I have continued. This chapter was originally meant to be a lot longer, but I got thrown a bone and decided the second half had almost nothing to do with the first, so eleven pages or so got cut somewhere around the middle. The other part is being worked on, and it is not finished. (innocent smile)

Again, this is more about the Exile than Atton. Eh. And not about the romance, if that disappoints any of you. That might come in the future, but not right now. Not a romance fan, myself. And notice how the genre is now humour/angst instead of just angst? Yes, there are funny things inserted in between. (innocent whistling)

Mn, further note—Saer isn't an interpretation of Exile. This is Saer thrown into the Exile's role, and how she would handle it. There seemed to be some confusion about that, so I wanted to clear that up right now.

Alright. The amount of description thrown into Ki's section of this piece doesn't represent what's shown on the screen. Her thoughts and feelings are not displayed to Atton or T3, who merely see what Ki sees during that segment. Just to clear that up beforehand.

Thankies for the reviews, all! (Waves) Enjoy!


Atton stretched as he walked through the Ebon Hawk, the loud cracks that resulted from each shoulder not even causing a wince. Maybe he could get a massage somewhere, while they were still on Nar Shadda…

He halted that thought once he spotted Saer, sitting on a chair that was pulled up to a workbench. Her arms were folded and her head resting in them, her shoulders rising and falling in the gentle rhythm of sleep. Her jacket lay discarded on the floor beside her, and the long sleeves of her shirt were shoved back past her elbows. A small droid lay on the workbench, its head removed and circuitry exposed. Her pet project, he remembered, that she'd picked up on Dantooine. She'd paid a considerable amount of cash for that piece of junk, and right after she'd turned down a fake holocron, too.

At first he'd thought it some bizarre statue, but now that there were actually wires exposed he saw that it really was a droid. In one piece, it reminded him of some of the beasts he'd seen exported from Onderron—just one hell of a lot smaller. It had a long neck, with a reptilian face and body. It sported a torn pair of wings that might have resembled a bat's, some of the black, metallic-looking substance still clinging to their structure. Maybe it was modeled after the Krayt Dragons of Tattooine… the face was longer, though. More narrow, with a small pair of horns that failed to look menacing. It had empty eye sockets, and Atton thought that the structure looked… off, for putting screens in there. Maybe he'd ask her about it later.

He heard the soft whir of T3 behind him, and he turned around. The droid beeped at him, and then Atton scowled. "Shaddup," he hissed, glancing at Saer as she stirred slightly. "She's asleep."

The Exile remained as she was, assuming the rhythm of sleep after a small moan. Once he was positive she wasn't tricking him, he picked up the droid's head, examining it scrutinously. Maybe there was something on it… she was awfully quiet about this thing, even though she'd paid good cash for it.

He turned to the droid beside him, who was getting as good a look as he could at the top of the workbench from his height. Atton gestured with the hand holding the head, then thumbed back towards the main hold. T3 beeped, quietly this time, and left the room after Atton.

"Anything on it?" Atton asked once the droid was hooked up to the small head. The trash compactor beeped at him, then used his small, retracting arm to hook the other droid's head up to the main holographic display.

"A recording…?" Atton wondered, startled. Well, this was as good as anything…

::-;;-::

The little droid opened its eyes, slowly, as the door opened and closed. It blinked blearily, twin views flickering on and off as it gathered what little light remained in the dark room. Someone forced open the blinds, and brightness flooded into the room. K1-K1 shook her head, and chimed slightly at the sudden rush of power that fluctuated through her systems. She folded her wings, gazing oddly about the room.

Friend was standing up, slowly, from his cross-legged position on the floor. What was the word… Meditation? This was a new habit, but Friend, she had learned, was full of suprizes. Everything changed, with humans. But a droid just got used to those sorts of things.

"Uh, what are you doing?"

The girl by the window glanced back at Friend, then shook her head. "What does it look like? I'm gettin' the hell outta here, idiot."

K1 chimed innocently, glancing from Friend, then back to the girl.

Friend blinked at her, curiously, then stepped forward. "Why?"

"I gotta find my gang, then we can catch a ride on the nearest cargo freighter and high-tail it off this rock."

He blinked at her, tilting his head to the side. "… So, you're not supposed to be here?"

She snorted. "Engine-slime, you really are an idiot." She glanced back at him past the massive mess of her red-streaked blonde hair, her eyes barely visible, as she tinkered with the window's lock system. "We hitched a ride on a Jedi ship. And, 'cause they're Jedi, they found us. Told us they wouldn't turn us inta' spacedust if we 'greed to come n' be Jedi or whatever the hell you guys do here. So, we're here, we got fed, and I think it's time to leave now. I just have to find out where everyone else is."

Friend seemed to think on that for a moment as the girl swore at the window control panel, then looked at K1. "Ki, do you think you can help?"

The girl glanced over at him, confused, then saw K1, perched on the bed behind Friend. The droid's bell-like voice jingled out a small, short melody of affirmation.

"Wow," she whispered, obviously impressed. "What kind of rich bags did you come from to get a scrapper like that?"

Friend sighed, picking up K1 and absently tickling one of her wings. "My dad built her and Li for mine and my brother's birthday."

The girl looked over the droid, momentarily distracted from the window control panel. Friend smiled, sadly, then held K1 out. The little droid curled and uncurled her long tail, whistling a small melody.

"This is K1-K1—or Ki, for short. Ask her nicely and she'll open it for you. Scratch her wings and she'll use the mainframe to find your friends. Right, Ki?"

The droid nodded vigorously, her eyes glowing. The girl scowled at them both, but hesitantly held out her arms. K1 jumped from Friend's into hers, an easy chord or two ringing out from her vocabulator.

"Can you help me find my friends?" she asked, tentatively dropping the 'tough girl' tone and adopting a soft, polite act. After a moment's hesitation, she gingerly ran her fingers along a partially outstretched wing. "Please?"

K1 crooned a long, wavering note of appreciation, and the girl laughed. "They're soft," she whispered, amazed. "What are they made out of?"

Friend shrugged as the droid suddenly stood up and hopped over to the window. She dug her claws into small outlets and started to whistle tones, changing rhythm, note and tempo at what seemed to be her whim.

"I dunno," he replied, "but Dad told me that's how she gets power. Heat or light touching her wings, or something like that. She really likes our body heat, for some reason."

The droid interrupted with a quick melody as the window slid open. The girl grinned, swinging her legs out of the window and hopping to the grass outside.

"Alright! Where's this main-thing?"

Friend landed less gracefully and with a small 'oof' of protest. "In the main complex," he answered, holding out his arms and catching K1 as she followed. She spread her wings, gathering in the light and warmth of the day, crooning a happy ditty as she stored the converted energy within her power cells. As Friend stood, she clambered onto his shoulder and perched on the back of it, content to be in the light and warmth, observing everything around her with twin bright, crystal eyes.

"Ki, let me know if anyone's coming, okay?" While she chimed a reply, he started to run in one direction, gesturing for the girl to follow. "This way!"

They raced each other through the courtyards of the Dantooine enclave, hiding in bushes or behind walls as anyone else came by. Every once in a while K1 would pop her head above a bush and sing a small melody of greeting to anyone they knew. Older Jedi just shook their heads in amusement at the two children and the small droid.

By the time they arrived at the main building, Friend had to stop and catch his breath. Even as he leaned over, hands on his knees for a small break, the girl grabbed his arm and started to drag him through the hallways.

"We don't have time for that!" she hissed, sounding only slightly winded, but paused to listen outside a door that was left ajar. "What goes on in here?"

"Meeting room," Friend gasped for breath, "for people coming to talk to the Masters."

She gestured for him to be quiet, then, and K1 dimmed her eyes so that her light wouldn't give them away in the dark hallway.

"I'm afraid that it will take some time to assure the authenticity of these papers," Master Kavar was saying, but he was out of sight. According to her heat sensors, there were three other people in the room.

"I assure you, Master, that you will find nothing wrong with them," someone speaking in heavily accented Basic. Friend seemed unaffected, but the girl paled noticeably at the sound. K1 registered the voice pattern as 'possibly bad' for further reference.

"Nonetheless," Master Vrook's voice rang out, "There are precautions we must take. We did find her and four other children as stowaways on our vessel, and by the looks of them they are quite well adapted to their choice of lifestyle—and that includes the one named Haelyhh."

The girl hissed, unhappy with this turn of events, then grabbed Friend's arm and dragged him down the hallway.

"We don't have any time," she growled, fishing a short knife out of a well-hidden pocket. "He's come for Hael." She toyed with it a moment, as if testing its usefulness, and then slipped it up her sleeve.

"Who?" Friend panted, staring wide-eyed at the place where the knife had been.

"Some idiot slaver."

"A what?" Friend asked, startled, and slightly afraid.

"A slaver. Some idiot who thinks she's somethin' to be bought n' sold like an animal—and thrown away until he's got a use for her again."

"I knew that," Friend grumbled, "It's just that a slaver, here? I never thought…"

She snorted at him, interrupting. "Kid, when you've been to as many worlds as I have, one rock ain't so much better than the next. Slavers got ships. They take kids from the nice places and stick 'em in the bad places. Using things like fake adoption papers."

K1 found the voice's wavelengths within her memory core and associated them with 'very bad—protect Friend from at all costs.'

"So, he's chasing you? Because he thinks he owns this girl?"

"No, 'cause she saw somethin' she wasn't s'posed to. She was repairing droids in his computer-thing, and she saw all the information that got put in and took out. She's got a droid's memory, yaknow. She can't forget what she reads." She shook her head. "And she likes to read."

Friend was quiet, for a moment, then stopped. "Take a left, here."

They ran down a few more hallways, changing directions at Friend's command. They were forced to stop and hide frequently in vacant rooms, or sometimes backtrack and take different paths, much to Friend's obvious frustration. K1 recognized that they weren't allowed in this building without Jedi supervision, which they seemed to be without, and so she kept her eyes dimmed and melodies to herself.

Eventually they did manage to make their way to the mainframe room—but it was crowded with people. Friend winced, knowing that they'd be caught as soon as they walked in there.

"Alright, all we gotta do is pull the alarm-"

"No," he interrupted, "that would shut off the mainframe. And then they'd have to turn it back on again, and then your friend would be gone."

"She's not my friend," the girl grumbled, glancing at K1. "Hey, you know what she did with the window? How did she do that?"

"Security?" he shrugged. "I dunno… but-" He stopped, then. And glanced back over at the droid.

"Hey, Ki, I need you to do me a favour…"

The droid chimed at him, innocently enough, stretching her wings a bit. Friend took the hint and rubbed his fingers along the sensitive membranes. As she crooned, the girl snickered.

"She's got you whipped, kid."

Friend sent her a glare, then whispered to K1, "Alright, we need you to set off the fire alarm in another complex—that way, everyone should leave here, giving us enough time to get what we need and get out. Can you do that?"

She nodded, and he put her on the floor. She scampered through the doorway, dodging feet and other miscellaneous appendages galore as she made her way to the nearest console. She opened the circuitry panel and slipped inside. It took her a few moments to get settled, and then to find the right pitches, but soon alarms were blaring in the meditation building half a complex away. The room quickly cleared, and Friend and the girl ran in, looking around. She chimed at them, waiting for further instruction as they jogged over to her.

"When did you and your friends get here?"

"Yesterday," the girl replied, reaching out to scratch an outstretched wing of K1's in thanks. The droid slipped back inside, pitched a few notes out, and chirped as the images were displayed on the screen. Friend and the girl crowded around the computer, each having to stand on their toes to see the screen properly.

"Alright, so-"

The words froze on Friend's lips as a group of men materialized around them, the sound of ten stealth field generators neatly turning off, one by one. K1 felt like mimicking the sound, but Friend looked pale at the sight of them. Why? Were they a bad thing?

"Thanks, kids, for getting everyone out of here for us," one of the newcomers spoke, moving towards them. "I think we can even give you a treat for helping us out."

The girl grabbed Friend's arm and bolted towards the door—at which they were immediately stopped by another materializing sentient—a Trandoshan, who hissed and reached for them. It clicked, somewhere in K1's processing core, that these people meant to give harm to Friend and the girl.

There was no time to call for help, or to hack into the computers. No time to find a way around it. So, she did the first thing she could think of. She screamed.

It was a high-pitched, squealing sound that caused everyone in the room to grab their ears (or similar structures) in pain, the sound piercing above any other in the room. It carried into the hallways, to the ceiling—and mainly, to the fire-suppression systems.

So there sat an impromptu group of frozen statues, all of sentients of one species or another clinging to their skulls to get rid of the noise—a semi-circle within which sat two completely unharmed children, blinking confused at the display in front of them.

Chiming an innocent melody to herself, K1 scampered over to Friend, who picked her up rather stiffly.

"What just happened…?"

"Your droid just saved our asses, that's what!" the girl grabbed his arm again and pulled him past the frozen Trandoshan. "We gotta reach the others!"

"But these guys are all-"

"Have you been chewing spice?!" the girl hissed, "What kind of idiot would only send a couple of lackeys into a Jedi enclave?! Whatever they're after, we're not stickin' around for it!"

"We?" Friend chorused, but either he was ignored or she just didn't hear him. He shook his head, then, and tugged her down a side hallway. "Follow me," he grumbled, taking the lead. "You have no clue where you're going."

They stumbled out into the sunlight, and Friend slowed a pace or two to gather his bearings. Alright, they'd just come out the east exit into the west courtyard… The buildings they were headed for were…

"This way!" he took off down a path, then abruptly slipped through a hole in an old hedge that was easily twice his height. "Be ready to run if anyone sees us, because I don't think we have time to take the back ways!" he shouted back at her as she followed after, hot on his trail.

Luckily, anyone who might have felt the need to stop the children was gathered near the meditation building, trying to figure out just why the alarms were sounding without end, so they made it to the first building in no time. This was the first dormitory on their list—Haelyhh, whose room was in the middle of the complex.

"Here's the first room," Friend commented as he stopped, leaning over to catch his breath.

The girl was quick to pull a long, thin wire out of her hair, from behind her ear, twist it a little, and then jam it into the slot for the card. She pressed a button, and the door slid open. A wide-eyed Twi'lek girl sat in a corner of the room, her knees pulled up to her chest. She looked up when they came in, saw the blonde and tackled her in a hug. K1 approximated the girl to be four or five standard years old, based on what she knew of Twi'lek children. Which wasn't much.

"It's okay, Hael," the girl soothed, gently running her hand along the beginnings of the Twi'lek's head-tails. "It's alright. We're going to be on our way, soon, and we can leave this place behind. Go back to stealin' and stowin' away, just like we used to."

"He's in there," the little girl whispered, so quiet that K1's highly advanced sound receptors could barely find the wavering pitches.

The blonde girl swore as she moved the Twi'lek child behind her, eyes narrowed at the spot where a Twi'lek male materialized out of nowhere. Stealth Field generators. K1 made careful note in her memory core to learn to distinguish heat signatures of a sentient being in stealth from the environment around them.

"Now, children, you've been a rather intriguing nuisance to me."

K1 stiffened. The voice pattern was recognized as 'extremely dangerous—protect Friend from at all costs.' Her head darted around the room, looking for anything she could use to defend them. No fire suppression systems in sight… She was out of luck, there.

She flared her wings from her position on the left of Friend's back and shoulder, the short, spitting sounds of a snare drum emanating from her vocabulator. All in all, not a threatening sound.

Several others appeared behind them, and she started a low rumble in her throat—almost like a drum roll, but not identifiable to those without a fine ear.

The little Twi'lek was snatched up before anyone could do anything—the human girl launched herself at Haelyhh's captor, but was grabbed by two Trandoshans. She fought them like a caged animal while Friend backed away, his eyes darting around as he looked for a way to help. She could feel his heart pounding, see the sweat starting to glisten on his skin. He was terrified.

"K1, you're going to meet your friend, soon. He's strong in many ways, but not in the ways that will allow him to protect himself. He has to learn how to be safe, little one. Until then, you need to protect him in all ways under your power. If you can't, there's a song you need to sing. Anyone strong enough to help will come—if they can hear it."

Master was right, she knew instinctively. Master would never lie to her—not about Friend. She had no doubt that help would come, if she called, but she hesitated nonetheless. What if help didn't come in time?

She started spitting and hissing as they advanced on Friend, flapping her wings in a threatening manner. They only laughed at her, and the nearest one reached out to smack her away. She lashed out, claws raking the skin on his hand and drawing blood so quickly that the movement was a blur. The Trandoshan snarled, withdrawing for a moment. The two who were moving towards Friend hesitated, glancing at each other.

A moment was all she needed. She began to whistle, a high-pitched sound that transcended the hearing of most sentients—only those who had the skill to hear it could, as long they were within a certain distance. The little Twi'lek stared wide-eyed at K1, and the furious human girl paused in her defiant struggles only a moment. Friend glanced at her, confused, but had run out of space to back up—he was against a wall, and the Trandoshans were advancing.

As soon as she was finished her plea, she snarled and launched herself from Friend's shoulder to the nearest Trandoshan's face. His screams of pain didn't faze her as she ripped the thick, leathery scales from his body, although she did regret the blood that was oozing all over her, now. Friend would have to spend an extra long time cleaning her, and that took away from other things he could be doing.

There was the sound of blaster fire and a searing sensation in her back as the light weapon collided with the metal on her frame. That caused her to freeze up, for a moment, and then she was slapped off her foe's face. Her lightweight body hit the wall and then crumpled to the floor.

She heard Friend cry out, but the sound was muffled. She shook her head, her view flickering for a moment, and then she leapt to her feet, scrambling for a moment before finding what she was looking for.

There was a blaster pressed against the little Twi'lek's head, and the sentient with the bad voice was holding it. The human girl was still, her heart beating wildly in spite of her forced calm demeanor. Friend was impossibly still and pale, held back by a single Trandoshan, the blood dripping onto his scalp.

"Now that I have your attention," the bad one smirked, pressing the blaster closer to the whimpering child. "You've given me a lot of trouble, little girl. And all for what you've got right here, inside your head." He tilted his head to the side, moving the gun to below her jaw. "All just to blow it off."

Friend was staring at the gun. Stilling his breath. Trying to focus on it. K1 had seen him try to move objects with his mind, before—his teachers wanted him to. He'd only managed, thus far, to move a lightweight block a matter of inches. This was no block sitting on a table, but a heavy blaster pistol. And there was much more than inches he needed to move—maybe a foot, if he got lucky. If she moved, the girl was dead. They just needed a distraction…

"Sir, we can't reach the others on the com," a Bith commented, examining the device in his hands carefully. "All I'm getting is static."

She looked back over to Friend. No, he wasn't strong enough on his own. Where was help? Where?

The blaster's point moved from the Twi'lek girl to the speaker. "Go find them, then!" he snapped, waving the weapon around. "And report back immediately if something goes wrong!" His grip was loose, relaxed. In his mind, he'd won.

He moved the weapon back towards the girl. "Now, where we left off…"

The blaster suddenly flew out of his hands and K1 shrieked at it, causing it to promptly break down—and any other blaster the sentients happened to be carrying. She glanced over at Friend—who had just passed out, held up only by the Trandoshan. K1 screeched, dashing forwards in an attempt to latch onto the leg of his captor.

She was promptly shaken off, however, and this time she landed down the hall. With a small noise of rage, she scrambled to her feet—

—And stopped at the sound of two lightsabers igniting.

Someone stepped over her, robes whirling about him as he moved towards the conflict. "That's enough, Mirroh," Master Kavar spoke, his stance easy and at the ready. "Come quietly and we won't have to harm you."

K1 chirped at them as she darted past, finding Friend where he was lying on the floor and nudging him with her snout. She crooned, softly, a melody for him, glad that she could feel the vibrations of his heart against the floor underneath them, and she knew he'd wake up. She'd protected him—and he'd started to learn how to protect himself. That was all that mattered to her.

::-;;-::

Atton blinked as the screen shut down, the images replaced with static. T3 whistled and beeped in protest, as if he, too, wanted to see more. Atton felt cheated—there wasn't much to see of the girl, so successfully she hid her face from the world by tangles of unevenly cut hair. The boy kept his hair back and his face open, but there was no air of familiarity about him. This girl… he had the odd feeling he'd seen her before.

Atton grumbled absently as the small droid played with the controls a bit, a brief image occasionally flickering into the projector, but it was away before anything could be made out through the static.

"You're pretty useless, you know that?" he sighed, glaring at the dismembered droid's head. What had they called it on the hologram…? Ki or something?

T3 whistled as he finally managed to get the image on screen, but their mutual feeling of elation was temporary—a login screen. Atton glared his disapproval, pulling some programming spikes out of his pocket. Three left. The droid was already whirring and clicking away, off in his own little world, and Atton sighed, pulling up a chair and tapping buttons. This was bound to be a long night…

They worked at it for hours, the droid's gears grinding whenever he messed up, and Atton swearing as quietly as he pleased when he was forced to backtrack. He'd run out of spikes long ago, and the going wasn't easy, but as long as the droid was still there, he wasn't about to move. Droid superiority his ass…