(04/04/05 - Small edit toward the end of the chapter, as was suggested to me. And you're right, it does sound better this way. :) )
Chapter 4 - Mira
"Well, good thing that's not a trap!" quipped Atton.
"No, Atton, I think it is a trap!"
Atton closed his eyes and took a deep breath. There was nothing that would ever help this kid. Nothing. Wouldn't know sarcasm if it bit him in the ass. Maybe he would make a good Jedi after all. None of them had any sense of humor either.
Atton, Mical, Bao-Dur, Mandalore, Kreia, Visas, and T3 were all gathered around the Exile. T3 had received a message from an Exchange representative, a Quarren named Visquis, and he had immediately contacted Jena on the comlink. Visquis wanted to meet with her, alone, at the Jekk'Jekk Tarr – the Jekk'Jekk Tarr being a bar filled with cyanogen gas, which, while harmless and even pleasant to aliens, had the unfortunate side effect of causing death in humans. Visquis had been a little vague about his reason to meet with Jena (Everywhere I go, I'm surrounded by cryptic people, had thought Atton), but he had said enough to get her attention. The Exchange was also known for having put the bounty on her head, so she wasn't about to miss this opportunity to find out why.Unfortunately, in addition to being filled with toxic gas, the bar was also frequented by aliens who typically didn't like humans, thus making the situation even more difficult. Jena decided to wear the space suit she had picked up on Peragus, thus preventing her from being exposed to the noxious gas, as well as from being attacked by the aliens, since her identity would be concealed.
"Well, trap or not, this is the only way I'm going to find out why all those damn bounty hunters are after me," stated Jena, sounding slightly irritated. She had that determined look in her eyes, the same one Atton had first seen on Peragus when she told him she was going to go through the mining tunnels in her underwear, armed with nothing but a vibroblade. Atton shook his head violently to get the image out of his mind. He had to stop picturing her in her underwear so much.
"Yeah, but… why do you need to know that?" he asked, in an effort to focus on anything but her underwear. Kreia was glaring at him… as much as a blind woman could glare. Was she trying to read his mind again? You've seen everything there is to see!
Jena glanced coldly at him. "If somebody had hired all the bounty hunters in the galaxy to look for you, wouldn't you want to know why and find out who put the price on your head?"
"Good point. But I still don't get why you have to go alone."
"Other than the fact that that's what I was instructed to do? Well, you're probably right about the fact that it likely is a trap; but I don't have many options… besides, someone who puts a bounty out on Jedi might also have an idea as to where Master Zez-Kai Ell could be hiding. I might be able to get the information from this Quarren."
"I doubt he'd want to tell you."
"He wouldn't necessarily have to tell me, Atton," patiently explained Jena.
Oh. Right. The Jedi thing. He was really on a roll today. First, he's a murderer; now, he's a stupid murderer.
Jena turned toward the rest. "All right, well, there's nothing much else you guys can do but wait here for me to come back… hopefully this won't be a long meeting. If I'm not back tomorrow…" She paused and frowned. "Well, never mind that. I expect I'll be back within a couple hours. I shouldn't run into too much trouble with this space suit on. Nobody will be able to tell that I'm human under there, and the gas in the bar won't reach me."
And without any hesitation or even a glance back, she was off. The others slowly started making their way to the Ebon Hawk, and soon Atton, deep in thought, was left alone on the platform. Strange… she didn't seem to behave any differently toward him… well, maybe she was a bit more focused and joked less than usual, but other than that, she seemed just the same. He felt he ought to be glad, but he wasn't sure if he was. It's like she doesn't care that I used to kill her kind on a whim…and she doesn't want any explanation either. Why? He absent-mindedly kicked a pebble off the platform and watched it drop until it fell out of sight. He vaguely hoped it wouldn't fall on somebody's head miles below. Mind you, she's got other stuff to do…if I had this many bounty hunters on my back, I probably wouldn't care much about interrogating me either.
As that last thought crossed his mind, his protective instincts suddenly kicked in. He ran out after her. She was already out of sight. Damn, she was fast. He doubled his speed and caught her just as she was about to disappear into the Nar Shaddaa docks area.
"Jena, hold on!" he yelled after her. She turned around and looked at him curiously. "Here," he said, thrusting a few antidote packs and medpacks into her hand, while trying to catch his breath. "You'll need those if that space suit gets breached or something. If that happens, I want you to get the hell out of there. Forget the bounty hunters, forget the Jedi; I just want you safe."
She looked at him even more intently, like she was analyzing him. Atton started to feel a little uncomfortable. What was she expecting to see?
"Thanks, Atton," she suddenly said, her gaze dropping.
"Hey, no problem… Look…" He paused, and hesitated. She looked up at him expectantly. His heart started pounding in his chest. Now is not the time. Save it for later. "Please be careful," he finally said simply but earnestly.
"I will," she replied soberly.
Atton was standing at the bar in the pazaak lounge; his wish had finally come true. He figured this was as good a place as any to wait for Jena to come out of her "meeting"; and he might even earn a few credits in the meanwhile.
"Give me a shot of juma. In fact, make that two."
He drummed his fingers impatiently on the counter while he waited for his order to arrive. He looked around and saw two female Twi'leks heading straight for him. He raised an eyebrow. They were barely dressed enough for decency. Either these two are inter-galactic hookers, or I've gotten really attractive overnight. This seems a little too convenient.
"So… um… come here a lot?" he said pleasantly to them as they walked up to him. "You two dancers or something?" He added, pointing at their outfits.
"Dancers. Yes… yes, we are," answered one of them smoothly.
Sure you are.
"We noticed you from across the room… wondering why a man like you would come to the smuggler's moon," enquired the other.
A man like me…? Come on! Why would a man like me be anywhere but the smuggler's moon?
"I'm here protecting someone," he replied frankly. "You know… Me and my big bulging muscles," he added sarcastically. "My purpose is to detract the attention away from her, so assassins like yourselves don't harm her."
"Assassins? You think we are assassins?" the first one asked sweetly.
"We are not assassins; assassins kill for money," added the other, just as sweetly. "We merely kill for pleasure."
Atton shrugged. "Well, either way, you're going to have to get past me to get to her… and I'm not about to let that happen."
"That is unfortunate," said the first one sadly, brandishing her double vibrosword.
"I suppose it is," quipped Atton, pulling his blasters out of their holsters.
Atton ran back to the ship. He had to warn the others. The bounty hunters may have had a truce going on, but now that he had killed two of them, there was no way the truce would continue. They were sure to attack – and they were sure to start with them, not with Jena… perhaps hoping to use them to get to her, as the two Twi'lek assassins had. They were all waiting on the platform when he arrived.
"Um… yeah… we have got to go. Now. The bounty hunter truce is off. We can expect company any minute now."
Mical piped in. "But Jena… we can't leave Jena behind. We must go rescue her!"
"She was told to go alone," stated Kreia. Just in case we somehow forgot that part. "We cannot go for her until she has discovered what she needs to know."
"Yes, but…" began Mical.
"Look," interrupted Atton. "I care about Jena just as much as you do, but right now, she's not the one in trouble. We are."
Right on cue, a group of bounty hunters appeared at the other end of the platform. Atton pulled out his blasters again for the second time in less than ten minutes. The apparent leader of the bounty hunters stepped forward and addressed them in a language Atton could barely make out. The only word he could be absolutely certain he understood was "very", which the alien used profusely. He did however figure out that it had been somewhat hostile, for Bao-Dur, who seemed to have understood what had been said, switched his lightsaber on. I keep forgetting she's training him too… maybe that's just because he's not always walking around in a dress, showing off like pretty-boy over there.
Weapon in hand, they all moved toward their assailants.
The last bounty hunter had just fallen face down on the platform when someone else came running. It was a woman, with short, strikingly red hair. She was dressed in a manner that made Atton question whether she was also a bounty hunter or not; but remembering the Twi'leks at the pazaak lounge and their interesting fashion sense, he kept his blasters up. Granted, she did seem unarmed at the moment, but you could never know.
"You can put those blasters of yours away, there, tough boy. I'm not here to attack you."
Atton slowly lowered his weapons and put them away, but still eyed the woman suspiciously.
"I'm Mira," she continued. "I was helping your Jedi friend. We took out Visquis, but… well… now Goto's got her."
"Goto?"
"Yeah… he's the one who put the bounty out on Jedi in the first place… I wish I could tell you where you'd be able to find her, but the truth is, nobody knows where Goto is. Even I only ever saw holograms of him."
"Even you—wait just a minute. Are you a bounty hunter?" demanded Atton, reaching for his blasters again.
"Well, yeah, but that's besides the point. And I told you, you can put those things right back into their holsters," she added, not missing a beat.
"How is that besides the point?" he barked at her. "You were hunting her down, and now all of a sudden, you're magically trying to help us? Forgive me if I don't exactly buy it."
Mira shrugged. "Well, Goto no longer is looking for Jedi, now that he's got your friend, so I'm hardly a threat." Atton scoffed. As if she'd be a threat in the first place. "And the way I see it," she continued, "he cheated me out of my bounty, so I want to get him as much as you do. Besides, you're going to need my help if you're going to track her down… assuming that's even possible."
"Well, it's not like we're about to just give up on her," commented Atton.
"No we're not, so please… if you know anything at all that could help us, we'd really appreciate it," Mical chimed in.
Atton rolled his eyes. Is there any woman he doesn't try to impress?
Mira turned to Mical. She looked a lot more impressed with him than with that scruffy guy with the blasters…
"Well," she replied to Mical, blatantly turning away from Atton, "like I said, the bounty for Jedi is off now, so we can't use that as our way onto the ship. I can't really think of any other way… short of disguising your ship as one of Vogga the Hutt's cargo ships."
"Vogga the Hutt's? Why?"
"Goto has been stealing all of Vogga's cargo ships, I don't really know why. And he seems to know which ones they are too, because they are the only ones that ever seem to get snatched up. He must be tracking their transponder codes. It's the only way."
"So if we got our hands on one of those transponder codes…" began Mical.
"…Then you'd have to retrofit your ship so it has the right transponder signals, and yeah, Goto would snatch you up," finished Mira. "However, there is a problem…"
"Just one?" quipped Atton.
"Getting the transponder code will be hard," said Mira, ignoring Atton. "You'll have to get into Vogga's droid warehouse to get the code… but only droids can get in these days."
Everyone stood quietly for a moment, trying to figure out what they would do.
"Dee-deet!" suddenly exclaimed T3.