Orphic Verboten
Amber Penglass
Chapter I
To: Luren, Happy birthday, girl! If the last chapter was an unintentional present, think of this chap as an intentional (however late) one. There's a specific present in this chapter, actually… I ended up changing a character's name for ya. See if you can spot her…Enjoy!
Thanks To: Onasi26, Mellyna, LuvsDelkoSpeed, qt3.14159
"Lyn!" The voice that called her name was one that, while unmistakably a child's, was poised and far more mature than the age the short girl's cherubic cheeks and meager stature would suggest.
Aelyn glanced over her shoulder, her practice 'saber still held aloft and prepared to strike the final 'kill' stroke to her opponent. That glance cost her; Tavin, her sparring partner, lashed out and kicked her feet out from beneath her. With a squeal she fell back onto the mat, pouting as Tavin bounced on his heels and pressed his own practice blade to her throat.
"Gotcha!" He cried, his twelve-year-old face smirking triumphantly. Aelyn growled and smacked the metal-and-plasteel mock-up of a real lightsaber aside.
"Yeah, yeah," the younger ten-year-old Padawan growled, attempting to control her anger and indignation at being bested when Master Kavar tossed her a look from across the room. She composed herself, bowed a bit to Tavin, then turned at last to look for Luren's voice. The slender nine-year-old was standing in the entranceway to the learners' training room, her hands clasped elegantly behind her. Even in the bulkifying double shirts, inner robber, thick belt, boots and with her hair shorn to chin length –save the single Padawan braid that was flung back over one shoulder- there was no mistaking the child, even as curve-less and flat as she was, was female. Long lashes brushed against porcelain cheeks when she blinked, and the silky sheen of her hair reflected light like no fine fabric Aelyn had ever seen. Even in the simple clothes of a future Jedi, Luren looked like royalty.
Aelyn would have been hard pressed to control her jealousy of the flawless student, if she weren't her best friend.
"I need to talk to you," Luren's voice, so serious, so beyond her years, chilled the year-older Aelyn when she crossed the room to meet her.
"What's wrong?" Aelyn asked instantly. Luren's only response was to glance nervously to where Master Kavar was correcting a Padawan's stance.
"Come with me," Luren whispered, and turned to leave, her gait quick and urgent.
"Wait!" Aelyn called. Despite the advantage she had on Luren in age, it was the younger girl who had the height advantage. She caught up, gripping her friend's elbow. "What's wrong? C'mon, tell me…"
"Not yet," Luren whispered the kind of whisper a child thinks no one else in the world can hear. "C'mon…"
"Luren," Aelyn whined, still following the raven-haired girl. "Luren…tell me…tell me, Luren…
Tell me…
…tell me…"
"Tell me…" The two words wheezed out from between a pair of dry, cracked lips and an excruciatingly sore throat. For a moment, Aelyn was confused when Luren didn't again tell her to wait, to be quiet, not yet…
Then she opened her eyes, and something she thought she'd left behind long ago clenched at her heart- grief. Then, it was followed by confusion. She hadn't dreamed about her old friends in years…why now?
She shoved aside the question in favor of another, far more pertinent one; where the hell was she? She ached like nothing she'd felt in a long time, and her senses were jumbled and disoriented. In fact, she felt like…
Like she was waking up from being under the influence of heavy sedatives.
"Crap," the burgundy-haired ex-Jedi swore, coughing as the word got caught in her dry throat. Yeah, definitely sedatives…and a nice hard, heavy dose, too. She calmed herself, focusing inward. She needed to get the drugs out of her system if she were to figure out what was going on. And to do that, she'd need to utilize some of her old skills, skills that were nearly useless without the Force, but they were still skills. She'd never be as effective as she'd once been, what with her connection to the Force severed, but she still possessed the nifty skill of getting her body to do what she wanted, more so than the average human. And right now, she wanted her body to finish metabolizing the remnants of unconscious-rendering drug pulsing through her bloodstream.
Part of the process of doing so required an in-depth sweep of her physical condition, which she did quickly enough. But something was off. Something not quite physical, which was why she supposed she was having trouble pin point it…there was something new…
It took her a moment to identify that new thing, it had been so long since she had felt even a smidgeon of it…anything at all… But there it was, like a sweet sound on the barest edges of her hearing…there, yet not quite…coming closer, hovering…
The Force.
The potency with which she suddenly named this ghostly sensation was enough to jolt her the rest of the way out of the remnants of her drug-induced haze. The first thing she realized, side by side with the Force –how was it back?-, was that she was tied to a bed. A bunk, to be exact. She looked up, blinked. Blinked again, squinting at the sturdy mesh ropes that wound and tied tightly around a steel beam above her, her hands tied together in front of her in a series of complex looking knots. With a sigh, Aelyn raised her fists to her teeth, and began to gnaw at the ropes. She wondered if whoever had her knew of her ex-Jedi status… With a sickening lurch, she felt her inexplicably renewed ability to sense the Force –however minutely- make itself known again. All right, so perhaps not 'ex' anymore, though that was a matter of opinion. Some believed a lightsaber and Force sense to be paramount to calling oneself a Jedi. Others, though, believed it to be the mindset, the training, and the poise that matter. If that were the case, then Aelyn was definitely still 'ex' in her opinion.
The further into the rope she got –or tried to get- the more Aelyn realized that this was no ordinary set of ties. In fact, they were completely unlike any knots she'd ever encountered. They were quite new and quite original. And, it seemed, nearly Jedi –even ex-Jedi- proof.
But not Aelyn-proof. Eventually she abandoned all sense of skill and tact, and instead began to chew through the things, going for the more blunt and direct approach, as she'd tended to do for the past four years. She'd had a big, busy mouth growing up –literally and figuratively- allowing her to possess excellent jaw muscles now. It took an eternity, but Aelyn hadn't forced herself to learn the unnatural talent of patience for nothing. Her jaw sore to numbness, her neck screaming, her tongue swollen, Aelyn at last shook her wrists free of the last of the ropes. Her hands free, the knots on her feet went marginally quicker, and she spared herself a selfish moment to massage her aching neck and jaw while swinging her feet over the edge of the bunk.
At last free to get a more thorough look at her surroundings, Aelyn identified the room as a dormitory, the kind one would find on a low-class freighter or economy transport. She should know; she'd been on plenty the past few years. The room was complete with three bunks lining the left side of the room, hers having been the farthest in the corner. The bed farthest from her was rumpled, the bedclothes tossed aside haphazardly and the pillow still bearing the indent of its occupant. Approaching the bed, she let her hand hover in that indent- still warm, she realized with an inexplicable tingle running down her spine.
There was a footlocker across the room. She went to it, making quick work of the lock, which was also as unique as the rope knots, and found inside a pair of men's leather pants, a few shirts, a worn vest, a small sack of credits, what she identified as a noxious tube of hair gel when she'd made the mistake of opening it for a whiff, and a few dirty handkerchiefs.
Since she was in nothing but her skivvies –skivvies that she never remembered owning, nevermind having put on herself, to add insult to injury that some stranger had seen her naked- she pulled on the leather pants and one of the shirts. The pants fit more snugly than she would have liked. Whoever they belonged to was taller and narrower in the hips than she was. Probably a guy, she decided, examining the stitching at the crotch that altered from the way a woman's pants would have been sewn. The shirt was another matter entirely, and she had to fish around for a belt to ensure the thing wouldn't slip off entirely. As it was, one shoulder was left to the mercy of the chilly air, but couldn't be helped. Aelyn took the other belt she found- there wasn't anything else to be used as a weapon, and if push came to shove it would make a passable whip or choking tool.
Hoping the ship was as small as she'd guessed it to be by the sound of the engines and the style of the dormitory (the smaller the ship, the less people to deal with), Aelyn went to the hatch, pleased to find it unlocked. Whoever had put her under had obviously expected her to stay under for some time yet, if the slept-in bunk and the unlocked hatch were any indication. Either that or they were foolishly confident in their knot skills.
With eerie swiftness, Aelyn's old abilities of 'you don't see me' stealth came back to her as she slipped out of the dormitory and into the arched, dark corridor that curved sharply to the right. Peering around the curved corner and spying no one, she moved until she came to a cross corridor. To the right was what was obviously a boarding ramp, raised currently, and to the left was a darkened storage garage. She went to the ramp controls, but didn't touch anything. She would bet that whoever was in the cockpit or security room was watching all the systems. Any unauthorized access would alert them immediately to her wakeful state. Thankfully, the read-out already displayed on the screen told her all she needed to know; the ramp was voice-locked, not that its state being otherwise would have helped her any- beyond the ramp was pure space and vacuum.
So she swung left instead, into the garage. She spied a considerable amount of random storage items fastened to the far wall with netting and ropes. To her right, there was another corridor leading out of the garage, but wherever it led to was hidden from her by the abrupt curve of the passageway. On the wall between her and the other exit was a workbench, not that it was much use to her now…
She glanced suddenly to the junk fastened to the other wall, and with gratitude to whatever deity was watching out for her she went to it and began to rummage through the debris for anything weapon-like or breakdown-able to make one.
Her hopes eventually dashed when she found nothing even remotely useful, Aelyn suddenly started when she heard a noise behind her…
She whirled, falling into a low crouch and pulling her spare belt taught between her fists like the whip it most definitely wasn't. But her tentative outreach with her senses revealed nothing-
Aelyn swallowed sharply, suddenly frightened by how easily she'd used the Force, just now, without really even noticing… It was like a limb had been returned to her, she realized with a pang, one she'd forced herself to forget she'd ever lost. And now that it was back, weak as it was, she found herself using it automatically.
'Not now,' she told herself, taking a deep breath and calming her roiling emotions. 'Not now…deal with this and the whys and hows later…'
She resumed her stealthy trek, wondering why she'd seen no one else yet…so far, the ship seemed to be as small as she'd predicted, so a small crew was predicable, but not one so small for her to have seen no one… Certainly not small enough for there to be no one in the security room, or console if there was no actual room…surely she should have been spotted by now by the various cameras she'd been avoiding…unless her old stealth skills had returned to her more fully than she'd thought. But somehow she doubted it… No, some poor spacer had fallen asleep at his post, most likely. It was the only explanation for why she'd heard no alerts, no alarms, no shouts… It was beginning to grate on her nerves, the utter silence of this ship.
She left the garage the way she'd come in, turning to the left again, keeping snugly to the right, curved wall of the passageway, coming almost immediately to what had to be the main hold. In the center of the crowded room that showed signs of recent repair was a round panel covered in consoles, about half a meter high. It was the kind used for holographic displays, normally of planets or of important transmissions. There was a curved three-seater couch facing away from her on the side of the room closer to her, and various boxes, panels, consoles and footlockers, as well as another passageway directly across from her on the other side of the room.
Wary of a casual crew member strolling down the opposite corridor with nothing between her and them, she glanced into the hold long enough to determine its empty state and slipped in behind the couch, a relatively well hidden position so long as no one came out of the passageway she'd just exited. She waited a minute longer, wondering what to do next. She'd hoped the ship was small, but not this small. A ship this size wouldn't have the escape pods she'd been hoping for. Taking a pod or just releasing it while she found a place to hide until they set down, either plan was useless without a pod.
There was always going back to the dormitory –which she figured was starboard, judging by the layout and guessing where the cockpit was- pretending to still be tied up and then jumping on whoever slept in that one bed when they came back, using him/her as a hostage… But no, enough of Aelyn's Jedi life remained that such a tactic remained unpleasant to her set of morals, what remained of them. But the more Aelyn pondered her situation, the growing uneasiness of her exposed hiding place adding to the pressure, she was forced to admit to herself that it seemed the only way…
Well then, if she was going to do it, might as well take the more direct approach… She peeked out from behind the couch, and saw three other passageways besides the one she'd come in through, and one door to her right that she guessed was a storage compartment of some kind and also looked quite locked. Nevertheless, when she at last moved out from behind the couch she spared a dangerous few moments to try the door. It wouldn't budge, and she went for the passageway nearest it as a process of elimination, glancing down the corridors she would be exposed to when she moved as she did so…
But again, no one. While she'd begun to suspect something was off about this ship, now her suspicions were bordering on being flat out confirmed, even without any evidence beyond a suspicious lack of crew and activity. Aelyn had the sneaking suspicion she was aboard some sort of illegal craft, probably smuggler. It didn't look big enough to be slaver, not judging by the compartments she'd come across already, and it wasn't fancy enough to be one of those freighters that dealt in high-end slaves.
Going on down her selected passageway, she was gratified to see that it had begun to narrow- a sure sign the cockpit was ahead. Almost immediately to her right, Aelyn encountered another room, smaller than the hold and filled to the brim with beeping, flashing, active consoles and panels. A brief extension of the Force told her nothing living or mechanical inhabited the room, then she winced- she'd done it again, using the Force without meaning to… But was that really such a bad thing? Hadn't she suppressed genuinely pleasant nostalgia of the times when she'd wielded it daily…?
'Not now,' she reminded herself again, firmly, and ducked into the room, instantly pleased to realize she'd stumbled across the security room. She slipped inside, looking for the door controls for a moment before realizing that there was no guarantee the gears were well oiled enough to guarantee her safety if she did manage to get it shut…
Instead she settled for swiftly crossing the small room to peer at the multitude of camera feeds flashing across the screen. Since now she knew no one would be monitoring the systems ship-wide, she let her fingers have their pick of the controls, flipping through the feeds through her abandoned dormitory, the garage she'd raided, the empty hold, the closet she'd been unable to unlock –was that a utility droid? Or an astromech droid? She couldn't tell- and then on to the Port dormitory, the cargo hold, the engine room, the medical room, the corridors…
No one.
The ship was completely deserted…
Several things happened at once. One, Aelyn made a sudden grab for a protruding beam out of the wall as she felt the unmistakable pull of a jump to lightspeed. Second, the same time she'd grabbed the beam she'd flipped to the final feed on the cycle, and swore colorfully as she saw too late the only other person aboard this damn ship leave the cockpit, heading… Another feed, and she swore again, turning to hide, to flee-
And came face to face with a wrist-mounted rocket launcher, one that shot three darts in rapid succession at the same time she lashed out with the belt, putting all the skill and intuition she could in the unfamiliar move, managing to land the heavy buckle of the belt directly to her assailant's temple even as she felt the three pinpricks dig into her neck, left breast, right shoulder… She fell, and he fell -right on top of her- the metal room around her swirling even as the dead weight of a man atop her groaned and fell to full unconsciousness only a split moment before she did.
A dream.
It had all been a dream…
Well, part of it at least, Atton was sure, since he knew for a fact that he hadn't woken up half on top of a woman in a while. Had sex with plenty, but he hadn't actually let himself fallen asleep with any in order to wake up next to one, no matter how invitingly cushy the breasts might be…
Bracing himself to open his eyes to figure out just how much of the join-militia-become-Sith-murder-Jedi-meet-stupid-life-changing-Jedi-hide-out-on-Nar-Shaddaa-get-recruited-by-Goto story was a dream.
None of it, apparently. For a split moment, Atton Rand was thoroughly ambivalent about how little this bothered him before reality began to settle in for real, and he realized just who it was he was on top of. Groggy and instantly feeling a heavy throb in his left temple, Atton rolled off his still unconscious Jedi prisoner, swearing softly but colorfully the whole time, placing one hand to his pounding head…
Then the rest of his senses kicked, as did a lifetime of flying experience and about half a lifetime of pilot's, and with a stifled cry he scrambled to his feet, stumbling his way out of the security room and into the cockpit…
"Shit," the smuggler snarled, throwing himself into the pilots chair and yanking the ship out of hyperspace with a sudden whine of the engines; the red flash on the console had told him they'd long past missed their predestined deceleration point, for some reason. It wasn't uncommon- some object in the way, usual another ship or asteroid that if the computers hadn't sensed and proceeded on into lightspeed they would have crashed into. But that alert had been blaring for…
Atton cursed again; they'd been in hyperspace for the better part of four hours. Wincing as he realized just how hard the Jedi must have hit him, he made a mental note to check himself out as soon as he had the spare time to visit the medical bay, while in the meantime he set to calculating the damage done to their trajectory and overall journey… God help them if he was where he thought they were, which was the middle of nowhere…he'd certainly been aimed at nothing when he'd jumped. It had been a random jump to throw off the not-so-happy Citadel Station police that had chased him with unexpected determination him after he'd stolen an astro chart from another ship. He'd let himself take a nap –close to the Jedi just in case she woke early- only to be awakened by the blaring proximity alarms…
And now this…
Atton scowled, wishing he'd never taken this cursed bounty as he waited for the sensors to bring back the results to the read-out. At the same time he saw the very last thing he wanted to see displayed in ominous red Basic lettering across his read-out panel, a thick leather belt was suddenly looped around his neck from behind, choking him harshly.
'Stupid,' he bashed himself, 'shoulda grabbed the belt while she was still under, or at least jabbed her with another dart…'
But there was little time for self berating at the moment, as Atton twisted with all the agility his lean frame allowed him, coming out of his chair and making a grab not for the belt around his throat but for the wrists and hands guiding that belt, twisting the joins he found until a feminine yelp rewarded his ears and he managed to disentangle himself from the offensive leather strap.
Both of them backed away, a feat in and of itself in the cramped cockpit. The Jedi –who he noticed for the first time was wearing a set of his spare clothes- fell into a wary, ready crouch, backing past the galaxy chart and into the passageway, effectively blocking his exit. That was fine- she'd lost her advantage, he knew, and read quite easily the evidence of fatigue in her movements, face, and her eyes- eyes that were veiled thickly with determination as well as an odd dash of curiosity. Curiosity that, he noted, probably wouldn't keep her from knocking him senseless if he gave her the chance…
Which he didn't. Atton leaped, quicker than she could anticipate given her too recent awakening from three of his darts, but she made a valiant attempt at twisting out reach of his lunge. She was more agile than he'd expected, he realized when he almost missed his grab at her; she was incredibly short and not exactly slight, with the majority of her weight falling to her ample hips and upper torso. Her hands were small, though, and made a surprisingly quick grab for his arm as he went past her, his own hands grabbing at her shoulders as they, together, whirled around in the passageway. Gritting his teeth, he slammed her into the wall across from the security room at the same time she managed to get his wrist launcher off his wrist and toss it clear away, out of sight in the security room behind him.
He stared down at her in surprise for a moment –he'd rigged the lock on that thing himself to prevent what she'd just done. How had she gotten it off so quickly? She stared right back up at him, breathing heavier than was healthy or normal. He wasn't surprised; he'd hit her with three darts where one would have been sufficient to take out a guy twice his size, and he wasn't small. Even after four hours, he was considerably surprised she was awake enough to stand up straight and keep her eyes uncrossed, let alone make an attempt at fighting him…
But then she was suddenly doing more than making an attempt; she brought her forearms up between them and between his arms and shoved them outwards, breaking his hold on her. She dived to the side, ducking and rolling and come up onto bare feet to dart into the main hold, Atton right behind her. He leaped again, tackling her from behind. They fell, and with a sickening thud he heard her head collide with the edge of the large round holo-emitter platform in the center of the room. He rolled her over, sitting atop her and making a wild grab for one of her flailing arms- he missed her other arm, once again underestimating her ability to shrug off mind-numbing things, including the thud that would have knocked a normal man out cold.
But he kept forgetting- this was a Jedi.
How odd- Goto had hired him because he was supposed to be one who wouldn't forget that, and here he was consistently overlooking that little detail. Great employee he was turning out to be. Not that he cared, mind…
Her free hand caught him suddenly in the side of his head, the side she'd clobbered earlier with his own belt buckle, knocking him free of her completely. She rolled out from beneath him even as he fell away, stunned. She got to her feet, backing away. Blinking as his stunned state came and went and he pulled himself to one knee, he saw that she was swaying dangerously. The remnants of the drugs he'd given her earlier, plus the residue of the darts, the fight, and at last the knock to the head was taking its toll.
And yet when Atton got to his feet, wiping away a trickle of warmth from beneath his left nostril, she'd grabbed a nearby pipe that had previously been hidden behind a footlocker, raising it before like the lightsaber it definitely was not. He snorted, spraying blood from his nose, and the Jedi scowled at him.
She was on her last leg, and she knew it. But she stood on that leg with determination and a stubbornness Atton found simultaneously commendable, amusing, and downright irritating.
"You gonna beat me up with that, huh?" he drawled, crossing his arms. The Jedi growled, and lunged- a pitiful attempt at one, anyways, clumsy and exhaustion-hindered, but there was plenty of drive and strength behind it and Atton found himself unexpectedly knocked back, the breath shoved from his lungs as he suddenly found himself neatly pinned beneath a pipe held horizontally across his throat, hands on either end of that pipe pressing down… Glazed eyes above him looked down at him with determination, but no murderous intent. So, knock him out from lack of oxygen, not kill him… He could use that…
He gave a perfectly legit fight, but then slowly –slightly slower than if he were doing this for real- he went lax, slowing his breathing to near nothing and letting his eyes fall slack, but remain open and apparently unseeing. A heartbeat later, the Jedi let up, and checked his pulse. He heard her sigh wearily above her, but it was a weariness born of something other than just physical fatigue and drugs. He found himself feeling curious for a moment, before dismissing it. He didn't care; wasn't his business, and he had no qualms about leaving it that way.
Then she shifted, getting ready to remove herself from her straddling position, and that was when he moved. Quick, smooth, and unavoidable he sat up, spreading his legs to a near side-to-side split to bring them back around behind him, throwing his weight forward. With a second thud he heard that burgundy head collide with metal as she fell backwards beneath him, his hands grabbing hers and pinning them above her. Both of them breathing heavily –Atton had been depriving himself of oxygen for a few minutes, after all- they locked gazes again, and then she did something he had expected least. She gave a low, cat-like chuckle, went slack, and thoroughly and utterly fell completely dead-away unconscious.
He waited a moment to make sure she really was unconscious, not wanting to fall for his own trick. He checked her pulse; quick and flighty but definitely there. He pulled off his own belt and tied it around her wrists. With nothing to tie her feet, he settled for trusting his own strength, which wasn't all that egotistic given her weakened state, even if she should wake up. He hoisted her into his arms o'er the threshold style, rather than over his shoulder like he would have preferred, given that the latter would have left her feet free to kick his face bloody or his groin unusable should she wake up, neither of which was worth risking in favor over the indignity he felt for carrying her lover-style.
Returning to the starboard dormitory, Atton came across his gnawed-apart ropes and knots with something approaching hilarity- the rat had chewed through his ropes? Trying not to laugh at the absurdity of it, he swept the ropes aside with one hand while setting her down, bum-first, on the bunk. He let his hand run through her hair for a long moment, not necessarily to feel the unexpected silkiness of it –women who bore the look of roughing-it-nomads normally didn't bother with luxuries like hair care- but to inspect the double egg bumps rising from the back and side of her skull. Deft fingers probed gently, trying to feel if there was any bleeding beneath the flesh and bone. Determining that there was none, he let her head fall back to the pillow and set to scavenging what he could of the chewed up ropes, biting his lip in amusement the whole time.
Little rat…
Nad Haddu…the only spot of civilization within a week's travel, even in hyperspace. And since Atton had discovered the hard way since settling the Jedi in bed and cleaning himself up –the bruises around his neck would take a while to fade, and swallowing was a chore- that the ship was completely bereft of food and medicine, he really didn't have much choice other than to set down on it. He generally avoided Hutt-controlled planets, Nar Shaddaa being the exception since he knew it so well.
Since there was nothing in the Ebon Hawk's computers about the planet, Atton was forced to draw on his own spotty memory of the place. One of the more out of the way Hutt Boss controlled planets, it was the only habitable rock in it's system, and even then only barely, with most of the bigger cities covered in domes that encouraged the interior atmosphere to be more inviting, which wasn't saying much if he remembered correctly.
Still, the only other planet was a week and a few days, and he wasn't willing to go that long without proper food and medical care, either for himself or the Jedi. He still didn't think those bumps on her head were lethal, but it had been two days now and she hadn't stirred, and he was beginning to worry that she'd fallen into some sort of coma, but without the proper medical equipment, the kind that had been striped from the medical bay, he had no idea for certain. And since he doubted Goto would appreciate a dead or permanently comatose Jedi, something that would probably result in Atton not getting paid, Atton was willing to quell is personal dislike for Nad Haddu long enough to transmit a request for docking clearance as soon as he was within communications range.
God, he could use a shot or two of juma right about now…or even some actual wine would be nice. He had the credits for it, for once, Goto's generous advance sitting comfortably in the footlocker hidden beneath the galaxy map. Maybe he'd hire some muscle to keep an eye on the Jedi for him while he went out for a bit, found himself a nice dancer or two and twice that many bottles of choice juma.
He wished.
With a sigh and knowing he'd probably leave the ship only to buy the supplies and pay the Dockmaster for the repairs and fuel he planned on getting while he was there, Atton sat back and waited for clearance to land.
There was, Aelyn decided, one distinct advantage she'd discovered to so unexpectedly regaining her Force sense, one of them being a healing trance. Able to pass for deep sleep or even a coma, an experienced Jedi could use it to heal wounds that would normally take weeks, even months, in mere days. As it was, when Aelyn at last awoke all she felt were the faintest trace of a mild headache, as if waking up from a nap after a particularly grueling work out.
Just in time it seemed, too, as she almost immediately after awakening felt the distinct hum of the engines switching 'gears' as it were, going from spatial to atmospheric. She felt the underside repulsorlifts activated with a sharp lurch, and inertia at last relented its hold on her. A moment later, and a soft jolt rocked the whole room. The ship had set down. Where, was the question…
A few moments later, footsteps echoed outside the dormitory, and Aelyn quickly settled herself into an image of perfectly convincing unconsciousness. Force knew she'd been doing it well enough the past few days…even if it had been unintentionally.
She recognized the sense of him immediately. It was the pilot she'd grappled with so briefly and so roughly in the cockpit and main hold, the first to best her in a long time. Granted, she was never very good at hand-to-hand in the first place. Give her a vibrosword, or even just a single vibrodagger and she was formidable, but with nothing? She could hold her own, but her ways of avoiding people at all costs these past four years hadn't done her any good in the way of transforming her academy training into real life experience, something that her opponent had obviously possessed in plenty.
The pilot entered the dormitory, crossing the room in seven quick strides. Deft, calloused hands checked and double checked all the knots that bound her, conveniently locating all of them for her. Her hands were tied, as were her elbows, knees, ankles, and in between. She was well and truly hog-tied this time…
Then he left, and she waited until she'd felt his presence leave the ship entirely, then she opened her eyes and set to work on the knots. Again.
It took her three times as long as the first time to get through just one of the knots on her hands, and she'd had to rest several times- she wasn't as healed as she thought; her head had taken to pounding several times during her quest, a sort of pounding that let her know there had been more damage sustained by her bumps with the holo-emitter and the floor than she'd thought. That, and her teeth were beginning to gain a red sheen from her broken gums. She spat a globule of blood and saliva across the room, wincing as she did so. She'd managed to split one of her dry lips in the process, too…
So, chewing through wasn't going to work this time, not if she wanted any teeth or lips left when she was done.
She thought long and hard, and eventually came to an idea so absurd and far flung into her past it made her grin with the ironic twist of fate and one's youthful, useless pursuits could bring.
Once, when Aelyn had been fascinated with one thing in particular she knew she could never have –as was her habit- she'd discovered that when giving birth, a woman's hips often disjointed completely, that the socket joints of the hips were meant to be dislocated. She'd coupled that knowledge with the skills utilized by many people who didn't want to be caught but often were. Namely, the skill of dislocating one's own shoulder joints by muscle control alone, to better wiggle out of tight situations –usually cuffs of some kind. Aelyn had learned, over a long period of several years, to at will disjoint not only her hips, but her shoulders, wrists, and ankles. The Force helped, so she hadn't attempted fiddling with any of them for over five years, but now that it was back…
With her wrists disjointed completely, it was a simple matter of folding up her already small hands to slip through the tight bonds. A quick succession of disjoint-slip-rejoint had her free of the ropes in minutes, although her aching body and grit teeth made it slow going for a moment once she got to the part that required her to actually stand up and move… But the pain faded, with the aid of the Force –she winced as she used it again, still not accustomed to how easily she was accustomed to it… It was a paradox, and she knew it, and didn't care. Soon as she was out of this damning situation –whatever situation it was- she'd tuck the Force into the back of her consciousness and forget it had ever returned, regardless of why or how it had done so. She didn't care; she didn't want this, not now, not ever again.
The pilot had left her in the pants and shirt she'd stolen, but had taken back the belt; the oversized shirt quickly made its way down over one shoulder, nearly to her elbow. Only the prominent protrusion of her right breast kept the thing from falling off completely. Finding a quick solution and using it, Aelyn knotted up the back of the shirt and twisted it up and under. It left a good portion of her midriff bared, but at the moment she could care less. She did, however, remember the limp, well-worn vest she'd bypassed in the footlocker the last time she'd rifled through it, and she fetched it now and slipped it on. It had the dual purpose of making her look not quite so rag-tag, and aiding her flailing modesty a bit.
Shoes would have to wait, she decided with a wince. Not that she hadn't gone barefoot before, but the last time had been when she'd been a kid growing up on her parent's farm, before the Jedi had found her… Most of her calluses from that time, while still there, had withered away. What remained, though, would have to serve.
Now knowing that there was no one aboard the ship –by experience and sense, now that she'd resigned herself to using the Force for now, Aelyn moved quicker than her last exploration quest from the dormitory to the main hold, through it to the other side of the ship. A quick exploration turned up as little as her first exploration of the first half, certainly no weapons. Thinking back, she remembered the only place she hadn't looked- that oddly locked little storage closet in the main hold. She went back to it, located the pipe she'd used so recently to nearly strangle her captor, and set to smashing the door to bits if necessary.
She was going to get off this ship. Period.
Eventually, the door gave way with an indignant squeal, and revealed to her delight a small rusted up locker-
That proved to be empty. She scowled. Damnit… All right, fine, wherever she was she'd have to avoid people –not a difficult thing for her- to minimize the chance of confrontation until she got her hands on a decent weapon. Preferably something long and sharp...
The hope of finding weapons on the ship finally deflated, she set to contemplating her actual escape from the ship itself… She couldn't try the boarding ramp. They were probably at some sort of re-supply station, and the pilot had probably declared himself as being alone. To waltz on off that way would invite trouble she didn't need. What she did need was to slip away quietly and find passage off…wherever she was. She'd like to find out, if possible, how the hell she'd ended up on this freighter reeking of kolto and under, apparently, the imprisonment of a man that didn't have the look of a bounty hunter of him… Then again, with the bounty she'd heard had been placed on Jedi, it wouldn't surprise her if a few amateurs had tried their hands at it.
She snorted, still trying to think of a way off the ship. Just her luck; a Jedi, a legendary General of the Mandalorian Wars, caught by a rookie…it would fit her pattern of luck in life. But then something caught her memory. Faint, faint enough that it was entirely possible it was a dream or a story she was recalling, not a memory. On board a similarly sized transport ship, outbound from some battleground or other, when all the droids had been occupied by repairs and a tech in an enviro suit had made the trip out onto the exterior of the ship…
Aelyn turned, heading into the bowels of the ship where she assumed the engine would be located. Near it, most likely, would be the lift to the outside of the ship. She nearly ran right past what she was looking for; it was a narrow niche in the wall, with little more than a ladder, a raising pad, and a control console next to it. It took her a brief moment to access the controls, then she'd hoped onto the raising pad the moment it started moving. Above her, the hatch unlocked itself… She calmed her racing heart, praying that the joints were either well oiled or well used and wouldn't make too much of an audible fuss, also praying that wherever she came out wasn't in plain view of someone she didn't want to see her…
The hatch opened. As she'd risen up to it, she'd crouched down so that when the raising pad was flush with the exterior of the ship she was hugging the ship as low as she could. The smells assaulted her first, then the blaring light, then the heat, then humidity of that heat…then the noise…
They'd put down in a space port, all right. The scents of fuel, thousands of unwashed bodies, superheated metal, dirt and grime, lies, greed, and death permeated this place as thickly as the air that carried those scents. The air itself, too, was rancid with a humid heat that had the hairs framing Aelyn's face curling in moments.
She'd forgotten the reason why she'd always avoided the more extremely conditioned planets, going for mild places akin to Dantooine. She hated extreme cold, and she absolutely loathed humidity. Dry heat was fine, but whatever deity thought it was a smart idea to mix water and heat was, in her opinion, desperate for a second opinion that he obviously never got…
Wondering how her thoughts had degraded to contemplating the weather, Aelyn spun, still crouching, to do a three-sixty search. Nothing. There were towering buildings all around her, but none so tall as some places she'd been, and what windows weren't boarded up or broken were dark. Quickly, Aelyn scrambled silently to the edge of the ship a good ways away- the ship looked bigger from the outside, she mussed before peering over the edge she came too, waiting for a tech to disappear into one of the maintanence sheds. To her right, she spied a huge refueling pipe hooked up to the ship. That would take a while, she guessed. She estimated she had about an hour before her lovely pilot found her missing…plenty of time to get clean away.
Doing her best to radiate a 'just another tech, don't mind me' vibe, Aelyn slipped over the edge of the ship, dropping down into it's shadow and skipping backwards to duck behind one of the landing feet. She waited a heartbeat, extended her senses –all of them, one with a wince- to make sure no one was coming directly her way, and darted out again to skid behind a pile of filthy, decomposing wooden crates. The ground she scampered over might have been solid duracrete, once, but now it was little more than a coalition of cracked stone and hard packed dirt, with a layer of rain-wetted grime to act as a sort of unintentional sealant.
She went on to slip behind another pile of crates further on along the wall that she had identified as being circular- the landing pad hosting the ship was a big circle, she deduced, and the exit had to be somewhere in this wall… Next pile of rubble she ducked behind was barely big enough to conceal her, and certainly not big enough to block completely from her sight the last thing she wanted to see. Apparently she'd either taken longer to get off the ship than she'd thought, or her pilot friend was quicker than she'd anticipated. Probably a combination of both, she thought with a wince. Five years of care-free isolation didn't help one's sense of time.
He was standing there, the harsh sun casting a dramatic shadow behind him as he stood with bags of supplies at his feet and his arms crossed over a broad chest as he glowered at a greasy-looking Bothan who was also drawing himself up in an attempt at intimidation.
"Look," her pilot snarled. "I don't care what your little gizka of a spy told you I won at the pazaak den. I'm paying what we agreed on. If you don't like it, take it up with Goto. You know, the boss of the entire exchange?"
Aelyn shifted. This looked like it might get messy, and messy meant busy, and busy meant distraction…she could make a rush for it, then. Tentatively, she extended her Force sense to monitor their emotions, to give her a hint of when was the right time to bolt past the Bothan Dockmaster and her pilot captor.
The Bothan's fur ruffled as he gave a gawwuff of a laugh. "You think me a fool, human? You think I believe that one such as you knows Goto? Better yet, you think I care? Vabbo is lord here. That all that matter to me and my business. Now, you pay addition I make to original agreement, or I not disengage fuel line. Be bad boom, eh, if you try to take off with it still attached, eh?"
Aelyn slipped slowly out from behind the rubble, keeping to the shadows of the wall and inching to hide beside a bulky control console set against the wall. She peeked out from behind it, waiting…
"Listen, you overblown-" the pilot's hand went to a modified blaster at his side, his temper flaring. Behind the Dockmaster, two of his goons reached for their own weapons, while a third-
The third goon shouted something, and Aelyn realized with a sudden abruptness that the shout had been directed at her. She blinked, then with the Dockmaster suddenly shouting something about double-crossing and lying about him being alone, Aelyn belatedly realized that the control console she was hiding behind was also the fuel-line controls…
Cursing, she bolted, calling on the Force to give her a burst of speed. The head rush was just as she remembered it, dizzying and intoxicating as she blurred past the Dockmaster, her pilot, and the goons and flashed through the exit, down the corridor, through another door, down another hall…She lost track, focusing on simply running.
When she came out into blinding sunlight at the same time her burst of speed faded out of her system, Aelyn gave a cry at the sudden dual shock of the light and the snap of the return of normalcy around her, and threw herself back against the wall beside the door she'd just burst out of, into the shadow of the building. She leaned heavily, breathing deeply, but not heaving. Her head was pounding, but not intolerably so, and probably in no little part due to the light.
She'd spent too many years aboard darkened freighters and frigates, she decided, forcing herself back out into the sunlight at a fast jog. She slipped down an alley to her right, and came out at the other end into a busy street. She let herself mingle with the crowd at a moderately fast pace. She let herself relax as bit, now under the cover of the crowd. She still needed to get away; no doubt she'd be chased. Behind her, she expected to hear the roar of engines as her pilot took off, any time now. He'd been right near the ramp, she remembered; he should have had plenty of time to dart back aboard and get away, provided she was right in that the Dockmaster and the goons would have been temporarily surprised and occupied by her unexpectedly swift passing…
But when the loud noise from behind her did meet her ears, it wasn't the noise of a ship's sublight atmospheric engines carrying the Ebon Hawk off this sinkhole. Instead, she gasped as a blaster bolt zinged past her right ear, and she threw herself to the side, almost colliding with another red streak zipped past her left side. She spared a glance behind her as the crowd around her parted with an initial collective cry of surprise then quickly shuffled in silence into alleys, out of the way. Obviously, this kind of thing was common here…
A shout went up behind her, and Aelyn spared a second glance. This time, with the crowd having dissipated, she spotted her pursuers. To her surprise, the brown-haired pilot was right behind her, charging at her with a speed she hadn't thought the bigger man capable of, despite his overall leanness. Behind him, though, were the Dockmaster and his original three goons, plus some extra. All of them were firing at not only her, but the pilot as well. She spied the pilot's determined, absolutely fierce expression and decided she didn't want either of them catching her. She turned to face forward again, nearly colliding with a cart that had been abandoned in the middle of the road. Too late to side step it, she coiled her thigh and calve muscles and leaped right over it, crouching in mid air and raising her arms to the side as she did so for balance and height. She came to a dusty landing on the other side, on one bended knee for only the briefest of moments before she was up and running again, swerving sharply into a side street, hoping she'd done so quick enough that the cart would have blocked her chasers from seeing her do so.
Her plan, while it seemed to work, backfired when she came up sharp to a dead end. She had a split second to see that only a small section of the actual wall blocking her path was visible, most of it taken up by collapsing mountains of crates and debris. She threw herself into the small space between the corner-filling piles of 'stuff' and crouching down low as she could, whirling at the same time-
Then instantly jerking herself to her feet again when she saw one of her would-be-predators dart into the alley, barely half a minute behind her. The pilot charged down the alley, eyes intent and thoroughly dangerous as she tried to dart past him, only to find an arm around her waist throwing her back between the crate-piles. She shoved back, twisting out of his grip and maneuvering to slip past his left-
A hand grabbed the prominent knot made between her shoulder blades by the excess shirt fabric she'd twisted up there, hauling her back to him once more. Rather than fight the pull, she turned as he yanked, hoping to catch him off guard by bringing her fist around with her-
But he caught that, too, twisting it up and behind her as he turned them both so her back was against the slender slice of wall, her other arm trapped between them as he shoved his hip into her stomach, pinning her to the wall as neatly as he'd pinned her to the floor not so long ago.
She glared up at him, and he glared down.
"Stay quiet," he hissed unexpectedly. She blinked up at him, and then peered over his shoulder. Out in the street, perfectly in sight of them, the Dockmaster and his goons stood around with the Bothan yelling furiously and pointing every which way, ordering his men to search various directions… They must be deep enough in the shadows of the crates, she supposed, that he couldn't quite see them. Bothans didn't have the best night vision, which would make it difficult for him to peer through the shadows that cloaked her and the pilot.
Her gaze snapped back up to her current captor, who still held her in an embrace that could have been considered erotic if her shoulder weren't screaming and if his hip in her stomach wasn't pressing so painfully on her kidney. His free hand, too, the one not holding her left arm behind her, was clamped around her throat, to add insult to injury. She swallowed thickly, her breathing labored with the effort of drawing breath past his hand and trying to keep that same breathing quiet. He looked down at her for a long moment, then with deliberate slowness he released the pressure from around her neck. Something unidentifiable passed over his visage for the briefest of moments, something she found herself quite curious about for an equally brief moment before she shoved it aside.
"They're going to come down here eventually," she hissed at the pilot. She wondered if she should bother asking his name, then dismissed it- she wouldn't be in his presence much longer to make it worth it, she told herself.
"Gee, y'think?" the pilot growled down at her. She glowered at him, setting her chin stubbornly.
"Yeah, I think," she hissed up at him, trying to keep her own vehement voice quiet. "Something you obviously don't, or you'd know we need to do something so that when they do come down here they don't find a smuggler and a…a stray woman that match the description they've undoubtedly put out already."
The pilot stared down at her for a long, glowering, borderline hateful moment before he did something completely unexpected. He released her, just a bit, taking his hip out of her abdomen and using the hand that had been on her neck to help himself in shrugging off the thick ribbed jacket he wore and tossing it into a nearby crate, out of sight. His outer shirt followed, and he tugged his robe-style undershirt out from his pants, letting it fall open, a broad, well-defined chest exposed to the humid air.
Having absolutely no idea what he was doing, she used her newly free hand –the one that had been trapped between them- to grab his hand when it came up to her face in an iron grip.
"What the hell do you think you're do-"
"Making sure that when they do come down here, they don't find a smuggler and a stray woman," he snapped at her, yanking his hand free with surprising strength and reaching around behind her head to yank the thin cord she'd scavenged off the ship to tie her hair back with out of her shoulder-length burgundy tresses. She grit her teeth against a shout of 'ouch' and endured his hand running roughly over the still-present egg bumps on her scalp as he ruffled her hair, tousling it and pulling it forward over her shoulders. He tugged none too gently on the single, silver-wrapped tendril that fell out from behind her right ear for good measure.
Her stolen vest followed his into the crate at the same time a shout went up. Aelyn glanced past the pilot's higher shoulder to see a trio of rent-a-security-goons jogging towards the alleyway entrance from across the street, out of an opposing alley that had a more obvious entrance than the one they were hiding in.
"Here they come," she ground out. "Now what exactly was it that you were planning, hot-shot? Did you honestly think a few less layers of clothing was going to change our looks enough that-" She at last looked away from the alleyway entrance that the trio was rapidly nearing, only to suddenly and abruptly discover what it was, exactly, her captor had had in mind as a way of disguise. She gave a sharp protest that was half a gasp, half a squeal into the surprisingly warm, even more surprisingly soft mouth that was inexplicably covering hers, and a second, sharp inhalation of breath as a pair of large hands fastened themselves on her waist and lifted her up against the wall, only to let her fall back down onto a strong knee that had also been pressed against the wall- between her legs.
Despite her shock and revulsion –and tinge of embarrassment- she caught on instantly. She peeked open one eye; the trio had entered the alleyway, and had spotted them, hesitating when the spied not two escaped supposed-thieves but instead a pair of apparently quite adamant lovers…
Swallowing pride and embarrassment both, Aelyn flung her arms around the nameless pilot's shoulders, one hand sliding into his hair and shoving his head closer to hers, angling her own, slanting her lips against his. She raised her legs and wrapped them around his waist, still supported by that knee beneath her.
Simultaneously, she slammed down her emotional walls as hard and as thick as she could. There was a reason Jedi weren't supposed to indulge in acts of romance or lust. Horrible stories had circulated the academy when she'd been a Padawan, stories she didn't think she was in danger of repeating since she certainly wasn't lusting or romantically involved with this…this man, but she wasn't taking any chances.
But it was harder than she'd anticipated. Some life-long, deeply ingrained habits died hard, abstinence being one of them. With a touch of bewildered curiosity in the furthest corners of Aelyn's mind, she realized that this was the equivalent of her first kiss… A flood of emotion threatened to undo her walls, and she reinforced them, the embrace and kiss growing all the harsher for it. She peeked open one eye, peering through her lashes to take a distracted inventory of their observers-
And found that they were gone. Abruptly and with a horrified sort of shock, she realized they'd been gone for a long time.
The exile tore herself away from her would-be-captor, hard enough that the back of her head smacked the wall behind her. Breathing heavily, she untangled her hands from his hair and planted them on his chest and shoved. He stumbled back, nearly as out-of-it as she was. She fell to her feet, unnerved to suddenly realize how damp her flesh was, how hot her blood felt rushing through her body, and how the curls of something alien in her belly and lower regions weren't exactly unpleasant…
They stared at each other for a long, hard, potent moment before he snapped out of it first, snarling at her as his hand darted into the crate and snatched back his shirt and jacket. "Schutta rat," he snarled at her.
"Sith-blood bastard," she threw back, grabbing at her own vest, realizing with belated shock that her borrowed shirt was hanging precariously low over one shoulder, the knot at her back undone completely. She twisted the shirt back up into some semblance of proper fitting and slipped the vest back on. For the moment, they both seemed to have forgotten that one was supposed to be the prisoner of the other, for whatever mysterious reason she'd yet to figure out. But when she did remember, cursing herself for not running the moment she was free, she waited until his hands were occupied with shrugging on his ribbed jacket, and darted low past him to his left, breaking for the alleyway entrance-
Only to give a howl of expletive-filled frustration when she was tackled from behind. Again. She twisted, kicked, and she bit, deftly twisting free again and this time instead of running she jumped. She jumped straight up, hooking her hands onto the wooden beams above her, between the two buildings that formed the alleyway. She swung herself up- only to have one leg yanked back down, painfully. Her shoulders gave a wrench, and she glowered down at the man who was clinging to her ankle, glaring up at her with equal ferocity. It occurred to Aelyn for the first time that there was more to this man than mere amateur's luck at catching her. Dread sank into the pit of her stomach- was it possible? It certainly was, if this pilot's ability to keep up with her, match her blow for blow, chase for chase was any indication. Last time she checked, the only kind of people who were generally capable of keeping up with a Jedi –even an ex-Jedi- with this much consistency were…
But that was a contemplation for later. She hadn't allowed herself to be captured during the Mandalorian Wars, the little bit of the Jedi Civil War she'd been present for, or the entirety of her exile, and she wasn't about to break that favorable habit of hers now. She kicked at her parasite, trying to shake him off. His response was to climb up her leg, strong hands digging into her flesh, the thick leather giving good traction. She tried again, this time using a touch of the Force to befuddle him for a moment, weaken his hold on her. She shook again, and this time he fell. He figured out what she'd done the moment he was suddenly falling, and for a split second she got a glimpse of the utter hatred and revulsion blasted upwards at her as she, at last free, swung up on top of the beam she'd been hanging from.
Suddenly shaken, just a bit, by the force of the hatred she'd felt from him and seen from his eyes, she forced herself to shake it off and run along the beam, make a leap for the building closest to her…
Luck, she knew better at that following moment than at any other time during her life, was a fickle thing. The beam beneath her crackled and splintered, then gave way completely. She grabbed for another beam, missed, and fell straight down into the waiting arms of the tousle-haired pilot whose company she'd just left. He wasted no time in wrestling her to the ground, on her stomach, and sitting on her. Her hands were twisted up behind her before she fully realized she wasn't falling anymore, a rope –no doubt pulled from the nearby garbage piles- twisted around her wrists. She cursed the luck of fate that had not only let that beam be a weak one, but that had so conveniently provided that rope… Did the Force hate her, or something? Really, did it? It must, after all it had done to her over the years…
He hauled her to her feet, one hand gripping the rope between her hands and the other hand taking a good hold on a thick clump of her hair to do so. Gritting her teeth she ignored the pain in her scalp, concentrating on getting her feet beneath her. She contemplated trying to run again. But she hadn't gotten far last time, and that had been with her hands free and with him caught off guard… No, running from this guy or even flat out fighting him wasn't going to work. It was time for a new tactic.
She kept quiet, hearing the pilot behind her catch what little breath he needed to catch as he marched her out of the alley, both of them automatically looking around cautiously before continuing in the direction she identified as one that would take them back to the Ebon Hawk. The streets had begun to fill, again, and the abandoned cart she'd leapt over had been stripped clean. She passed the owner standing by it forlornly, and she felt a flash of pity for the briefest of moments before she squashed it- there was nothing she could do.
Under the cover of the rising volume of street noise around them, Aelyn ventured to speak. "So, do this often?" She inquired with steel-underlain casualness.
"Used to," he responded with a flippancy that was equally icy. "Made a special come-back case for you, though."
"I'm flattered," she snarled openly, sensing the dark amusement from her captor behind her.
"You should be," came the harsh whisper near her ear, and she tensed, wanting desperately to lash out… Caught off guard by the strength of her own emotions, she forced herself to take a deep breath and run through a set of all too familiar calming techniques… They worked, for the moment, and Aelyn redirected her attention towards memorizing the path they took, just in case she managed to escape again before they took off. She forced herself, while memorizing, to acknowledge that her years away from other people had eroded her ability to control her natural temper, acknowledge that she'd need to work on her control over it. Again. She suppressed a sigh, and made a note of a particularly sudden turn they made. Her captor was taking the long way around to get back to the ship, probably hoping that the Dockmaster was too busy out looking for them to have the ship too heavily guarded.
It was a plausible hope, she admitted, but ultimately foolish, as he soon discovered when they spied the entrance to their landing pad guarded by four of the Dockmaster's goons; a Rodian and three humans.
"Distract them," the pilot whispered lowly in her ear. She tensed, and he repeated, "Use one of those manipulative little Jedi tricks, and distract them. Make them hear footfalls over there in that alley, or see an outline of me running away. Something. Distract them." The round point of a small blaster's nasty end pressed into the small of her back reinforced his insistence. While she doubted he would kill her –he wouldn't have gone to all the trouble to keep her alive in the alleyway- she did believe that he wouldn't be averse to damaging a limb or two to get what he wanted. There was a hint of darkness around the edges of his mind that she thought she'd sensed before, but was perfectly prominent now. Brought out when she'd used her Force powers to confuse him into letting go of her, back in the alley? She had the sneaking suspicion that was the case…
With a suppressed sigh she closed her eyes, reaching out with her mind to touch the weaker ones of the four goon-guards. A moment later, one of them insisted he'd seen two figures duck out of sight behind the corner of as street farthest from them, and another nudge convinced all four to over there instead of the two one of them suggested. As soon as they were far enough away and all four backs to them, Aelyn found herself shoved ahead, and they were running flat out for the entrance to the landing pad. They dived inside and to the right just as she felt their interest in the faked glimpse evaporate. Just ahead of them, the boarding ramp of the Ebon Hawk was lowered invitingly. Aelyn had a split second to realize that, suspiciously, the ramp wasn't guarded, and another moment to sense that there wasn't anyone outside the ship on the landing pad with them… In the third moment, her pilot captor was shoving her forward again, to the ramp, up the ramp, into the ship…
And straight into a circle of four Bothan stunners, two repeater rifles, and one hold-out blaster.
"Want me to distract them, too?" Aelyn drawled a split moment before the butt of one of the stunners introduced her and the pilot both to unconsciousness.
To Be Continued…
All right, hoping for a bit better response to this chapter than for the last chapter, which I realize was little more than a mildly enticing set-up chapter. I enjoyed writing this chapter immensely…I love building the tension between Atton and the Exile.
As for the impromptu make-out scene in the alley that some of you might deduce as being too soon, keep in mind that Atton now hates Aelyn more than ever, and just think of the confusion and resistance that stunt will add to the mix when they start to develop real feelings for one another. I'm not trying to get them together in only the second chapter and jump the gun here; quite the contrary, I simple thought this would be an amusing and effective way of setting up some delicious turmoil for them to deal with later.
Until next update, lovies!
-Amber Penglass