She was beautiful.
Her skin was the color of sunrise on Alderaan, her hair as dark, and doubtless as soft, as the finest bantha wool coat that credits could buy. And her eyes. Her eyes were the color of Corellia's southern ocean, and they burned with determination.
Her head dropped down, a blade of crimson energy passing through the space where it had been just a moment ago. As she came back up, she struck with her own weapon, a sword of pure energy, its color that of a fine Corellian whiskey.
Red met dark yellow in a rainbow of flashing lights and sparking energy. She stepped forward, parrying, riposting, and striking out. Her opponent gave ground, his defensive movements becoming increasingly frantic.
She struck down at her enemy, hard. His blade intercepted hers, barely, and he could not muster the strength to parry. She swept her blade along and under his, batting it up into the air. Then she slashed her blade down, leaving an angry energy score across his chest. Lifeless, he fell.
She watched him fall for a moment, then lifted her eyes up to another threat, her determination glowing brighter in her eyes. Her stance shifted. She spun her lightsaber around her right hand, holding the weapon in a one-handed grip.
She was beautiful…
---
He opened his eyes slowly, taking in the unfamiliar surroundings. For a few brief moments, he had no idea why he wasn't on his bunk in the Endar Spire. Then flashes of the battle came back to him. Grenades exploding, almost getting shot into space three times, Trask buying him the time to escape. He sighed. Why had the fool gone and challenged that dark Jedi?
"You up?" a voice called out to him. "It's about time. You've been asleep for a few days. Must've been a nice dream."
The soldier thought back to the dream, to the beautiful Jedi woman. The corner of his mouth twitched up in a smirk. "Yeah, it was pretty nice," he said. "Beautiful woman, people getting killed. Soldier's paradise, right?" He chuckled, then schooled his features into seriousness. "Didn't feel like a dream though. More like a vision."
"I'm not surprised. You took a nasty blow to the head. You're probably having all kinds of strange dreams. I wouldn't worry about any of it, though."
Kagi sat up on the hard bed, swinging his legs over the side and planting his booted feet on the floor. He noticed for the first time that he was still wearing his full gear. Must've been hell on my back, he mused, considering the equipment pack he always carried.
"So what's the sitrep?" he asked, looking over at Carth, sitting in one of the room's chairs.
"You've been slipping in and out of consciousness for a few days," the pilot replied, shrugging. "We're pretty safe here, for the moment. We're in an abandoned apartment on Taris. You were banged up pretty bad when our escape pod crashed, but I got out of it okay."
Carth stretched, finished off the ration pack he'd been eating out of, and tossed it into a nearby trash bin. "I dragged you away from the crash site in all the confusion, and stumbled on this apartment complex. We were long gone when the Sith got there."
"Thanks," Kagi said, pulling his equipment pack off and rummaging through it. "I owe you one."
"You don't have to thank me," the pilot replied, waving it off. "I've never abandoned anyone on a mission, and I'm not about to start now. Besides, I'm going to need your help."
"Why?" the soldier asked, producing a ration pack, which he promptly dug into.
"Taris is under Sith control. Their fleet is blockading the planet, and their soldiers patrol the streets. They've declared martial law and imposed a planet-wide quarantine. There's no way the Republic would be able to get anyone through the Sith blockade to help us. If we're going to find Commander Shan and get off this world, we're it."
"Commander Shan?" Kagi repeated, confused.
"Commander Bastila Shan," Carth explained. "She's a Jedi Knight, and was with the strike team that killed Darth Revan, Malak's Sith master. Commander Shan is the key to the entire Republic war effort. The Sith must have found out we were moving her through this system, and they struck the Endar Spire with everything they had. She was in one of the escape pods that made it to the planet. For the sake of the Republic, we've got to find her."
"Sold me," Kagi said with a nod, tossing the empty ration pack into a garbage bin. "Where do we start?"
"I did some scouting around while you were out," Carth replied, standing up and rummaging through the lockbox near his chair. "There are reports of some escape pods crashing into the Undercity. That sounds like a good place to start. It's a dangerous place, though. We won't do Commander Shan any good if we get ourselves killed."
The soldier smirked. "I was SpecForces, Lieutenant. I've been to places where the floor would kill you just walking on it the wrong way. I'm not too worried."
"I know," Carth replied. He pulled two blaster pistols and a blaster rifle, Kagi's own blaster rifle, from the lockbox. "I read your service record. Still, caution's a good idea."
"I was just messing around, Carth," Kagi said, taking his rifle and checking the charge. "No need to get personal about it."
"Sorry," the pilot said. He looked as if he wanted to say more, but didn't. he changed the subject instead. "We can use this apartment as a base, and we can probably get some more supplies in the Upper City. We just need to remember to keep a low profile."
He shuddered once, his voice becoming haunted. "I've heard stories about dark Jedi interrogation techniques. They say the Force can do terrible things to a mind. It can wipe away your memories and destroy your very identity."
An unconscious shiver ran through Kagi as he said those words, causing the soldier's right hand to unconsciously twitch in a swirling pattern. His brows furrowing, the soldier tightened his hand into a fist, and held it until it stopped shaking.
"We should be alright if we don't do anything stupid," Carth continued, oblivious to his partner's reactions. "After all, they're looking for Commander Shan, not a couple of grunts like us. Ready to go?"
Kagi stood up, shouldering his equipment pack. He slipped a new power pack into his blaster rifle, then nodded at Carth. "You bet. Let's roll."
The pair made their way to the doorway leading out, and Carth obligingly triggered it open. He likewise triggered the outer door, and then they were out in a hallway.
"Right, you alien scum, against the wall!" a gruff voice called out from the corridor. "This is a raid!"
The two Republic soldiers stepped out, watching the Sith officer and two battle droids harass a pair of blue-faced Duros. The Duros did not have noses, lending them a mournful look that was only amplified by the predicament these two found themselves in.
"There was a patrol here just yesterday," the Duros on the right said in easily-understandable Basic. "And they found nothing. Why do you Sith keep bothering us?"
The Sith officer sneered contemptfully at the alien, then raised his blaster rifle and triggered a pair of shots, both bolts burning through the Duros, knocking him back and down. "That's how we Sith deal with smart-mouthed aliens," the officer sneered. He turned to the other Duros. "Now you, get against the wall before I lose my temper again!"
Out of the corner of his eye, the officer caught the movement of Kagi drawing his vibroblade, and placing his blaster rifle on the ground. "What's this? Humans hiding out with aliens?" Then, he caught sight of the Republic uniform that Carth was wearing. "They're Republic fugitives! Atta–"
Kagi's flying form interrupted the officer's order, as the soldier barreled him straight to the floor, his blade driving into man's throat. Blood shot from the wound, causing Kagi to shift his head to the right or catch it in the face. He twisted the blade in the man's throat, at once severing his trachea and all the major blood vessels to his brain.
Behind him, Carth had snapped up both his blaster pistols, and was unleashing a withering fire against both droids. Seeing his comrade's predicament, Kagi lashed out with his right boot, sweeping the leftmost droid's feet out from under it, sending it crashing to the floor with a clatter of metal.
The soldier leapt onto the back of the droid as Carth shifted both of his pistols onto the remaining droid, burning through its armor plating and coring the control cluster, sending the droid crashing down.
Grabbing onto the plates of metal on the droid's face, Kagi pulled back with all his might. The sound of metal shrieking and rending filled the hallway, before the soldier managed to peel back the armor plating like the rind of a fruit.
Carth obliged him by taking careful aim and firing a single pistol blast into the droid's control brain, effectively killing it.
Standing up, Kagi retrieved his vibroblade from the throat of the dead Sith officer, wiping the blood off on the corpse's uniform before sliding it back into his boot sheath. Carth walked up beside him, pistols holstered, holding out the soldier's blaster rifle. He took it with a nod, then turned to the remaining Duros.
"Poor Ixgil," he said in his own language, one of the many that Kagi understood. "He should never have talked back to that Sith. Thankfully, you were here to step in and help me, human. This isn't the first time the Sith have come here to cause trouble for us, but hopefully it will be the last."
"Won't somebody come searching for this patrol?" Kagi asked, gesturing to the carnage.
"Don't worry about the bodies," the Duros answered. "I will move the bodies so it will look like they were killed elsewhere. With any luck, they won't be bothering us for a while."
"I much appreciate that, Friend Traveler," Kagi said, using the Duros honorific. Then he shouldered his blaster rifle and motioned for Carth to follow him.
They walked around the curving corridor for a few meters, passing by a green-skinned Twi'lek standing next to a bunch of plasteel cylinders and a vender's rack. Just before they passed him, the Twi'lek looked up, saw them, and called out in Basic, "Well, don't see too many of your kind around here. Most of the residents in this rundown old apartment are illegal aliens. My name is Larrim, by the way."
"Good to meet you, Larrim," Kagi replied.
"I know it's really none of my business," Larrim said, lowering his voice considerably.
"Here it comes…" Carth groaned.
"You look like someone who might need to purchase one of those new energy shields," Larrim continued, eying the soldier's gear that Kagi was wearing. "They're the latest thing, you know. Very high tech."
The two Republic soldiers exchanged a glance, then Kagi said, "I know about energy shields."
"Ah, I see," the Twi'lek replied. "Very knowledgeable then, you are. Well, you might be interested to know that I have one for sale. It's not cheap, but it could mean the difference between life and death."
"Maybe some other time," Kagi said. "We don't exactly have a large flow of credits right now."
"Understandable," Larrim said, his lekku twitching slightly. "Regrettable, but understandable. Is there anything else I might do for you?"
"Some questions, if you don't mind?"
The Twi'lek hesitated. "Questions? I'd rather not. Most of the residents here are illegal aliens, so questions are frowned on. If it's questions you want answered, go talk to Kadir, the janitor."
As Larrim turned back to his wares, the two soldiers continued on. "Think we should try looking up this Kadir fellow?" Kagi asked.
"Probably not," Carth replied as they neared the door out of the apartments. "It'd just cost us more time."
"Good point," the soldier said, tapping the access panel for the door. It slid open, and Kagi gestured for Carth to precede him.
They passed through another set of doors, and then were out on the upper level of Taris. Kagi stopped to look around the square they were in, and the city itself. Huge buildings hundreds of stories high shot up on all sides of the plaza they were standing on. Off to their right, just barely balanced on the edge of the plaza, was an escape pod.
Kagi pointed to it. "That ours?"
"Yep," Carth answered.
"Made a mess, didn't we?"
"Definitely."
"Well, no time like the present. Let's move on, shall we?"
Carth nodded, and the two headed to the left, walking lengthwise across the plaza. As they walked, Kagi noticed a high number of Sith troopers marching around, weapons boldly displayed.
"Lot of Sith troopers around," he remarked.
"The planet is under Sith control," Carth answered. "Let's just act casual and maybe they'll leave us alone."
"Good plan. So, know anything else about this world?"
The pilot waited to answer until they had passed by a Sith trooper, then replied, "The planet's all one big city. Its golden years are long past it, however, and things have gotten worse since the Sith occupied it."
He quieted again as a pair of Sith troopers passed them, then looked back over his shoulder before continuing, "From what I hear, the wealthy live on the tops of all the tall towers. And if you're poor, you live down in the shadows. And it gets worse the lower you go." He shrugged. "That's all I can think of, at any rate."
By now, they had reached the other side of the plaza, marked by a fountain with a strange floating statue hovering in midair over it. To their left was a sealed door that read "Upper City, North" and on their right, an open door whose sign read "Clinic" in Basic and a number of alien languages.
"Let's try the north side of the city," Kagi said, turning toward the sealed door.
As he approached it, he caught the tail end of an encounter between two bounty hunters and a civilian man.
"…missed your last payment," the human bounty hunter said.
"Davik doesn't like you missing payments," the Aqualish hunter commented in his own language.
"Here, I've got fifty credits," the human said, holding the money out in trembling hands. "A down payment. That should buy me some time, right?"
"Sorry," the human said, shaking his head. "You're out of time. It's all or nothing. Davik can't have people not paying his debts."
"Bounty hunters," Carth muttered to Kagi. "Scum of the universe. I hate it when they push people around like this."
"Me, too," Kagi said, then turned and strode toward the encounter.
"What are you doing?" the pilot hissed.
"Trust me," the soldier replied, grinning back at his comrade.
"…How can I give you credits I don't have?" the man was saying.
"That's too bad," the Aqualish said. "Davik's going to want to make an example of you. You're coming with us."
"Hold on a second," the human said. "Looks like we've got ourselves a couple witnesses here."
"Davik doesn't like witnesses," the Aqualish said.
Kagi gave the alien a piercing glare. "Hey, ass-face. Until you learn how to say something original, why don't you let the grown-ups talk?" He he turned his attention back to the human bounty hunter. "Now here's the deal. You're going to leave this man alone, or I'm going to introduce your face to the permacrete."
"Guess we're going to have to teach you to mind your own business," the human replied, raising his blaster pistol.
He never got it lined up. Kagi surged forward, his armored fist driving hard into the man's nose. The man dropped his blaster with a shrill shriek, his hands going to his nose. Sliding past him, the soldier swept the bounty hunter's feet out from under him, then moved on to his Aqualish partner as the man hit the ground with a heavy whoosh of air from his lungs.
The alien tried to line his blaster up with Kagi, but the soldier grabbed his wrist and stepped past him, pulling out to his right side while pushing down on his shoulder. This bent the alien partially over, with his blaster arm at an awkward angle behind him. Kagi pulled, hard, and a cracking sound in the alien's shoulder accompanied his watery shriek. The blaster dropped from numbed fingers. Letting go of the alien's wrist with his right hand, he formed it into a tight fist and drove it into the base of the alien's skull. He dropped like a sack full of tubers.
"Thank you!" the harassed man exclaimed as Kagi began to search the downed bounty hunters. "I owe you my life! These bounty hunters were going to take me away and kill me. My wife warned me not to take a loan from Davik. It's not good to owe a crime lord money. He'll just keep sending more bounty hunters after me until I'm dead."
"How much was it that you owed?" Kagi asked, rummaging through the pockets of the human hunter now.
"Uhh, a hundred credits," the man answered.
"Here you go," Kagi said, holding up the stack of credit chips he had collected from the bounty hunters, totaling one hundred credits. "Take it."
"Just like that?" the man asked as he accepted the credit chips. "Thank you!"
"You're giving him a hundred credits?" Carth asked. "Generous."
"Now I can pay off Davik," the man continued, clutching the credits as though they were the most precious commodity in the universe. "You've saved my life! Thank you! I'll take these credits to him right away."
The man turned, keying open the accessway to the north side of the upper city, and ran through. Shrugging, the two Republic soldiers followed. Once through, Kagi noted that the north side looked nearly identical, save for a few swoop bikes here and there.
In silence, the two made their way toward the west end of the plaza. As they walked, Kagi suddenly turned to look over his shoulder at Carth. The pilot seemed to be troubled by something; there was a thoughtful expression on his face.
"So, Carth, while we're spending all this time touring scenic Upper City, why don't you tell me a bit about yourself?" Kagi asked.
"Me?" The pilot shrugged, seeing no harm in it. "I've been a star pilot for the Republic for years, and I've seen more than my share of wars. I fought in the Mandalorian Wars before all this started."
Carth shook his head, and an edge appeared on his tone. "But with all that, I've never seen anything like the slaughter these Sith animals unleash. Not even the Mandalorians were that senseless. My homeworld was one of the first to fall to Malak's fleet. The Sith bombed it into submission, and there wasn't a damn thing the Republic could do to stop them."
"Sithspit Carth, I didn't know," Kagi said, turning a corner at the west end of the plaza and heading north again. "I didn't mean to bring up bad memories."
"I'm just a soldier," Carth replied, shaking his head slowly. "I go where the fleet admirals tell me to. I follow my orders and I do my duty. It's just…" He sighed once, and shook his head again. "It doesn't seem right that doing that means I failed them. I didn't!"
"Pump the braking thrusters, man," Kagi said, holding his hands out placatingly. "I didn't mean to piss you off."
"Well, I know," Carth said, stumbling over his words in a haste to make amends for snapping off. "Don't worry about it. I just… must not be making much sense. You probably mean well with your questions; I'm just not accustomed to talking about my past much. At all, actually. I'm more used to taking action, keeping my mind focused on the business at hand. So let's just do that. If you have more questions, ask them later."
"Sounds good to me," Kagi said, passing under the archway and turning right around the wall.
Ahead of them, a Sith soldier stood guard in front of a doorway. Possibly a way down to the lower city? Only one way to find out.
"This elevator is off-limits," the soldier called out as they approached. "Only Sith patrols and those with proper authorization are allowed into the Lower City. It's obvious from the way you're dressed that you're not a patrol, so unless you have the proper authorization papers you must move along."
Without a fuss, the two Republic soldiers turned and walked away from the elevator and the Sith guard.
"Well, we found our way down," Kagi said.
Carth nodded. "We're going to have to find some kind of a disguise if we want to get past this guy." The pilot frowned. "We're going to need a couple Sith uniforms. But where are we going to get them?"
"We could always jump some soldiers."
"Yeah, but we'd have to be discreet about it. If we attack them in broad daylight they'd wipe us out."
Kagi rubbed his chin thoughtfully as they strolled back out into the plaza. "Hey, remember how we saw that Sith patrol picking a fight with those Duros in the apartment?"
"Yeah?"
"What are the odds they do that a lot? Isn't there an apartment on this side of the city?"
"Probably on the other end of the plaza," Carth replied, pointing to the doors on the northeast end. "Let's go see what we can rustle up."
"'Rustle up,'" Kagi repeated with a snicker, leading the way toward the apartment complex.
"What's so funny?" Carth asked.
The soldier shrugged. "I haven't heard that term in years. Ever, actually. Last time I saw it was in an old joke from Agamar."
"…Funny," the pilot said, muttering something about ungrateful underlings.
"I heard that," Kagi said, then activated the access panel to the apartments.
The door slid open, allowing the two soldiers to enter. Inside, the corridor curved away from them to the left or the right. It was almost identical to the apartment where they were based, except cleaner somehow.
"Left or right?" Carth asked.
"Both?" Kagi ventured.
The pilot shrugged. "Sounds good. I'll go left."
Nodding, Kagi turned to the right and walked down the hallway, passing by a number of civilians and doors, some of them sealed, some not. He glanced into the open doors, bypassed the closed ones, but nothing drew his attention.
Then, as he came around a curve in the corridor and caught sight of Carth again, he saw the Sith trooper standing in the hallway, guarding an open apartment door, right between the two soldiers. It was too perfect.
Catching Carth's eye, Kagi pointed to the Sith trooper with the first two fingers of his left hand and mouthed, "Blast 'im."
In the next instant, the corridor became a hailstorm of blasterfire. Caught between two different fields of fire, the Sith trooper had nowhere to retreat to; he collapsed bonelessly to the floor, his armor smoking.
Moving in a crouch, Kagi rushed to the open apartment door, taking up position outside it. Within a moment, Carth was on the mirroring position on the other side of the door.
"What in blazes is going on out there?" a cultured voice asked. "You, get out there and find those shooters!"
Silent in their positions, both Republic soldiers heard the clamor of the Sith trooper's armored boots crossing the floor of the apartment. Setting his blaster rifle on the ground, Kagi drew his vibroblade and twisted the knife-sized weapon in his right hand.
Then the Sith trooper was in the corridor, among them. Kagi seized him by the left arm, dragged him out of the doorway, and knocked the blaster out of his hand with a hard right punch.
With his left hand holding the trooper's arm and his own vibroblade, Kagi slammed the armored man hard into the wall, dazing him. He quickly passed the vibroblade into his right hand, then drove it into the man's side, between plates of his armor. The man screamed shrilly. Kagi hammered his forearm into the back of the man's helmet, driving his head forward into the complex wall. The screams cut out.
Letting the trooper drop, Kagi pulled his vibroblade from the man's side and retook his position near the door.
"That won't work twice," Carth whispered.
"Nope, gonna have to try something new." With his foot, Kagi sent his blaster rifle skidding across the floor to Carth. "Cover me."
Holstering his blaster pistol, Carth picked up the soldier's rifle. "Kagi, this is nuts," he said. "You're not going to be able to pull this off."
On a whim, the former SpecForces commando searched the utility belt of the Sith trooper, producing a concussion grenade, which he showed to Carth. "Yes, I will."
Carth's expression indicated he didn't think too highly of the plan, but he readied the blaster rifle and sighted down it. Flipping his vibroblade into a reverse grip in his right hand, Kagi primed the concussion grenade in his left hand, let the charge tick down for a few seconds, then threw it into the room.
There was a bang from within the room, and then Kagi was in. He leapt over a low chair, his entire weight slamming into the stunned Sith commander and knocking him to the ground. The soldier dropped his right knee into the officer's chest, then kicked his rifle away with his other hand.
The Sith commander's hands reached up shakily, trying to close them around Kagi's throat. The soldier shrugged them off his shoulders, then clamped his left hand around the commander's throat. He settled his right palm onto the right side of the commander's helmet, then slammed down to his right as hard as he could.
There was a snapping sound, and the fight was over.
Kagi paused for just half a moment, then turned back and waved to Carth. "Drag those two in here!"
Then he looked up at the Aqualish owner of the apartment that the Sith had been harassing. The alien wasn't bothered by the concussion grenade; the natural processes of their bodily functions kept them from being concussed for very long.
"Thank you, human," the alien said in Basic. "The Sith would have killed me. Of that I am certain. I don't know who you are, but it is clear you are no friend of the Sith. Among my people, there is a saying. The enemy of my enemy is my friend."
Kagi smiled humorlessly. "Good outlook."
The Aqualish nodded. "Like you, I hate the Sith. That is why I stole these uniforms for the Hidden Beks."
"Hidden Beks?" Carth asked.
"In the lower city, there are some who do not bow to the conquerors. Swoop gangs like the Hidden Beks are gathering resources to one day strike against the Sith oppressors. If you wish to strike another blow against the Sith, you would be wise to journey to the Lower City and speak with Gadon Thek, the leader of the Hidden Beks."
"We'll do that," Kagi said. "Mind if we borrow your apartment and these uniforms?"
"You can have the apartment, and the uniforms from the Sith you just killed. I'm going to go find someplace on this world to hide. The Sith know my face now. Once again, thank you."
Then the Aqualish was gone, and the apartment door closed behind him. Kagi turned to Carth, and gestured at the three dead Sith. "At least we've got the beauty of choice."
A/N: Nothing much to say about that one. From now on, at the suggestion of bradw316, I'm going to list all the musical selections I thought would fit for the chapter. For this one, there really aren't any, but if you must know, I listened to "Under Her Control" from the FF8 soundtrack for some parts of this. I'm not really in possession of a theme that fits Taris.
Until next time, my loyal underli- er, reviewers. XD