Merry Christmas, you filthy animals!
I had a small segment here about TROS, but the movie has no Duel of the Fates/Battle of the Heroes, so it's utter fucking garbage anyways.
Anyways, reviews.
To PoofyOhio: I admit, I actually couldn't think of a proper oath that would fit the Ascendancy's Arbiters better than the Covenant oath, but given that the MCC is a thing on PC now, I thought "fuck it". Although, on second review, I did write an oath for the Arbiters back when I introduced Ash, but I can chalk that up to a different one.
Read and review.
Ash reached the door to her quarters. Holding her fingertips out, she linked with the door's interface, transmitted her codes, and swiped her hand to the right, the door following her motions. Stepping in, she shut the door behind her and turned the light on.
The room was basically barren save for a bed, a dresser, and a small tech-shrine for offerings or prayer. Dropping her belt and bags to the floor, Ash hopped onto the bed and traced her finger along the wall, just above the headrest. Finding a nearly microscopic indent, she moved her finger slightly to the left, and pushed in. A small rectangular shape in the wall pushed in with her finger, before swinging out slowly, revealing a wall safe.
Inside was an ornate lighter, a datapad, and a few incensed candles. She gathered the candles and the lighter, but left the datapad, before shutting the safe again. Carefully, she moved to the tech-shrine, setting the candles up in a V formation facing outwards from the shrine. Flicking the lighter open, the flame sputtered, if only for a moment, and Ash began to individually light all of the candles as carefully as she could, in the specific order ordained in scripture. Once they were all lit, she got back up and turned the light in the room off, before returning to the shrine, this time getting on her knees, staring at her mask in the shrine's mirror.
Ash stared at the mask for what felt like hours, despite mere minutes passing. She kept watching the scanner on the mask spin, and spin, and spin in a near-dead haze as her mind seemed to shut off on its own. Setting the still-lit lighter in front of her, Ash, with her hands visibly shaking, slowly reached up to her viewplate and hit the three releases. There was a high-pitched squeal as the mask detached, and, taking it into her hands, she took it off. Flipping it around, she stared the object of her nightmares dead on. Every single thing she feared would happen to her was encapsulated by that mask and the hands holding it. Her grip tightened, if only for a moment, before she set the mask against the shrine vertically.
Ash quietly sighed, before pulling her left sleeve back, revealing three scars running horizontal along her arm. Three sins she had committed in the past, one wound for each. An Arbiter committing sins worthy of marking was controversial, even in the Ascendancy's infancy. Removing her knife from its sheath, she placed the blade to the right of the scars, and breathed in. "Holy Maker, forgive me, for I have deviated from your Grand Design." Ash said in a quiet, solemn voice. "In my arrogance, I rejected your Design and abandoned the Ascendancy." she admitted, making two fresh cuts, not even wincing from the pain. The second cut was slashed through the first four to mark it as a set. "I ignored the Grand Ascendant's guidance and warnings, and continued down my self-destructive path." Ash continued, making two additional cuts. "I joined a cause that I was not destined for, and you made those I had joined up with pay the ultimate price for my arrogance." she continued, seemingly in a trance as she cut twice again. "You let me survive to see what my deviation had caused, and left me scarred and deformed in both mind and body as punishment." she finished, making two final cuts, the first one marking another set.
She dipped her right hand into the growing pool of blood. "Holy Maker, I offer my blood to you in repentance for my sins." she said, before pressing her bloody hand against her mask. "I seal this prayer in my own flesh and blood." Ash finally finished, letting go a breath that she didn't even know she was holding. Quickly, she grabbed a cloth from the shrine and wiped her arm down, before grabbing the lighter and sticking the flame to the open wounds to cauterize them. The pain was only temporary - the scars would be with her until the day she died, and now that her prayer for penance had been sealed in her own blood, she would voluntarily take her own life if that seal were to break.
As she finished cauterizing her wounds, Ash caught a glimpse of someone in the mirror. Someone she didn't recognize. She looked like a broken shell of a woman that had gone through hell and back – her green eyes were devoid of life, while her expression was blank and dead. Her blonde hair no longer made her seem energetic and friendly, and now only served to add to the tragedy of the woman's life. Wordlessly, Ash picked her mask up and put it back on, and slowly, she took the place of the woman.
Ash closed her eyes, and began to hum a hymn she had been taught as a child. As she hummed, she felt a familiar presence behind her, but she didn't open her eyes. It was Nevda, opening a fresh pack of bandages. Slowly, Nevda pulled Ash's sleeve back where she had cut her sins, and wrapped the bandages around her arm as tight as she could. "I thought I told you to stop doing this, Ash." Nevda chided in a disappointing manner, but Ash didn't respond. Instead, she kept humming, even as Nevda slightly jerked her around.
Sighing as she finished wrapping the bandage, Nevda sat down behind Ash, and caught a glimpse of the bloody handprint on Ash's mask. "…You didn't." she said suddenly, shocked.
Ash slowly finished her hymn, and breathed in. "I did, Nev." she coldly replied. "I have nothing else for me except for the Ascendancy. A blood pact to ensure that if I falter, even for a moment, I will take my own life."
Nevda remained silent for a time, and the two of them sat there together, a peaceful, understanding silence forming between the two of them, as if nothing had changed in the years Ash had been gone. Not even a bit. "I assume you're going to want to talk about what I've been doing all this time?" Ash said, maintaining her laser focus on the altar.
Nevda briefly faltered. "I… yes, that was on my mind, Ash." she stammered, if only briefly.
For the first time that day, Ash cracked a smile. "Over a cup of Nubian Nectar, I presume?" she teased, and Nevda nodded. "…Well, I'd make it myself, but I'm still getting used to my cybernetics, and my hands are too shaky. Fetch the kettle, would you?"
After a short time, Nevda and Ash were enjoying their tea together, just like they had done so many cycles ago. Ash took her mask off and set it aside, and immediately took a sip of the tea from her cup. "…It's sweeter than I remember." she commented.
"…Ash?" Nevda said as she set her cup down, and Ash paused to wait on what Nevda had to say. "…Why did you leave in the first place?"
Ash carefully set her tea down and locked eyes with Nevda. "…The Grand Ascendant and I had a… disagreement." she carefully responded, treading lightly with her words. "Mostly, it was regarding the Empire. In my blissful arrogance, I believed that the Empire would destroy the Ascendancy, however, the Grand Ascendant disagreed." Ash explained. "I was shunned over what I believed was a legitimate threat, and, feeling outcast and unwanted, fled the Ascendancy."
Nevda took another sip of her tea. "What happened then?"
Ash closed her eyes, her expression wistful and forlorn. "I fled to the Outer Rim. Somehow, I wound up with a group of insurgents fighting the Empire, and, looking for a new cause to take up, I joined on with them." she reminisced, sounding even more upset than she looked. "At a time when I thought the Ascendancy, the only family I had ever known, had thrown me to the wayside, they took me in and treated me like one of their own. I never felt malice, or cold indifference from them."
Nevda remained silent as she took this in. "…What made you come back, Ash?"
Ash finished her tea wordlessly, and locked eyes again with Nevda. "The Empire discovered our base. We couldn't evacuate in time, so we held out for as long as we could. Aside from myself, only two other people I know of could still be alive, but I doubt that."
Cocking her head and raising an eyebrow, Nevda finished her tea off. "Who were these two survivors?"
"Bounty hunter and his girlfriend. The hunter was definitely your type, Nev – tall, strong enough to lift you with one arm, ruggedly handsome. His girlfriend wasn't too bad looking either, but something about her told me that she wasn't fit for the life we lead." Ash continued, shifting her legs to be crossed so that she was more comfortable. "After the raid, I hauled myself to a cyberneticist and finally got wired up – lucky I didn't bleed out or get an infection."
Nevda looked at Ash with concern. "…But that doesn't answer my question."
Ash shook her head. "…No, it doesn't." she said with a lightly exasperated tone. "I figured that with the way the Ascendancy probably still viewed me, I'd either be let back in, or would be shot dead. The way I saw it, either option was good. No cause to fight for, wanted criminal by the Empire that should be dead, and everyone I know has either rejected me or in the ground? Might as well have killed myself at that point."
Nevda silenced herself as she considered Ash's words. "…You've changed, Ash." she simply said, a hint of surprise in her voice.
"War is hell, Nevda." Ash coldly replied. "I made the foolish mistake of fighting in one that I had no place in." she continued, brandishing her knife, intentionally showing the carving on the side to Nevda, before sheathing it. "…I think that's enough about me, Nev. How've you been keeping up these past few years?"
Nevda slowly nodded in agreement. "I haven't really changed much, Ash. I'm still an Arbitrator, but I never stuck with any one Arbiter like I did with you." she answered, brushing her bangs out of her face. "I have become something of a Scribe, though."
Ash's eyes widened a little bit. "That's a surprise. I thought Master Scribe Tektus thought you were worthless as one?"
Nevda chuckled a little bit. "He did. Or at least, that was until I published some personal thoughts of mine I wrote during downtime that a surprising number of the Ascendancy agreed with. I'm not gonna finalize as a Scribe, though – I like my body too much." Nevda said in a half-joking manner, before she glanced at the corner of her vision. "Oh, I've just noticed the time. I've got to be in the sim pods in five minutes." she said, silently cursing at herself as she got up.
Ash waved her off without a second thought. "Go on, Nevda. Don't let me keep you." she said in a reassuring manner.
Nevda turned to leave, but before she did, she pulled a bag off of her back. "One last thing, Ash." she said, carefully setting the bag on the floor. "I've got a little welcome back gift for you." Nevda finished, before quickly moving for the door. "…It's good to have you back, Ash." she quietly murmured, before heading out.
Curious, Ash pulled the bag over to herself and opened the top flap. Inside was a small, deactivated droid that was intensely familiar to her. Once Ash pulled it out of the bag, she realized it was an ID9 unit.
Specifically, it was Sidewinder, her personal servitor droid that she had accidentally left behind when she fled the Ascendancy so many years ago. She pulled the inactive droid into the tightest hug she could muster, a flood of emotions pouring out in just one simple gesture.
Ash released the droid from her hug, and reached to power it on, before realizing something. The batteries were likely long dead. Peeking into the bag again, she pulled out a fresh droid battery and a screwdriver that Nevda had left her. Turning Sidewinder over, she unscrewed the back to reveal the empty battery inside. Removing it and setting it aside to throw away, Ash took the new battery, placed it inside of Sidewinder, and screwed the panel back in. She then turned the droid back over and powered him up.
It took a moment, but Sidewinder's repulsors kicked in, and he automatically flew out of Ash's hands, hovering in front of her face. His photoreceptor curiously examined her, and Sidewinder flew in closer. "Hey, Sidewinder." Ash said in a voice one would use as if talking to a pet. "Been a while, hasn't it?"
Sidewinder's photoreceptor lit up in excitement, and he immediately began to nuzzle his master's face, causing Ash to laugh in response, petting him. "Sorry about leaving you behind, Sidewinder. I was so mad when I left the Ascendancy I completely forgot about you, and by the time I remembered, it was too late to come back." Ash apologized as she gave the droid plenty of attention. Sidewinder simply chirped at her in encoded binary, glad to have her back. "And I missed you too, buddy." Ash responded. "Ready to get back to work?"
Sidewinder responded with several happy chirps as he flew behind Ash and latched onto her back with his legs, earing a laugh from Ash. "Aww, you really did miss me!" she said, half-teasing as she put her mask back on. "Let's go visit Nevda in the sim pods, Sidewinder."
"Breach the airlock when you're ready." the instructor said in Nevda's ear. Before he had even finished, the airlock had been blasted open and Nevda had already shot the two crew members. The hullbreach was quickly sealed by the secondary emergency doors, and Nevda dashed towards the bridge. Quickly opening the door to the communications room, she threw a flash grenade in, shut the door, waited three seconds, and then ran in, shooting the four crew members inside down with ease.
Nevda then sprinted diagonally across the room and out the other door, shooting two shots into another patrol and killing both of them, making a mad dash for the bridge of the ship. As soon as she reached the bridge, she snapped to her right and shot the captain in the head, and the simulation immediately fell apart, leaving her in the simulated vacuum of space. "How'd I do?" Nevda asked.
"Fourteen-point-four-five seconds." the instructor answered, and Nevda sighed.
"Let's run it again, then."
"Negative, someone else is waiting to run this simulation."
Nevda was confused, but before she could protest, she was booted out into an overhead view of the corvette, with the roof of the rooms exposed to space, like a doll house. Nevda immediately recognized the new runner as Ash, and this time, the instructor didn't even have time to start speaking before she breached the corvette.
Ash ignored the patrol that was in front of the airlock and immediately ran to the communications room. She primed a thermal detonator, ran in, threw it in the corner where three of the crew members were, shot the fourth in the head, and ran out before the detonator blew up. She then shot the two patrolling crew members as she was running to the bridge, hopped over their bodies, and blasted the captain in the head with an overcharged shot. The simulation immediately ended.
"Final time; seven-point-three-two seconds." the instructor commented.
"Not bad." Ash said to herself, before turning to Nevda. "Hey, Nev." she greeted casually, as if she hadn't just blazed through one of their simulations like it was nothing.
Nevda had unconsciously left her jaw hanging open. "…That was…" she said, robbed of her words.
"Amazing? Incredible?" Ash egged, stroking her own ego.
"I was going to say batshit insane, but let's go with that, yeah." Nevda said, a little bit miffed that Ash had interrupted her runs. "Why are you even here? I thought you would've been asleep by now."
Ash smiled at Nevda. "Just wanted to thank you for bringing me Sidewinder back. Would've forgotten about him otherwise." she answered, before pulling up a holographic scoreboard. "That, and I want to check the times for the Corvette sim." she continued, flicking to the top of the board. There was a long list of Ash's old names before she got to the top, with her top time of 6.6 seconds now in second place, dethroned by someone named Decker. "Who's this?" Ash asked, and Nevda moved over to see.
"That'd be Decker, one of the apprentice Scribes. You're welcome to practice the run and beat his time." Nevda offered, trying to prod Ash into a rivalry with Decker.
Ash shook her head. "I think I'm good for now – just wanted to pop in and show off. 'Night, Nev."
"'Night, Ash." Nevda replied as Ash's avatar disintegrated.
Ash found herself looking through a pair of macrobinoculars across the wide open desert of a hauntingly familiar world. It was basically pitch black out. "See anything?" her raven haired companion asked, scanning as best she could with her rifle.
"Can't see shit." Ash replied sardonically. "Except for a few banthas."
Her companion let off a light laugh. "I see two scout troopers staring at us, to the northeast." she said to Ash, and she pivoted practically on her heels to see that yes, there was a scout trooper team staring at them through a pair of macrobinoculars and a rifle.
"Think you can make the shot?" Ash asked.
"Think? I know I can." her companion replied, readying to shoot their sniper clean in the head. She breathed in, counted down from five, and then pulled the trigger. The explosive force from the gunshot made Ash wince, and she now found herself standing in the middle of the burning compound she used to call home.
Stormtroopers were patrolling the area, burning buildings and setting some demolition charges. Saber tanks sat outside the ruined walls, and the dead were being piled up. The smoke was so thick, Ash could barely see, let alone breathe, with the setting suns producing an ominous orange glow through the smoke. A trooper stared directly at her, but did nothing, while the others milled around, too concerned with their orders to even notice Ash's presence.
Tempted to draw her pistol and shoot the trooper, Ash decided against it. He hadn't alerted the others to her presence. Pressing through the smoke towards the back of the base, Ash climbed up a set of stairs to the second level of the base, and headed inside one of the structures built into the canyon walls. The door automatically opened for her, and, laying up against the wall with her arms cradling her rifle, was her same raven-haired companion, bleeding profusely from her chest. Ash reached out to help, but the sudden sound of a blaster being charged behind her head put an end to that.
When Ash turned, she only caught a glimpse of the stormtrooper behind her, as he pulled the trigger back and shot her in the head.
Shooting up out of bed with a start, Ash had to catch her breath, causing Sidewinder to spring out of his resting state and hover around Ash as she calmed herself. She swallowed once, and then twice, and then a third time as her breathing finally slowed. Sidewinder gave her a worried 'bwoo dwee?', and Ash scratched his dome. "…I'm fine, Sidewinder. It was just a bad dream." she said in a comforting way.
Sidewinder gave her a low 'bwooo' in response, before pulling away and creating a hologram of the Grand Ascendant. "Voto, something important has come up regarding our security, and it requires your skillset. See me as soon as you can." the recording said, before fizzling out. Ash didn't protest her new orders, though. Instead, she simply brushed the hair out of her face, got out of bed, and began to get ready for the day.
One hour later, and Ash was riding the turbolift to the Ascendant's throne room, with Sidewinder hovering by her shoulder. The lift doors slid open, and the Vanguards pounded their electrostaves against the floor to signal her arrival. Ash approached the Ascendant's throne, and then kneeled, bowing her head. "I am answering your summons, Grand Ascendant." Ash said humbly, and Sidewinder tilted his chassis to mimic a bow.
One of the Ascendant's tendrils shot up and produced a datapad, presenting it to Ash. "The Scribes have finished decrypting the datapads you brought back from Sti's workshop. The information they found was… concerning, to say the least." the Ascendant revealed. "A small amount of IFF transponders belonging to our vehicle maintenance teams have been smuggled out of the Church by Luddic sympathizers over the past several months, usually in tiny amounts so as to not raise suspicion from the Scribes. This datapad contains the locations of four of these transponders, which we believe to be in the most… precarious situations of the stolen batches."
Ash took the datapad from the tendril and gave it a quick scan, and Sidewinder floated over to look with her. "…These are all over the planet." Ash noted simply, and Sidewinder gave off a questioning 'dwo-wee?'
The Ascendant looked to Sidewinder. "You will be ferried around by Nevda in her CloakShape. She has already been briefed on the transponder locations, and has been in the hangar all morning preparing her ship. You are expected to be out for several days, but do not come back until all four have been recovered so that they may be destroyed." the Grand Ascendant continued. "Any questions?" he asked expectantly, and Ash shook her head no. "Dismissed."
Without further ceremony, Ash turned back to the turbolift with Sidewinder, pushed the button, and went down to the main entry hall. Sidewinder eyed Ash curiously in the turbolift, letting off a 'bwo-dwee' to ask a question to her. Ash glanced at her droid from behind her mask. "I don't know how the Ascendancy let something like this slip, Sidewinder. Scribes are usually pretty uptight about logistics." she mused, more than a little confused. Sidewinder gave her an amused 'bwee-bwee', and Ash smiled behind her mask at his comment.
The turbolift finally came to the main entrance hall, and the doors slid open, letting Ash and Sidewinder out into the forming crowd for the morning sermon. However, the pair of them opted to sidestep the crowd entirely, shimmying out of the way towards one of the turbolifts at the end of the hallway that led down to the hangar. They had to push their way through, but they otherwise were not trampled. Getting into the turbolift that led to the hangar, they went down several levels as the telltale sound of fusion cutters, labor droids, and ships taking off began to echo through the walls into the turbolift chamber.
At last, the lift came to a stop, and the doors opened, revealing a moderately sized shuttle just pulling in, loaded either with cargo or more of the faithful for the sermon. To the side, Ash saw an offloading freighter, but no Nevda, or her CloakShape. Switching on her IFF transponder, Nevda's 'ANF29' tag quickly showed up on her viewplate, towards the back of the hangar, behind the freighter. Sidewinder practically bolted to the tag, his 'SNDR' tag growing slightly distant, before he disappeared behind the freighter where Nevda was.
As Ash slipped under the hulk of the freighter, she caught sight of Sidewinder teasing Nevda, who was dancing around the droid and trying to swat him away before he damaged something. With little effort, Ash snuck up behind the irritated Nevda, and tapped her on the shoulder. She turned, took one glance at Ash, and then calmed down, finally losing interest in Sidewinder. "You already know what you're supposed to be doing, right, Nev?" Ash questioned, and Nevda nodded. Turning her attention to Nevda's CloakShape, Ash caused her mask to produce a holographic question mark. "This is a CloakShape?" she questioned, and Nevda turned to her ship, standing proudly.
"Hard to believe, isn't it? She was a bitch to retool, Ash." Nevda said, tracing along the notably thinner, more angular frame. "This was the first thing I did to her – stripping the hull and cutting the size down. Rebuilt the whole thing to look smaller on sensors, no bigger than a pleasure craft." she explained, and to her credit, the CloakShape did have a notably smaller profile. Angled plating and dark paint certainly did help to give the aged ship a more 'modern' look to it. "After that, I went to Bracca and stole a whole bunch of parts from the scrapyards there. I took the engines from two Actis interceptors, and the shield generator, weapons, and powerplant from an ARC-170. I even managed to hack together a functional turret on the top from the ARC's rear gun, and I still have enough space to fit in new sensor equipment, a hyperdrive, bigger fuel tanks, and a tiny living quarters!" Nevda boasted, causing Ash to whistle, impressed with her work.
With a flick of her wrist, Nevda caused the cockpit to swing out, and the three of them got in. Even the interior had been overhauled, leaning more towards pilot comfort and access rather than spartan utilitarianism like the stock cockpit on a CloakShape. "…In other words…" Nevda said, continuing her boast. "She can out-turn most interceptors, out-run a TIE, out-gun most heavy fighters, and still take the punishment from one, without showing up on sensors as much bigger than a Cloud Car." she said, finally finishing her boast. Sidewinder let off a questioning 'dwee-dwoo', and Nevda looked offended. "Of course she has a name! I call her the Heretek's Bane – the single biggest credit sink of my life, or at least, next to my augs, she is." she said with a light laugh, before sitting in the pilot's chair, while Ash sat in the copilot's chair.
Sidewinder hovered between the two of them, and projected a hologram of Coruscant, with five yellow dots marked all around the planet, and one green one to represent their current position. Examining the hologram, tapped the one on the surface, and the hologram shifted to an intel screen.
One transponder was located in Coru-Hiver territory, another in Aug Family territory, one of the Union's many fractured elements, another was in a no man's land between the Black Sun and the Coru-Hivers, and the fourth was in Hutt controlled territory. Fun times.
"Which do you want to go after first, Ash? We've got the whole damn week ahead of us." Nevda asked, kicking back in her chair, surprisingly casual for the mission they'd been assigned to.
After internal debate, Ash finally decided. "…Let's go for the one between the Sun and the Hivers, first."
Nevda smiled and nodded at her partner, before taking her scomp link and plugging it in to the pilot's console, beginning the pre-flight check. A few minutes later, and they were off, heading to the one place that Hiver and Sun territory met – the Kluun sector.
The Kluun sector was something of an oddity in regard to Coruscant's underworld, especially in the context of 1313. Officially, the sector was completely lawful, with minimal crime and total Imperial loyalty. In actuality, the sector was a sort of neutral zone between the Black Sun and the Coru-Hivers, with a little bit of Hutt influence here and there. Policing was handled by Tiandong Security Solutions, operating on their no bantha shit policy of 'no gang warfare on our turf'. More than a few Sun heads had to be cut for the message to get across, and the Coru-Hivers backed down accordingly.
The end result was a sector that shined brighter than any other on the level, with just as many casinos and tourist traps as Cloud City, The Wheel, and Canto Bight, maybe even more. The lack of major gang control meant that the Suns. Hutts, and Hivers had to resort to less noisy methods of spreading their influence, usually through bribery and supplying certain goods to fit the sector's needs – the Suns would push working girls and slave labor to some of the brothels and industrial areas, the Hivers would sell high quality blasters and vehicles off to Tiandong, and the Hutts would push an unholy amount of chems onto the streets. This, combined with Tiandong's incredibly lax regulations on goods and trade, meant that it was an unparalleled free market, even by the standards of Coruscant's underworld.
Of course, even with its shiny looks and bright lights, the place was still just as seedy and crime-infested as the rest of the underworld – the natural price for having the influence of three major criminal powers in one sector. In fact, Tiandong's security was more for the gangs than it was for the people living there. Cybernetics harvesting was quite a common crime there, alongside the usual suspects of murder and robbery. There was even the occasional casino heist that usually went nowhere, thanks to Tiandong's rather excessive use of force.
As the Bane moved along with airspeeder traffic over the district, Sidewinder let out a long, drawn out 'buwao' of impressment at the glittering lights and bright colors of the casinos. "Easy there, firebrand. Ash isn't here to gamble her money away." Nevda said in a joking manner, rubbing her knuckles on Sidewinder's chassis. "Where's this transponder at?"
Pulling out the datapad, Ash turned it on and flicked around towards the Kluun sector. "…Seems like it's in one of the ghettos with a lot of Black Sun activity. An apartment complex, actually. Closest place we can set down is by Pleasures of Cerea, seven blocks up."
Nevda nodded, moving the Bane out of the airspeeder lane, setting it over a back alley between two large casinos, and then pushing the throttle up. Not being restricted by airspeeder traffic, it barely took them a minute to arrive at the Cerean-owned brothel and casino. Carefully maneuvering the Bane onto a nearby landing pad behind the building, Nevda set her down, and the front cockpit opened out.
Without another word, Ash got out with Sidewinder. "Hey!" Nevda called out, reaching under the console and pulling out a tracking fob, before tossing it to Ash, who caught it with ease. "You'll be needing this."
Ash paused, nodded once, and then disappeared behind a corner. Nevda shut the cockpit again, leaning back in her chair, and shutting her eyes to get some rest.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
Ash kept her eye trained on the fob, even as it fed info to her mask through her implants. As much as she had come to rely on them, they could still fail due to a minor glitch somewhere in the data stream between the fob, her implants, and her mask. Glancing ahead and to her right, she spotted the marker for the transponder that had been placed by the fob, and a quick point of the fob in its direction confirmed that it wasn't a glitch.
Turning the corner, she was greeted with the sight of a small group of Black Sun gangers hanging around an idling landspeeder, sharing cheap booze and laughing. The one sitting on the front of the speeder nudged his buddies to get their attention, and they collectively looked over at Ash. She flared up her viewplate holograms to intimidate them and get them to turn their attention elsewhere. Regrettably, it didn't work, but a few of them at least looked on edge. Two of them, a Devaronian built like a tank, and a scrawny looking Bothan just a little taller than Ash walked over.
Ash quickly stowed her fob, but it didn't fool the gangers. "…What do we have here, Morc?" the Bothan said in a playfully malicious tone.
The Devaronian, Morc, smirked in response. "Looks like a bounty hunter that's wandered into the wrong part of town to me, Kuth." he answered, observing Ash. "And would you just look at those augs? Probably a couple thousand's worth of 'em." he continued greedily.
Ash kept her hand on her holster, ready to draw if need be. "I'd suggest you go back to your little block party with your friends, hornhead." she said, her voice ice cold. "You keep this up, and I can't guarantee that getting your ass kicked by a woman a third of your size would look good on you and your buddies."
The Devaronian snorted. "Have it your way, midge." he said indignantly, before moving to grab Ash. She easily moved out of the way of the lumbering giant's grasp, grabbed his arm, and threw him to the pavement with shocking ease. For good measure, Ash kicked him in the ribs, before jumping to the Bothan, who had only just realized that his sole immediate backup was now kissing the ground. Quickly grabbing onto her would-be assailant by his long mane, she threw him head-first into the wall, knocking him out cold.
Hearing the rest of the Suns approaching, Ash turned quickly, and activated her carbide wrist blades to serve as a warning to the rest of the Suns. They seemed to be smarter than their friends, and quickly backed up. "Easy, easy…" one of them said to try and defuse the situation, while Sidewinder floated beside Ash, angrily trilling and chirping at the Black Suns.
"Stay away, or you're gonna get a hell of a lot worse of a beating than your friends here got." Ash warned, not dropping her guard in the slightest.
One of the Suns, a Twi'lek, shook her head laughing. "We don't care that you beat their asses. If you weren't gonna do it, we were." she said, before fishing in her jacket pockets for something. She produced a credstick, and tossed it to Ash, who easily caught it. "Take this for the trouble. Last thing we'd want is Tiandong kicking our asses over one of their hunters getting harvested by those two boltheads."
Ash quickly stowed the credstick, but kept her eyes on the gangers as she backed into the apartment building. "C'mon, let's get these two the hell out of here." one of them suggested, before they picked the Devaronian and Bothan up and boarded their landspeeder, finally taking off.
Sheathing her wrist blades, Ash looked up and to her right. The IFF transponder was just one floor up, and looked to be the first or second room on the left from the stairwell in front of her. The entryway to the complex was, unsurprisingly, in an appalling state. A couple lights were hanging down from the ceiling, their wires exposed. More than a few parts of the walls had been stripped or destroyed by scrappers, and there was at least a little bit of water damage.
There was also, strangely, the stench of a rotting dead body. Probably a stim junkie that overdosed somewhere. Undeterred, Ash went up the stairwell, the stairs creaking and moaning, threatening to give in, even under her light weight. Coming out of the stairwell, the damage was even worse on the second floor. There were more than a few brown smears, possibly blood, more than likely vomit, but the stains had been there for so long that Ash could hardly tell anymore.
The door to the room where the IFF transponder looked like it had been bashed open with an axe. Cautiously, Ash drew one of her bryar pistols and approached the door. Sidewinder floated in front of the hole, and enabled a link to Ash's viewplate. The transponder was on a dead body, lying flat on the floor. Ash waited as Sidewinder sent out a scan pulse. Only one person was in the room, and they were hiding in a closet, with Sidewinder's pulse showing their breathing was irregular and rapid.
Opening the door as slowly as she could, she motioned for Sidewinder to keep an eye on the closet and stun the person if they tried to come out. Quickly moving to the body, she saw more clearly that it was a Twi'lek, her skin a pale blue. Her face was locked in a scream, eyes rolled back into her head, with blood dribbling from her nose. She looked like she had been choked out, as there was purple bruising around her neck. Finally, as if to add to the strange scene, her lekku looked like they had been deflated.
Hesitantly picking one of the headtails up, Ash realized that they weren't deflated – they were empty. With one quick scan, Ash confirmed the presence of residue consistent with Twi'lek brain matter on the woman's face. Disturbed, but not deterred, she grabbed the transponder from the woman's jacket and stored it in her bag. Turning her attention to the person in the closet, she approached carefully, before knocking twice on the door. "Hello?" Ash said, sounding as friendly as she could.
No response.
Ash knocked again. "I know you're in there. Come out." she said, and the person in the closet grumbled.
"…Go away." he said, his voice shaken and upset. With what little light was getting into the closet, Ash caught a glimpse of the man's face, red from crying.
Sighing in frustration, Ash shook her head. "Afraid I can't do that."
The man glared at her angrily from the closet. "Why? Because you're here to finish what your friend started?" he poised, trying to sound as angry as he could, but in all honesty, he just sounded pathetic.
"Friend?" Ash repeated, looking to the body. "…I don't know any Anzat." she said frankly, before looking back into the closet. "…Look, can you just tell me what happened?"
The man seemed to shake his head. "How do I know you're not just gonna kill me after I'm done talking?"
Ash rolled her eyes behind her mask. "Because I'd have done it already. My droid already knew you were in here. If I did want you dead, we wouldn't be talking right now, would we?"
The man went silent for a few seconds, before the closet slid open, revealing the man in full. He had black hair slicked back, a strong jawline, and was completely clean shaven. His silver eyes were shining in what little light there was. Sidewinder got close out of curiosity, but backed away when the man sneered at him. He turned his attention to Ash. "…That Twi'lek on the floor was my girlfriend. She ran a chop-shop for speeders, a couple blocks away, towards the Strip."
Ash relaxed, and sat down next to the man. "Any idea why someone would want to kill her?" Ash asked, and the man winced at the question.
"…She grew up a slave on Ryloth. A local Hutt owned her until she managed to escape. If I had to guess who would have wanted her dead, I'd say either the Black Suns or the Hutts. She never played ball with either of them, but she was more than okay with the Hivers." he explained, before looking out of the closet at the Twi'lek. "She'd been getting threatening messages for the past few weeks. Sometimes, it was a bunch of gangers spraypainting the words 'die, die, die' outside the shop, other times she'd get sent dead animals or severed limbs, shit like that. I just wish that she would have listened to me and got us the hell out of here."
Ash produced the transponder. "Do you know anything about this?" she asked, and the man squinted at it in the darkness.
"…No, what is it?"
Opening her mouth to speak, Ash caught her tongue before she blew her cover. "…It's probably how the murderer tracked your girlfriend. It's an IFF transponder owned by my employers. There was a break-in a few weeks back, and some of them were stolen."
"Stolen? By who?"
"That's classified. Sorry." Ash answered, shooting his question down immediately. "…Did you catch the killer's appearance? They were an Anzat, of this I'm certain, but any specific details would go a long way to helping me catch them."
The man shook his head. "No, I was out with my friends at the cantina when the killer probably showed up. I only came back an hour ago, and I've been too shaken up to do anything else but sit in the closet."
Ash frowned. "That's unfortunate, but not entirely unexpected. I've gotten what I've come for, but what's your name, just in case I need to come back?" she questioned, and the man stared at her, his expression blank.
"K-Kad. Kad Kor." he choked out after several seconds.
Ash nodded and placed her hand on his shoulder. "I appreciate your help, Kor, and I pray that nothing else happens to you. Whoever killed your girlfriend is likely an enemy of my employers, and their death is all but assured." she said, before standing up and moving to leave, Sidewinder trailing her.
"Wait," Kor said, reaching his hand out, and Ash stopped in the doorway. "Just who are you? ISB or some shit?"
Ash paused to consider his question, and looked at him from the corner of her eye. "'Or some shit.'" she quipped, before leaving the apartment.
For the next three days, Ash would hunt down the transponders in Aug Family and Hutt territory. Strangely enough, the situations of the 'owners' were similar to the Twi'lek in the Kluun sector. Dingy, run-down building, grisly murder scene, signs of an Anzat, and the transponder left on the body. The Hutt kill was, surprisingly, a minor functionary, while the Aug Family one was a major enforcer.
That just left the Coru-Hiver mark.
As she walked through their territory, Ash felt uneasy. The streets were completely abandoned, with only the occasional airspeeder flying through, although they weren't Imperial or Hiver, as they never stopped her to enforce a curfew. She just couldn't shake the feeling that she was being watched, which was a very real possibility.
"Run another scan pulse, Sidewinder." Ash requested, and Sidewinder complied, sending the pulse out. Again, nobody was at their windows, but seeing empty streets on a planet with over a trillion people wasn't exactly a good sign. Usually, there'd be at least a few delinquent kids around, or mingling smugglers and gangers.
This? This was more barren than a Twi'lek in her thirties, and Ash hated it. Sidewinder had evidently picked up on this, and let out a questioning 'dwooo?' in her ear. "Have you ever seen Coruscant streets this empty? It's unnerving." she responded as they passed by an empty cantina – the Mare's Leg. "Even on lower levels, there's someone around."
Sidewinder gave her a comforting 'dwoo-dwaa', and she scratched his chassis on response. "I know, I can handle any two-bit gangster in this level, Sidewinder. Come on, the transponder is just up ahead." Ash said, and Sidewinder trailed after her down an alleyway.
The transponder was one floor up, and from what Ash could tell, the person in possession of it was alive. Ash pat Sidewinder on the chassis once. "Go up to that window and give me a visual." she requested, and Sidewinder happily chirped, floating up as Ash's HUD gained access to Sidewinder's perspective.
What she saw wasn't really what she was expecting – the window had already been broken in, and two men, both around six foot, were brawling in a bedroom, while a woman lay helplessly on the bed. As she cautiously observed the home invasion play out, Ash caught sight of tendrils coming from the man closer to the window, and it suddenly clicked. Ash pressed down on her commlink. "Nevda, I've caught our killer in the act, going in now." she said, before launching her grappling wire up over the window, and beginning to climb up.
"Copy that, Ash, going silent until you come back on comms." Nevda replied, and then the commlink cut out.
As Ash scaled the building's wall, she heard the sounds of the fight intensifying, the man and the Anzat exchanging blows, while the woman whimpered, and another one was yelling and pounding on the door. Finally vaulting over the seal, Ash leapt onto the Anzat, kicking him in the back, surprising him. She grabbed hold of his flailing tendrils and pulled, but to her surprise, he grabbed her, pulled her from his back, and threw her at the other guy.
Reacting quickly, she unsheathed her wrist blade, and the force of the blade coming out embedded it in the ceiling, stopping her from hitting the other guy. Ash quickly sheathed it again to free herself, crouched into a low position, and re-drew the blade in a ready stance, alongside the other man. "Tag him, Sidewinder." she communicated in binary, and on command, a hole opened in Sidewinder's chassis, and a tiny, nearly invisible dart shot out, attaching itself to the killer's clothes.
The killer took one look at his situation and huffed. "Unfortunate." he commented simply, before running out the window. The man ran over to the seal, while Ash looked at Sidewinder's perspective, which was now rewinding. As soon as he dropped below the seal, it's like he just disappeared. One frame he was there, the next, gone.
"Son of a bitch, he got away again." the man commented in a horrifically familiar voice, one that sent shivers down Ash's metallic spine. He poked his head out the window, and apparently seeing nothing, came in, alongside Sidewinder, who calmly floated by Ash's head. "…Thanks for the assist, lady, but, uh…" the man continued to trail in that haunting voice as he came into the light, revealing his jet black hair and mismatched eye colors. "…you should probably get out of here before the Hivers come knocking."
Ash's mouth hung open, and she could only think to say one thing.
"…Nax?"
That's that for this chapter. I wanted to get this out in time for Christmas, because I literally cannot work at this during Christmas Eve and Day since I'm at my grandparents all day.
There was originally going to be a fifth transponder, and each one was supposed to have its own segment, but I cut this for time since I write at a glacial pace. Said fifth transponder would have been in Sienar Fleet Systems' corporate tower on the surface, and it would have largely focused on Sidewinder trying to Metal Gear his way past the guards.
Speaking of – the idea for Sidewinder came to me after beating Fallen Order. I wanted a cute droid that would also be significantly helpful to Ash's tasks, make him tailor-made and all that shit. In case it wasn't obvious, BD-1 was the primary inspiration, although Dio from Battlefront 2 was why I made it an ID9 droid.
That whole CR90 course thing was inspired by the FNG CQC course from CoD4.
Anyways, until next time, and have a happy New Year and a merry Christmas!
-Tweak