So, I'm writing this the day after chapter 15 went up, and now that it's out I can think clearly about what would have happened that I had cut out:
-The Anzat was originally supposed to be there in the basement with Markan, instead of Sekhuo, but with the way the fight played out in my head as well as the way I had designed it would have required him to die, and I have plans for him, so Sekhuo ate shit instead.
-Sekhuo and the Anzat would have had a sort of Cioccolata/Secco relationship, and in fact, they were the main inspiration for the Anzat and Sekhuo. While I goofed on my end and didn't develop the relationship enough before killing Sekhuo, you can see some of it in the opening part of chapter 13.
-I briefly toyed with the idea that the Anzat had fed on Lexi's mom after the magtrain attack ten years before Pulsar Company, but quickly dropped it due to not liking it as much. Her name would have been revealed as Luxura, which is a name I still like and am going to run with in the future.
To speak on Star Wars news, the trailer for High Republic sent my fear reflexes into overdrive. Everything about that storyboard midway through set off so many goddamned warning bells in my head. Looks like fucking SHIET, and I want Potter fans to fuck off from Star Wars forever.
Haven't watched Clone Wars Season 7 though, I need to get on that shit.
Read and review.
Nax and Kyra watched as Lexi wept tears of grateful joy, embracing her dad. "…Dad…" she sniffled out, her voice cracking. Markan smiled and ran his frail, nearly skeletal hand through her hair in a comforting manner. "…Dad…" she repeated, her crying picking up. "…I thought you were dead. Where the hell have you been all this time?"
Markan made a 'shh' sound as he comforted Lexi. "…I'm so sorry, sweetie." he murmured quietly, just barely loud enough for Kyra and Nax to hear. "…It's just that… after your mom died, the gambling and the drinking got hold of me again. Too many debts got racked up with the wrong crowds. I had a lot of people who wanted my head on a platter." he explained slowly, and Lexi gave him a puzzled look. "…I could take it and bluff my way out of that a lot of times when they came for me, but then they started threatening to go after you, Lexi." Markan continued, tightening his grip on his daughter. "…So, I ran away to get them away from you."
Lexi looked… angry?
No, not angry. Confused, and hurt, as if Markan had just taken a knife and stabbed her in the gut.
"Y…you ran?" Lexi asked, suddenly sounding extremely heartbroken. Markan silently nodded in shame, and Lexi pulled herself away. "…You ran." she repeated to herself, the words she was hearing not making any sense to her. "…You ran, and left me to fend for myself!" she shouted, tears beginning to flow freely.
Markan tried to sit up as best he could to try and calm Lexi down. "Lexi, I'm sorry-" he tried to apologize, but Lexi cut him off.
"Sorry doesn't cut it!" she wailed, stepping away from Markan. "Do you have any, and I mean ANY idea what I've been through?!" she poised angrily, and Markan seemed to shrink in the face of her wrath. "Hell, did you even think of what could have happened to me, a little ten year old Zeltron girl, being left alone on one of the most dangerous levels of Coruscant?!"
"No, but-"
"Of course you didn't!" Lexi shouted, her voice rife with sorrow. "You drank and gambled your worries about mom away, and then when it came to bite you, you abandoned me to save your own skin!" she ranted, her rage, grief, and sadness mixing together with years of abandonment. Lexi quickly looked around as if she was going to throw something at him, but she gave up and stormed off to the crew quarters in a rage. "You self-serving asshole!" she screamed, slamming the door behind her. Zeethree appeared in the corridor, alongside Katy and Arfive, wondering what all the commotion was.
Nax and Kyra moved to go after her, but Markan trying to appear sympathetic caught their attention, only serving to earn disgusted and disdainful glares from the pair. "You know what, Markan?" Nax said, his voice cold as ice. "If you weren't half starved to death, I'd beat the hell out of you myself." he threatened, before heading down the corridor with Kyra in tow. The complete shift in attitude from Nax when he had rescued him to now was night and day to Markan, and he retreated in the face of Nax's ire.
Calmly approaching the door as the droids watched, Nax pressed his ear against the door and heard Lexi crying. Hesitant, he pulled back and gently knocked three times. "Go away." Lexi said, her voice muffled and shaken.
"It's just us, Lexi." Nax said calmly, although he was extremely wary of a potential backlash from her. "…Can we come in?"
There was a pause in her crying, and the lock on the door clicked open, and the pair quickly went through, shutting it behind them, the droids not protesting out of respect for her, even though they were more or less in the dark.
Lexi was half-buried under her sheets, her bangs covering the entire left side of her face, leaving only her right eye exposed, red from crying, and her face flushed and wet. Tears were still streaming down her face, and she would occasionally sniffle or whimper. Immediately upon seeing this, Kyra moved to hug Lexi, at which point her emotional dam burst, and she let it all out, holding on tight to Kyra as the both of them tried to console her. "I can't believe that asshole!" she cried out in anguish as Kyra's shoulder grew damp. "He abandoned me for ten years! Ten years! All because he couldn't pay back his debts and bar tabs!" Lexi continued, at this point bordering on raving.
Kyra ran her hand through Lexi's hair as she cried. "I can't possibly imagine abandoning my own kids to fend for themselves in a hellhole like this." she said, at a complete loss for any more words.
Nax, on the other hand, had a silent, raging fire being stoked inside of him. Where his parents had fled to Tatooine, had him and his brother, and planned to raise the two of them as best they could in their situation, Lexi's dad just abandoned her to die. Even under the guise of him fleeing to take the attention away from her, he still left his ten year old daughter alone in one of the most dangerous parts of the Core. She's lucky to have grown up the way she did, let alone even be alive. Nax reached out to wipe the tears from her face. "Lexi," he started, his expression apprehensive and unsure. "…maybe it's best that you grew up without him."
Lexi opened her eye to look at him, more than a little bit of confusion stirring with her grief. "…What do you mean by that?" she asked, her voice cracking, even sounding a little bit hoarse.
"I mean if your dad is the type to abandon his kid when the going gets tough, then you're probably better off without him. Who knows what you'd have become with him still around." Nax elaborated, and the possibilities ran through Lexi's mind, her expression becoming dimmer and dimmer, so Nax pulled Kyra and Lexi into a hug of his own to comfort her. "Besides that, I like you the way you are. Suns can only imagine what we'd be like if any of us were even a little bit different."
Lexi murmured an appreciative sound, before pulling away and wiping her tears away. "…Thanks, guys…" she quietly said, before pulling herself under her covers, much more stable now. "…I just… I just need a little time to myself." Lexi requested, and the pair nodded in understanding.
"Of course, Lexi." Nax said as he pulled her in for another hug. "We'll always be here for you. Promise."
Lexi smiled, enjoying the moment, before pulling away, wiping the tears in her eyes one final time, Lexi offered the two of them a grateful smile. "…Thank you." she simply said, and the pair nodded, before almost turning to leave. "…Wait." Lexi suddenly called out, and Nax and Kyra stopped. "…Before I forget, I sliced those datapads some more, and I keep seeing references to something called Mau-Sanir."
Nax nodded as he opened the door, noting the name. "I'll try and dig into it later. Don't worry about it, Lexi – just get some rest." he said, and with that, the pair left the room. The droids had dispersed, leaving Nax alone with Kyra. He began to head to the cockpit, and she followed him. "You think she's gonna be alright?" he asked.
Kyra made an 'mhm' sound as she trailed behind Nax. "Lexi's a lot tougher than she looks, even after today. She'll make it." she opined, before pulling herself closer to Nax, almost accidentally tripping him up. "If she can endure months of torture, abuse, and slavery, she can get through anything."
Nodding in agreement, Nax looked down at Kyra. "Shame about her dad being a piece of bantha shit." he blurted out with little regard as to whether Markan would hear him or not.
"Hard to imagine abandoning your kid in this hellpit just because you couldn't pay back your debts." Kyra replied, sounding uncharacteristically cold and indifferent to whatever Markan's plight may have been. "Jackass." she sneered.
Arfive strolled out from the cockpit corridor, with Sidewinder trailing beside him, the two of them engaged in some sort of heated debate that Nax couldn't understand, but judging from their tones, Arfive was winning, or at least, he was, until he stopped to look at Nax. Arfive let out a low series of chirps, before finishing with a long tone, asking about Lexi. "She'll be fine, Arfive." Kyra said, and Arfive responded with another low drone, before he continued his stroll through the ship with Sidewinder.
The pair continued down the corridor, entering the cockpit, and Kelah and Nevda both looked back, gave a quick nod, and then went back to work on their datapads. Nax sat down, plugged his datapad into the communicator console, put the comm headset on, and called Vopa, who quickly picked the call up. "How'd it go?" he asked, his voice coming through a little scuffed.
"Cleared the place out, got a bunch of datapads and paintings signed with the name 'Caliban Bullen', does that mean anything to you?" Nax asked as he idly tapped the console.
Vopa's response sounded surprised. "…Bullen's a famous artist. If you've got real pieces of his, then just one is worth a pretty small fortune." he responded, and Nax's mind spun at the hypothetical mountains of credits the paintings they had brought back could get them. "What's on the datapads?" Vopa asked, shaking Nax free of his profit-induced stupor.
"Dunno, that's what we're trying to find out, Vopa." he responded, before something else shot to the front of his mind. "…That said, though, we've found Lexi's dad, half-starved." he said, lowering his voice as he exchanged looks with Kyra.
Nax heard a slam from Vopa's end of the comm. "You found Markan?!" he heard Eath say in the background. "I thought he was gone for good, offed by some spice junkie, or worse!"
Cracking his fingers against the console, Nax gave a quick glance out the cockpit window as the skyscrapers flew by in the neon-lit eternal night of the underworld. "Yeah, we found him, alright." Nax responded, carefully picking his words as he heard the comm being handed over to Eath. "Lexi's pissed with him."
Confusion made itself clear in Eath's voice. "What? Why?" he asked, still adjusting the comm to fit comfortably.
"Turns out, he disappeared because he ended up taking on so much debt that collectors started threatening Lexi if he didn't pay up, so he ran to draw them away from her." Nax explained, and Eath sounded like he had just choked on something.
"He disappeared because of that?!" Eath blurted out after momentarily struggling to control his reaction.
"Yeah." Nax simply answered, and Eath sounded like he still couldn't believe what he had just heard, but Nax pressed on regardless. "Lexi's pissed with him, and I can't really blame her, so do you have a place where I can let him off to be taken care of? I don't have anywhere to keep him, not that I want him on my ship any longer than he needs to be." he asked, shifting his look back to the console.
He first heard the communicator shifting hands again, and then heard typing from the other end of the comm, alongside a few unintelligible mumbles. "…I'll send a place to your navcomputer and let them know you're coming. Now, if that's all, I need to get back to work." Vopa said, his voice a little distant, and Nax noted the incoming data.
Nax paused for a second, and after debating whether or not to mention this in front of Kelah and Nevda, made an affirmative grunt. "Can you do me a favor and look into something called Mau-Sanir?"
There was a short pause. "…Sure thing, Nax." Vopa replied and Nax, thanked Vopa, shut the comms off, and set the headset back on its rest.
As soon as he set it down, Kelah looked back to him. "We heard everything with Lexi, you know."
Standing up from the console, Nax leaned against it, crossing his arms and looking back at her, while Kyra took the seat he had just vacated. "I'm not surprised. All I can really ask you to do is not bother Lexi about it." he requested, and Kelah nodded in understanding.
The four of them remained silent for a few minutes. "…Hey, Nax?" Nevda asked as she reached up to adjust the switches for the repulsorlifts. "How modded out is the ship?"
"Near stock." Nax flatly replied, causing Nevda and Kelah to both lurch forward with a wheeze. "The hyperdrive is a class one now, but otherwise it's had nothing done to it."
Nevda looked back, a cheeky grin on her face. "When we're done here, remind me to fix that for you. I'll stick some Null Bolts onto her, and she'll be able to kick the hell out of any system patrol craft and 'vette that comes after you." she said, positively gleaming at the chance to work on a YT-series.
Kelah shook her head and then looked back to Nax. "Now you've done it, Nax. She's not gonna stop until it barely resembles a YT." she half-joked, and Nax smirked as Nevda playfully pushed Kelah in response.
The Anzat flashed his identification to the door guards to the storehouse, identifying him as Arto Tekti. The guards quickly let him through, fearing the risk of incurring his wrath, as he was already on the warpath. Quickly barreling through a logistics officer and her assistant, Tekti headed straight for the back room.
Tekti dug his hand into the control panel of the door enough to break the casing on it, and forcibly threw the door to the side, entering the command room. More than a few eyes were on Tekti now – several security officers wearing simple green robes with plastoid vests had their slugthrowers locked and loaded, the barrels just above their hips, ready to spring into action if need be. There was a loud sigh from the other end of the room, as well as the sound of someone knocking their knuckles against metal in a repetitive pattern. "Tekti." a deep voice called out. "You could have just knocked, you know."
Tekti let out a low snarl as he calmed himself. Compared to these mere children, he was an ancient, and there was little point in getting worked up with them. "Arch-Canon." Tekti responded in a cool, icy tone, with a little bit of added malice to maintain control over the conversation. "Your 'plan' for inciting a war against the Ascendancy has not only cost me my home, but my life's work as well."
Tekti couldn't tell through the Arch-Canon's mask, but he instinctively felt the lack of care for his plight emanating from the man. "That's all too bad, Tekti." he responded in his usual uncaring tone. "Good luck with that, though."
A scowl crossed Tekti's face, although it wasn't visible to the Pathers. "I don't think you understand the situation, Arch-Canon." he interrupted, as a tentacle revealed itself through his mask, sending the guards even closer to the edge. "Unless you provide me with some way of tracking the Ascendancy agents who have destroyed some of my greatest works, I find that it would be better if I simply slaughtered everyone in this room and reported your cells to the Imperials." Tekti threatened, his tone growing ever colder and more malicious. The guards had had enough now, and raised their weapons at Tekti, only for the Arch-Canon to force them to stand down.
"Sir-" one of the guards protested, but it was of little effect on the Arch-Canon, who raised his hand to quiet the discontent among his ranks.
"We will not be shooting our associate here." the Arch-Canon declared, looking over his guards for any sign of rebellion. Thankfully, there were none, or they weren't stupid enough to openly display it. "As a matter of fact, we'll be giving him exactly what he wants." he continued, before turning back to Tekti. "What, exactly, did you have in mind?"
Tekti crossed his arms, clearly frustrated that he had to waste his time with these shenanagins. "I need something that can track a scent across a hell-world like this." he responded, pausing for a moment to think of something else to say, before disregarding that and folding his hands together.
Behind his mask, the Arch-Canon smiled. "As it so happens, we have exactly what you're looking for." he said, before turning to one of the guards. "Bring out the B.O.W." he commanded, and the guard made an unsure motion, to which the Arch-Canon shooed him. The guard left in short order, and the Arch-Canon returned his attention to Tekti. "Tell me, Tekti, are you familiar with Compdogs?" he questioned in a smug manner.
Tekti raised an eyebrow instinctively. "Moderately. I've owned several of them. Fascinating creatures." he replied casually. "It's very strange that creatures like them can naturally exist and still retain their original base forms, even though for every successful breed, there's around thirty different dead ends. It's nothing short of a biological miracle."
As soon as Tekti finished waxing about the nature of the Compdog, two Devaronians built like brick walls came in carrying a large kennel, with something inside snapping and snarling at its handlers, attracting the attention of everyone in the room. Multiple wary guards pointed their slugthrowers at the kennel, much to the ire of the Devaronians who had the misfortune of carrying whatever was inside. The pair set the kennel down in front of Tekti, before quickly backing away, while the Arch-Canon approached calmly. "Allow me to present to you…" the Arch-Canon said as he leaned over the release on the kennel, evidently having a flair for the overly dangerous and dramatic. "…the Blind Compdog!" he said with an unnatural glee in his voice as he hit the release and backed away.
The snarling quieted down as the kennel opened, and out came not the front of a Compdog, but rather a twitching mass of a mouth that looked like it opened like a flower. The rest of the beast quickly followed, and it only superficially resembled a Compdog. The animal retained its thick leathery hide, three legs, and the sonicor organs, as evidenced by the five blue stripes that ran horizontally across its back that occasionally glowed and pulsed. However, the legs had been seemingly enlarged into massive claws, not unlike those of the Kath hound, or a Pantani Wolf, built for mauling prey. The changes to the creature didn't end there, though – it had a large tail that looked at least partly chitinous, which curled up and over the beast, ending in an oversized stinger that looked like it could punch clean through durasteel. Finally, as if to put the icing on the cake, the animal 'bloomed' its mouth open, revealing rows upon rows of serrated teeth, all centering around a voraciously hungry maw.
Tekti reached out to the beast's mind, and was greeted with not one mind, but several. Their thoughts were incoherent and unfocused, much like the mind of a domesticated blurrg, or a bantha. The only consistency they had was their desire to know why they had been disturbed from their rest, and when their next meal would be. Effortlessly, Tekti dominated the minds, with no visible reaction from the beast that could tip the Pathers off about what he had just done. "She's a beaut, isn't she?" one of the guards commented, before receiving multiple glares from his comrades.
The Arch-Canon looked down at the beast and ran his finger along the sonicor organs, causing the creature to shudder from the sensation. "She is the product of many months of research and development, Tekti. Modifying a Compdog this extensively is no easy task, but the end result is very much worth it. We only need to field test her tracking capabilities before we can begin mass production." he said calmly, releasing himself from the animal, not showing the slightest bit of fear. "She can help you find your quarry, Tekti."
Tekti looked at the creature, unsure of what to do. Much to his, and everyone else's surprise, the beast stood up on its hind leg, getting up to about chest level to Tekti, revealing the vestigial, but still functioning, beak mouth, quietly chirping at him, even though the gurgling from the new flower-mouth was much louder. "She can sense the pheromones and smell of every known sentient and non-sentient in the galaxy, and track them across an entire planet just with a single sample of the target you want."
Weighing his options, Tekti dominated the minds of the beast once again, and ordered it to follow him, and the two left in complete silence. The Arch-Canon crossed his arms as Reika entered the room, seemingly waiting on Reika for something, and as she looked around, she saw the issue. "If you laserbrains keep standing around that kennel and don't get back to your stations, I'll splatter you myself." she threatened harshly, enough that everyone scrambled for their posts.
Satisfied with her handling of their bumbling, the Arch-Canon beckoned Reika to the command table. "You wanted to see me?" she asked, standing fully at attention.
'Yes," he replied, before leaning over the command table and pulling up a hologram of a Pather cell base a few levels down. "The Mau-Sanir team have been lagging behind on their progress reports. I'm not exactly sure what they're doing with what we're sending them, but I'd like it if you would check up on them and get the project moving again." the Arch-Canon ordered, fiddling with the hologram as he spoke.
"By any means necessary?" Reika questioned, feeling as if she already knew the answer.
The Arch-Canon gave enough of an exaggerated eyeroll that Reika could tell he had done it, even behind his mask. "What do you think I keep you around for?" he jokingly questioned, before getting serious. "Do try not to kill anyone, though. Unless they're traitors, in which case, feel free to deal with them how you see fit."
Reika grinned, bowed her head, and then left for the base.
Turning the corner down the alleyway, Reika moved out of the way of a drunken bum, who had almost staggered his way into her, mumbling something in a Concord Dawn accent about the Clone Wars being a lie. Ignoring that, she pressed towards the entrance to the base, finding two guards who were lazing about at the entrance, their rifles clumsily slung over their bodies, idly discussing inane things that were of no interest to Reika. One of the guards, a male Twi'lek, gave Reika a passing glance. "Hi chuba da naga, sleemo?" he asked in Huttese, chuckling to himself, and his partner joined in, more out of obligation than anything else. Reaching into her coat, Reika produced her identification and flashed it to the Twi'lek, who promptly jumped straight up at the realization of just who she was, swearing profusely.
"Your life, if you don't tell me where I can find the person in charge." Reika casually threatened, patting her holster for emphasis.
The Twi'lek's human partner promptly threw an empty ration can at his head. "Dumbshit 'Lek!" he cursed as the Twi'lek rubbed his temple. Knocking his hand against the wall to get her attention, the man pointed inside the building with his thumb. "The bossman's in the lab downstairs. Take the stairs on the left, lab's at the end of the hall." he answered, and, satisfied, Reika pushed the door in, but not before giving the Twi'lek a menacing glare, to which he cowered in response.
The main entry area was in slight disarray and disrepair - a couple guards were posted around, their guns slung under their shoulders, but they were otherwise inattentive to Reika's entrance. Several workers were also milling about between the various rooms, as well as the downstairs labs. Heading downstairs, the change in environment was immediate. The lab level looked like it had been meticulously cleaned a thousand times over by cleaning droids, even though the Path forbade their use. Heading down the hall, Reika could hear the muffled sounds of lab equipment working in the side rooms, with lab workers discussing findings and research that, while of interest to the Path, meant nothing to her.
There were two guards posted at the door to the lab at the end of the hall, both humans wearing stolen Clone Hazmat gear, with the symbol of the Path crudely drawn on the chestplate. They motioned for her to stop, but with a single flash of her identification, they let her through to the main lab.
Inside were two figures, a Zeltron man in a hazmat suit with the helmet off, exposing his mullet, and a Givin, who wore nothing but a simple Path robe that looked at least slightly faded. The Givin hadn't noticed her, but the Zeltron had. He turned, noticed her, and then got the Givin's attention, who promptly turned to face Reika. "Greetings." he said in a monotone voice, sounding like a particularly bored Threepio droid. Reika mentally prepared herself for the equation the Givin would surely ask her. "I am Amhe Rest, head researcher of this facility. I assume you are here regarding our progress reports on Mau-Sanir?" he asked, and surprised that the equation did not come, Reika blinked twice.
She quickly collected herself. "Yes, that's exactly why I'm here. Why haven't you been submitting your reports to the Arch-Canon?" Reika questioned, warily eyeing the Amhe and his Zeltron assistant.
Amhe gave her a blank stare with those black voids his species had their eyes hidden in. "The answer is quite simple, actually. We've been working overtime on perfecting Mau-Sanir. At this stage, the only thing we're concerned with now is the transmission speed and incubation." he answered frankly, his jaw barely moving to accommodate his words, something that unnerved Reika tremendously. "Would you like a demonstration?" Amhe offered, gesturing to a test room where two subjects, both of whom were very much alive, were strapped to operating tables.
Reika gave him a curious look in response, before nodding her head. The Zeltron sighed as he set his helmet on and sealed the suit, heading to the sole door into the room where the two men laid. Amhe beckoned her over to the observation pane, and held his arms behind his back. "The man on the left is a completely natural human being. No genetic enhancements, no cybernetics, purely baseline." he said to her, before shifting his gaze to the man on the right. "This man, however, is a prime specimen of everything your Path hates. We took him right off the street, and it turns out, he's a member of the Ascendancy, no less. Rife with cybernetics and 'enhancements'." Amhe said, saying enhancements with audible disdain. He then bent over, speaking into the microphone at the control panel. "You may begin." he said, and the Zeltron looked back and nodded.
The assistant moved closer to the man on the left and produced a small syringe filled with a light blue liquid, almost looking like bacta. The man instinctively squirmed in his chair as the Zeltron injected the syringe into his arm, only getting more antsy after he pulled it out and stood back. The man seemed to ask a question, only to receive no reply, so he remained strapped to the chair, a nervous expression permanently on his face. A scant minute later, and the first man coughed a few times, although that seemed to be the extent of it, only serving to confuse Reika.
Reika opened her mouth to question what exactly she was waiting for, but right as she was about to speak, the sinner from the Ascendancy started to cough, too. First it was innocuous, as if he were suffering from a cold, but the longer it went on, the more violent the coughing became. Before long, he was coughing up blood and what was possibly chunks of flesh onto the cold metal floor. After he began coughing blood, his body began to twist and contort in unnatural ways, particularly around his right arm and both legs. Blood began to spill from where metal met flesh, and the man finally howled from the pain, having demonstrated immense pain tolerance up until now. The Zeltron was patiently watching the man, while the natural was staring on in shock and horror. Reika and Amhe, though, were observing with scientific curiosity, moreso from Amhe than Reika. With one final attempt to break free of his restraints, the man fell against the chair, limp, blood pouring from most of his orifices and several of his limbs. The Zeltron approached, and after a long look and more than a little prodding with a long medical instrument, confirmed that the man was dead. He then turned back to the natural man, pulled out a blaster, and shot him clean in the head. Amhe then leaned over the console again, pressed several buttons, and a thick yellow gas was sprayed into the room, blocking all sight inside.
Confused, but also fascinated with what she had seen, Reika turned to Amhe. "…What exactly just happened?" she questioned, occasionally shifting her glance between Amhe and the experimentation room.
Amhe turned to face her, and his expression was about as close to a morbid grin as a Givin could manage. "It's very simple." he said, before shifting back to face the clouded room. "The natural was injected with Mau-Sanir. It effectively turned him into an asymptomatic carrier, the only sign of infection being the cough. It then became airborne, and entered the Ascendant's lungs, reacting with his anti-rejection medication to create a most deadly concoction inside of him. It rapidly forced his body into CRS and ARS, which I believe you Pathers are somewhat familiar with – 'know thy enemy' and such." Amhe said, snickering to himself, before quickly regaining composure. "Once his body began to reject his implants, he had a most painful death as each cybernetic limb and augmentation shut down inside of him and was rejected by his body, ultimately causing him to bleed out. Or suffer from massive cardiac arrest."
Impressed, Reika crossed her arms and looked up at Amhe. "So, what's stopping it from happening in naturals?"
Amhe looked back at Reika as if she were stupid, at least from his perspective. From hers, she couldn't tell a damn thing about what Amhe was thinking. "Mau-Sanir requires an anti-rejection drug to catalyze the reaction. Naturals infected with it will only believe they have the common cold, and it will eventually disappear from their system without repeat exposure to other infected, which would be a feat in-and-of itself." he answered, before kneeling under the control console to search for something.
Reika smiled and bowed her head out of respect. "Thank you, Amhe." she said, gleeful that they would finally have an effective weapon to combat the Ascendancy, as well as the Union as a whole.
Amhe quickly came back up from the counter, and handed Reika a datapad. "Take this to your Arch-Canon. It contains our most recent progress report, as well as an expected date for when Mau-Sanir will be ready for deployment." he requested, before turning back to his research. Reika quietly excused herself from the base, report in hand.
Tekti crept through the cordoned off alleyways leading to his burned-out home, his new Compdog companion following close behind. Perhaps a little too close, however, as he felt the beast's breath against his leg, which played with his nerves like nothing else could.
Cautiously moving closer to the main street, Tekti spotted his open trophy room window, and quickly moved under, slipping inside. The Compdog observed the window for a moment, as if deciding what to do about the obstacle, before it stepped back, ran forward, and slid under, somehow managing to fit its body through, and more surprisingly, managing to make very little noise in doing so. The beast crouched as it landed, before rising up to its full height on all fours, and looking up at Tekti expectantly, sniffing the air.
Tekti took a moment to look around the room, observing the damage done to his precious trophies. He picked one of the sculptures up, one of a Twi'lek musician's brain, or at least, he believed it to be. The sculpture had been practically melted away, with the folds in the brain melding together to form an almost waxlike cast that made the brain nearly unrecognizable to Tekti. Part of the lekku had also come apart, drooping far lower than when he had originally sculpted it. Many more of his trophies told similar stories, and it filled him with a silent rage, incomparable to what any other being could feel. Hundreds of years of work – of carefully cultivating his collection, picking each target, savoring the meal, sculpting them and using their minds like his own plaything, all of that undone in what probably took a few minutes.
Most lives were too short to gain an appreciation for their craft like he had. Only his kin could understand his sorrow.
As he mentally wept over the loss of his collection, he noticed that one of the sculptures had been moved. Moving over and checking the plate, he saw the scarred etchings of the word 'Freeman' on it. Briefly remembering the kill, Tekti noticed the Compdog sniffing the sculpture, before turning its 'head' up, following some sort of trail.
Tekti quickly set the sculpture back down and followed the animal as they slowly moved through the remains of his burned out home, entering the main foyer area. The destruction of his home didn't upset Tekti – it was the loss of his work that angered him. All of the paintings he had set out in the foyer were missing. Not burned or damaged, but stolen, seemingly proven by the fact that the beast occasionally shifted its head to look roughly where the paintings had been hung.
The damage to the foyer was immense, looking less like a fuel line being burst and more like a plasma fire had broken out and ravaged the interior. What was left of his furniture and shelves amounted to little more than small piles of insignificant ash. Furthermore, Tekti also noted that his datapads had been stolen, the sheer notion of someone reading his incomplete work serving to infuriate him more.
More glaringly, however, the entrance to the basement had been left wide open, with the Compdog now heading down into it. Tekti quickly followed. Despite the basement having been the likely source of the fire judging by the scorch marks, the tunnel looked remarkably clear, despite the fire suppression systems obviously having been damaged. Rounding the corner to the second door, Tekti spotted that it, too, was open. While the beast went inside, Tekti examined the door, and found that the side facing outward had no burn marks from the fire, only signs of a fusion cutter being used on the lock. Near the frame was a small melted pile of metal of roughly the same dark steel coloration as the door's lock.
Tekti finally entered the basement proper, and the sight absolutely did not surprise him in the slightest. The entire room was completely and utterly torched, his implements and tools incinerated in the fire along with any equipment he had down here. The chains on the back wall had been melted more or less into the duracrete, but there was no sign of his captive.
What was more pressing, however, was the charred corpse of Sekhuo, lying in the center of the room, with the Compdog waiting patiently by. He had clearly shed his human appearance, judging by the engorged muscles. Tekti flipped his body over onto his stomach. "Oh, Sekhuo…" he said wistfully as he traced the outlines of multiple stab wounds, including one in his skull. The Compdog seemed to take interest in the wounds, sniffing at them. It was then that Tekti noticed the blaster scoring on the few bits of flesh that hadn't been burnt to a crisp. "…Ion bolts? Full auto, too…" he mumbled to himself, before gathering that one of his targets had access to a modified DC-series blaster.
Tekti's investigation was interrupted by the beast suddenly hopping back, opening its mouth to expose its rows of sharp teeth in a low howl. "Hey!" a man shouted from behind, and Tekti spun around to face him. He was an Underworld Police Officer, about a head shorter than Tekti. "This is a restricted area! You're not supposed to be down here!"
Tekti moved to throw the officer on the ground to feed him, but with a seemingly impossible burst of speed, the Compdog charged the officer, locking his head in the beast's titanic mouth and forcing him to the ground. The officer screamed as the Compdog shook and wrestled with him, before there was a sickening snap, and the officer went limp, before falling out of the beast's maw, headless. The beast swallowed, let out a muted roar in victory, and then returned to Tekti, fresh blood dripping from its mouth.
"…Interesting." Tekti remarked, overtaken by a morbid curiosity. "Your new name is Thrasher." he simply said, forcibly imprinting that on the beast's minds, while simultaneously checking to see if she had the scent of his quarry, which, miraculously, she did. "Come." Tekti ordered, leading Thrasher outside of the burnt home and away from the dead officer, whose suit almost certainly sent out an alert to send backup.
The faster they got away, the better. The hunt was on, now, and Tekti would have his revenge.
When the ship arrived at the place Vopa had arranged, which turned out to be a more or less abandoned park with shockingly little foot traffic and no airspeeder traffic. Men on the ground were waving signal lights at the ship, confirming that they had been waiting for him. Nax landed the ship with some help from Nevda and Arfive, who had quickly grown accustomed to bickering at each other over flight styles. As soon as the ship landed, Nax set down the boarding ramp, showed Vopa's men to Markan, and they carried him away on a stretcher, shocked at his abysmal state.
The group just so happened to pass by Lexi as they were carrying Markan out. The two of them exchanged looks – Markan pleading for forgiveness, while Lexi was sneering at him. "Hey!" one of the men shouted to Nax. "We'll have Vopa let you know whenever he's recovered!"
Nax nodded in acknowledgement as the men went down the boarding ramp, which shut behind them. The engines spooled back up, repulsorlifts kicking in, and Nax felt the jolt of the ship taking off. Lexi walked up to Nax, looking only a little bit better. "How're you feeling?"
"Like shit." Lexi quickly snapped, her bangs drooping down in front of her face, covering her eyes. Lexi practically threw herself onto the lounge seating, brushing her bangs out of the way to look at Nax properly. "I feel betrayed, Nax. He could have gutted me in some back alley and left me to die, and it still wouldn't feel as bad as this."
"I don't blame you." Nax responded as he sat down next to her. Slowly, Lexi began to lean on Nax for some sort of physical comfort. "If you don't mind my asking – what exactly did you expect to happen if you found your dad?"
Lexi remained silent for a while. "…I don't know, Nax." she answered, shaking her head, unsure of what else to say. "I guess I was hoping that he had a good reason for being gone for so long, and that maybe we'd be an actual family again, but…"
"I think that ship's long since jumped away, Lexi." Nax stated as he pulled her closer. "When he left, you were only ten or so, right?" he asked, and Lexi nodded. "You're twenty now – you've become your own person without his influence on you. You're not the same girl he left, and he isn't the person you thought he was. The only connection between you two now is blood."
Making a murmur of acknowledgement, Lexi pulled herself off of Nax and looked him in the eyes. "I suppose you have a point." she quietly mumbled, before leaning back into the seat. "…If anything, I could say that you and Kyra are more of a family to me than he ever was. Hell, you've done more for me in just a few weeks than he ever did in ten years of 'protecting' me."
Nax smiled at her. "I suppose we have, Lexi." he said, before getting up. "Just remember, we look out for each other. Kyra and I won't ever turn you away." he finished, turning to head to the cockpit. To his surprise, Lexi got up with him, following close behind.
The two of them passed by an idling Knockout when Lexi spoke again. "I sliced the last datapad earlier, by the way." she suddenly said, causing Nax to look over his shoulder at her.
"Really, now?" he said, sounding at least a little bit surprised that Lexi had chosen to work, even in the wake of all of this. "What'd you find out about Mau-Sanir?"
"Not much." Lexi answered, shaking her head in disappointment. "Just that it's supposed to play a major role in what the Path intend on accomplishing, which can be nothing short of disaster."
"Sounds like some sort of weapon to me, Lexi."
"That's what I'm thinking, too. None of the datapads went into specifics about what kind of weapon it was, though, which doesn't help us in the slightest."
"Maybe one of the datapads we stole from that Anzat can help us out." Nax proposed as they entered the cockpit corridor.
"Maybe." Lexi responded.
As soon as they entered the cockpit, Kelah looked back at them, waving a datapad. "Hey, we finished slicing the last of the datapads, Nax." she said, looking over to Nevda. "Most of them seem to be half-written novels and stories with no real consistency between them, but all are authored by Caliban Bullen."
"The same artist whose paintings we stole." Nax noted, and Kelah nodded.
"Right." she said, before setting the datapad on the console. "So, we've got three possibilities; one, Caliban Bullen is this Anzat. Two, Caliban lives with the Anzat, the absolute psycho, or three, the Anzat killed Caliban and is taking his place."
"I've got a hundred credits riding on that third one, by the way." Nevda chimed in jokingly as Lexi sat down in the communications console chair.
"...So, did we find anything actually useful, or is it all just a bunch of bantha shit?" Nax questioned, leaning against the wall, hoping that mass of datapads wasn't just a waste of space.
Kelah pulled her bag out and produced a datapad marked with a fresh red stripe on its back. "We did, actually. We found two datapads with logs of Pather interactions. I need to sort through the second one, but this one here has something we can use. Sidewinder?" she called out, and Sidewinder flew out from underneath one of the control consoles, happily twittering at Kelah, before projecting a hologram of some sort of storehouse. "From what I can tell, this is the cell that our Anzat's been interacting with."
Kyra suddenly piped up, scaring Nax, as he didn't even hear her enter. "You sure? It looks kind of small." she asked, moving out of the corridor and standing to Nax's right, looking over the hologram. "I mean, your cell on Tatooine was small," she continued, and Kelah flinched reflexively at the mention of the insurgency. "But this is just one warehouse, you guys had a whole compound."
Kelah looked over to Kelah. "The point of a cell is to be hard to find and harder to dig out, Kyra." she said, before moving her right leg on top of her left. "On Tatooine, there's a lot of empty desert to hide practically in plain sight. That's kind of hard to do on Coruscant when the whole planet is one big city and there's people everywhere. Something like our compound would've been spotted in an instant if it'd been done here."
"Right, here's what I'm thinking;" Nevda spoke up as she attached her scomp link to the navigation computer to start autopiloting the ship. "This is just one cell out of who knows how many. If we're lucky, and I pray to the stars that we are, we'll be able to find some sort of list of the other cells and their locations."
"You think they don't have the foresight to destroy that kind of information?" Kelah questioned, shifting her gaze to Nevda.
"There weren't any traps on the datapads when we sliced them, so I can only assume they don't know the first thing about operational security." Nevda answered back. "Or they're too trusting. Either way, good for us, bad for them."
Nax moved closer to the hologram, which flickered in response to his movement. "Can we get this back on topic, please?" he asked, and Kelah snapped back to look at the hologram.
"Right. As I was saying," she said, getting up and moving over towards Sidewinder. "There's a ventilation shaft at the top of the warehouse. Most warehouses on Coruscant are built the same, so it should lead to their back room, which is probably where they have their command room, or at the very least, something in there we can use to bring down their operation."
Lexi got up and looked at the shaft as Sidewinder zoomed in on it. "Hang on, that duct looks way too small, even for you, Kelah. How're we going to get in?" she questioned, before looking at the hologram some more. "I'm not seeing any roof access, either."
Kelah gave a half-shrug in response. "Who said we were going in?" she said, gesturing with a look over to Sidewinder, who let out a confused 'dwoo?' when all eyes fell upon him.
Nax tapped on Sidewinder's photoreceptor a few times, much to the droid's displeasure. "Feed coming through alright?" he asked, examining the droid.
"All good on our end." Kelah answered from the ship. Nax then looked across the street, roughly where the Pather warehouse was. Nax and Sidewinder were situated on the rooftop of some empty apartment building, a pretty decent vantage point considering their surroundings.
"Hey, Kelah, remind me, why am I the one babysitting Sidewinder while he does this?" Nax questioned, shooting a sideways glance at the droid, who twittered in offense. "He's your droid, after all."
There was the sound of some sort of package being opened from their end of the comms. "Because you drew the short straw." Kelah responded flatly, before eating something crunchy. "Besides that, you're the one with Mando gear."
Nax gave an annoyed sigh as he triple-checked Sidewinder for what must have been the fifth time. "Kelah, you have blades in your arms, and more cybernetics than I could shake a stick at."
There was a brief pause, before Nax heard a snicker from Kelah's end of the comms. "Touché." Kelah quipped back.
"…You know, if you wanted Sidewinder to be protected, you could send Kyra down. She's the only other person with Mandalorian armor, after all." Nax suggested, before stepping back from Sidewinder. Kelah turned away from the communicator, and Nax heard her say something to Kyra.
"She's coming."
"Tell her to bring my dad's rifle. It's in the hold."
Kelah turned away from the communicator. "Nax says to bring his dad's rifle!" she shouted back. "There. Happy?"
"Very."
Several minutes later, and Kyra showed up, carrying the Aug2 under her shoulder. "Heard you got lonely up here." she teased as she handed the rifle and ammo over to Nax, before pressing down on her commlink. "We good to go?"
"Yeah, we're good. Let me just…" Kelah mumbled, and the two of them heard typing from Kelah's end. Suddenly, a video feed of Sidewinder's perspective showed up in the corner of their HUDs. "There we go. You two getting that feed?"
Nax's feed bugged out briefly, showing an excessive amount of static, but he fixed it by simply slapping the side of his helmet. "We're good." he said, before turning to face the warehouse. "So, what do you want us to do here?"
Nevda's voice cracked through the comms. "We just need you two to sit there and keep watch while Sidewinder goes in through the roof." she said as Sidewinder quickly floated off towards the Pather warehouse.
"That's it?" Nax questioned.
"That's it. If he gets spotted, you two need to provide cover fire for him. Any patrols show up, you break comm-silence and let us know." Kelah answered, with more typing coming from her end. "Simple as that."
"Got it." Nax finished, shutting his comms off alongside Kyra, and the two positioned themselves to overlook the warehouse.
Nax flipped down his rangefinder to check the distance to the warehouse. About fifty meters or so. Drawing the Aug2, Nax began to zero the scope. "Hey, Nax," Kyra said, drawing her '44 and fiddling with it. "Your dad was a Mandalorian, right? Why'd he use an old bolt rifle over something like a blaster?"
"Beats the hell out of me, Kyra." Nax answered as he finished zeroing the rifle. "Maybe he liked slugthrowers more. I never thought to ask him." he continued, shouldering the rifle to check if he had zeroed it properly. Satisfied, he set the rifle against a nearby duct. "…Not like I can ask him now, anyways." he quietly muttered. Kyra glanced over at him, and even under the helmet, he could tell she was concerned about something. "Something wrong?"
Kyra shook her head. "A little." she said, still toying with the blaster. "It's about Markan."
Nax looked in the corner of his vision and saw that Sidewinder had now entered the air vent after cutting his way through the grating, and then he looked back to Kyra. "Worried your family is like him?" he asked, and she shamefully nodded. "…Kyra, the odds of your family being selfish pieces of shit like Markan are so astronomically low that it's really not worth worrying about."
"Why?" Kyra pressed, holstering her blaster and crossing her arms. "It happened to Lexi – why couldn't it happen to me?"
Nax walked over to her and looked out across the street. "Well, for starters, you probably weren't born in a shithole like this." he stated, gesturing to the cityscape surrounding them. "I mean, here we are, fighting honest-to-Suns terrorists trying to spark a massive gang war in the underworld, just as an example of how bad places like this can get. Things like that tend to leave an impression on people."
Kyra let out a breath she didn't know she was holding in. "…So, if you don't think I'm from Coruscant or any other crime-infested place, then where do you think I'm from?"
Pausing to think, Nax pursed his lips. "Judging by how you acted in Chalmun's when we met, and going off the way you talk? Somewhere in the Core or Mid-Rim. Probably Alderaan or Naboo, if I wanted to get specific."
"Really?" Kyra responded, mocking offense. "Two of the most peaceful planets in the galaxy, and you think I'm from one of them?" she continued, and Nax could practically see the smirk she had on. "You've got to be joking."
Nax had caught on, but instead of going along with it, he kept serious. "Kyra, you sound way more posh than anyone I've ever met. Not to mention, compared to Lexi and I, you're a pretty damn innocent soul." he elaborated, giving Kyra some second thoughts about where she had been born. "Remember when we were forced into joining with the insurgents? The way you reacted to get their leader to stop whatever he was doing to me – nobody except someone from Alderaan or Naboo would have acted like that for someone they barely knew. Of course, I have no actual proof, but…" he continued, cracking his fingers against whatever constituted a railing. His attention suddenly switched from Kyra to the street. "We'll talk about this later." Nax quickly said, before he switched his comms back on. "Kelah, someone's going inside the storehouse."
"What do they look like?" Kelah asked, now much more attentive.
Immediately shouldering the rifle and looking down the scope, Nax pressed his comms again. "Hard to tell. Looks like a woman," he said, being interrupted as the person turned to the side, letting Nax get a look at their profile. "Yeah, it's a woman. She's got kinda raven-black hair flowing out the back of her hood, she's got a long gray trenchcoat, a white strip of hair in her bangs, and she's got a full face mask on." he reported, scanning his surroundings to see if there was anyone else approaching.
"Anyone else?"
"No."
"Alright, Sidewinder, stay on the lookout for this person." Kelah advised, and Nax killed his comms again before Sidewinder could respond. However, he fiddled with his control panel, and enlarged the view from Sidewinder's perspective as he floated through the tight ventilation system, just narrowly having managed to avoid an arc of electricity in front of him. Sidewinder quietly cursed in binary, just audible enough for his internal microphone to pick it up.
Proceeding through the vents, Sidewinder went down a long vent, taking a left at the first T-section he found, and then taking a right at the next T-section, making sure to avoid bumping anything. Finally, he came roughly to where the command room should have been, and looked down through the vent, seeing both the woman Nax had reported outside, and another robed figure. "You're back earlier than expected." the other figure said, revealing himself to be a man. "What did you find out about the Mau-Sanir team?"
The woman produced a datapad that Sidewinder was carefully tracking, and as soon as the man took it out of her hands and turned it on, he had copied the screen to his local system, but zoomed in on the datapad anyways.
Arch-Canon,
I trust that this report finds you in good health and even greater spirits. Below is my progress update on the strain of auREJ-3, also known as Mau-Sanir;
Infectivity and lethality are at the upper limit of what is possible with the equipment I have been provided, however, I believe that you will find their results more than satisfactory. Air transmission is currently possible via coughing, but the disease takes hold in a period much too fast for infection rates to be sustainable compared to the casualty rates, especially given the likely quarantine. Currently we are working on water transmission, and inducing an incubation period. Please send for me if you have any further questions.
-Amhe Rest
Nax's eyes widened at the name. "Suns alive." he muttered, utterly horrified at the mere mention of Amhe Rest.
"What?" Kyra questioned.
"Amhe Rest." Nax said, as if Kyra would know who that was. "Bastard's still kicking, and he's right here under our noses on Coruscant." he continued, and Kyra felt the need to clarify.
"No, I mean who is Amhe Rest?"
Nax paused, raising a finger as he kept vigilant over the warehouse. "Do you know anything about Nuvo Vindi?" he questioned, and Kyra crossed her arms, impatiently tapping her fingers in a wavelike motion against her arm, waiting for Nax to get to the point.
"Sort of," she admitted, still impatient. "I found a datapad with some old Holonet News articles loaded onto it in the hold of the ship. He re-created the Blue Shadow Virus during the Clone Wars, right?" she asked, and Nax nodded to confirm it.
"Right. Vindi is still Suns-knows-where in the galaxy, but Rest is a Givin virologist and former colleague of Vindi's. He and Vindi engineered that strain of brainrot that hit Onderon a while back." he explained, leaning over the railing. "I saw his bounty puck once. Thirty five thousand. If he's involved with the Path, then there's no way in hell that's going to be good for anyone. Let's just hope that Sidewinder can find out where he is before anything happens."
Speaking of, Sidewinder had been viewing the conversation between the two Pathers for some time, before deciding that there was little else of interest, and he continued with his primary objective. Moving ahead, he went down an incline and turned to the left, ending up at a vent in the wall. Through the cracks, he spotted a computer terminal with a port for his scomp link directly to his right. He quickly began to disassemble the fasteners on the vent, and gently led it down so that nobody would be alerted to his presence. As soon as that was done, Sidewinder darted to the console, plugged himself in, and began downloading everything he possibly could from their system.
Keeping his head on a swivel, Sidewinder kept frantically darting his looks between the door to the rest of the building and the terminal. He raised his scan node to perform a pulse, but immediately shied away, retracting the node. The download was almost done now, he just needed a few more seconds…
His audio receptors were picking up approaching footsteps, and if Sidewinder had a heart, it'd be jumping out of his chest now, and his darting became more frequent as the steps grew closer. Practically screaming at himself to get the download done faster, Sidewinder managed to get it done, and sped away to the vent as fast as his repulsors would carry him. The door opened behind him just as he entered the vent, and whoever it was must have seen him. "Demon in the base!" he shouted out. "Sound the alarm, it's going through the vents!"
Sidewinder had never flown as fast as he did in that instant. Slugs were penetrating the vents as he flew, coming close to hitting his chassis, the sounds of gunfire and slugs richocheting against metal overloading his audio receptors. Undeterred, Sidewinder pressed ahead, managing to find the roof vent. He immediately took his chance, and practically launched out, bolting towards where Nax and Kyra were positioned.
Multiple Pathers ran out of the building, weapons raised, taking potshots at Sidewinder as he flew to safety, causing Nax and Kyra to return fire. "We've been engaged!" Nax shouted into the comms as he hit a Pather in the chest. Kyra's shots were as inaccurate as they were ineffective, a fact she quickly realized, causing her to switch to just trying to keep as many of the Pathers suppressed as she could. Sidewinder finally managed to make it over, and hung off of Nax's back. "Sidewinder's here, let's go!" he shouted over the weapons fire, pulling Kyra away from the railing and moving back towards the stairwell.
Switching over to his DC, Nax opened the door, only to find three Pathers staring back at him, rifles at the ready. There was a half-second pause before the sight registered for anyone, and when it did, the Pathers shot first. Two shots went wide, while the third scraped his helmet. Nax felt the hit, so he returned in kind with a burst of return fire, before forcing the door shut and shooting the control panel, blocking their only way out.
It took a moment for it to process, especially under the amount of gunfire they were receiving. "…Well, sithspit." Nax said in a flat tone. "Now what?" he mumbled, looking for another way to get out.
Kyra shot off a few more bolts down to street level, before looking and seeing the destroyed panel. "Oh, for the love of…" she cursed under her breath. "You laserbrain! How are we gonna get down now?!"
Nax quickly scanned the environment, and spotted an overhead pipe that the two of them could grapple on to and use to scale a nearby building. "Kyra, you got a grappling hook?" Nax quickly asked as a slug hit the wall behind him, causing him to reflexively flinch. "Your sleeves. Pull them back."
Kyra did as she was told, and much to Nax's frustration, they found that her armor lacked many of the gadget's that Nax's had. "Alright, new plan." Nax improvised, opening comms. "Kelah, you there?"
Nevda's voice crackled through the commlink. "I'm here, and we're all hearing gunfire. Are you three on your way back, or what?" Nevda questioned, sounding rather unconcerned.
"We've hit a snag." Nax revealed, looking over at the destroyed control panel. "We're trapped on the roof of a building directly across from the warehouse. There's no way for me to get down without leaving Kyra behind."
Nevda suddenly snapped to attention, her boots crashing against the floor of the cockpit as she presumably sat forward. "What do you need me to do?"
"Bring the ship around with the boarding ramp down, and have Knockout standing ready to grab us."
"Grab you?!" Nevda half-shouted, shocked at what she thought he was going to try. "You know, now I'm starting to believe Kel's story about the walker. See you in three minutes."
"Got it." Nax replied, shutting the comms off. "We've got a new plan, Kyra." Nax said, glancing to the door right as the sparks of a fusion cutter began to show through the door. She looked over with a questioning look, readying her blaster towards the door. "Nevda's bringing the ship around, and we're going to grapple to it."
Kyra lurched forward. "We're going to WHAT?!" she shouted in disbelief. "You're insane!"
"You got a better idea?" Nax asked, and Kyra's lack of a response told him all he needed to know. "Knockout's going to reel us in, fast enough that the cord shouldn't break." he elaborated, before glancing back to to the door, which had just about a quarter of the work done to force it open. "Kyra, I need your absolute trust that this will work."
Kyra's body language screamed that she was increasingly hesitant, even with the Path bearing down on them. "I-" she started, intending on protesting, before giving in. "Fine." she reluctantly said. "This is the most scatterbrained idea you've ever had, but we don't exactly have many options, anyways."
Nax nodded, before glancing to the door. "When she circles the ship around, I need you to hang on to me as tight as you possibly can." he ordered, and Kyra nodded. Nax shouldered the Aug2 and fired a round into a part of the door that had been cut through, earning a shout of pain from the Pather on the other end as the sparks stopped flowing. After waiting for several seconds, the sparks resumed, so Nax cycled the bolt and shot another round, achieving the same effect. This time, however, the sparks didn't resume, so Nax could only assume the Pathers were cutting their losses and pulling back.
Sidewinder let off a scan pulse, which revealed to him that not only were the Pathers not at the door anymore, but they had instead placed a detpack, which was currently ticking down. Sidewinder let out a shrill, alarmed 'dwooo!' to alert Nax, showing the outline of the detpack on his and Kyra's huds. "They've put a detpack on the door, get to cover!" Nax ordered, running behind another ventilation unit and crouching behind it, while Kyra vaulted an exposed air duct and took cover behind that.
They could hear the engines of the ship now, and Nax impatiently kept switching his focus between the door and the possible directions the ship would be coming from. Either he would have to run to Kyra, or she'd have to run to him. Switching weapons again, Nax prepped his DC to spray down the chokepoint, but the ship thundering down on them changed his mind. "Change of plans!" Nax shouted as he ran over to Kyra, ignoring the merest notion of cover, and re-holstering the DC on the way. "Ship's here, let's get the hell out!"
Kyra stood up and grabbed on to him, and he wrapped his right arm around her waist to give some form of support on his end. Aiming his left arm just ahead of the open boarding ramp, Nax raised the trajectory slightly to account for drop, and then he fired.
There was a half-second pause as the hook travelled through the air. When it wrapped around one of the beams for the lowering mechanism, though, was when they launched into the air, being dragged by the ship as it flew, with Kyra screaming from the sudden sensation of flying. There was an explosion behind them as the detpack blew up, and a much larger squad of Pathers ran out onto the roof, shooting at both the ship, and the dangling trio.
However, as stressful as that may have been, nothing could ever compare to the feeling of a quad laser cannon firing practically in your ear. The ship gradually grew closer as Knockout pulled them in, fighting against the ship's movements from the laser cannon blasting the rooftop. Just as they were about to get close enough that Knockout could grab Nax's arm and finish pulling them in, the cord began to tear. Sidewinder started to panic, and kicked his repulsors into full gear, contributing what little he could to getting these two to safety. Kelah ran down the boarding ramp and joined Knockout in trying to pull them to safety, but it was all for naught.
Just as Kelah reached out to grab them, the wire snapped, sending Kyra, Sidewinder, and Nax plummeting to the pavement. Before Kelah had even reacted to that, though, Knockout reached forward and grabbed Nax's arm with an impossible amount of speed, carefully pulling them up and onto the boarding ramp. "Directive one:" Knockout boomed proudly. "Protect the masters."
Slowly, Nax and Kyra let go of each other, still in shock at their dance with death. After staring wide-eyed at the destruction on the rooftop, Kyra snapped out of it, and smacked Nax on the head comedically. "I told you that your plan was insane!" she shouted, earning a snicker from Kelah as Sidewinder detached from Nax and went over to perch on her shoulder.
Nax chuckled briefly. "Yeah, but it worked out, didn't it?" he responded. Kyra was about to chew him out again, but a rocket just narrowly whiffing the hull changed her mind, and the group ran inside, shutting the boarding ramp behind them.
The Arch-Canon walked out onto the roof of the building across from the storehouse, taking in the destruction that had now befallen his cell. "Unfortunate." he simply remarked, stepping over the burning body of a dead Pather, before glancing up at the escaping freighter. "Very, very unfortunate."
Reika came out behind him. "This cell has been compromised, Arch-Canon. The demon downloaded our entire database before fleeing." she said, before cracking her knuckles in anticipation. "Do you have any further orders?"
The fading sounds of the freighter's sublight engines was gradually replaced by the telltale hum of Underworld Police LAATs arriving on the scene. Casually, he pulled out a detonator and triggered it, causing the storehouse to detonate in a fiery explosion. "I believe it's time that we left, Reika."
"As you command, Arch-Canon."
That's this chapter.
I swear to fucking god Mau-Sanir has absolutely nothing to do with the Coronavirus, I had the idea planned several weeks before Corona became publicly known.
I actually threw together a sort of diagram of what the Blind Compdog looks like, but I can't post it because Fanfiction's anti-spam/link pasting is a fuck. If you'd like to see it, shoot me a private message.
Originally, I was going to have Nax, Kyra, and Sidewinder escape the building by clearing out the place floor by floor, but then I realized that would be way too fucking slow, so I went for the rule of cool shit and had them grapple onto the ship, maybe or maybe not aping the final episode of The Mandalorian's first season.
There's also one last thing I'd like to mention; I'm partially rewriting the Tatooine chapters to fit in line with what I have now, particularly chapter 1, which I'm super not happy with. My main problem with chapter 1 is that it's got no real sense of pacing – you meet Nax and Kyra immediately and know jack shit about either of them until like halfway through. The immediate changes I'm making are including the deaths of Trax and Cobro, Kyra's escape, and a rewrite of Nax's reaction to Kyra being sympathetic towards him. That "hurhur I don't care that my family's dead" shit directly conflicts with how Nax stands now in regard to dealing with that particular trauma. That's not how any person would react to someone trying to sympathize with them.
Anyways, 'till next time, everyone!
-Tweak