I did it again. Dang it. I'm gonna keep an eye out to make sure I have all the correct chapters now. Enjoy the correct chapter!
Last time: Sasha and Oppie were attacked by vornskrs and Sasha was injured.
Now: The next hunter arrives.
Chapter 16- IG-14
IG-14 moved forward through the jungle. The illumination and contrast was too high for light enhancement photoreceptors as the planet's star rose above the horizon. Primary photo receptors rotated into the correct position to maintain visual contact on the trail that had been made through the forest by the quarry. It had been assured that the quarry and her companion were not Force capable at the present time, so protocols for subduing Jedi were not in use. With a rickety gait, it continued moving over the somewhat uneven ground, following the path. Indications were that the quarry and the companion had been through this area approximately eight hours ago, under some duress. Three point six seven kilometers before, IG-14 had walked past the bodies of three local canids that had been killed with blaster fire, indicating that the quarry and companion had acquired blasters. Protocols for facing armed opponents were added to the decision matrix for the current bounty.
"Sasha." Oppie said quietly, trying to wake her up gently with a small nudge.
Sasha slowly came to with a groan. She carefully stretched briefly forgetting about her injured shoulder. She instantly winced at how sore it was. After taking a moment, she finally opened her eyes, blinking up at Oppie.
"Hey," she said with a yawn. "I can take over now until daybreak. Go ahead and rest."
Oppie looked at her a little sheepishly as he grabbed two ration bars. "I went ahead and let you sleep in a bit since you needed to recuperate, it's breakfast time."
That woke her right up. Sasha sat up and looked around at the sky as it was getting brighter before shooting her head to look at Oppie. "Op! What the hell? Did you get any sleep at all?" She asked, worriedly despite her annoyed tone.
"Don't worry about it." He said, "maybe we'll call it early tonight." He said with a shrug.
Sasha's lips formed a thin line as she pouted. "Okay, but if you collapse from exhaustion today, don't blame me," she said as she carefully stretched out her shoulder. "But thank you," she added softly.
"How's your shoulder?" He asked as he handed her the bar.
"Sore, but better," Sasha observed as she took the bar and had a bite of it.
"Just take it easy today. Hopefully it will heal quickly." He said, "should we check it again, or should we leave the bandage on?" He asked.
"Umm," Sasha looked down at her shoulder and thought for a second. She then shook her head. "No, I think let's leave it for now. I want to ration the rest of the med supplies. We still have four other bounty hunters out there and who knows what else that might try to kill us today," she said with a sense of humor to her tone.
"Okay." Oppie said, "keep heading up into the mountains? Maybe we can find a good defensible position up there." He said a little hopefully.
"I like that idea," Sasha said as she started gathering up the blanket to stuff it back into her bag.
Oppie kicked at the remains of the fire, working the ash back into the dirt. "We should go on a vacation after we get home." Oppie mused. "Just not camping."
"Agreed," Sasha said as she slipped back on her jacket. She winced when she tried to pull it back onto her injured shoulder. Pausing for a moment, she waited for her shoulder to stop hurting for a second before pulling the jacket the rest of the way on. "And I'm down for a beach with a nice resort or something like that. I'm a little tired of roughing it for a while," she said.
"You know, I don't think I've ever been to a beach." Oppie observed as he slung his pack.
"I don't think I've been to an ocean beach before, but I've seen a few lake ones," Sasha said as she grabbed her own pack and carefully pulled it on, being cautious of her shoulder. "And the one beach when we saved our brother. But that's it."
"For all the planets we've been on, that's a little odd." Oppie observed as they started walking into the forest, loosely following the river as it flowed down from the mountains.
"Yeah," Sasha agreed with a nod as she walked alongside him. "But we didn't explore the entirety of every planet we visited or lived on. There could have been a huge ocean beach on Vestora and we would have never known."
"True." Oppie agreed. "I guess we also missed all the garden spots. Maybe we can do a little research and go to an actual resort one of these days, and take an actual vacation."
"I really like that idea," Sasha said with a smile. "It would be nice to get away and relax. Plus we could take La…" She immediately cut herself off before she said her daughter's name. She missed her daughter and the others so much. "We could take the others," she finished a little more quietly.
"Yeah, a big family vacation would be nice." Oppie agreed wistfully. "Home is, I guess, like a nice big permanent vacation in a way. But going someplace that is a little more tropical would be a nice change."
"Definitely," Sasha said in agreement.
The sound of gently running water came through the forest as they got closer to the river. It was off some ways, tens of meters away, but it cut a swath through the forest that made for a good path leading back up into the mountains. And it provided them a ready supply of flowing water that was relatively clean.
"This place is almost kind of nice." Oppie said, "except for the vicious fauna and the whole being hunted thing." He said with some dry humor.
Sasha snorted at that. "As nice as it is, I'm okay with never coming back here."
A storm of blaster bolts came out from the forest around them, a fully automatic blaster rifle peppering the area. Sasha immediately jumped for the nearest source of cover, trying to avoid the blaster fire as she reached for her new blaster. When she reached cover, she accidently hit her injured shoulder against the broken tree trunk as she was more concerned with not getting shot than her wound. She bit back a curse as it hurt when she did that. She pressed her left hand to it, trying to calm down the pain, while her right hand gripped her blaster. Oppie did the same as he jumped behind the nearest tree trunk, the only good cover he had. He unholstered his own blaster and swung around. Immediately, the stream of fire shifted towards him and he ducked back. Sasha glimpsed out from behind her cover behind a nearby tree that happened to be missing it's upper half to try and get a good look at the shooter, her blaster leveled and ready to shoot.
The base of fire immediately shifted back to Sasha as she poked her head out, and the figure stepped forward slightly, making itself visible in the foliage. A skeletal, rickety looking droid. Sasha ducked back and looked over to Oppie.
"It's a droid," she called out to him.
"I'll cover you, run over to me!" Oppie said, he stepped from cover and fired almost blindly at the droid as he poured plasma bolts at it.
Sasha nodded. She readied herself then ran across the clearing towards Oppie. The droid shifted his attention back to Sasha as she ran, but she was able to avoid the blaster bolts as she reached him. She came to a stop behind the tree, panting slightly.
"The next hunter is a droid?" She asked rhetorically.
"Yeah, an assassin droid." Oppie groused as he fired blindly around the tree at it. He was sure at least one of his shots had, accidentally, hit it, but it didn't seem to affect the droid, it was too well armored for their little blasters to do much damage to it unless they were at point blank range.
"What should we do?" Sasha asked as she glanced around the tree. "That thing isn't going to be as easy to take down unlike the last hunter."
It strode into the clearing, keeping its rifle leveled at them as Oppie tried to think over the din of its fire. "Try to run for the river, I'll be right behind you."
"Okay," Sasha nodded as she gripped her blaster tighter. She then turned and ran towards the river. With a few more shots, Oppie ran after her, the storm of blaster bolts tracking after them as the droid trudged on. As it walked it kept up a continuous stream of fire, but Oppie and Sasha were able to gain some distance after a few moments. The blaster bolts abated, but they could still hear the droid noisily following them.
"We need a plan." Oppie said, casting a glance behind them as they kept moving.
"How can we disable something like that?" Sasha asked as she led them toward the river. "It's not exactly taking much damage from our blasters. If only we had our lightsabers or had the others here with us."
"Yeah or a droid popper." Oppie agreed. That reminded him of something, a trick the clones had taught him when they had to get through the shields of a droideka one time. "Get to that rock, then cover me." He ordered as he went for a large protruding boulder that would provide them a little cover when the droid caught up with them.
"Okay, what's your plan?" Sasha asked as she took cover behind the boulder before turning around and aiming her blaster towards the woods, waiting for the droid.
"I need to cannibalize one of the energy packs." Oppie said. He reached to the spare he had for his blaster and started picking at the top edge, trying to open up the cell.
"What are you going to do with that?" Sasha asked with a raised brow.
The droid caught up to them and started peppering them with fire as it trudged forward.
Sasha ducked away for a second before laying down cover fire. "Okay, whatever you are doing, do it quick!"
Oppie ducked lower as Sasha covered him. He finally worked the top of the cell off, and pulled the buffer coil out. He reattached the top plate, and grabbed his pack, unzipping it he pulled one of the strips of cloth he had boiled for a bandage last night out. He tied the modified energy cell to the tip of his spear with a hurried simple knot.
"Distract it!" Oppie yelled as he ran out, the spear in one hand, the blaster in the other. He started shooting blaster bolts at the thing as it stood its ground, turning to fire at it as Oppie bolted for another bit of cover, slightly closer to the droid.
"On it!" Sasha called after him. She then took a deep breath before coming out from behind cover. "Hey clanker, come and get me!" She yelled at the droid before rushing away from Oppie, hoping the droid would follow.
The droid photoreceptor tubes turned to follow both of them, and then it turned to fire on Sasha, but stayed where it was.
Oppie ran out from cover and worked his way closer, knowing he would only have one shot at this. The droid turned back to him just as he ran for cover, and he was stung by a shower of splinters as the tree he ran to took a glancing shot that sent a spray of wooden shrapnel at him before he could get behind cover.
"Hey bucket head, I'm your target," Sasha called as she shot at the droid, trying to distract it.
"My head is not a bucket." It announced in a quizzical voice as it started trudging toward her.
Oppie glanced around the corner of his tree trying to figure out if it really just said that, and used the momentary distraction to bound to the next tree before the droid noticed him again.
Sasha smirked at that. "Well come at me, battle droid wanna be," she called out, enjoying the name calling she was giving the droid.
The droid peppered her with more shots as it trudged forward. Oppie took that opportunity to come around the side of his tree, he was close enough for the shot and the droid was distracted, almost perturbed, by Sasha's taunting. He took aim as carefully as he could and threw the spear at the droid. When the spear point made contact, so did the exposed head of the energy cell. Electrical tendrils shot out around the contact site. The spear thunked off and fell to the ground, but in the moment of contact it had imparted its deadly charge to the droid. After a few silent seconds, it collapsed in a metallic heap.
"Nice shot," Sasha said with a sigh as she grabbed her right arm, messaging it gently. Her shoulder was aching from holding it up so she could shoot.
"Thanks." Oppie said, walking over to the corpse and putting a few blaster bolts into the droid's head to make sure it wouldn't recover and boot back up.
Sasha walked over to the droid and looked down at it. "Well, what should we do with it?"
"Scavenge what he can." Oppie said, eyeing the blaster rifle. He reached down and started undoing the strapping. There was a beeping sound coming from the droid chest which was increasing in tempo and volume. "Oh kriff." Oppie said as he pulled the rifle away. "Run!" He yelled.
Sasha didn't hesitate. Holstering her blaster, she turned on her heel and ran as fast as she could towards the river. Oppie was right behind her, running as fast as he could. They kept running, not sure how long they had.
"Jump!" Oppie yelled as they hit the edge of the river, and he dove under.
Sasha risked a brief glance back before diving into the water after him.
There was a bright flash that shone down through the water around them, casting their shadows on the river bottom below them. It came with a brief quake of the earth that caused the water to break from its natural current for a moment to react by sloshing from side to side. After a moment Oppie brought his head above water, looking back where the droid had been and seeing a ruined crater with trees aflame around where they had just been. Sasha resurfaced a moment later, gasping for breath before looking at the ruined land.
"Kriff," she breathed out as she stared at it in shock.
"Agreed." Oppie said. "Come on, if anyone else is in the area they'll have seen that. We need to get going."
"Yeah," Sasha agreed as she started towards the shore line, away from the ruined earth. "Are you okay?" She asked over her shoulder.
"Yeah." Oppie said as he swam, grimacing from the showering of splinters that were starting to sting as he moved.
Sasha nodded while wincing at her shoulder as it ached as she swam. As soon as they reached the other side, Sasha clambered up onto the shore line, holding her right arm as it throbbed.
"Are you okay?" Oppie asked her as they got out of the water together.
"Yeah, my shoulder just aches," she tried to brush off. "I'm alright."
Oppie looked over at her critically at the tone she used. "Are you okay?" He asked again.
That stopped Sasha short. She hesitated for a second before looking at him. "I'm fine. I promise. I just overdid it a little," she said simply. "But if you want to double check, I won't stop you."
"After going for a swim we probably should check." He said after a moment.
"Okay," Sasha said with a small nod. She reached up and pulled off her pack with a slight wince, setting it down by her feet. She then reached up again and pulled back her jacket and shirt just enough to reveal the damp bandage.
Oppie carefully pulled the bandage back, looking at the claw marks underneath. The dried blood around the wound was washed away, but the area around the claw marks was bruising. As for the cauterized marks, they were cracking and bleeding slightly, but not enough to cause alarm.
"It looks okay." Oppie said noncommittally. "We can put a fresh bandage on it, anyway." He said.
"Alright," Sasha said before gesturing with her chin towards her bag. "The bandages are in there." She then let go of her jacket and shirt, and started to reach for her pack.
"I'll grab 'em." Oppie said, reaching for her pack.
Sasha stopped and nodded. She straightened back up and readjusted her shirt and jacket so the wound was more visible again. She paled as she looked at it. She averted her gaze away to watch Oppie instead of stare at her injury.
He opened another one of their adhesive bandages and placed it over the wound site. They still had three more, but they would need to conserve them. "No more swimming." Oppie said as he pushed the edges down so the adhesive would take.
Sasha winced as he did that, but somehow still found a smirk through the pain. "Yes, sir."
Oppie stepped back, hefting their new rifle. He was glad that he had been able to grab it before the self-destruct device went off. There was even an extra energy cell for it on the shoulder strap, which he was very thankful for. "Well, this seems like a good trade for that energy cell." Oppie said, checking the action on the rifle like he had learned from the Clones.
"That's for sure," Sasha agreed as she adjusted her top layers to cover up the bandage before reaching down and hefting her pack back on. "We should go before more hunters catch up to us."
"Aye sir." Oppie said, slinging his pack over his shoulder and shouldering the rifle. "I also lost my spear." He groused, he had forgotten to grab it when they ran away. "I liked that spear."
Sasha chuckled. "We can make you a new one when we set up camp tonight," she said reassuringly.
"Stupid droid," Von grumbled as he looked at the camera feed as the nearby cameras cut out. Probably destroyed in the explosion.
The damn assassin droid was supposed to capture the girl and maybe capture or kill the other. Not blow the both of them to Inner Rim. He knew he should have disabled that self-destruct function on IG-14 before he ever let him get involved in this hunt. Oh well, he thought. The droid wasn't going to gain much out of this anyway except for its own sense of honor and recognition for successfully hunting down two Jedi. It wasn't even going to take the reward money in the end anyway if it had succeeded. And if Von had gambled on IG-14, he would have bet that the droid would succeed more than any of the other hunters. Well, except for maybe his ace in the hole who was biding their time and waiting for the right moment to start their hunt. Either way, he thought the droid would do a lot better than this.
But with the Jedi gone, that meant no one was getting any money out of…
His thought was interrupted as one of the camera feeds showed the two Jedi resurfacing from the river. In one piece and alive. So the droid hadn't killed them after all, but he had definitely destroyed a large chunk of the forest. Von had to admit he was impressed with how these Jedi were surviving all of this. He truly did underestimate them, but it wasn't over yet. He smirked as he noticed his next hunter, a duo to be more exact, closing in on their location having also taken notice of the rather large explosion.
Kinan skidded to a halt as he looked behind him as a large explosion went off. "Vin, what the hell was that?" He asked as he gripped his pistol a little tighter.
Vin stopped as well, looking back at the explosion. "I dunno, bro. Not a lot of things explode like that, so it's probably where the bounty is." He hefted his rifle up. "Think we should go investigate?" He asked rhetorically.
"I think so," Kinan said with a nod. "I thought Von said they were unarmed. Unless that was the assassin droids doing." He observed as they turned and headed in the direction of the explosion. "They have those built in bombs right?"
"Yeah." Vin grumped. "I hope he didn't kill them, ruins our payday."
Kinan smirked. "Well let's go find out."
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