23 BTC
Khamkamuk Rok
Pourhiri Province
Vitheon
"That the place?"
Kavan looked up from the holographic site map he was studying to gaze blearily at the green skinned, Twi'lek woman who'd taken up a position in the doorway. Kitleliw, somewhat affectionately known at 'Kit', had a tendency to barge in unannounced. And a tendency to block doorways that were letting in a pleasant breeze on this humid, godsforsaken jungle planet. It wasn't even ten in the morning, but he already felt like he was melting into his seat.
"Yes, Kit," he answered with tired, pointed patience, subtly switching off one of the map overlays. She hated that nickname. Probably why he (and he suspected Aedrasa) insisted on calling her by it as frequently as possible. It would hopefully serve a dual purpose of distraction in this instance.
Kit smiled challengingly at him. She never did back down from a fight, Kavan could give her that. If she did, he had a feeling she would have ditched the two Zabrak contractors a long time ago.
"Is the Company gonna pay us to sit in here for the next two weeks? If so, can I do my work down at the cantina?" she jerked a thumb behind her shoulder to indicate said establishment.
"No, Kit."
"Is that a no to the assignment specs, or a no to the cantina?"
"Yes, Kit."
"Get out of the doorway, Kit," Kavan let out a breath of relief as Aedrasa appeared behind the Twi'lek and nudged the shorter woman out of the way before stepping into the room herself. Locating a bit of empty space on the table at which Kavan had set up shop, the Zabrak carefully deposited the open box she'd been carrying onto its surface. From his seated position, Kavan could make out the stacks of datapadds that cleared the top edge of the lidless container.
"Please tell me that's not for us," he whispered in horror.
"Divide and conquer?" she asked by way of grim reply.
Reaching out, he plucked one of the loose datapadds off the top of a stack and quickly perused the beginning of its contents. It was an excavation log from earlier in the project. Most of it was actually a rehash of the planet history and the general situation on the ground at the time the project had begun. They'd both already read all of that, as had their crew. He could comfortably skim this for any missed details while nursing a whiskey down at the cantina. In spite of what he'd said to Kit not a minute before, her suggestion was starting to sound like a pretty good idea.
"Sure," he replied slowly, glancing up from the device. "I'll take this half, and you..."
"No," she cut him off flatly.
"But 'Drasa," he wheedled, "you're so good at remembering all the details..."
"No."
"You'll need the practice for when the Company gets back to you about assigning your own crew?"
"I practiced on Ieclite, and Thulara, and Ingosie VI. Besides," she glanced down at the box. Her hands still rested on the edges of the crate, and she grimaced slightly, her expression a mirror of her brother's as she eyed the piles, "we don't really have time for this right now, and we're just salvaging anyway. Not analyzing. We don't need this much info to bag and tag. The Imps can do that on their own time if they want. Mavakdol Sovann's rep finally got back to me. He's streamlined the bureaucracy and cut all the red tape, so we can go today, if you're ready?"
"Yeah..." he glanced at the map for a second before switching off the display and rolling his chair away from the table. "Yeah. Sure. I'm all done here. Kit, go round up the troops, will you? Tell them to meet by the East Gate in," he glanced at his chrono, "twenty minutes."
"Gonna take longer than that to break up the gambling tables, Sastoa," Kit replied airily.
"Tell them if they're late, we'll make them haul sand bags by hand. No droids."
The Zabrak waited until after the sounds of boots retreating on the sun warmed stone walkway outside had faded before he spoke.
"Close the door, please," but Aedrasa was already moving. She paused for an instant in the doorway, her frame nearly level with the wall as she discretely eyed the street outside. Shifting, she took a step back, her eyes scanning the opposite way in the half second it took her gaze to move downwards to the small, electronic panel set contrastingly in the midst of intricate engravings in stone. The Vitheon took great pride in their architecture. It flourished here, in larger cities like Khamkamuk Rok.
Mountainlike domed temples, triangular sweeping rooftops with sharp, curved edges and dark, glittering tile, a plethora of unexpected courtyards and secret enclosed gardens tucked away from prying eyes behind thick stone walls, all existed in harmony with the more modern features of the city such as the strips of illuminated moving sidewalk set into the ancient streets or the bright, neon lighted cantina signs clustered together along the busier thoroughfares like this one.
He'd been startled by the relative lack of graffiti, upon his first trek through town. It wasn't anything like the core worlds. He supposed there wasn't really much room left for it, though. Few blank spaces existed to serve as the delinquent's canvas, not to say a few hadn't tried to lay claim to parts of the city, though the scarce murals he'd found were pretty simplistic in nature. They looked more like gang signs, if he was being honest, but the decorative flourishes might have meant something more mundane. The elaborate 5600 character Vitheon alphabet wasn't exactly high on his list of priorities to learn.
The walls themselves were saturated with thousand year old carvings, a whole universe of intricate curving lines and graceful flourishing sweeps of the artist's imagination that he was sure meant something really important...Only he really didn't care. It wasn't his job. It wasn't why they were here.
Besides, the millennia old demons and guardians peeking out at him every now and then from from shadowy clusters of spirals on the alley walls were too young and naïve to be of much use in telling him about their primeval cousins.
"You met with Sovann?" Kavan asked, not really sure what else to say. He didn't know why it came out as a question. Now that Kit was gone, the uncomfortable weight they'd been avoiding since stepping foot on planet had settled comfortably out in the pit of his stomach. It was comfortable, that was. He felt like he'd swallowed a Bantha whole.
Aedrasa turned slowly from the doorway and nodded, once, inclining her horn rimmed head in a gesture of acknowledgement. She didn't say anything further, lingering quietly by the door.
"Well," Kavan licked his dry lips nervously. How'd they'd managed to get dry in this soup of a swampy jungle wasteland, he didn't know. "That's good..."
"I just want to get this over with," Aedrasa replied flatly. Moving suddenly forward, she stopped by one of the unused chairs resting against the table. Clenching the back of it in a tight grip, she muttered irritably, "I don't like this, but you know that already." She pulled the chair out roughly, before sinking into it a more graceful movement. Her body remained tense though, as she folded both her hands together and placed them on the table.
"It's just two weeks, Drasa. Then we'll be done with all of this, and we can stop looking over our shoulders," Kav tried to be reassuring, but he could tell by the look on his twin's face that she wasn't buying it. To be fair, he wasn't either.
"You know that's nerf shit, Kavan." She studied her clasped hands in the light pouring in from the narrow, arched windows. "We're going behind the Company's back. That's not something people who want to live do. We get out of this alive, we're going to have to worry about them finding out. Besides, this guy doesn't seem like the type to leave loose ends."
She raised her eyes, meeting her brother's in an attempt at a steady gaze, but, in spite of her stony expression, he could see fear flickering in her eyes. He only hoped his didn't mirror her own.
"If he tries anything, it's gonna create a lot of unwanted questions, Drasa. We'll be fine. And if we do this right, the Company never has to find..." he ducked, covering his head as the glass in the window exploded behind them.
"Ah win, Impeeriahl scum," the word was pronounced by a heavily accented human youth with sandy blonde hair, green eyes, and a roguish grin. Part of his head had been shaved, the remaining hair combed over and pulled into a loose braid that hung down a little below his chin. In spite of his enthusiastic declaration, he still looked a little nervous sitting across from the young Imperial woman.
"So you did," the woman conceded. Her speaking voice was quiet, but the young man had no trouble hearing it, even in the midst of the crowded cantina. Waving aside a cloud of pungent smoke drifting their way from a local man (he thought it was a man, at least) sitting near their table, he said, "Ah now, don't be too hard an yourself, Imperial. Ya'll probably don't have games like this in the Empire."
"What makes you say that?" her accent was a little odd too. Gramel hadn't met many Imperials, so he didn't have a whole lot of prior experience to draw from, but when she spoke, it wasn't quite the clear, crisp, cut and dry sound he'd come to expect. It was a little more relaxed, a little more rhythmic. He'd been embarrassed and teased very soundly when he made the mistake of calling the cadence almost 'musical' to his fellows. She had a tendency to lengthen her vowels and substitute sounds with slight, almost indistinguishably different ones if he wasn't listening very carefully.
But not all the time. Other times, it sounded normal, if an Imperial on their crew could ever be called 'normal'. Most people steered clear, but he hadn't. He'd felt a sense of kinship and empathy with the Imperial scum, oddly enough, seeing as he too was one of only a handful of new recruits on the crew.
Ok, maybe not really. It might have been a dare...and his reputation might have been on the line. He wasn't some coward to back down from a challenge. There were also a handful of credits involved, not that that was really the main point here, mind you. All the credits in the world couldn't buy a man's reputation.
But they could buy booze, and Gramel had a softness for whiskey. He was very glad the Imperials hadn't closed the borders to non allied imports (long as it wasn't no Republic stuff, mind), because the local alcohol wasn't fit for anything but feeding to babies. Keeping the booze flowing was about the only thing making this whole deal bearable. He didn't like working with scum, but he supposed, in a way, he was sticking it to the Empire by preserving stuff for a people they didn't care nothing about.
"Cause it ain't about cutting each other's throats in competition," Gramel replied easily, taking a swig of his drink. Adopting a very snooty, condescending posture, he added, "Ya see, Imp, out here in the civilized part of the galaxy, we believe in settlin' our disputes in a civilized manner. Not bustin' down doors and poisonin' planets."
The woman was smiling now, just a little. Amusement flickered in her eyes as he expounded on the moral wasteland that was the Sith Empire. If she was offended by his flagrant insults of her people, she certainly didn't show it. Gramel tried not to look at her without looking like he wasn't looking at her because something about her made him uncomfortable. He wasn't quite sure if it was attraction (thrill of the...not quite enemy and all that) or if he was just really weirded out by the whole situation he'd found himself in. Maybe both...
"Didn't you threaten to drag one of the Vitheon out and beat him last night? For cheating you at cards?"
"Ah now," he waved a finger. "A gentleman's honor duel is between gentlemen. It ain't nothin' a lady need concern herself with."
"You better believe a lady's gonna concern herself with it when you start pissing off the locals, Corrwile!"
"Ouch! Hey! What was that for?"
Kit had appeared behind the young man, slapping him lightly on the back of his head. Not nearly soundly enough for his reaction. Wincing, he rubbed at the back of his skull, swiveling in his seat to send a betrayed, wounded glare at the Twi'lek. "Now there wasn't any need for that, Kit."
"Maybe not," she replied without missing a beat. "But I didn't do it yesterday. And I barely did it now. You need to cool it with the theatrics, Gramel. Can't you see the locals are twitchy enough? You wanna cause a scene and get us kicked out? We get kicked out, we don't get paid." She rubbed her thumb and two of her fingers together impatiently in the universal gesture of money before dropping a hand. "Sastoa wants us at the East Gate. We're headed out." Her eyes flickered to the Imperial woman, and she added, "We'll be meeting with the University professor who's been leading the excavation. Well, Kavan and Aedrasa will. I doubt they'll want to talk to us. Try to behave, please?"
That said, she turned her back on the pair of them and made her way further into the cantina to round up the rest of the crew. Gramel scowled at her, rubbing his head dramatically. "What's got her panties in a twist?" he asked the Imperial.
"Is it polite to talk about a lady's underwear?" the Imperial's expression was stoic, but the corner of her mouth kept twitching upwards in a smirk.
"Kit's not a lady, she's a menace," Gramel said firmly, slapping his hands on the table and pushing himself up out of his chair.
"Really? I think she likes you."
He nearly toppled back into his chair as his eyes bulged. "Wh...really?"
"No." The Imperial rose to her feet as well, pulling her jacket back on. Gramel didn't understand how she could stand to wear it in this heat, but she'd never seemed uncomfortable. He thought she'd said Dromund Kaas was a jungle world too. Maybe she was used to it?
"You can't be saying things like that," he swooned, clutching his chest. "Gonna give a fellow a heart attack."
"I think you'll be alright. See," she smiled that same, odd smile and pointed at a Weequay named Trulladsa Raud. "You've got a medic two tables away." She moved to clap him on the shoulder but paused, her head turning towards the door as her hand grew still in the air. It took a few moments for Gramel to realize what was happening.
A few of the patrons seated near the front door mimicked the Imperial's reaction after a second or two, putting a pause on their games and conversations to look up, turning towards the entrance. The buzz of conversation further inside the cantina continued unabated. A resounding 'boom' echoed from the partially opened doorway, followed by a scream.
More screaming.
More screaming.
Even more screaming.
No...that was yelling.
Blaster fire. More booms.
The building shuddered, trickles of fine dust pouring from sequestered nook high above the colorful banners decorating the space overhead. All the people in the cantina had stopped speaking. Stopped moving. The noise dropped for a brief eternity before spiking in volume once again. The shift made Gramel feel like his ears had been set next to a thermal detonator. The ringing of brief, sudden, oppressive silence, followed by the abruptly turned up volume made his head spin.
"Hey? What's going on?" one of the senior crew members, a hulking, giant of a man named...Ky? Zy? Gramel couldn't remember, and he thought it might have been a nickname anyway, had risen to his feet. The man's hand moved instinctively towards the place a blaster would be holstered on the belt underneath his shirt. Strictly speaking, they weren't allowed to carry weaponry in the city.
Openly.
Gramel didn't think he really needed it, anyway. He was built like a Wookie.
Gramel met Kit's eyes across the room. She shook her head, but he didn't realize why until it occurred to him he'd already begun moving to have a closer look.
"Corrwile! What the hell are you doing?" another of the new recruits, a man named Rordant, maybe a decade older than him and with the demeanor of a merc had grabbed him by the shoulder and jerked him backwards. He stumbled slightly, but the man steadied him.
"Someone might need help..."
"Nerf shit," the man muttered, and Gramel faltered. It hadn't been a lie, but...well, curiosity might have been the driving force.
"You stick your head out that door, it's probably gonna get blown off," the man had already pulled a weapon, a blaster he held tight against his body as he edged up to the side of the doorway. Without moving his body outside, he took a quick glance, then immediately stepped back, closing the door. Turning back to Gramel, he added, "Side door, there," he pointed, "and there," the other side of the cantina. "Always know your exits."
The whir of rapid blaster fire had risen a notch. The whole of the cantina seemed to have been thrown into an uproar. Gramel didn't know where the Imperial had gone, but before he could speak up and claim they needed to find her (Imperial or not, she was a lady), someone had grabbed him and begun hauling him bodily towards a staircase.
"Hey! Put me down!" he yelled, thrashing wildly in the grasp of the hulking human man.
"I'm not gonna hurt you," the giant replied patiently. Rordant had gathered the crew's attention when the majority of the patrons had begun clogging the two exits, motioning them towards a back staircase that led up to the roof. The closeness of the buildings meant jumping over the span of the narrow alleys was a viable option when no others presented themselves.
"We left..."
"Everyone's here. Come on!" Kit interrupted. She held a blaster in one hand as she ushered everyone forwards ahead of her. Her eyes met Gramel's once more before an explosion right outside the building blew the glass inwards. Throwing up a hand at the glittering shrapnel thrown their way, she darted up the stairs after the man dragging Gramel.
3 BTC
Body tense as it ever was these days, the dark haired boy's head swiveled back and forth rapidly as green eyes took in the sight and sounds and scents around him. He couldn't help himself. He'd never seen so many aliens gathered in one place before. Unfortunately, this meant he happened to be facing in just the right direction for an assault on his olfactory organs.
"What is that smell?" he complained. He pinched his nostrils closed, eyes watering as he glared at a group of hairy, muscular creatures with broad, flat faces trudging past them. All of them were armed to their very large, tusk like teeth with an assortment of gleaming, polished rifles and staves adorned with wicked looking spikes. Multi colored light in patterns of blue, green, yellow, and red leached from the assortment of shop and cantina signs or spilled forth from doorways to bathe the beasts in strange shadows. Light glinted off weapons and cunning eyes as the aliens marched resolutely forward.
"Probably not the Whiphids, actually. And you might want to keep your opinions to yourself for a little while longer. It would be really annoying to lose an apprentice in the first week," the Sith Lord beside him murmured. The tone was conversational. The threat wasn't lost on him. Neither was the condescension veiled by insincere politeness.
"I can handle myself, thanks," he replied coldly.
"Good," the Sith drawled. For the first time since setting foot on the station, she turned fully to look at her apprentice.
And in that tiny, fleeting moment of meeting her eyes, the boy felt just a little bit uncomfortable. He wasn't sure why, exactly. Mild mannered (aside from an impatient streak), soft spoken, and mostly lacking in the aura of impending doom department, his master was hardly intimidating. He barely realized she was there, most days...so no different than how it'd been when he was still at the Academy.
The feeling, unfortunately, appeared to be mutual. The only real threat his master was likely to pose to him was in forgetting she had an apprentice in the first place. She'd been exaggerating. It had been nearly two months since he'd come under her tutelage. Why she still seemed a little surprised to run into him on her ship or on missions like these was beyond him.
The apprentice just hoped he wouldn't get left behind by accident. It hadn't happened yet, but he made sure to do a quick perusal of the most easily stolen vessels in the hangar whenever they landed somewhere. If he ended up having to find his own ride, he wanted to make damn sure he was prepared.
"Stay here then, please. I won't be gone longer than half an hour."
Right.
"I hope your meeting goes well, Master," he smiled saccharinely, showing all of his teeth.
The Sith Lord studied him silently for a few moments. He couldn't figure out how she managed to seem like she was both not looking at him at all and dissecting him simultaneously. He hated her for it. He hated all of them.
The sound of rapid blaster fire came a split second before the shouting and cursing. The apprentice's eyes flickered towards one of the open doorways, as did his master's. A few seconds later, three bodies piled out of the doorway, two currently in the process of beating one. With a good 'thwack' of a fist hitting solid flesh, and the pained whimper of the patron tossed out in the street, the two bouncers righted themselves, sending glares out at anyone who met their gaze.
His master's murmured, "Try not to draw notice," meant the apprentice wasn't one of those people. By the time he'd returned his attention to the cantina across the way, the guards were gone and foot traffic had already resumed and concealed the bruised cantina goer from sight.
With a huff of irritation, he resigned himself to once more being left out of anything halfway interesting.
If interesting is even in that woman's vocabulary. Probably just more useless garbage from some dead aliens no one cares about. Honestly! How do you make digging around in ancient temples boring?
Does she honestly expect me to just wait for her?
Screw that
If he was likely to be stuck here for the foreseeable future, he might as well find something to entertain himself.
Casting a glance curiously about the station, he picked the direction most likely to offer some form of relief from his boredom and set off.
Nobody seemed to find it odd that an eleven year old boy (if a very tall, eleven year old boy) had taken up residence at an empty barstool and was currently studying the menu with all the intent focus of a world weary nine to fiver halfway to retirement.
Nobody except the bartender that was.
"Beat it, kid," the alien grunted. He didn't know what it was, but it sure was ugly.
"Try to make me," he smiled, eyes cold. A small 'clink' as he unclipped the lightsaber from his belt and laid it firmly on top of the glass covered countertop. He hoped the alien would try something. He was itching to hurt something.
The alien eyed the weapon.
"You are Sith?"
"You really want to ask questions of one?" the boy sneered.
"Sith are not velcome in bar."
The boy sensed the men with guns rising up from their tables behind him. He also saw them in the reflection of the bottles over the barkeep's head. Really poor decorating, that.
"This is a really second rate establishment then, isn't it?"
The thrum of the lightsaber sounded as he spun in his chair, dropping instinctively to the ground even as he deflected the shot. The burst of blasterfire sailed wide, striking the wall and scorching a small hole in the metal bulkhead. A wave of his hand and a frantic call to the Force sent the armed guards toppling backwards over their tables. The boy was on his feet and out the door before they could rise.
