Episode Four

Components of Persuasion

The five armed officers withdrew their weapons at the single gesture of Commander Isten, whose eyes never once left the group. She herself was unarmed, though a hefty utility belt gripped her waist and rattled with each step she took. Her eyes were a cold steel color, her face bereft of much hue other than a red blush on her nose and lips.

She stared down Kazuda Xiono and blinked expectantly. The man tensed his jaw, each word bracing against his clenched teeth. "We were tasked to gather information about the Federation. That is all."

"And what of the attack on my two captains?"

"It was meant to be a distraction, to clear the building, while another operative…" Kaz trailed off. During another curious headache, the Mikkian received a passing vision of the bartender. "I was left alone."

Isten glanced at Vrina. "Was this the second operative?" She sniffed when the bearded man shook his head. "Then, you were betrayed by somebody who knew the ramifications of what you were involved with. It is intelligent to allow a misstep before parrying to strike, after all. Perhaps they were working with us without you even knowing."

He scratched the side of his head. "Yeah, well, it seems like that keeps happening. Listen, we have no intention of harming you. All we were supposed to do was…"

The Commander stepped forward, looked up, and pressed her nose into his. "You could not harm us if you tried." A long moment dragged by before she disengaged. Her officers resumed pointing their unique blasters to the group while she turned her back to rejoin her party. Once attached, she said, "You have all done well to answer my questions and I feel a tinge of guilt having not answered your question about the Jedi." Isten turned on her heels and dropped a heavy sigh. "Whatever remnant of the Order exists is a diluted, weak strand of what was once a glorious army."

She passed her eyes to Vrina, smiled, and continued. "Though talented, this generation of so-called Jedi are divorced from what made their ancestors mighty. There are no more Masters, there are only arbitrary titles to satiate their already inflated ego."

Isten took a moment to dig through each satchel connected to her belt. Small component pieces connected together to create an ornamental rod the length of her forearm. Kaz gasped under his breath and shifted his posture to defend himself, though the rest of his crew were frozen in confusion. After a swift glide and a choppy hiss, an emerald-hued blade appeared from the rod's hollow emitter.

"Such relics are toys, and nothing else." The woman raised the blade to meet the space in between Kaz's eyebrows. He struggled to keep his eyes open, the intense light nearly blinding him. The clunky steps of the femme droid sashayed from the scene, still silent.

Tam raised her blaster and shouted for Isten to cease. The officers tensed but did not fire their weapons. With a nod, the saber deactivated with a reductive sizzle. The pilot's finger trembled over the trigger, her weapon shuddering in her hand. "You act like you can do anything you want! You go to planets and worm your way in like an exogorth!"

Vrina steeled himself when he witnessed the ramp of their ship seal tight, its thrusters expressing just enough power to surreptitiously raise away from the asphalt.

"You're right," the woman countered with raised eyebrows. "I can do whatever I want. You can, too. The lack of understanding this simple principle is why both the Jedi and the Sith expired. Now, there will be unity, ubiquity, and understanding."

She pointed the inactive hilt to the group and her officers crouched to take aim at Kazuda's party; their attention shifted seconds later when the warbling of droidspeak broke their concentration.

Two security droids, large in frame but quick in speed, rushed to meet both parties with their built-in wrist blasters focused on the armed guests. The small rifles of Isten's officers snapped with pristine accuracy, striking the torso of the matte black droids. Each time a bolt connected with their shell, its alloy split open as if the round exploded on contact.

Though the Commander was transfixed by the use of these weapons against the intruders, her attention was pulled back to the fleeing Republic party. Even Wegil had chosen to defect. She noticed that he seemed to be taking the lead as well, helping guide the group to find dense cover.

Two of her five officers had been dropped by the time they disappeared from her sights. To the remaining three: "Move to execute them," she shouted and ignited her saber once again. Isten brought it to a neutral, defensive position and deftly rerouted a flimsy bolt back to one of the two droids. The blast hardly phased it. "But save the Mikkian at all costs."

She cleared the way for her officers by side stepping and drawing the droids' attention. In her free hand, a comlink was relinquished from her belt and her thumb squeezed the trigger so she can speak freely: "This is an order for Silver Five," Isten said while choosing to avoid the blaster fire rather than deflect it. "Lock down the cargo shuttle. Make sure no one can board it."

There was a moment of hesitation from whomever received the message. The Commander demanded that she receive a confirmation. A male voice answered, "The commuter shuttle has disembarked. There were no lifeforms on board when we scanned it."

Isten cursed under her breath and dropped the comlink to the ground before squaring her shoulders and pushing through to saw the blade of her saber through the more visibly-damaged security droid. The second stood very little chance of survival as she lunged forward and ripped the emerald blade through either of the droid's wrists in a quick succession. She distanced herself and finished off the nuisance by plunging the tip of her saber into its chest; the woman performed small, circular movements with gritted teeth until the droid powered down.

The Commander exhaled through pursed lips, deactivated the saber, and began to take it apart—each component finding their way back into its respective pouch along her belt. She crouched and retrieved the comlink. "Silver Four, prepare to exfiltrate. Five, you are to wait one hour for whatever will remain of my officers. If you sense danger, leave. If time runs out, leave. If the commuter shuttle returns, leave."

The same man answered: "If the shuttle returns, should I attempt to fetch any coordinates for a potential jump?"

"It is no longer our business!" Isten turned the comlink off and stored it. Her eyes darted along the empty landing zone, half-expecting an ambush as she returned to her ship.

Tam breathlessly called to Are-Nine, "Where are you, little droid?" The group of four weaved behind detached motel rooms and hastily-constructed offices. Wegil had let them know that TIL-03 was not an aesthetically pleasing place to be, but what were considered confusing routes for them was ideal for droids.

They heard heavy footsteps from the Federation officers behind them, though they never once took a shot. Vrina figured that there was too much cover. The more ground they traversed, the more they realized that the back-half of the moon had been utilized as some sort of scrap yard.

A loud whisper from Kaz: "Here! Split up. Tam, you got this." Her eyes widened and a hesitant inhale chilled her body.

Each of them found their own pile of scrap to hide behind—some were mounds of discarded droid limbs, others were uniform mountains of coils and springs. The Mikkian had taken cover behind a tower of damaged heads. He scanned the immediate area for some sort of weapon; the Republic group were at a decent advantage since a majority of what laid around them could be considered dangerous if used correctly.

Vrina gripped a heavy rusted pipe, its head split apart as if it had been caught in a detonation. He hoped that the others had his luck, but moreover hoped that the pilot was as good of a shot as she had claimed.

The simple scope of Tam's DL-18 fit inside an open chamber between her mound of scrap. She could make out the entrance to the yard but did not see the officers enter. They should have been easy to make out: dressed in eggshell white, flowing garment half-hidden under flexible and scant matching gauntlets, greaves, and brigandines.

When the pilot eased her breathing, she could make out hurried chatter from beyond the short gate. Her focus was undeniably strong, her eyes stinging with the fear of losing attention for even a split moment. Kazuda's soft voice tittered through her hidden comlink: "We have company, just not who we were expecting."

She denied the man a response. Sweat built between her palms and the already slick handle of her blaster. Her captain called to her once more, but there was much more energy in his voice. "Tam, behind us!"

Two inactive security droids had awoken due to their beaching the scrap yard. It took a few moments for them to come online and regain lucidity. If Wegil's postulation was correct, they had been resting in the corners of the yard for years. He turned to inspect either side of him and waved down Kaz, who was just out of his line of sight.

The captain peered behind his pile and frowned at the Zabrak. He mouthed, "What?"

Wegil ran a calloused hand over his face and mimed his right hand to be a gun. He slowly mimicked the action of holstering it before pointing in the general direction of Tam. With a nod of apparent understanding, Kaz radioed into his pilot. "You need to holster your blaster. If the security droids catch us with drawn weapons, they'll start firing at us."

"Kaz, now is not the time," she replied through her teeth.

"Those Federation guys know we have the high ground. They're not going to breach. Tam, you need to put away your blaster."

Her eye was pressed against the scope with so much pressure she swore it had already bruised her. Wegil clenched his fists and backed into the sharp pile as the loping security droids closed distance. With a shake of the head, Tam exhaled and pulled her eye away from the scope and tucked her weapon back into its leather holster.

The four remained completely still with Vrina hiding his makeshift weapon behind his back. He was closest to the right corner and one droid clumsily made its way to him before anyone else. It looked down at the Mikkian. "Please recite clearance codes or exit the restricted area."

"Uh," he cleared his throat. "Z-zero-three-six-nine?"

The droid tilted its head. "Please recite clearance codes or exit the restricted area."

"Okay. Alright," Vrina carefully lifted himself to his feet but never broke eye contact with the droid. His companions were out of sight. The weight of the broken pipe suddenly increased triple fold as he stared into its lifeless eyes. "I'm leaving now."

"Please recite clearance codes or exit the restricted area."

"Or—or what?"

"Please recite clearance codes or exit the restricted area."

Vrina frowned. "You're not going to do anything about it?" He inspected the droid with renewed confidence. "Okay. How about this? Clearance code, uh, seven-seven-two-eight?" The droid simply repeated itself with no additional measures of defense. "Why don't you follow me?"

The Mikkian backed away from the droid with his back away from its sensors. The pipe would do well to land one successful hit before he would leave himself open for a retaliation. If his plan didn't work—

He found himself in an open path between all of the piles, the eyes of his companions on him. Vrina noticed that the second droid was interrogating Kazuda. With a firm grin, the bearded man lifted himself from his seated position and mimicked the comedian until both of them were out in the open with each assigned security droid mere feet away. Their speech overlapped: "Please recite clearance codes or exit the restricted area."

The Humanoid's heart was thrumming as he spoke. "I know what you have in mind," he frowned. "I—I think."

"If I'm going to be honest with you, I haven't really thought of the plan past this point. Maybe we can get escorted out? Additional security. Tam, two droids. Only three of them left, right?"

"Right," Kaz lilted. "But if she even so much as draws her blaster, we'll be outnumbered." He turned his head to the entrance and pouted with rumination. "But, if we get far enough away from her…"

The droids repeated themselves and Kaz swiftly drew his comlink from his belt. The device was cupped in his hand, hidden from any sensors. "Tam, we're going to move these guys out of sight. Once you're out of their peripheral—"

She was quick to respond. "Understood, I'll have eyes back on the entrance. I just wish I knew what Are-Nine was up to."

"Let him be. The new Are-Series are smarter than both of us combined."

Vrina backed up, one foot at a time. "Clearance code one-five-eight-two?"

"Please recite clearance codes or exit the restricted area."

"Dosh."

Kazuda frowned, his eyebrows tightly wound. "What are you doing?"

"Hoping at least one of them will work. Clearance code, uh, three-five-two-two?"

As the duo drew nearer to the entrance, anxiety began to fill their bodies. The Mikkian's attempts to hack the droids consistently failed—a subtle vibrato in his voice giving his fear away. Kazuda remained silent, his attention divided amongst the gate, Tam's location, and both droids.

Several pairs of boots scuffed the ground behind them and Vrina tumbled to the ground after his heel hit a piece of scrap metal. The pipe, his only means of defense, clattered and rolled away. Kazuda cursed as both droids lifted their arms to ready their wrist blasters. "Weapons detected. Threats ascertained."

Vrina squeezed his eyes shut and the captain tensed in expectation of feeling a hot bolt against his chest, both arms shielding his face in a futile means of defense. The two felt heat from the rounds skirting past their skin; amongst the chaotic ambiance, the sound of Tam's blaster burped, half-hidden behind the hail of the security droids' shots.

The anxious Kazuda was the first to open his eyes. Either of the matte droids were busy firing past them, their sensors tied to the entrance. He turned and crouched in one swift movement to assess the situation: two of the three Federation officers blindly fired from cover, their shots miraculously accurate enough to strike the ground near each of them. "Hey!" He called to Vrina, who blinked and marveled at how he was still alive. "Find cover—now!"

Either of the men dipped behind whatever mound of scrap would take them. Vrina had met up with Wegil, who groaned that there was barely enough room for him let alone someone else. "Sorry," the Mikkian apologized breathlessly. "I'm just, y'know, trying not to die."

"Go not die over there," the horned man nodded out into the yard. "A perfectly good pile of garbage with your name on it."

Ignoring the capricious request, Vrina occupied himself with locating Tam. Once he traced where her blaster bolts were coming from, he could not look away. Each careful shot landed within inches of where the officers were. He could imagine her face: gritted teeth, angry at herself for missing.

Wegil used his fist to gently bump the Mikkian. He turned, upset, but eased his expression when he followed to where the Zabrak was pointing. One of the two Federation ships had ascended into the exosphere before igniting their thrusters to make a quick escape. "She's on there," Vrina blinked.

"Isten must have a lot of confidence in her officers."

"No." His voice was flat, unimpressed—eyes still locked onto the now miniscule visage of the ship. "She doesn't."

The two temporarily ignored the battle around them to ruminate on the sky. Several seconds later, another ship popped out of hyperspace and turned a hard right with its nose to the scrapyard. Kazuda peeked his head from behind the heap and waved to the transport. A bolt connected with the pile of junk; hot shrapnel scattered over the exposed flesh of his face and he recoiled with a seethe.

Vrina stopped himself from reaching out to the bearded man. The officers' shots were divided amongst the ground crew and the ship piloted by Are-Nine, which appeared to simply just circle and absorb damage as it lowered to what little available space was cleared in the scrap yard. Its hull knocked over two smaller piles—the pieces crumpled with ease under its weight.

"Ready, clown?" Wegil patted the Mikkian's shoulder and erected himself from a crouched position. He took a moment to stretch, observing Tam's position as she successfully struck one officer in their chest as soon as they decided to breach.

The shuttle ramp lowered and, though it faced away from Vrina, he could see another figure lower out of the ship. He was larger in stature and wore a thick, flowing poncho constructed of a material he could not recognize. An ornate helmet sat on his head and obscured his face. Cradled with either hand was an A280 blaster rifle—a weapon of reliable and sleek design.

He first made his way to Kazuda, providing covering fire along the way. "Go on ahead, Rokkna-1."

"I—I got something in my eye." The bearded man winced as he used the back of his hand to rub the area. He was scolded by the new figure who told him to not bother it. "Alright, alright. Thanks, Polle."

"Rokka-3," the masked man corrected him and downed one of the two security droids when it turned to inspect the new commotion. His rifle was able to shred its joints to disable it as a threat, yet left it operational. Tam transitioned from her pile to where Kazuda had been. "Hey, Rokka-2. I got you."

She thanked him and followed her wounded captain on board. Wegil raised his eyebrows and jogged to the open bay while Vrina remained frozen in a crouch. Rokka-3 narrowly avoided an officer's bolt and used the shuttle as temporary cover. Hearing footsteps behind him, he spun and crouched with the barrel of his rifle trained on the Zabrak.

"Woah, friend. I came here with your crew." He raised his hands and only slowed his pace, still intending to board the craft. The man lurched forward and used the butt of his weapon to toss Wegil to the ground. "Hey! J-just ask her!"

He half-raised a crooked finger to Tam, who kept an eye on the surrounding area with her blaster at the ready while standing at the top of the ramp. Rokka-3 called back to the pilot. "Confirmation, Rokkna-2?"

Tam fought a smirk. "That one's the reason we're in this mess." She moved her glance to Vrina Hon, who cowered behind an increasingly diminishing pile as bolts were wildly thrown from the Federation officers' overpowered weapons. "The pink one, however—he saved my life."

"Copy." Rokkna-3 caught the Zabrak's face in the center of his scope. "If you move, you die. Pink one," his voice raised just enough for Vrina to hear him. His body twitched in response, as he was very much ready to leave the planet. "Run for it. You have no cover, so be quick."

The Mikkian examined the short, two-meter long gap between him and the shuttle. Sparks skirted off of the shuttle's hull as another sharp bolt struck the exterior. In his mind, this was enough incentive to move.

He positioned himself to sprint forward and paused when he heard the bleating of the droid's blasters disappear from the fray. Then, there was pure silence. The remaining Federation officers had succeeded in eliminating the only line of defense between them and the Rokkna crew. The masked man shouted for Vrina to move.

Anybody in the scrap yard was sure to overhear the command, which meant they must be privy to the pathetic plan of moving from cover-to-shuttle. A moment of tense deliberation passed and the Mikkian took in a deep breath. He lurched with two bounding steps before pushing the ground under him in a heaving jump.

Red bolts rushed the empty space between the pile and the shuttle, but each one missed as he successfully cleared the space necessary to land with a clumsy roll. Vrina had ended up feet past the cargo ramp but was quick to scramble to his feet and climb on board. Rokkna-3 nodded, visibly impressed even under his mask.

"Have a good one." The man backed away and settled his rifle against his chest. He used his free hand to salute the Zabrak as he backed up onto the ramp.

Wegil cursed and scrambled back to the scrap pile when the ramp was sealed and the shuttle expressed a power discharge to lift itself from the dusty, junk-laden soil. The hail of bolts initiated once more as the two officers rushed into the yard.

The underside of the Rokkna rattled and absorbed a great deal of hits before an alarm began to blare. Tam had already resumed her post in the cockpit. "Really wish I had some firepower on this thing," she said while readying the console to her liking. "Would love to just blast those guys into dust. How are you holding up, Kaz?"

Rokkna-3 answered for him. "We need to find a suitable medical bay."

"Oh." She froze, her face cold. "Okay, well—what does that look like, Are-Nine?" It chirped for a spell. "Coruscant again?"

Overhearing the conversation, Vrina exhaled in relief. The masked man, who had helped Kazuda to a seat, pulled away his mask and set it onto the floor of the passenger area. He chuckled at the reaction of the comedian. "Surprised?"

The Mikkian moved his head wrap to his neck, releasing his head tendrils for the first time since being roped into the adventure. The two appreciated each other for a moment. "I thought I misheard. How long, Polle?"

"Long enough to know you should give up comedy." With a grunt, he lifted himself to a seat next to Kazuda, who oscillated between smirking and wincing. Polle stroked a tight but coarse beard that wrapped around his chin and mouth. His equally-dense eyebrows were quite emotive when he spoke. "Didn't appreciate that part about the watered-down coolers. What do you know about being a bartender, anyway?"