Star Wars: Return of the Sith
8: Darkness Approaches
By Nanaki
Kuat Drive Yards, Orbital Shipyard #12
Jerin's grin broadened as the look of fear on Joona's face was replaced by bewildered amazement. "Yes, seriously." He assured her. "And I should inform you, you're still naked."
Joona looked down toward her toes. "Oh hell." She quickly began rummaging under her bed. "Not that my actual 'clothes' are a big improvement." She sighed.
Jerin politely turned away as she got dressed, to find a much less pleasant sight waiting for him. "Augh! Kid, I am damn tired of looking at your butt." Jerin's hand went to his blaster again. "You get dressed too, right now."
"Uh, yes sir!" Denan scrambled to his feet, then also headed over to the bed.
Jerin turned around, keeping his eyes on the hallway as the two got dressed. "What was going on in here?" He wondered, mainly to himself.
"I think I know." Tenn admitted. "But we probably shouldn't talk about it right now." Jerin raised an eyebrow, but let it go at that.
"All right, I'm as ready as I'm gonna get." Joona announced.
Jerin turned around to find her wearing a semi-transparent light purple nightie that barely reached down to the bottom of her butt. Under that, she was wearing some panties of the same material, but that was it. "THAT'S your version of dressed?" Jerin groaned.
Joona shrugged. "The only real clothes I have are what I was wearing when I first got here. Since I was thirteen back then, they don't fit anymore."
"Do you at least have some actual shoes?" Jerin wondered, looking at the fuzzy pink slippers she had put on.
"Good shoes would make it easier to run away." Tenn said quietly, and Joona nodded in agreement.
"Stang." Jerin grumbled. "All right, you better at least take the blanket from your bed. It's going to be cold in the docking bay." Now he turned toward where Denan was shrugging back into his jacket. "Now, say goodnight kid." Jerin raised his blaster again.
"You can't!" Joona threw herself between Denan and the blaster. "If the others find him here, they're going to assume he had something to do with the escape."
Jerin raised the blaster so it wasn't pointing right at her. "If you insist, but then he's going to have to come with us to the docking bay. I can't risk him alerting station security."
"That should be fine. I don't think he'll give you any trouble." Joona turned to look at Denan, who quickly shook his head.
"Fine then." Jerin holstered his blaster once more. "But we need to get moving. I still need to scan everyone before we head out."
"Scan for what?" Joona wondered as they headed out the door.
"Explosive implants." Jerin answered quickly. "A fairly common practice among Hutts."
"For slaves who perform manual labor, yes." Tenn nodded. "But I keep telling you, these girls are too valuable. If they escaped, their owner would want to recapture them alive."
"Even so, we still need to check." Jerin shrugged. "All right ladies!" Jerin called out as he strode back into the main reception area. "Before we get moving, I need to scan all of you for explosives."
There was a lot of murmuring, then one of the blue skinned ladies stepped forward. "We've been talking it over, and while we appreciate the sentiment, there's no way we can all slip past security." Joona wasn't too surprised to hear this coming from Nula. At thirty five years old, Nula had been here for over twenty one years, far more than half her life. However, she did have a valid point.
"If security was on duty right now, that would be very true. Fortunately, they're not." Jerin informed them.
"How can that be?" Nula wondered.
"Let's just say that I have friends in high places." Jerin smirked. "But even so, time is of the essence. I need to start scanning." He pulled a device about a foot long, attached to a small monitor, from under his cape.
As Jerin started scanning with the youngest girls, Nula turned to Joona with wide eyes. "Joona... We're really getting out of here." She whispered.
"You're damn right we are." Joona flashed a toothy grin.
"Just tracking devices so far." Jerin reported as he moved along. "And they don't appear to be booby trapped. Apparently the Hutt figured that the girls wouldn't be able to afford to have them removed if they did escape."
"What a fool." Joona snorted. "If I had even one percent of the money I've brought in over the years, I'd still be rich by any reasonable standard."
"Are they all implanted in the same place?" Tenn wondered.
"Yep. Back of the left leg, just below the knee." Jerin nodded. "All right, your turn." He walked up to Joona, who extended her left leg. "Spast!" Jerin cursed a second later. "There's something else besides the tracking device. It's not a bomb, but..." Jerin frowned at the scanner's display for a second. "It seems to be designed to emit an electrical current if it moves too far away from the brothel. Undoubtedly not a killing voltage, but I'm sure it'd be unpleasant just the same."
Joona let herself worry about the situation for a second, before she stomped her foot back down on the floor. "I don't care if I have to cut the whole leg off, I'm still getting out of here."
"I doubt it'll come to that, but let me check everyone else first." Jerin gave what he hoped was a reassuring smile as he moved along. A few minutes later, he had thoroughly scanned everyone, and the only other girl with one of the electrical implants was Nula. However, hers seemed to have lost its charge. "If your leg starts to hurt, tell me right away." Jerin instructed her. "But, if it can still generate a current at all, I doubt that it's enough to be noticed." Now he walked back over to Joona. "The bad news is, yours doesn't seem to operating off signals from an external transmitter that could be destroyed. It has its own self-contained sensors that determine when to shock you."
"So what you're telling me is, it has to be removed before I can leave." Joona surmised.
"That's what I'm telling you." Jerin nodded, then pulled a vibronife out of a sheath on the left side of his belt. "It'd probably be best if I stunned you first." His right hand went to his blaster.
"No." Joona shook her head, even as the tips of her lekku curled at the thought of what she was about to put herself through. "If we get into a situation where we need to run, I don't want to be weighing the others down."
"You... have got some serious guts." Jerin smiled in approval. "Someone find me a med kit!" He called out. He turned to see several of the girls rummaging under the front counter, not being overly careful to avoid stepping on the unconscious guard on the floor. Soon, one of the youngest girls hurried over and handed him a small, rectangular package. "Let's see what we've got here..." He hurried to tear it open. "Bandages, good... Gloves, fine... Pain pills, but these are for headaches and sore muscles, not injuries..." He looked under the gloves. "And that's it? This thing is karking worthless!" He looked up at Joona. "I've got bacta patches on my ship, but you'll have to live with it for the next hour or so."
"Fine, let's just get this over with." Joona headed over to the circle of sofas in the center of the room, and layed down on her stomach.
"Here, go ahead and take these." Jerin handed her a packet of the pain pills. "They'll take a few minutes to start working anyway." Joona tore open the packet and popped both pills into her mouth at once. Jerin was surprised that she hadn't asked for any water, but then he thought about it for a second, and realized that he had been foolish to be surprised. "Okay, here we go." He said as he removed his armored gauntlets and replaced them with plastic gloves from the kit.
"Just do it already." Joona told him. "I'm not enjoying the suspense."
Jerin double checked the position of the device with his scanner, then turned on his vibroknife and plunged it in. A muffled cry of pain escaped through Joona's nose, and her whole body tensed up, but that was the extent of her reaction. As the vibroknife sliced through her flesh like a hot knife through butter, Jerin realized that Joona wasn't going to give her Hutt owner the satisfaction of crying out, even if he would only see it over grainy security camera footage. Now Jerin felt his knife hit something more substantial, but he didn't pull it out. This was going to be the worst part. He used the knife and his right hand to widen the wound he had just made, looking for the device. Joona squeezed the couch cushion underneath her so hard that her nails sliced into it, but she still didn't make a sound. Jerin felt something solid between his index and middle fingers, then quickly yanked it out. "That's the tracking device." He reported as he flung it to the floor. "One more to go." Jerin plunged his right hand back in, and quickly got a grip on the second device. This one was much more pointy, and it took several bloody filaments of muscle with it as he pulled it out. Arcs of electricity started sparking from it almost right away, and Jerin threw it to the side even as he drew his vibroknife out with his other hand. "Done." He declared simply. "Let's get some pressure on that wound."
Joona slumped on the sofa now, many beads of sweat clearly visible where they had oozed from her smooth skin. She winced again as Jerin placed a large square of gauze directly over the slice in her leg, then wrapped it tightly with several layers of bandages. Jerin wanted to pat her on the shoulder and tell her she'd done great, but he figured that the last thing she'd want right now was ANOTHER man touching her. Instead, he picked up the still-sparking shocker device and stood up facing the nearest security camera he could see. "See that, Gadran?" He held up the device, then threw it at the camera as hard as he could. It bounced off the lens with a loud clink. "She's not yours anymore. Though it's obvious that in spirit, she never was." Now he walked close to the camera. "I'm going to take away everything that's yours, until you have nothing but your life." Then, a fierce grin lit up Jerin's face. "Then, I'm going to take that too."
"If you really mean that, we need to talk." Denan's voice was loud in the sudden silence.
Jerin barely heard him through ears that were suddenly ringing. He felt a surge of power in his body, and realized that his anger had filled him with the power of the dark side before he was even aware of it. Plus, in this state, it was obvious that he wasn't the only one in the area drawing on the dark side. 'Heh. See you soon, Seco.' He thought to himself. "Oh, I mean it." He said out loud. Then he blinked as he realized most of the girls were staring at him with worried expressions on their faces, and he forced a more friendly smile onto his. "But right now, we need to get moving!" He clapped his hands. "Everybody grab the blankets from your beds, then we'll head for the docking bay." The ladies hurried to comply.
"Well now..." Jerin walked back over to Joona. "Do you think you can get around just leaning on one person, or will you need two?"
"There's only one way to find out." Joona spun up from her position on the couch and stood up on her right leg, wincing as gravity took hold of her left. She took a few experimental hops without falling back onto the sofa. "I think one will do just fine." She smiled.
"If you don't mind, I'd like to be the one to help you." Denan said from where he'd walked up behind the couch.
Joona turned to regard him with a raised eyebrow. "I don't mind." She said softly. Turning back the other way, she saw Jerin was already heading back toward the front entrance. "All right, we better figure this out quick." She told Denan as he walked up to stand on her left side. He put his right arm under her left and around her back. They tried to take a few experimental steps, but didn't get very far. Joona quickly realized it was because she needed to put her weight on her left arm when she would normally put it on her left leg. "Okay, grab me tighter Den." She instructed him. "You know I'm not that delicate."
Over by the front entrance, Jerin was busy checking his weapons, and he seemed to have even more of them than Tenn remembered seeing when they first left his ship. "You're pretty heavily armed, considering there's no security on duty." She observed.
"It's a good thing I brought them." Jerin smiled as he lowered his helmet back into place. "Because I felt a disturbance in the Force not long ago. I'm pretty sure the Sith are here."
Tenn looked surprised. "I haven't sensed anything. But then, you are more familiar with the dark side." Jerin wasn't sure whether that was supposed to a criticism or not. "What do you want to do about it?"
"Nothing to do." Jerin shrugged. "If we do run into them, I'll keep them busy while you lead the girls back to the ship."
"The ship won't open up without you there." Tenn reminded him.
"True, but I don't plan on losing." Jerin answered simply. "All right, everyone ready?" He called out. "Here we go!" He opened up the doors, blaster drawn, feeling ready for anything.
.
Roughly fifteen minutes later, as they turned a corner, Jerin stepped into the hallway to his right to find both Sith calmly waiting for them. Jerin hadn't thought that they were this close, but then, he wasn't exactly an expert with his Force abilities. As the ladies began to round the corner, only to find Jerin and Tenn stopped in their tracks, what little conversation had been audible died down completely. "Mandalorian, you know what we want." Seco stated simply.
"I sure do, and depriving you of it will be a pleasure." Jerin poured his emotions into the Force, letting the Sith know that he truly felt no fear, only anticipation. "Tenn, find another route back to the docking bay." Not hesitating for a second, Tenn kept going straight through the intersection, and beckoned for the others to follow her.
As he viewed all the lovely Twi'lek girls peering over Jerin's shoulder at him, Seco raised an eyebrow. "Danar, what have you been up to?"
"Don't worry, it's not your concern." Jerin replied smugly.
"Negian, go after Tenn." Seco stated simply. "I'll be along shortly." He drew his lightsaber and ignited its purple blade in one fluid motion. Negian turned and charged down the hallway in the other direction.
"I figured you'd do that." Jerin grumbled. "I hate to be rude, but I'm going to have to make this quick."
"You LOST very quickly last time." Seco reminded him.
"Last time I wasn't wearing my armor, you pale murglak." Jerin reminded him. "You're about to find out that it makes a BIG difference." With that, Jerin raised his right arm up, but instead of firing his blaster, he launched the grappling cable in his gauntlet. Guided by a subtle use of the Force, it slipped right past Seco's efforts to slice it up, strapping his arms tight against his body as it wrapped around him several times. As Seco angled his blade up to at least slice through the cable that connected him to Jerin's gauntlet, Jerin yanked forward as hard as he could.
Seco spun in midair, landing on his back in time to easily parry the shots rapidly being fired from Jerin's blaster. However, even as he was firing, Jerin reached behind his back with his left hand and drew out a concussion grenade. As he hurled it forward, he felt Seco reach out with the Force and try to grab onto it, but Jerin already had it securely in his own Force grip. Jerin held onto it tightly even as it clanked to a stop next to Seco's head. But then, Seco was back on his feet, charging down the hallway away from Jerin. Jerin reached for the button on his gauntlet to sever the grappling cable a split second too late, and found himself flying through the air toward the concussion grenade right as it was due to go off.
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"Oh, not good." - Obi-Wan Kenobi, Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones
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(Character Name Origins #2: Tenn Sonata
First and foremost, I wanted to have a name with the same kind of rhythm as a lot of the Twi'lek names you see, like Bib Fortuna, Tott Doneeta, or Aayla Secura. While the men generally have monosyllabic names, with the ladies having longer ones, it's hardly a concrete rule. Sometimes that naming convention is turned upside down, with a long first name and a short last one, as with Luke Skywalker's lawyer, Nawara Ven. A look at Wookiepedia's Twi'lek page, while more baffling than informative, reveals a list of notable Twi'leks that have names that could belong to virtually any species. Really, if I hadn't already known Xiaan Amersu from Star Wars: Republic, I would have thought it was a Kaleesh name that got tossed in there by accident.
At any rate, the idea I was going for with the name is "two different kinds of beautiful". Tenn is a 10, absolutely, though I've been pretty vague on actual physical descriptions. Since beauty is such a subjective thing, I want the readers to be free to imagine her how they want. As for the "Sonata" part, by naming her after a beautiful type of music, I wanted to suggest that there's something beautiful about her that has nothing to do with physical appearance. Though exactly what that might be has yet to be revealed, as her backstory is still pretty mysterious...)