Author's Note: Sorry about my tardiness. Chapter 12 put me way behind! I'm not used to this writing week by week thing. It's difficult. (Partly because I write fucking long chapters.) I've really got to have a plan with where I'm going 'cause I can't just go back and work in something I just thought of because I've published those chapters already.
How do you guys do it? No seriously. How? Would you rather shorter chapters? Or longer ones less often? –Em
.
Chapter 14: A Friend's Friend
.
Rex looked up and down the empty hallway in his HUD without turning his head, a skill mongrel stormtroopers never managed to learn. He turned and slipped into a storage closet in a matter of seconds, squeezing in between the deactivated cleaning droids. He slipped a few compact tools from his belt and jimmied the nearest droid's casing open. The larger cleaning droids were mostly empty space inside. It left plenty of room for Rex to stuff his helmet. Inside the insulated casing that protected the droid's circuitry it wouldn't receive or transmit any signals. He pulled out his unregistered comm and opened the frequency Conall Nasis had given him.
"Easy money," the former cop answered promptly with a falsely cheery attitude. "I've been waiting for you to call. Not getting cold feet, shinny boy?"
"Nasis," Rex said curtly, cutting off the banter. "I've got the location. Transmitting the coordinates now." He punched in the location he and his squad were being deployed to.
"I got them. How fast do you need us?"
"They won't move the doctor until we've moved the laboratory. Get your men in place by 1200 hours and I'll give you the signal when she comes into the open."
"We're doing this in broad daylight?" Nasis sounded either uneasy or impressed at Rex's boldness.
"Looks like it," Rex replied. We don't have much choice, he thought. The longer we wait to do it the greater the chance we'll be found out or Orsa will be moved to a different part of the city, or the planet, or the Core. No, we have to do it now.
"Fun."
Rex could almost hear Nasis shrug on the other end of the line. He was caught off guard by how much he missed the brotherly banter that used to be commonplace in the 501st.
"What's the difference between day and night in the under-city anyway?" He asked Nasis.
"The noise level, less speeder traffic at night," the cop responded, deadpan.
"Humf," Rex shook his head and allowed himself to really smile. The expression felt unfamiliar and it fell quickly as he returned to reality.
"Be ready for the signal," Rex said seriously
"We will be, don't worry about us. You don't have to pay me much to shoot at the stormies."
"I'm not paying you at all."
"All the more proof. I'll see you out there."
"K'oyacyi."
"I heard the other clones saying that. What does it mean?"
Rex hesitated, not knowing exactly how to explain the saying. It had been his list word to so many of his men and summed up everything he wanted to say to them before battle; "good luck", "happy hunting", "make them pay", "stay strong", "you'll be remembered" and "come back in one piece" all at once.
"It… means don't die." He said finally.
"Good words of parting," Nasis said solemnly. "To you as well, Rex." The line cut off. Rex leaned back against the door of the supply closet and took a deep breath. Today was the day he was going to get answers… or more likely die trying.
.
Sayne winced with every limping step as he struggled to keep up with Ahsoka. His dragging foot made scrapping sounds in the dusty streets of the decrepit spaceport she had brought him to. He didn't know what planet he was on or if they were still in Jutta space. Ahsoka turned sharply at a dark doorway and came to a stop. She peered into the darkness at a faint mark on the door. It showed the outline of a half crescent that was narrower at one end and had a squiggly line trailing from the other.
"This is it," Ahsoka said softly, her voice barely carrying over the wind that whistled between the bleakly rectangular houses. She input a code and the door slid open. She led Sayne into the cool darkness of the building. It was only slightly warmer than the outdoor streets for the lack of wind. He could still hear it whistling against the windows like a murmuring background. Ahsoka shifted around behind him and a faint clack of a switch turned on the flickering dingy lights in the room. It looked like it might once have been a house but it was now covered in a thick layer of dust and clearly abandoned. Sayne quickly spotted the table and chairs to the left of the doorway and made a beeline for the nearest seat. He sank gratefully into it with a heavy sigh that turned into a cough as dust clogged his throat.
"Are you alright?" Ahsoka asked gently.
Sayne nodded and cleared his throat determinedly. "I'm fine."
One corner of her mouth and one brow lined with her white facial markings rose in a dubious expression.
"I can do this… I have to do this," He said. She came to join him at the table and pulled a canteen from the folds of her long cloak. She offered it to him and he accepted gratefully. To his surprise it was sweet juice instead of water. He took a few mouthfuls and then a few more when she refused to take the canteen back.
She brought it for me, he realized when he brought it down from his lips. She was a carnivore; fruit juice had few benefits for her and probably didn't taste very good. Juice would keep his blood sugar up and help him regain a little of the weight he'd lost in captivity.
"Thank you," he said, handing the empty container back to her. She smiled a little sadly at him. She could see he was still exhausted from his ordeal and not nearly healed enough to be moving around, much less chasing criminals.
"You really care about her," Ahsoka said softly. She was trying not to think about what her own life would look like now if she hadn't escaped from Shili alone, if someone had been with her.
"She's all I have," Sayne responded, looking down at his hands on the dusty table.
"You gave up a lot to save her: your home, your work, your family."
"Maybe. My wife and I never had children and my own parents passed away before she did. When I made the choice to save Katooni, I couldn't think of anything that I wanted enough to make me stand by and watch murder."
"And now?"
"I… I did have other reasons for wanting to return to Riash. My home-world didn't accept the Empire's control easily. There was resistance… and retaliation."
Ahsoka frowned. She could picture that all to clearly. She had been to many formerly prosperous places that were now crippled by the Empire's control on taxation, shipping, or access. They had blockaded many worlds, starving them into submission. Other systems were saddled with such heavy taxes that the businesses that used to support them moved elsewhere. Riash was just one small planet in the Mid Rim with little bargaining power and no notable value.
"I thought if Katooni and I went back that…"
"That you could help Riash in some way," she finished for him. Sayne glanced up with shining grey eyes that flashed with guilt.
"Yes," he whispered. "And now… she's…"
Ahsoka reached out to put a hand on Sayne's arm and felt it shaking. She cursed at herself for letting him off the ship. He was in too fragile a state for this kind of stress.
"You did what you thought was right," she assured him. "Riash is no more dangerous than most other places. You at least have an idea of what you were going into. That's reason enough to return there."
"That's what I told myself," Sayne said, nodding lethargically. "But I know it would have been safer farther into the rim, somewhere like Jakku or Selucamai, where we could hide in the countryside…"
Ahsoka swallowed down her own frustrations and searched for something to say that would make the situation better. But there was nothing to say. Telling him outsiders stand out more in small communities or that supporting himself and a young girl alone would be grueling. Nothing she said would change the way Sayne felt, just as nothing she said to her Master would convince him that his son's fate was not his father's fault.
A shift in the Force alerted Ahsoka to the arrival of her contact. She stood up and moved between Sayne and the doorway, one hand on the blaster at her right hip and the other on her concealed shoto.
"What is it?" Sayne asked.
The door hissed as it opened and a breeze of cold air stirred dust across the floor. A figure blocked the doorway. A visor bright with reflected light covered its eyes.
"Jeu," Ahsoka said and dropped her hand from her weapon. The figure stepped quickly inside and shut the door.
"Ahsoka," Jeu said with a curt nod. Jeu was a small humanoid female dressed in a nondescript drab poncho. The thick visor that obscured the top half of her face also covered her ears and flashed with small lights on either side.
"This is Sayne," Ahsoka motioned to him and then stepped aside to introduce Jeu. "This is the Slicer who might be able to help us."
"I'll do what I can," Jeu said. It was impossible to see who she was looking at or talking to behind the visor. Jeu moved to the center of the room and pushed back a heavy couch gray with dust to reveal a hatch set in the floor. She pulled it open and descended down a flight of steep steps. Ahsoka followed, glancing over her shoulder to make sure Sayne didn't stumble on his bad ankle on the way down and ducking so her montrals didn't hit the ceiling.
They came out in a warm basement room. The lights turned on automatically revealing a stark contrast to the domestic setting above. The long narrow room was lined with data processors and hollo net links. Jeu took the large seat in the center of the jumbled technical array and started flicking switches. The clicking drives whirred to life.
"You said you were tracking someone," Jeu said without looking back at her clients. Ahsoka pulled up a box for Sayne to sit on and he took it gratefully. "A friend or an enemy?"
"Both," Ahsoka answered. "We're tracking an enemy who's taken a friend of ours."
"I see. What do we have to work with?"
"We have his name, where he may be headed, the ship he chartered, and an old comm frequency code. We're not sure if it's still connected."
"Shoot."
"Djela Kur, Ilothorian from Kumaai on Sellet. He was on his way to Dara-9 to meet a ship, a Monarch Class freighter called the Cornucopia. We believe his final destination is the ITA outpost on Catharia. He'll appear to be traveling alone; he's transporting our friend in carbonite. To complicate matters, a gangster Bedjiim has put a bounty on his head. We aren't the only ones looking."
"If he was on Dara-9 than I should be able to find him and the ship with enough time."
"We don't have time," Sayne said, his voice betraying his panic. "That sleemo could be with the ITA right now!"
"I can check that," Jeu said, unbothered by his distress. She began opening screens and punching keys on different machines rapidly. Sayne could see her lips moving but whatever she was saying under her breath was too soft for him to hear. He clenched his hands on his knees and tried to relax. His ankle had gone from aching to throbbing after the awkward staircase. He was caught between thinking of the pain and worrying about Katooni when all his body wanted was to lie down and sleep for days.
Ahsoka put a hand softly on his shoulder. When he looked up she was still watching the Slicer but her expression was assured.
She is strong for someone so young, he thought. What horrors did she have to survive to become this way?
"The ITA haven't logged any sightings of the Cornucopia, but they will if they see it. The ship was flagged for an unauthorized departure from Imperial City eight months ago."
Sayne groaned and his head spun. How much worse can this get? He wondered. Not only was Katooni on her way to the Empire, but the Empire was already looking for the ship she was on.
"That might actually work to our advantage," Ahsoka said thoughtfully with on hand on her small pointed chin. "If they're already on the watch for the ship it should be logged automatically as soon as they locate its transponder."
"Yes," Jeu confirmed.
"Can you set up a monitoring program to tell us if the Empire does find it?"
"It will take a little while, but I can," Jeu answered.
"So we just wait for the worst to happen?" Sayne asked the Jedi.
"No," Ahsoka said frowning, "but we have to plan for the worst case. If we know where she is we may be able to intercept her before the ITA can turn her over to the Imperial Army. It will attract heat I would rather avoid, but I'll take that over abandoning her to the Empire." Ahsoka sighed and said sadly, "it's about all we have to go on right now."
"You said you had a comm frequency." Jeu turned around from her workstation.
"Yes," Sayne nodded. "It was how I contacted him when I got to Kumaai."
"Have you tried using it?"
"No," Ahsoka shook her head. "If it had fallen into Empire hands that could be traced back to our location."
"Humf," Jeu snorted. "ITA can't trace me," she said assuredly and spun back around to her equipment. "Give me your comm."
Ahsoka turned to Sayne. He eyed the Slicer's back suspiciously before handing over the comm link. Jeu pulled a wire from a machine over her head and plugged it in. She dragged another wire out and connected it to a separate comm that she handed back to Sayne.
"If your Illothorian answers I can get you a location right now, unless he's hired someone better than me to cover his tracks."
"And if he has?" Sayne asked.
"Then I start investigating my rival's clientele. There aren't many good slicers in this part of the galaxy, which narrows it down. Anyone worth their salt goes elsewhere."
Sayne frowned thinking, what does that make you? Jeu acted competent, but he knew that didn't always equate to skill or success.
"Make the call," Ahsoka said calmly. "Even if they can back trace it, this location is disposable." Jeu jerked her head toward Ahsoka.
"My sponsor would reimburse you."
"I would expect nothing less," Jeu replied.
Sayne looked down at the commlink in his hand. So it comes down to this? He thought. Katooni's fate is decided by this call. If Djela picks up… Sayne took a deep breath and pressed the dial key.
.
Ny started when the sound went off in her pocket. It jolted her out of the state of listless lumbering she had fallen into as she followed the Bounty Hunter across the ubiquitously green landscape of the nameless Nemoidian planet. Her feet had started aching hours ago, her legs had been burning for the last four miles and she could feel the blisters her boots were rubbing break open in flares of pain. The Bounty Hunter hadn't looked back, stopped, or slowed ever since they started the long trek back to the nearest civilization. Ny was sure if she slowed, she would be left behind without a thought. The Bounty Hunter wasn't much in the way of company, but Ny had lost her blaster in the fall and she didn't want to be alone and unarmed in a strange wilderness. If nothing else she might be able to salvage weapons from the Bounty Hunter's body… if she survived that long.
The unexpected beeping sound came from Ny's pocket, breaking the rhythmic panting of their heavy breathing.
The Bounty Hunter stopped and slowly turned around to glare at Ny.
"What," the tall thin woman hissed, her ice-pale eyes narrowed to slits, "was that?"
Ny quickly dug into the pocket of her flight suit. Her hand found something small and metal. She brought out the flashing and beeping object to stare at it dumbly. It was a comm link. It couldn't be her own because hers was plugged into the Cornucopia's console.
"Djela's comm link," Ny gasped. "I… I put it in my pocket!"
"Why didn't you mention that earlier?" Ventress screamed at her and charged back toward the old woman. Ny stumbled over her own feet trying to back away and fell onto the mossy ground.
"I didn't remember, I swear, I didn't remember I had it!" Ny cried.
"Answer it!"
"What?"
"Answer it! Find out who it is! If they know where Djela is, that's where we're going next."
Ny's fingers fumbled to bring the comm link up to her face. She paused for a moment to catch her breath before opening the channel. The speaker crackled then fell to static silence.
"H-hello?" Ny answered.
"Hello?" A deep male voice responded over the comm, filled with stunned confusion. "Who is this?"
"I—I'm… My name is Nyreen Vollen. Who is—"
"What are you doing with this comm? How did you get it?"
"I…" Ny looked up helplessly at the Bounty Hunter who just glared back down at her. "It… it's not mine."
"I know. It belongs to Djela Kur. Where is he?"
"I… I don't know. I don't even know where I am. He's gone… he… he stole my ship." That's one way of putting it, Ny thought to herself. It seemed an overly simplistic way to describe the mad scramble for the controls of the Cornucopia as it rocketed toward the surface, nearly being blown out of the sky by a Bounty Hunter, then dropped into empty space a couple hundred feet up, and surviving without a jet pack or even a parachute.
"Your ship?"
"Yes," Ny got indignant now. "My ship! He stole my ship and ran off. Who the hell is this?"
There was a scuffle on the other end of the line and a new voice answered.
"It would seem we have a common enemy," a woman answered in an even, serious voice. The Bounty Hunter straightened up as the woman on the other end of the comm continued. "Djela is no friend of ours, but we need to find him. Perhaps we can be of use to each other."
"How?" Ny asked.
"I assume you need transport."
Ny looked up at the Bounty Hunter who was glaring down at the little machine.
"We could use a ride," the pale woman drawled. "Pick us up and we can discuss terms. You don't get my help for free."
There was a moment of pregnant silence on the other end of the comm. For a moment Ny was terrified they would refuse, but then realized she might be sorry if they accepted.
"Don't go anywhere," the woman on the comm responded and the call promptly cut off.
.
Vorpa woke up the morning after the race to an unfamiliar sound. Her eyes snapped open and she grasped around the underside of her cot for the hidden knife there. Adrenaline shooting through her veins, she was scanning her room for intruders before she fully registered what the noise was. It sounded like a hydro-spanner on a stubborn piece of machinery. It was echoing up from inside her hanger.
Vorpa threw off her covers and grabbed her blaster from its holster where she'd dropped her gun-belt on the floor the night before. She padded with silent bare feet to the door. Crouching beside it she listened for footsteps on the rickety stairs up to her combined office and living quarters. There was just the hysdrospanner sporadically whirring away. Vorpa took a deep breath and fought against her urge to rush out firing. She turned the knob slowly and jumped up into the door quickly. She advanced to the railing of the causeway to overlook the hanger, her blaster raised and her knife held against her forearm, half hidden behind her back—ready to give an unobservant enemy a nasty surprise.
"Morning," a familiar jovial voice called up to her.
"Shab!" Vorpa hissed and dropped her blaster. She recognized the warm amber color of the armor and the man's broad grin. "A'den. What the kark are you doing in my hanger at…"
"1100 hours," he supplied the time.
"Is it that late?" She wondered vaguely, all the adrenaline rushing out of her body and leaving her feeling as bone weary as the moment she'd crawled between the covers last night. She leaned against the railing and rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand holding the blaster.
"Yep," A'den answered her rhetorical question sounding chipper enough to annoy her.
"Ugh... What are you doing here?"
"Fixing your repulsor pallet," he stated the obvious with his easy smile. "Your lock is osik, by the way."
"You break it you buy it," Vorpa said, looking over at the panel by the hanger's side door. The status lights were all out like the power had been cut. No wonder I didn't have any warning, she thought angrily.
"I'll buy you a better one," A'den said without hesitation or even a glance up from his task. He had half the contraption disassembled already and he seemed happy enough. Annoyingly happy, she thought. Why is he here? What does he want? Does he suspect something? Is he spying on me? Could he really like me that much? I've only known him a few days. I have spent those few days in close quarters with him though…
"I can't deal with this right now," Vorpa muttered. "I need a shower… and food… and caf…."
"I brought caf," A'den apparently had perfect hearing, "and Besany sent some of her cakes. They're pretty good even if they are aruetyc." Well I'm not eating that, Vorpa thought with a stab of anger. A'den's Stiff-Brother must pamper his laanduryc wife if she has time to make cakes. I at least need to shower if I'm gonna survive this morning.
"Don't touch anything else," Vorpa said to A'den before she went back into her office, pointing at him with the tip of her knife, "and don't even go near my ship."
"Vorpa," A'den called, stopping her mid-turn. She looked down at his earnestly serious expression. Osik, I said too much! I hurt him again.
"You look good in white," he said, catching her off-guard. Immediately her cheeks felt hot and without thought she looked down at the long white tunic she usually wore under her armor.
"I should shoot you for trespassing," she growled out. Glad I was too lazy to take everything off last night, she thought gratefully. She imagined what his face might have looked like if she had come out with nothing but the blaster and knife. It was a surprisingly pleasing fantasy.
"You'd have a mess to clean up," he said logically, "a lock that isn't worth the circuitry, and your repulsor pallet would still be broken. Better to wait until I finish this. Then at least you get something out of it—besides the caf."
"Mir'sheb!" Smartass, she said turning away to hide her smile. She heard his deep chuckles echoing in the hanger behind her before the door closed. It was looking like it would be another interesting day.
.
It wasn't hard to get assigned extra duties. Rex only had to foul up one thing and his CO took the opportunity to single the lone Clone out. Rex would have been insulted if he hadn't become numb to the abuses. It didn't mater what this mongrel though of him. The etyc'tal aruetii was a means to an end. Rex had never really understood the term aruetii until joined this squad. He'd worked with, befriended, and cared for many people who Mandalorians would call aruetii, soulless beings that weren't really alive. It went beyond enemy or traitor. The word referred to a thing that was little better than an animal and generally more troublesome. These stormtroopers, his new comrades, were aruetii.
Rex focused on that thought all through the hard day of labor moving Dr. Orsa's lab. It kept him from focusing on the churning sensation in his stomach, the pre battle nerves that he hadn't felt in a long time. It was worse because he was armed with only his hold out blaster tucked into his boot. He'd have to steal a better weapon when the time came. Rex tensed and stretched his back over the course of the day, testing the limits of his movement. It was agony, but he was pleased to find he had nearly full range of movement.
He was almost glad when Sergeant Toner tapped his buddy's shoulder and said, deliberately loud enough for Rex to hear, "leave the rest of them. Vat-boy can finish up."
Finally, Rex thought with a tremor of anxious excitement. When the sounds of his squad marching back to the local dispatch hub faded into the wiz and churn of speeder traffic, Rex slipped into the moving truck where he had hidden the last time and ducked behind the already loaded boxes. He turned up the microphones on his helmet to listen for anyone approaching.
It was only then, crouching in his hiding place with his comm in one hand and his blaster in the other that Rex realized how deep he'd gotten himself. This was more than leaking information; it was an outright assault. This was shooting at his comrades, men wearing the same uniform he was. It was what he swore never to do again after Umbara. It wasn't something that could not be overlooked or brushed aside, and Rex had no one to hide behind. If the plan to capture Orsa failed he would be killed—he would be back on that cold metal table from his dream. The moment he sent the signal to Fox and Nasis he was committed. There was no going back after that.
What would I be going back to? Rex wondered. More days of this? Every day of that future looked as grim and gray as the past six months had been. That time blurred together in Rex's memory into a single monotonous scene of drudgery. What time he wasn't filling his mind with meaningless work, he had spent dulling it with drugs and drink. It could have been a month or years and it would feel the same. That was all that waited for him if he backed out now: manual labor surrounded by aruetiise, weathering their insults and abuses, cut off from the rest of the world, constantly being watched, living in fear of that white room and the cold hard table. He would never know why he had changed the day Order 66 was given. That nagging sense of searching that he had been drowning in alcohol and anesthetics would never go away until his artificially short life took his strength and finally his mind. Or he followed Coric and cut his own misery short. No brother should go out that way, he thought bitterly.
No brother should have to go out that way or be gunned down by his own kind, his own family. If I walk away, what did Fives die for? He died trying to tell me something. I thought Coric's death meant something because I could save Etain and Luke. But if I do nothing they will be found, one way or another. Then what did Coric die for? And Walli… If I walk away, is that life worth Walli's sacrifice?
No, Rex thought, I can't go back to living like that. That isn't living; it's fear. I turned tail at danger when I refused the cybernetic surgery and my chance at returning to the 501st. That was where things went wrong. I won't make that mistake again. I won't fail my brothers again, Fives, Coric, Walli, and so many others… I'm not dead yet so I have to keep going, keep fighting. Luke, Etain, Darman, and his brothers—our brothers—they still need me to fight, to protect them.
Rex took a deep breath and the jittery churning in his stomach settled into the heavy feeling of focus that he was accustomed to taking into battle. He felt more like himself than he had since… since Order 66.
The sound of heavy boots jerked him out of thought.
.
Author's Note: And... cliff hanger. So yeah. The chapter got too long so I broke it up. I'm putting the finishing touches on that and trying to get a bit ahead so I'll have content to post in the following weeks. I hope you liked it. Drop me a review if you're so inclined. -Em