"Halt. Who goes there?"
Aminta looked over the Sith woman sitting behind a large, durasteel desk. She was larger than most of the women that Aminta had seen, and the Sith quite obviously carried a great amount of strength. It would be too difficult to take her on as well as the two soldiers that were guarding the entrance to the Sith base. Not to mention the cameras that the Selkath probably had stashed somewhere… There was little room for a Plan B should the key card that Aminta had fail to get them in.
"I'm reporting to the base," Aminta replied as she held out the card for the woman's inspection.
The woman's eyes narrowed as she inspected the card, and then looked to Carth and Juhani who were standing just behind Aminta. "And them?" she asked, gesturing in their direction.
"The man's a buddy of mine. He got himself piss drunk in the cantina and got his card lifted off of him. You might want to start screening people a little more carefully from now on. The Cathar's got an appointment with one of the dark Jedi… she doesn't remember his name or she'd have come on her own," Aminta explained brusquely, and the Sith nodded.
"Well, your card seems to be a current issue. However, you'll have to stop by the front desk once you get in and have it scanned there. Your friend can get a new card there and the Cathar can inquire as to which Jedi she has an appointment with." As the woman spoke, she typed a password into the computer terminal at her desk and then pressed a button. The elevator doors whooshed open and Aminta nodded her thanks as she and her friends walked around the desk and entered.
Carth breathed a sigh of relief once the doors had closed. "That was almost too easy," he noted, and Aminta nodded.
"No kidding. I have a feeling that we'll pay for it once we reach the lobby."
Carth gave her a look. "You know, you could try to be positive."
"If you go into a situation expecting the worst, you're at least prepared."
"That's what I do. There can only be one pessimist in a group you know."
Aminta grinned. "Well, you'd better change your outlook on life pretty quickly because I've already filled that position."
Carth chuckled and shook his head, his attention now diverted to the blinking lights letting them know what floor they were on. "Why didn't you ask Canderous along?" he asked, and cast a glance to Juhani, who stood as far away from the pair as she could manage in the elevator.
"He was hung over," Aminta explained simply, and Carth winced.
"Don't we have hangover pills?"
Aminta sighed. "We used to, but they went missing when we were on Dantooine."
"They're in Mission's pillowcase," Carth replied without thinking, and Aminta's eyes narrowed.
"So you two were the ones that stole them after Canderous and I had our drinking contest! I can't believe it! You're such a jerk!" she exclaimed, and Carth's eyes widened at his mistake.
"I-I-I… What I meant to say was… Well, Mission…"
"You're digging yourself deeper, Onasi."
Carth lapsed into silence and then gave Aminta a sheepish smile. She merely scowled at him. "Sorry?"
"You owe me big time, flyboy." Aminta muttered with her arms crossed over her chest.
"Shavit."
"Shut up," Aminta grumbled, and Carth grinned.
Juhani glanced over at the pair briefly before sighing and turning her attention to her nails. The Mandalorian had made a comment earlier that morning about how they were so sharp that they resembled the claws of a domesticated housecat. Of course, he hadn't said it in such terms. His vocabulary really was quite… colorful.
She had borrowed Aminta's nail file without the woman's knowledge and made certain that her nails were smooth and round. The next time that Canderous bothered to mention anything, she'd make a point to show him just how normal they looked. Of course, he'd probably just make another comment… Mandalorians. They always thirsted after battle whether it be on or off the field.
Thoughts of battle served to remind her of the Sith and what exactly they were doing in the elevator. "Do you really believe there will be much fighting, Aminta?" the Cathar asked, startling Aminta out of her scowl.
"Hm?" the woman replied, her hand straying to the hilt of her lightsaber. Funny. Although she'd had the thing for quite some time, it still felt odd to her to be carrying around a Jedi weapon. She found herself slightly more comfortable with the heavy weight of the vibroblades, however, the lightsabers were far more effective in combat.
"In the Sith base. Do you truly believe that there will be much fighting?" Juhani repeated, striving to keep from sounding exasperated. This woman had attempted to make her life easier while ship bound, after all.
Aminta shrugged. "Let's hope not. But we might as well keep our guards up," she replied, pinning a glare on Carth. Carth rolled his eyes with a slight smile and then shrugged at Juhani as if to say, 'What did you expect? You know her.' Aminta went to cuff him on the back of the head, but Carth caught her wrist without even looking at her.
Juhani felt a corner of her lips turn upwards as she caught Carth's unspoken words and Aminta's swift reaction to them. "Of course," she replied softly, and Aminta wasn't quite sure who exactly the Cathar was agreeing with.
"Let go of my wrist, idiot," Aminta grumbled, turning her attention away from the Cathar and to the man who held her hand captive.
"At least you're not calling me a sexless Gammorean toad," he replied easily, and Aminta made a decidedly unladylike noise at the back of her throat as she wrenched her wrist away from him.
"You're staying with the ship next time we go somewhere."
"It's a free galaxy. Plus, I'm the pilot. If you make me stay on the ship while you go off and do your thing, I won't fly you out of here." Carth retorted, his arms crossed over his chest.
Aminta threw a dark glare in his direction. "I hate you," she muttered, and Carth laughed.
"Of course you do," he replied, patting the top of her head condescendingly.
Just then, the elevator door whirred open, and Aminta faked a pleasant, business like air as she moved to walk past the woman at the security desk. Carth and Juhani followed suit, although the patch of fur at Juhani's neck stood on end as she walked through the lobby of the base.
"Wait a second. Who are you? I don't recognize you," the receptionist called after Aminta, forcing the woman to stop.
Shavit, The curse resounded through Aminta's mind as she turned to meet the suspicious gaze of the tall, graying blonde sitting behind a desk most similar to that of the one outside the base. "Oh? That's a shame," Aminta replied with a smile, and handing the woman her key card. "That should take care of the problem," she continued pleasantly, and the receptionist ran over it with a critical eye.
"How long have you been here?" the woman asked, glancing up at Aminta briefly.
Aminta felt the breath catch at the back of her throat. That was a loaded question. One way, and she'd be let in, the other and she'd be in for a fight. She attempted to tap into the consciousness of the receptionist, but she found that the older woman had shields firmly intact about her mind. Damn.
"I'm pretty new. That's probably why you don't recognize me," Aminta replied with a shrug and a smile after a few minutes of quick thinking. The receptionist's eyes narrowed.
"This card was discontinued over a month ago. I don't know how you got it, but it obviously wasn't through the Sith." The woman had begun by speaking softly, but with every word she spoke, her voice grew louder so that every occupant of the lobby was staring at the trio.
Aminta closed her eyes and cursed herself a thousand times over before opening them again. "Maybe it was just a misunderstanding. Why don't you call the head officer to sort things out?"
The woman eyeballed her for a second before picking up her comm unit and then barking, "Security, I need you in the lobby, Stat!" In the blink of an eye, a blaster was in her hands, and she fired.
Aminta ducked, narrowly missing a barrage of laser beams, and whipped her lightsaber out of its holster. Quickly, she manipulated the weapon so that its twin blades purred with the speed at which she moved them, and then she rose up as fast as she had ducked.
The whirring double blades deflected the blaster bolts effectively, and as Aminta worked at keeping herself and her friends from being shot, Carth landed several hits on the receptionist before finally managing to land one at the woman's temple. Aminta winced at the spray of blood, realizing almost unconsciously that this would mean a long scrubbing of her armor when she got back to the Hawk.
Juhani had meanwhile made herself busy attacking the various soldiers that had pulled out their vibroblades to join in the battle, and she was tackling three at once by the time that Carth and Aminta had turned around to help. Aminta looked to Carth, and he gave her a short nod before she jumped into the fray. Their fighting style had remained constant throughout their journeys. Aminta would attack, and Carth would watch her back. The system had proven effective with the thugs on Taris; Aminta was sure that it would work again now.
Aminta found Juhani's fighting style somewhat harder to blend with, however. The Cathar fought with sheer abandon, and her legs and arms moved just as often and just as quickly as her lightsaber did. However, her limbs weren't quite at the point where they were flailing- rather, the quick movements were achieved through flexibility and grace. Aminta's movement's were more straightforward, not so much elegant as powerful.
Despite their differences in style, the two women eventually found a rhythm to their movements so that they harmonized, and together, they were a strong force indeed. Their combination of grace and power coupled with Carth's accurate and deadly shooting made the team positively lethal, and after several minutes of intense fighting, their foes lay at their feet.
Juhani smiled and nodded at Aminta as she deactivated her lightsaber and clipped it back to her belt, and Aminta grinned back at her. She then glanced down at her armor and groaned. "Shavit. I'm going to have to get this thing cleaned," she muttered as she counted the bloodstains. "And I have a feeling that the Selkath won't do this kind of laundry."
Carth bit back a laugh and shook his head. "I'd have to agree there, Gorgeous." Carth chortled, and Juhani's eyes narrowed at the exchange before she quickly turned her attention to her paws. Attachments were forbidden in the order- the episode with Quatra proved that. And yet, the council allowed this to occur between the Jedi and her pilot. Juhani took a deep breath to clear her head.
"Something wrong, Ju?" Aminta asked, glancing over at the Cathar, her attention diverted from Carth for the moment.
Juhani shook her head slowly. "No. Nothing is wrong," she replied softly. At Aminta's look she felt compelled to add something to her statement. "I just believe we should get what we came here for, and leave quickly. I find myself… at odds in this place," she improvised, and Aminta nodded, but chose not to comment.
"Well then, let's move on, shall we?" After they had decoded the pass card, Roland Wann had informed them of exactly what it was they were looking for. Apparently, a Republic droid that had contained vital information to their illegal Kolto harvesting had been stolen by the Sith. The republic didn't need the droid, but they did need the memory core. Thankfully, the core had been heavily encrypted and the Sith had not yet been able to decode it.
The trio slowly made their way through the halls, but encountered little to no resistance after their skirmish in the lobby. Finally, they came to a halt outside a large control room, and Aminta's head jerked back as something unknown whooshed at her.
Three dark Jedi, surrounded by Sith soldiers working. They were unprepared for attack; just doing their jobs as they would everyday. But the sheer number of them was overwhelming. Everything became cloudy, and then, it all faded…
…Into Carth and Juhani's worried faces. "I'm fine," she muttered, pushing the pair away from her. "Just a vision is all," she explained grudgingly, and Carth sighed with a shake of his head.
"Precognition?" Juhani asked softly, and Aminta's brow furrowed for a moment before she nodded.
"We'll have to use grenades to start off in there. If we just charge in…"
Juhani's eyes widened. "How many of them are there?"
"Minimum twenty."
Carth coughed and Juhani stiffened in response. Carth didn't question Aminta's judgment. He had learned while they were still on Dantooine not doubt what he had personally dubbed 'The Jedi Sense.'
"Fine. We'll use grenades first, and you can slip in with a stealth unit while I open fire from around the corner, and Juhani throws force powers at them. While their attention is diverted to us, cut down as many as you can while still in Stealth. Once you come out of it, Juhani will attack with her lightsaber." Carth proposed, and Aminta's eyebrows rose a notch.
"Good plan," she said simply, not wanting to let him know how impressed she actually was. "What do you think, Ju?"
Juhani nodded in agreement, and Aminta grinned at the pair. "Now you see me…" she activated her stealth unit. "…Now you don't."
Carth chuckled. "Clever. Now, get going."
"The day that I start taking orders from you is the day that Darth Revan comes back to life," she muttered under her breath, and Carth grimaced.
"Guess you won't start listening to me any time soon then, will you?"
Aminta said nothing, and rather, she slowly made her way around the corner and into the control room. It was filled just as it had been in the vision that she had received, and her attention locked on the Dark Jedi. The force swirled around them in dark currents, and was oddly comforting.
A tendril of the tainted force noticed her standing even in her invisibility, and slowly floated its way over to her. It spun around her slowly in twirls that threatened to seduce her to its will. It teased her, coming close but never close enough. She would have to reach out to it if she wanted to feel it… Suddenly, blaster fire interrupted its dark dance, and it was drawn quickly back to the Dark Jedi that it had come from. Aminta gasped and fell to her knees with its absence, overwhelmed by an emotion she couldn't quite define.
Resolutely, she pushed her way to her feet, shoving the thoughts that whirled in her skull to the back of her mind. The occupants of the room's attention had indeed shifted fully to Carth and Juhani, and Aminta forced herself to get her head into the battle. She watched as several of the soldiers fell by her allies' combined work, and waited until there were only a few of them left before she launched her attack on one of the Dark Jedi.
He whirled to face her attacks, almost as though he had been anticipating them. The dark currents that his aura exuded distracted her attention so that he landed several blows on her, even though she was invisible. She felt no pain; only the draw of the tendrils.
The dark Jedi smiled. "Ah, you are not a pawn. Come, join us and feel the power that the Dark Side brings," he murmured so softly that she could scarcely hear him, and a tendril came to tease her again.
Tasya Desloncres, remember your duty! Do not succumb to the Dark Side. Do not join Malak and ruin all that you have worked so hard to achieve! Bastila's voice echoed throughout her mind, drowning out the thoughts of all else. Aminta began to fight then. She fought the Dark Jedi before her, but more importantly, she fought the darkness within herself.
As the clamor of battle fell silent, the war continued to rage in Aminta's mind. So this was the dark side… this alluring, heady sense that overcame a person, this feeling that was able to drown out all others. No wonder Bastila had been so preachy towards her on Dantooine.
Bastila…Bastila! She knew my name. How could she have known that? I haven't told a soul about who I really am, so how in the galaxy…
"Ami? Ami are you all right?" Carth's hand gripped her elbow, and the real world came crashing back to her.
Aminta pulled her arm away and nodded. "I'm fine. It's…. it's just a headache, that's all." She sighed softly and pressed her hands to her temples as she took a step away.
"Are you sure that's all it is?" Carth probed, and Aminta scowled, unable to handle his concern for the moment.
"There's the droid; I'll pry out the memory core. Could you and Ju keep a look out to be sure that no one's coming?" she asked, effectively dismissing the pair of them and giving herself the space that she needed. Carth frowned, but grudgingly did as she requested.
Alone once more, Aminta squeezed her eyes closed and breathed deeply. Too many thoughts came into focus once her eyes closed, and she widened them again with force. With a frustrated growl, she stalked over to the droid and ripped out the memory cord with little regard as to whether or not it stayed intact.
"We're going to go back to the Hawk. I'm not up to meeting Wann right now," Aminta informed her companions as she stalked out of the room, down the hall, and through the lobby. Her companions had little choice but to follow her in a pace that bordered almost on a sprint.
Their ride up the elevator was enveloped in a tense silence, until Carth ventured to break the silence.
"Well, I don't think we did half bad. I mean for a Cathar, a soldier, and a neophyte Padawan, anyways." he said, attempting for levity. He was met by an icy glare from Aminta and a raised eyebrow from Juhani. Wisely, he lapsed back into silence.
Aminta's emotions had been running so high that she had forced the vision that was coming towards her away, and she regretted that as the doors whooshed open. Some precog would have really come in handy for what she saw. A large group of Selkath stood before the exit of the elevator, their manner at once somber and filled with rebuke.
"You, Aminta Jae, are under arrest."
Aminta, unable to keep herself in check any longer, lashed out. "Under what charges?" she shouted, and the Selkath grumbled under their breaths and eyed her severely.
"For the infiltration of the Sith base and the murder of those within," intoned the Selkath in the front, seemingly unaffected by her outburst.
Aminta mumbled curses under her breath in several different languages, most of which Carth couldn't understand. But the ones that he was able to comprehend were foul enough for the hair on the back of his neck to stand on end. Coughing to cover the sound she made in the event that one of the Selkath could understand one of the various dialects that she was muttering in, Carth stepped forward.
"Do you have any proof of your accusations?" he demanded, and the Selkath met his eyes with a withering gaze.
"The camera feed that we have shows you entering the Sith Base, and coming out just after we received myriad calls for help."
Carth shrugged noncommittally, taking control of the situation. A glance behind him showed that Aminta was still…indisposed. "It was a coincidence."
"A likely story. You will have the chance to defend yourself in court, human. Your innocence or guilt will be decided there." The Selkath replied, his eyes on Aminta. The woman forced herself to nod stiffly, and then walked haltingly in their direction.
Carth squeezed her shoulder gently as she passed by him. "Think before you talk, Beautiful," he whispered, and she nodded slightly as she continued walking to the Selkath.
She glared at the Selkath when he held out a neural restraint, and adamantly shook her head. "I'll walk with you, but there is no way in the seven hells that you're putting that thing on me," she growled out fiercely. The Selkath ignored her protests, and fitted the piece over her head, immune to the force push that she threw in his direction.
Suddenly, all of Aminta's limbs were rendered useless: she could not bend her muscles to her will, and that included her tongue. All she was able to do was to follow the Selkath as they tugged her along in silence, although her eyes blazed with anger.
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Aminta sat on the floor of her energy cage, her legs crossed, and her elbows on her knees. Her fingers made rapidly tap-tap-tapping noises on her chin as she waited for her supposed lawyer to enter. Some lawyer he'll be, she thought ruefully. He'll probably just help to incriminate me, being a Selkath.
Just then, the door to the prison opened and yet another Selkath came in. Aminta had never thought of herself as a specieist before, but she was discovering that she bore a dark hatred for all things Selkath. This particular one, however, made his way over to her cage and stopped.
"I take it you're my lawyer," Aminta remarked dryly, pushing herself to her feet. "I'd shake your hand, but, you know…" she gestured to the buzzing energy fields around her.
The Selkath bowed his head, but Aminta was sure that it wasn't out of any sort of respect. He raised it again, and then met her eyes. ":Yes, I will be representing you at your trial,:" he said in the strange language where syllables sounded like running water. ":Now, as your representative, I must know: Did you infiltrate the Sith base and kill those within?:"
Aminta squared her shoulders. "Absolutely not."
If a Selkath could roll his eyes, this particular one would have. ":I think not. However, I will do my best to…:"
"No!" Aminta interrupted, her hands on her hips. "I'll be representing myself."
The Selkath twitched. ":I do not believe that would be a wise idea,:" he began, but once again, Aminta cut him off.
"I've been sitting in this cage for two days. I think I know what I'm doing. Now, it's my decision whether or not I should represent myself. I'm going to."
The Selkath sighed, and then nodded. ":It is your option. However, it would be…:"
"I've made up my mind," Aminta interrupted him again, her tone resolute. The Selkath merely shook his head and walked over to a guard. The pair whispered for a few moments, and then the lawyer exited as quickly as he had entered. The guard, however, made his way over to Aminta's cage and deactivated the fields.
"No neural suppressers," Aminta warned, but he slapped one over her temples before she could protest further. For the second time that week, she was dragged against her will to meet those that she had dubbed 'Fish boys.'
The walk was mercifully short, however, as the Selkath had thought to put the prison directly nest to the courthouse. When she was brought in, she realized that the judges were already there and waiting to hear her case. The looks on their faces, however, let Aminta know that they had already reached their verdict: Guilty.
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Sorry it ended so… short. I got sick of this chapter, and since its been two months since I last updated, I figured that I owed you guys something. Sorry that it isn't as long as it usually is.
Please be so kind as to review. Thanks guys. You're awesome.
