"You can't win. But there are alternatives to fighting."
-Obi-Wan Kenobi (0 BBY)
Star Wars: The Most Dangerous Game
Chapter Three – End of the Line
"Come out, Shae! Come out—"
Shae muted the comm and locked it into her utility belt; the rest of the stuff she had strewn across the apartment floor was stuffed at once into her travel pack. As much as she wanted to stick around, there was no way she could stay in the building any longer. They—whoever they were—had tracked her here in the middle of the night, in the middle of a city that no longer had any structure, and they had done so without using any kind of tracking device.
She was absolutely sure of that. Part of the reason she had been breaking down and rebuilding her rifle so much was to make certain it hadn't been bugged. None of her sparse belongings had anything attached. Unless they had managed to bug her some other way, they were using other means to track her down, which meant it was time to abandon her hideout and get moving again. A shame, considering all of the work she had put into tying those threads around the room.
Taking a cursory peek outside the window, she saw that the darkened forms had already made their way across the debris field and were rounding her building, looking for a way inside. They would find it soon enough, since many of the windows at what was presently ground-level were wide open. She was about thirteen floors above their heads, and there were only two stairwells leading to the lower floors. They would very likely have both covered.
"Stupid, Shae," she muttered, then groaned when she noticed how much she sounded like Cander. She hated leaving things to chance, and had she known her pursuers would be able to pick her building out of a sector of thousands, she might have taken her time and chosen a hideout with a better escape route.
She just never thought in a million years they would come right to her like she was wearing a spotlight on her head.
There must be some kind of way out of here, she wondered, departing the room with her rifle slung over her shoulder. She emerged into a hallway that connected about a dozen apartments together on this floor. Some of the doors were locked shut and others had been pried open, a sign that a group of scavengers had already made their way through the place. There were perhaps billions upon billions of credits' worth of artifacts strewn in and around Taris that hadn't seen the light of day since the time of Revan and Malak, but only the crazy brave with no fear of poisonous fumes or accidentally falling into a chasm that might stretch all the way down into the Undercity dared to voluntarily walk this planet's troubled surface.
Basically, if the money had been there, she would've taken up scavenging years ago. But it wasn't, so she didn't.
At the end of the hallway, Shae heard voices coming up through the exposed pipes. Nothing she could make out, but they were definitely getting too close for comfort. She had to find a way out of this building right now.
Taking the main stairwell to the roof wasn't going to be an option. If she remembered correctly, her building was the tallest of the surrounding cluster, so there wouldn't be a chance of jumping to another rooftop without breaking her legs or missing entirely—and she'd had enough of falling long distances for one week. Lowering herself down to the ground was another option she dismissed; it would take too long to descend those thirteen stories, and she guessed they would find her before she even reached the bottom.
But getting to another building... that seemed to be the only option open to her, short of fighting her way through her pursuers, that is. As far as she was concerned: with her limited ammo, lack of any kind of armor, and an incomplete sense of this building's layout, she wouldn't have an advantage over them no matter how many different ways she approached that scenario. Of course, that wasn't counting the fact that she was horribly outnumbered.
Getting to another building sounds like a fine idea...
Shae could hear footsteps coming up the stairwell, and laughing, which meant she was out of time to deliberate. She ducked in and out of a few apartments until she found one with a window facing the nearest adjacent building. It was still a little farther than she would've liked, but it would have to do. She grabbed her grappling spike launcher and used both hands to aim it at the window directly across from her, which was thankfully already broken. Exhaling, she pulled the trigger and watched the tiny durasteel hook fly through the night between the buildings, briefly catching the moonlight halfway across.
The spike entered through the other window and caught on something, signaling the tether to go taut. The device electronically tested the load limit of whatever it had grappled on the other side, then flashed green.
The laughing and the footsteps coming up the stairwell were much louder now; she could make out some of the words.
"Here, I know it!"
"Only a few more floors!"
"Shae!" came that familiar voice. "Shae, we're here!"
Shae took her end of the grappling launcher and anchored it to what looked like a load-bearing pillar in the center of the room. She didn't have a chance to double check her knots, so it would have to do as-is.
"Shae!"
She sat herself down on the windowsill and let her feet dangle over the thirteen-story drop, her hands clinging to the thin tether. "I should've let you talk me out of this bounty, Cander..." She let her full weight drop onto the line and she bounced a few times, the thin tether cutting into her bare palms. Channeling all her strength, she crossed her legs over the wire and, slowly but surely, began to pull herself across the gap.
This wasn't her first time suspending between buildings, but it was certainly the most spontaneous out of the bunch. No time for planning, the proper equipment, or even to fire the spike at the correct slant so that gravity would assist her climb. The wire was biting into her hands now and shredding through the legs of her pants. Even during her first time, that hadn't happened.
"Stupid Shae..."
One hand in front of the other, these were the only words moving through her mind as she reached the halfway point. The tether sagged a bit, making it a little more difficult to pull herself along. She should have at least kept her gloves. She always kept her gloves with her before chartering transportation! Why was this time the exception?
"Stupid, stupid... Let's just prove Cander right tonight, everything he's ever said about me." She cursed a few more times under her breath. She was starting to feel the warm, moist feeling of blood on her hands. "Everything."
"Shae!"
That shout was as clear as day. They were on her floor now, and she likely only had a matter of seconds until they found her dangling half a klick in the air. She pulled at the tether faster, ignoring the pain and the blood, which she was now feeling across her legs. Not too far now, but the weight of her backpack and rifle seemed to increase exponentially. Sweat soaked into her shirt and drained off her face.
Not too far now. Not too far.
She was within arm's length of the windowsill.
"I thought you said she was here! We don't have time to go floor-by-floor. You promised me a body—"
"I promised you justice, sir."
Shae desperately grabbed at the windowsill, feeling dirt pushing its way into her wound. After one quick pull, she tumbled inside the room. Then, running on adrenaline alone, she reached up, cut away the tether, and took aim with her rifle. Steadying the barrel on the windowsill, she activated the scope's night vision setting and adjusted the focus so she could see into the room she'd just departed. Another twist of the knob brought two figures into focus. They were standing in the middle of the apartment and one of them was throwing his arms around. He was likely the one who hadn't sounded pleased when they arrived to find her missing.
She could take care of that for him.
At this range, there wasn't much for her to do beyond lining up the rifle's crosshairs directly over the displeased man's rounded head. She squinted through the scope, curled her finger around the trigger, exhaled and—
Bam!
Her blaster bolt entered the apartment and the entire room was suddenly flooded with a bright light that overloaded her night vision and all but blinded her in one eye. She took her eye off the scope, furiously trying to blink away the pain and the blindness. It didn't take long for her vision to come back, but when it did, she beheld the true horror of her situation.
Framed by the window, the light had consolidated into a green bar of pure energy, being held aloft by a man in flowing robes. A lightsaber... It all made sense now; how they had found her so easily. The man leading them.
He was a Jedi.
The displeased man who had been arguing with the Jedi stepped to the side and allowed a terrible laugh. "Is that you, Shae?" he called out. "I assume this tether belongs to you. Nice trick, but as you can see, tricks won't do much for you here. You're going to die on this planet, Mandalorian. I'm sure you know that now."
Shae sat back and held up her bloodied hands to the moonlight. Yeah, with a Jedi helping her pursuers track her down, she might very well die here. There was just no getting around that.
Still, she amended, that doesn't mean I can't take a few of them with me. Shae licked the blood off one of her fingers and began to plan it all out.