Kurik Otela – Jack of Trades
The vessel was loud with cheer, now that they were in Republic space. Nobody would be intercepting them now that there were out of Separatists space and past Rhommamool. It had been a tense couple of hours, but now they were home free.
And the crew was celebrating like it, as well.
They'd gathered in the open bay of the main room, liquor in small glasses and some special Alderaanian drink for Kurik.
The captain of their little outfit always told the teenager that they already did enough illegal things to be sentenced to life terms in multiple systems, so why risk anything unncessary?
But Kurik knew better. The Devaronian treated him like a child, and though he could've been offended by the constant psuedo-parental protection from Dilt, it was a feeling of something familiar that he'd been missing all his life, something he enjoyed having around. He didn't know what circumstances had driven the alien to act like Kurik's ward, but it was something he was often thankful for.
Kurik had his 'eyes closed', as he liked to call it, willingly going blind simply so he could concentrate on the drinks in front of him and conversation. Maintaining his 'sight' was no great effort, but it was still effort he didn't indulge in when he found it unnecessary.
Of course, it was always bad when the crew caught him doing it. They often enjoyed jokes at the expense of his disability when he wasn't making any effort to remedy it.
Despite his lack of vision, however, he could still feel the holocron, the device sending slow, lazy pulses of power across the room that he couldn't avoid noticing. It would've been irritating, were the sound not so soothing.
"Kid?" Dilt's voice seemed to be coming from a few rooms down, even if he was only across the table from him. "Kurik, you in there?"
"Sorry." The young man shook his head, pushing his fingers at his temples. "Sorry, that thing is distracting. It's all I can see."
"Distracting? It's in a lockbox in another room, can you see it from there?"
"Yes, but that's not it. It's the...It calls to me."
"Kid, you're worrying me."
"Sorry," he said yet again before looking to one of the other crewmembers. "It's that thing the Jedi have. I can handle all the hums of an engine or squealing from Gertu over there." He directed a thumb at the Gamorrean laying on a filthy couch. "I'm not used to something trying to get my attention like that, though. It's like hearing something for the first time, constantly."
"You're not gonna turn on us all of a sudden, are you?"
"No, Hiru. Keep shooting like you do, however, and I might have to anyways."
"Uh oh, kid's getting mouthy. Might have to dump him at the next port."
"Sure, but then we'll have to actually find someone who flies this heap of trash as well as he does, and that ain't gonna be easy."
The praise momentarily warmed the teenager's heart, only to be cooled when he took a sip of the heady drink he'd been given. It wasn't quite alcohol, but there was still something in there that made the pilot feel groggy.
"So what does that thing do, anyways?" asked Tena, one of the muscle they'd picked up four jobs ago. "S'not much to look at."
"Look, I don't hang around with Jedi, but I've seen those things," Dilt told them. "Supposed to be something like a library for their knowledge, sometimes a key, they can do a lot of things. What I do know is that non-Jedi can't do anything with them, so it's useless to any private buyer."
"Except the Separatists."
"Correction: It's useless to any private buyer that also won't gut us afterwards."
"Might be why the let us smuggle it out," Kurik pointed out. "No reason to fear we'd steal it. Especially once you seemed to know what it was."
"Wonder how the Chiss got their hands on it?"
"Who knows?" Dilt asked. "It's like this galaxy's just filled with junk that exists just to be passed from hand to hand."
"And we're just one of the guys passing it."
"All for credits." He could practically hear the smile in the Devaronian's voice. "Hey, Kurik, there's a case of something good in my office, under the lamp in the right corner. Do me a favor and fish it out, will ya? The money were making off of this one is worth breaking it out."
Kurik put some energy back into regaining his sight, allowing him to stand, navigate his way through the dozen crewmembers, and into the corridor beyond. At the entrance to the hallway, he paused and turned back to the room.
Something was off, wrong, and he didn't know what it was. A feeling twisting and churning at his gut, sickening and oppressive. He practically had to force his jaw shut to keep himself from vomiting.
A grey, twisting mass of writhing shadows far to the front caught his eye, looking like nothing in particular, but large enough to be noticeable. It could've just been an electrical malfunction, the sparks and smoke often giving the same appearance.
"Something wrong, Kurik?"
That Dilt had used his name told the pilot that his distraction hadn't gone unnoticed. Kurik turned back to the Devaronian, seeing some concern on the grey smoking contours of his face.
The pilot shook his head.
"Just...Just a malfunction at the front, I think. I'll tend to it when we're out of hyperspace."
"You sure?" Dilt asked, his hand drifting noticeably closer to his weapon.
"I think so. Don't think we took any hits, but it could just be the strain."
He continued on to the Devaronian's 'office', more a small room with a chair, some speakers, and a vidscreen than a proper office. Kurik had to navigate around the mess on the floor to find the lamp in the corner.
He was the only one who knew the combination of the safe below it, at the captain's insistence. One of the few advantages of his lack of sight was that many authorities weren't quite willing to manhandle someone who was blind, leaving him to easily play up his disability and relative frailty to hide something on his person. Republic authorities were especially easy to fool, the clones always trying so hard to remain approachable throughout the war.
So on occasion, Dilt would stash something in the safe, and when they were caught and boarded, he'd have Kurik hide it. Nobody ever suspected him.
He pulled a small box of Kuned from the safe, a mess of dark leaves that relaxed the body when chewed, imported from Kashyyyk and highly illegal. The only thing left in the box was a Endo-76 heavy pistol, a specialty from the Devaronian's homeworld.
Just as he was closing the safe, he heard something loud. A whine, one that he was entirely unfamiliar with. Blaster fire was next, followed by the cries and glass shattering.
It was the sound of a fight, even if he wasn't entirely sure what the sound before the blasters had been. He was unarmed, his weapon up at the front of the ship. He flipped the top of the safe up and grabbed the weapon before dashing out the way he'd just come from.
Kurik saw him now, a maelstrom of red in human form, a blazing beam of red light erupting from his hands and cutting through his fellow crewmembers. He was graceful, quick, and always seemed to know where the blaster bolts would be. He blocked them all with his weapon, sometimes sending them right back where they'd come from.
The twisting sensation clenching around his stomach only intensified, the sickening feeling almost incapacitating the teenager.
A Sith.
Even though he wasn't quite as versed in the history and knowledge of the galaxy as Dilt or the higher echelons of the galaxy, the Jedi he'd once met had mentioned them in passing. Some old enemy of theirs, something that was supposed to be gone. It was an educated guess, but whereas the Jedi often radiated a warm, comforting blue, this one was pulsing with a disquieting, sickly red.
Kurik made to fire, before realizing that he would have about as much chance of killing the intruder as the rest of his crew, who weren't holding up well against him. Instead, Kurik realized that there was only one thing aboard that the Sith could be after.
The pilot ran back to the strongbox, inserting his key and opening up the box. The bright white artifact was waiting, shining softly and urging him to take it, to use it. He grabbed it up from the strongbox, slammed the lid shut, then ran back into the corridor with the intention of hiding away.
But it was too late. The Sith was already there, lightsaber held out to the pilot as if expecting the teenager to reciprocate.
"Um...Hi."
"Jedi." His voice was bemused, sneering. "Where's your weapon, Jedi?"
Kurik took a step back, but the Sith only stepped forward. His voice was deep and thick, well befitting the tall Duros. Its blazing orange eyes seemed to stare him down, leaning over the smaller human menacingly.
"I'm just the pilot."
"Oh?" He cocked his head, curious. "You were the one I was hiding from, you see through the Force, you practically radiate it, how are you..." His voice trailed off, then he laughed, a high sound that made Kurik's soul want to slither back to somewhere near his feet. "Miraluka, then? Interesting."
"What did you call me?"
"And you don't even know." He shook his head. "I think I'm going to take you back to my trainers. They'll be eager to meet someone with your kind of potential."
The pilot noted that he'd said 'trainers' and not 'master'. He didn't know if they had the same structure as the Jedi, but he had a hard time imagining a Sith having trainers.
Kurik saw something moving behind the Sith, and decided it would be best to keep him talking. He didn't look at whatever was causing the movement, knowing that the moment he glanced over, he'd give up his comrade.
"I'm not interested." He tried to straighten his back, tried to look intimidating, but he knew it was pointless. Nobody was intimidated by him. "I rather enjoy my ship."
His smile grew, perhaps catching onto Kurik's protest and figuring there was some way to convince the pilot to sign up.
"You'll have a new one. People like us, we have our own way of getting around the galaxy. If it's credits you wish, you'll find them wherever you go. If it's power you want, nobody will ever turn you away. You can do whatever yo—"
With a loud cry, a blaster opened fire from across the room. The Sith moved to intercept it, but he had been too distracted by Kurik, the bolt finding his arm and leaving him falling back.
Dilt stayed in the shadows, moving toward the door opposite Kurik as he fired, occasionally ducking or dodging a bolt being deflected right back at him. The pilot joined in the blaster fire, keeping the Sith pinned down in the corner of the room while they continued to fire.
"Split up, kid!" Dilt shouted. "Get out of here!"
He disappeared behind a doorway, shutting it at his back, and Kurik did the same, closing the door behind him and blasting its controls.
The holocron was heavy in his hands as he ran, the object shouting warning as if it were alive and knew someone was coming after it. Kurik paused at the next door, slamming it closed and once again blasting the panel.
He sat down, breathing heavily in fear as he saw the red figure retreat back into the room, blaster fire following him as some of the other crew members gave some resistance.
Kurik couldn't beat the assassin with just the pistol, he knew that. He'd have to find some sort of advantage, some way around simply shooting him. Or he could hide, and hope that they made it to Coruscant for the Jedi to sort out.
Then he looked at the holocron and realized that if the Sith had mistaken him for a Jedi, perhaps the device would do the same. And if he managed to get it open, perhaps he could find a way to drive away the Sith.
With a plan slowly forming in his mind, Kurik fled deeper into the bowels of the ship.