Chapter 5
Fezzie was less-than-amused to see Foyi leaning on her bar again; she made her thoughts on the matter abundantly clear by ignoring several customers vying for her attention and specifically facing the Twi'lek, her fur ruffled with anger. "Look, kid. Your sister has not come back here! I told you all I know; you can't find her, that isn't my fault. I've a business to run here, and I can't service paying customers if I am constantly apprehended by freeloading Twi'leks. Get out, and go away!"
Foyi stared long and hard at the Chadra-Fan, but the cantina's proprietor was not intimidated. Foyi had to struggle to maintain control of her emotions. She felt awful, the memory of Lido's death at her hands still hauntingly close in her memory, as if the Rodian's ghost had latched upon her and refused to cease reminding her of her sins. She had withdrawn from the very Force she normally felt so essential to her existence, the calm, deep waters that at any other time would have provided her sustenance and solace. She had to admit that she was fearful of it for the moment, for she knew now, more than ever, that it was not only a source of serenity and belonging, but of passion and power as well. She still felt a sick, queasy feeling in her stomach, as if a nest of larval k'lor'slugs had awoken in her intestines, squirming restlessly. Accompanying this discomfort was the pervasive oppressiveness of time, and the realization that Tama was running out of it. She was definitely in no mood for any of Fezzie's cantankerous sithspit today.
Fezzie remained standing, staring at her, awaiting a response from the Twi'lek. Foyi's lekku twisted and convulsed irritably. "If you're finished, Fezzie, I need to know the whereabouts of another customer. A man my sister speaks to whenever he's in port. Goes by the name of Pash."
Fezzie made a frustrated clicking sound deep in her throat and sighed. A single, clawed finger gestured past the bar, to a booth near the refreshers, where sat a human male in a rather typical, and therefore nondescript, spacer's outfit. Foyi did not even offer a word of acknowledgment or gratitude as she slid off her stool and stalked across the cantina. The music thundered through the intervening space, and the flashes of alternating lighting modes and scintillating colors made her eyes ache, but she did not lose focus upon the man at the booth. He was a younger human, with a short, tousled mop of dark fur on his head and the beginnings of a beard on his face, more likely from a lack of grooming rather than a personal style choice. Before him were three mugs, two of which were empty, and the third filled with a vile-looking liquid that had barely been touched. She slid into the seat across from him and propped her elbows upon the table's surface. The man was slow to react to her uninvited presence, and when he looked up at her, he did so while blinking repeatedly. It was obvious that he had already downed a significant amount of alcohol. Foyi felt anger and frustration bubbling up within her again, though she clamped down upon it almost immediately, not wanting to invite the darkness further in. It would be just her luck that the only other person in this town who cared enough about Tama to risk getting Foyi offworld was inebriated, quite possibly past the point of usefulness. But she had no other options; she had to try.
"You are called Pash?" she asked.
The man grinned in a self-depreciating manner. "Only name they ever gave me." He scrutinized her for a moment, and his eyes lit with recognition. "You must be Tama's sister, Foyim'buma."
"Foyi Imbuma," she corrected irritably. It had always made her lekku twitch hearing a non-Twi'lek using her proper clan name. Further frustration was born of the fact that she realized that Tama spoke much more with Pash about her sister than she had ever shared with Foyi about the smuggler sitting before her. "And you apparently know who I am. You and my sister must speak often."
He shrugged. "Not as often as she would like, I'm sure. She's a great kid, by the way. Never really had much use for younglings myself, but Tama has a good pair of lekku on her shoulders. She's got this...cheeriness mixed with maturity that's hard to ignore. I've always enjoyed my visits to this dustball because of her." He suppressed a hiccup. "Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not one of those people...I just enjoy talking to her...I ain't some kinda sicko, if that's what you think..."
Foyi twisted her expression into a grimace. "Ever since Tama first began telling me about you, I've kept an eye on you whenever you're onworld. If I thought you were that type of man, I would only feel comfortable knowing my sister was hanging around with you after I had removed your manhood."
If Pash felt threatened by the response, he did not show it. In fact, he seemed to expect it. Or perhaps he was simply too inebriated to respond properly. "That's only fair, I suppose. Nice to finally meet you, by the way. As I'm sure you've gathered by now, Tama's told me a lot about you. A few good things. Okay, mostly good things." He chuckled at his own joke, but the Twi'lek did not share in his mirth. After a tense moment of silence, Pash took a sip from his mug and swallowed noisily. "What can I help you with...Foyi?"
Foyi bowed her head, her lekku drooping dejectedly to the table's surface. "It's...about Tama. I need your help in getting me to Nar Shaddaa."
He looked genuinely alarmed at the mention of the Smugglers' Moon; at least he looked more alert than he had a second ago. "Why...why the hell would you want to go to Nar Shaddaa? And why do you think I might want to go there? That's Hutt Space; I make it a life goal to stay away from anything with the word 'Hutt' in the name." He thought for a moment. "That goes for anything having to do with 'Empire' or 'Imperials' also. What does all this have to do with Tama?"
Foyi kept a stony face, but a tear or two slipped from the corners of her eyes. She could not help it; the onslaught of emotions and stress she had experienced over the last few days was beginning to wear down her composure, and ever fiber of her being. "She's been kidnapped. By slavers working for the Anjiliac clan. My sources say she was taken to Nar Shaddaa, or even possibly someplace called Point Nadir, though I thought Nar Shaddaa would be a more likely place to look, since those same sources say Point Nadir is mythical."
Pash sat and processed her words for a moment. "That's 'cause it is, kid. Point Nadir is a fever dream held and recounted by pretty much any spice-addled smuggler, mercenary, and spacer in the galaxy. It's a shadowport, a spaceport free from government regulations and offering complete anonymity, supposedly built in some far-flung asteroid out of sight of the Empire or anyone else powerful enough to make the natives nervous. Thing is, people go searching for it, thinking it the perfect place to run...less-than-legal business and to hide from the authorities. But no one finds it, 'cause it doesn't exist. So if Tama is anywhere, it would be on Nar Shaddaa, not 'Point Nadir'." He shook his head, overcome by the news for a moment. "Poor kid...stuff like this always happens to the good ones..."
Foyi slammed a fist down on the table, startling Pash's drink and nearly spilling it entirely. "It doesn't have to happen to her! I have to save her! I won't let her be sold off as some Hutt or Zygerrian's slave!" She calmed herself, and when next she spoke, it was with quivering voice. "I need to get to Nar Shaddaa...but I'm no pilot, and I've no ship. I...I need your help, Pash. I ask not for the sake of myself, but for Tama's. Please. I beg you."
Pash smashed his palms into his eyes, rubbing them vigorously. "Look, Foyi; I like Tama. I really do. And I want to help. But the Imps have the spaceport locked down; my ship is held in place by a tractor beam in the docking bay. I'm not going anywhere until the lockdown is lifted; if it's ever lifted."
Foyi considered this new information for a moment, the vestiges of a plan forming in her mind. It was not a great plan, but if she could pull it off, it might just work and get them offworld. "What if...I could help you free your ship? Could you get us through the atmosphere without being shot down by the Empire?"
Pash's regard was skeptical. "Yeah, I think...I think I could do that. As far as I can tell, the Empire has little to no air support on this world, so if we can get my ship out of lockdown, I would only have to dodge those turbolasers on that old temple they took over on the edge of town."
Foyi closed her eyes as another surge of anger wriggled from her core at the mention of the Sha Kalan, the former home of the Zeison Sha and the conquered base of the Imperial garrison on Yanibar. Pash leaned forward, his expression extremely skeptical. "Though I don't see how we can lift the lockdown. There are tractor beams on all the ships in the spaceport, and they're powered by the control room in the customs building on the edge of the docking bays. Someone would have to somehow find their way into that control balcony and shut down the tractor beams at the same time you were prepping the ship, 'cause the second those tractors go down, the Empire's gonna be swarming all over the docking bays."
Foyi leaned forward, her expression hopeful, intense. "I can do it. The tractor beams, I mean. I could shut them down while you start up your ship, and get there before you get shot down by the Imps."
"You must be pretty damn clever. And fast. You know anything about tractor beam controls?"
"Of course," she lied. She did not know the first thing about such technology. But how difficult could it be, if it was run by a bunch of trigger-happy bucketheads? She exuded confidence as she leaned closer to him, nearly standing by this time. "I could shut down all the tractor beams for the entire port, so that all the spice-runners and smugglers trapped here could try and escape the port at the same time. That would provide us with enough of a distraction and the time we need for me to sprint back to your ship and lift off with you."
"And how is everyone supposed to know that their ships are about to be liberated?"
Her gaze flicked about, taking in the scores of patrons in the cantina with a sly look. "We'll spread the word beforehand, of course. Put the right words in the right ears, and it'll get around. These are your people; they'll listen to you."
He nearly guffawed at that. "Not likely. But enough of them might believe the rumor to act on it. At least cause enough of a fracas to keep the stormies busy." He scratched the stubble on his chin, considered his drink, and thought better of it, leaving it be. "It sounds like a plan. Though I'm a little unsure on your part...Tama always described you as resourceful, but she was referring to your prowess as a hunter. How're you going to get the tractor beams down? Never mind that, how're you going to even get into the control center? It's not like they leave the door open for anyone to walk in, you know."
"I have...skills that will assist me in my part of the plan. Let's just say, being a hunter, I have a certain appreciation and...aptitude for moving quickly and quietly. I have to get in and out, because Tama is counting on me. She's counting on you, Pash."
Pash sighed heavily, then a fiercely determined look came to his eyes. "Alright...I can do this, as long as we understand each other. I will fly you to Nar Shaddaa. I'll even take the risk of landing there, and pointing you to the nearest slave market run by the Anjiliacs. But I can't promise anymore than that, Foyi. I don't want you to think I'm a coward, or that I don't care about Tama. But there are some places I just don't go, and situations I stay away from, and Nar Shaddaa fits both of those categories. And I've got debt collectors and some unsavory folks I have to stay ahead of, so I can't promise much past Nar Shaddaa."
Foyi sighed, though she nodded. "I understand...and you don't have to explain yourself to me. Getting me to Nar Shaddaa is all I ask." While part of her was disappointed that Pash was unwilling to assist her with the search for and eventual rescue of Tama, as she was certain she would need help at some point in her quest, especially considering her feet had never once left Yanibar's rugged ground, she also felt a momentary bout of relief. Despite Tama's glowing opinions of her "friend" Pash, Foyi had only truly met the man moments before. She could not say, even by a long shot, that she trusted him. Pash so far had not given her a reason to distrust him, but neither had he earned her trust. For now, they both had needs that the other could satisfy, and so a mutually-beneficial bargain had been struck. This thought reminded her of Lido, and she felt a sudden twinge of pain and regret, not to mention a profound shame. She shook it off and stood, bracing her palms on the table's greasy surface. "Do you need time to...reorient yourself, or can we get going?"
Pash stood quickly, swayed precariously, bracing his hand on the back of his seat. Foyi cocked a brow, and the smuggler held up an index finger, begging patience. He let out a tremendous belch, stood up straight, and said, "Alright. Let's do this. For Tama." He then began to lumber over to another table of spacers, and struck up a short but lively conversation conducted in conspiratorial whispers, and thus began his dissemination of the rumor they hoped would provide them a necessary distraction.
Foyi stalked to the door and lurked in the shadows beside it, watching as Pash went to work, using a combination of charm and camaraderie to make certain his message was heard. Fezzie, still positioned behind the bar, eyed both her and Pash making the rounds, a suspicious gleam in her dark eyes. Foyi ignored her and focused on the mission ahead. She found herself praying to whatever higher power existed to keep Tama safe, and she silently sent her thoughts and prayers across the void to her sister, hoping that somehow, somewhere, Tama would hear her.
I'm here, Tamam'buma. Stay alive. Stay strong. I'm coming for you.
Pash was walking more assuredly as they neared the docking bay that housed his ship. Foyi was walking behind him at a relatively safe distance, her hood obscuring her features, though her lekku did drape from its folds. She was not taking any chances that the roving snowtrooper patrols might recognize her; she was unsure whether the last trooper she had killed at her former home had gotten a description of her to his superiors.
Pash stopped at the entrance to the bay which housed his ship, while Foyi slunk into the shadows cast by the overhang over the doorway. There were at least a dozen spacers milling about, more or less meandering toward their own ships, cautiously checking the perimeters and the sanctity of the Imperial lockdown. Looking for weaknesses. Waiting for the moment the Imperial attention waned and the tractor beams were shut down to make a break for their ships and escape the quarantine.
Pash peered through the door into the circular docking bay. His ship, the Hopping Acklay, sat within on its landing struts, a Corellian Engineering Corporation HWK-290 with a paint job that may have once been blue but faded to an off-color gray. The ship had seen far better days, its hull so patched by plating that had been pulled from other vessels and scrap piles that it looked as if its design was a rudimentary attempt at urban camouflage. Pash grinned when he saw his vessel, but his smile slipped when he perceived the pair of stormtroopers milling about the docking bay. He leaned back, speaking to the Twi'lek in the shadows out of the corner of his mouth. "Looks like we have company."
Foyi started to take a look, thought better of it, and stepped back in the shadows. "Company? What kind?"
"Here's some hints. They wear white, have terrible senses of humor, and blasters for punchlines."
Foyi cursed under her breath. "Well, you need to get on your ship, so just bluff your way past them. You smugglers are good at that, aren't you?"
"You watch too many holos, kid."
"Never seen one."
Pash rolled his eyes. "Okay...you're fond of stereotypes then. Nice to know that I fit so well into your narrow-minded mold you've placed me in."
"We're wasting time," Foyi replied with a growl. "I have confidence that you can handle this. Now, which way to the customs building?"
Pash leaned around the corner and pointed to a large, roughly-pyramidal building on the edge of the spaceport, several streets down. "The control center will be on one of the upper floors in there. The place isn't very big, but there's bound to be a lot of Imps in there, so be careful."
She nodded and turned to make her way to the customs building, but Pash stopped her with a firm hand on her shoulder. She turned with a query and hostility in her gaze, which flicked down to Pash's other hand. He held a comlink before her, offering it. "Here. Take this. Contact me when you've got the tractor beams down."
She nodded again, snatched the comlink, and stuffed it into a pouch on her utility belt. Then she began moving toward the customs building in the distance at an easy, unassuming pace, keeping her head down and trying to stay close to walls and the sides of edifices. Pash watched her go for a moment to make certain no nearby stormtroopers decided to waylay her, then turned and walked through the doorway into the interior of the docking bay. He affected a stumbling stagger as he walked, acting far more drunk than he actually was, his mind racing through the different ploys and cons he could spin for the snowtroopers. As he emerged into the docking bay proper, he was immediately spotted by the pair of snowtroopers, who subsequently raised their weapons, but seeing his apparently incapacitated state, lowered them slightly.
Pash had nearly made it to the ramp of the Hopping Acklay before the snowtroopers stepped directly in front of him, their weapons leveled at him. He opened his eyes wide, backpedaling quickly and awkwardly, as if he had noticed the Imperials for the first time. "Halt," called one of the stormtroopers, the one on the left, who was slightly taller than the one on the right. That was about where their dissimilarities ended.
"Oh, hey guysh," Pash slurred, offering an idiotic, toothy grin. "Wha's goin' on?"
"State your name and business here," said the stormtrooper on the right.
"Name's Passshhh. Passshhh," he repeated, as if in love with the sound of his own name. "This here's my sship, the Hippity-Hoppity Ackshlay..."
"The Hopping Acklay?" the one on the left suggested.
"Yeah! Like I shaid, hippity-hoppity. I need to get in there..." He began to walk forward again, but the stormtrooper on his right shoved him back with a hand on his chest.
"That ain't happening, sir. You need to step back, and go back to whatever watering hole you've been getting your swill from. This starport, and your ship, are on lockdown. No one goes to their ships, and no one's leaving."
Pash dropped a hand to his crotch and made a show of adjusting himself. "Tha's the problem, guysh. I don' need ta leave...I jes need my ointment."
"Ointment?"
He continued to scratch, hopefully making the stormtroopers progressively more uncomfortable. "Yeah, see, i's a long shtory, an' I'm in quite a lot o' pain here guysh, so if you coul' jes step aside an' let me through, I'd really appreciate it."
The stormtrooper on the left gestured at Pash's crotch with his blaster and said in a severe voice, "Maybe you should explain what it is you think you need on your ship."
Pash grunted, acting as if he were incredibly embarrassed, considering whether he actually wanted to tell the stormtroopers about his apparent affliction. He sighed, then spilled his story in a halting, self-conscious tone. "Okay, if ya have to know so bad...here's what happened. I met thish Zeltron girl, right? Hot as the twin suns o' Tatooine. No, hotter than that!"
"Zeltron, eh?" interrupted the one on the right. He was obviously interested now.
Pash nodded. "Tha's what I said. Anyway, I took one look at her, an' I was like, 'man, I have got to get up her loading ramp', if you know wha' I'm saying."
The two stormtroopers chuckled, genuinely enjoying the story, which only encouraged Pash to continue. "So, I do just that. An' she was good, guysh. Everything they say about Zeltron women...ish all true. But after I left her, I found out she gave me something besides a good ride. An' now, if I don't put my ointment on every day, my 'asteroids' will shrivel up an' drop right out my pant legs. So, ya see guysh, I'm deshperate. I'd like to keep 'em right where they are, you know wha' I'm saying?"
Two helmeted heads swiveled to look at each other, then they both shrugged. "Why not?" said the one on the left.
"Can't let a guy go without his manhood," the one on the right agreed. "Here, come on, I'll escort you in."
Pash silently cursed in his head, but this was not unexpected. He affected his idiotic grin once more, and said, "Thanksh. I 'preciate thish, man."
"No problem," said the stormtrooper as he led the way up the ramp and into the interior of the ship. "Though you gotta tell me...was it worth it?"
Pash waited until they were fully obscured from the other stormtrooper's vision in the vessel's hold, and pulled his blaster from where he had concealed it under his coat. "Every second," he answered as he fired a blue stun blast into the trooper's armored back. The stormtrooper fell heavily to the deck without a yelp, his armor and falling weapon making a loud, clattering noise. Pash immediately ran back to the ramp and fired down its length before the other stormtrooper could even respond, the virtually noiseless stun blast striking him in the face and blowing him off his feet, where he landed flat on his back. Pash holstered his DH-17, and ran down to the bottom of the ramp, where he hooked his hands under the armpits of the second stormtrooper and breathing heavily and gasping with effort, lugged the limp form up into the hold of his ship. He activated the ramp's closing mechanism, and it began to shut as he made his way up to the cockpit. Pash plopped himself in the pilot chair, entering a flurry of commands on the control boards that had been heavily modified to allow a single person to operate most of the vessel's systems. He had done so because he had never met anyone who could stand his antics long enough to be a long-term copilot. He keyed in the Hopping Acklay's startup sequence, then leaned back in his chair, blowing out a shaking, nervous sigh. Now came the hard part. Now came the waiting.
Foyi reached the customs building's perimeter in only a few minutes, as the distance from Pash's docking bay was not far, and she had been fortunate enough to avoid the stormtroopers patrolling the intervening streets. Like most of the edifices on Yanibar, the building was constructed of large slabs of sturdy stone, with a flat roof and sloping walls that were wider at the bottom than they were where they met the roof. Sparse windows spotted the building's exterior, while a three-sided protrusion jutted from the front of the building, facing the row of docking bays at the spaceport. The protrusion was almost entirely made of glass, though Foyi could not see the interior of the balcony through the one-sided glass. Must be the control center.
There were only three or four entrances that she could see, metal doors that had been reinforced with blast shielding. Each door had at least one stormtrooper posted in front of it, their blaster rifles crossing their chests, while other snowtroopers walked the perimeter in pairs or trios, their weapons also held at the ready. A Reconnaissance Troop Transporter hovered off to the side, currently without a pilot or guard, though its very presence was an unspoken threat, a taste of the mechanized, military might the small, understaffed Imperial garrison could supposedly bring down upon the heads of interlopers and dissidents.
Foyi remained beneath the overhang of a nearby shop and thus in the shadows, observing the attentiveness of the stationary guards, and the patterns of the patrolling ones. The doors were the obvious ways in, but they were watched too closely. The windows were another access point, but they were most likely wired to alarms, and besides, breaking them would draw too much attention to her entrance. She did not have the luxury of time to be spent bogged down in a firefight, and there appeared to be far too many stormtroopers to handle, even for a trained Zeison Sha Warrior such as herself. Her eyes were drawn to the roof's edge, her gaze moving up and down the walls, gauging the distance from the ground to the top of the structure. She guessed the top of the roof was about fifteen meters off the ground, a lengthy climb up sheer stone walls. This would require precise and concentrated use of the Force, and impeccable timing.
Foyi centered herself, taking in deep, relaxing breaths as she tentatively reached out to the Force. She imagined the waves of a crystal-clear ocean, stretching out before her as far as her mind's eye could see, the waves alternating between calm, cool currents, and the dark, sloshing ink in the distance beneath looming thunderheads. She grimaced as her attention was inevitably drawn to those darker waters, but she drug her consciousness from the looming Dark Side, and focused on the softer currents, the ones that were more familiar to her, the ones that gave her calm, peace, and determination.
Foyi began to walk from the shadows and out into the open, her hood up to continue shrouding her face, the wind whipping the hem of her cloak about her ankles with loud flapping noises. Immersed in the Force, she reached out with thin, concentrated streams, licking at the consciousnesses of the stormtroopers within sight. She was initiating and maintaining a Force-based illusion, a subtle altering of their perceptions such that they could and would be looking directly at her, but would forget her presence, her very existence, almost as soon as they registered it. Thus, she reached the wall of the customs building unmolested, and with a boost of speed, the Force providing her propulsion like the sublight drives of a starship, she scrambled up the sloping, completely sheer wall of the building, her hands and feet sticking to the stone unnaturally as she propelled herself upward. In seconds, she crested the roof, vaulting over the short wall that surrounded its flat surface, dropping into a crouch, keeping a profile low enough that she could not be seen from the ground. The roof stretched out before her, its surface covered in thin drifts of snow, the stone crusted over with ice. The rectangular air circulation and purification devices bolted into the roof's flat surface accompanied a rudimentary suite of long-range and deepspace telemetric antennae as the only features on the roof. She reached behind her to the holster concealed by her cloak on her back, extracting the discblade kept there. She breathed a sigh of relief as the familiar weight and contours of the weapon seemed to mold to her palm.
Foyi scurried across the roof, looking for an access point. She was rewarded by a rectangular grate, which was fastened closed by an uncomplicated but heavy-duty lock. A simple application of the Force popped the lock and swung the grate open, revealing a dark, rectangular space below. She dropped in lightly, finding herself in a thin, cramped tunnel that extended into the darkness both before and behind her. Above her and a little to the left, directly under the machinery on the roof, was a large fan slowly spinning. The air flowing through the tunnel was dusty, musky, and cool. Foyi had found herself in the air circulation system of the customs building.
Foyi began crawling through the shafts on her belly and elbows, clutching the discblade in her right hand as she shuffled forward. The vents were a labyrinth of thin metal and sharp corners, providing no hint as to where she should move or in what direction she should crawl. So she relied on the Force more than her sight, letting her intuition, her feelings, her instincts guiding her as she moved carefully but as quickly as possible. She began to come across other grates beneath her, looking down into rooms full of furniture, records, or Imperial personnel beneath her stomach. She moved with special caution as she passed these grates, not wishing to alert any of the Imperials below that there was something crawling about their airshafts that had no business being there.
Finally, she came to a grate that simply felt right. She peered through the tiny slats in the metal, and saw a semi-trapedzoidal room below her, where three of the walls were almost completely dominated by expansive windows. Control boards and terminals were arrayed before these windows, and a few rolling chairs sat before those. As far as she could see and sense, there were only three people in the room below her, two officers in olive grey uniforms, both human males, one with dark skin and a shaved head, the other lighter-skinned, with fiery hair and long sideburns. Off in the corner of the room stood a snowtrooper whose armor was structurally identical to that of the others she had seen, but the aesthetics were fundamentally different. There were blue markings and stripes on various portions of his armor, including the chestpiece, shoulder pads, and helmet. He held a DLT-20A Longblaster with a confidence and familiarity that revealed the experience he had with the weapon. The very way he held himself, standing straight, tall, and proud, though loose enough to drop into a more aggressive stance if necessary, silently spoke of his experience and lethality, his confidence and the commanding presence he exuded. She did not recognize this type of Imperial soldier, but just the palpable feeling of cold, calculated efficiency and deadly malevolence she was experiencing from his vicinity told her that this stormtrooper was not like his fellows, and would not go down easily in a fight.
Foyi's eyes strained to see details through the tiny slits in the grate, attempting to locate the particular set of controls that operated the docking bays' tractor beams. She saw a lever that looked promising, and leaned forward, practically pressing her face into the metal in order to get a closer look.
There was a squeal of metal as the bolts that held the grate in place gave way under weight they were never intended to support. Before Foyi even realized it, she was falling headfirst into the control room, tumbling with a quick curse as she and the grate crashed to the floor with a cacophony of noise. Foyi looked up in alarm and fear, into the shocked gazes of the two officers, and the ready blaster barrel of the specialist stormtrooper. The light-skinned officer was the first to speak, opening his mouth to utter, "What the-?"
There was no time for subtlety, for secrecy. Foyi raised her hand and emitted a massive eruption of the Force, throwing both officers off their feet. The dark-skinned human sprawled across the control panel before rolling off of it and striking the floor with a heavy thud. The red-haired one went bodily through the air and slammed into the wall hard enough for her to hear his breath leave his lungs in an audible gasp. Even as she completed this maneuver, she was already rolling to the side as the stripe-armored stormtrooper discharged his longblaster, and a burning streak of laser flashed across the space, searing a hole through the grate that had struck the floor and was trapped beneath her weight. Her discblade left her hand merely by thought and spun in a curving, vertical arc toward the stormtrooper, but he was also rolling, backward and away from the spinning weapon. He came to one knee, clutching the pistol grip of his DLT-20A in one hand as his other snaked to an unrecognizable device on his belt. Foyi had to mentally adjust the trajectory of her weapon to accommodate for her opponent's change in position, but the discblade bounced off a rippling bubble of force that suddenly projected itself around the stormtrooper. It was a personal shield of some sort, technology she had only heard of in legends from the time of the Old Republic and never thought she would actually witness.
The discblade returned to her hand even as the stormtrooper shifted his aim and fired again. Only instead of a blaster bolt speeding her way, a concentrated blast of blue light, a cone of stunning force she had never seen before sped toward her. She gave herself completely to the Force, her back arching as her upper spine became nearly parallel with the floor; the stun blast passed within centimeters of the tip of her nose and impacted the windows above the control panels with a shower of sparks. She continued the acrobatic motion in a backflip that landed her atop the consoles, releasing her discblade once more, letting it curve through the air to strike at the bald officer, the weapon burying itself in his chest even as he began to regain his feet. The man let out a gasp, his blaster pistol half unsheathed falling to the floor, his blood spraying across his crisp uniform as she telekinetically ripped the weapon free of his flesh. She spun as more blaster fire came her way, from both the stormtrooper and the red-haired officer, who was still gasping for air but had composure enough to fire wildly at her from his knees. The discblade slapped into her palm in time to deflect a blaster shot from the stormtrooper, and she cartwheeled off of the console. Midair, she dived deep into the Force, calling on its power, its all-knowing nature, gaining brief insights into what actions her enemies would take in the next, critical seconds. Even as she landed on the balls of her feet, Foyi saw the stormtrooper's blaster bolt shrieking toward her chest seconds before he fired, and she released the discblade once more, as if it had been straining to fly from her hand and she was merely allowing it. The stormtooper fired, and the discblade curved upward, the blade intercepting the laser at an angle, the Force-imbued metal deflecting the lethal energy to the side, where it impacted the red-haired officer's sternum. He gave a squawk of surprise and denial, then slumped against the wall, his failing muscles still attempting to depress the trigger for his sidearm.
Foyi let the discblade fall to the floor as she shifted her telekinetic focus upon the stormtrooper himself, the personal shield offering him no protection from the power of the Force. As if she were wielding a giant, invisible hand, she plucked the stormtrooper off his feet, where he yelped in surprise as he flailed in midair, still stubbornly holding onto his longblaster. With all the will and force she could muster, Foyi bodily slammed the stormtrooper into the far wall, which formed a crater as his bubble shield depressed into it, then shut down under the strain. The stormtrooper hit the wall hard, but not with bone-crushing force as she had intended, for his shield had softened most of the impact. Even as he dropped to the floor, Foyi was already sprinting across the intervening space, scooping up her discblade as she did so and bringing it to bear in an overhand chop meant to split the stormtrooper's helmet. But his forearm came up and blocked the strike, while he swung his longblaster like a club directly into her groin. Her armor softened most of the blow, but she still felt ill and woozy as some of the impact radiated through her guts and even into her chest, and she staggered back from her opponent in a daze. This particular stormtrooper was well-trained in close quarters combat, and his next strike was a chop to her clavicle, which, while somewhat mitigated by her protective armor, sent her gasping to her knees.
The stormtrooper brought his longblaster to bear, the barrel hovering before her face. In fear for her life, but more importantly, what might happen to Tama if her life ended here, she reached deep within herself and the Force. Her hand shot up, and the stormtrooper suddenly went vertical, slamming into the ceiling hard enough to put a dent in both the ceiling and his helmet. Her other hand, clutching the discblade, came up even as the stormtrooper's limp form surrendered to gravity once more, and her weapon was positioned so that his thinly-armored throat drug along the blade as he fell at her feet. He gasped and convulsed for a few seconds as his lifeblood squirted from severed jugulars, and finally settled into the cold embrace of death.
After a shaking inhalation, Foyi struggled to her feet once again, hobbling over to the consoles and terminals before the windows, pain coursing through her body from the wounds and physical strikes suffered from the unusual stormtrooper. She had half-expected the building's halls to already be screaming with alarms, considering the absolutely botched stealth attempt on her part, but a quick examination of the terminals, which had suffered only minor damage in the fight, revealed the controls for the alarm system. No one had gotten a chance to activate them, so there were no alarms. However, the sounds of blasterfire and her Force shoves had not gone unnoticed, judging by the sounds of shouts and running, booted feet she could hear through the doors to either side of the room. She had little time before this control center would be overrun with Imperial troops.
Foyi jogged back to the stormtrooper's corpse and scooped up his DLT-20A; it was considerably heavier than the E-11, but far better balanced and more accurate. She discharged a single shot into the control panel of each door, fusing the electronics within and keeping the doors sealed. She did so in just the right amount of time, for as soon as she fused the panels, there were bodies slamming into the doors from the other side, accompanied by dimly-heard shouts ordering her to open the doors. Foyi slung the longblaster across her back and jogged back to the consoles, her eyes roving over the readouts, screens, buttons, and dials, until she identified the lever again. Quickly reading the Aurebesh lettering beside the lever, she confirmed that this was the shut-off switch for the tractor beam generators, assuming she slaved all the generators to the lever. Otherwise, she would have to engage and disengage the lever for each and every one of the tractor beams in the spaceport, and considering she knew not the numbering system the Imperials used to designate which tractor beams corresponded to which docking bay, she had no time to handle the situation in such a way. Her hands flew across the keys, and she watched as lights blinked green beside each one of the tractor beam controls, indicating that the lever would work for all of them. Once all the necessary lights had blinked into existence, she pulled the lever without hesitation and watched as a cascade of red replaced the green.
The banging outside the doors had ceased, which meant the troopers outside were resorting to methods other than brute force to gain entrance. This probably meant E-Webs or breaching charges, which meant that she probably had seconds before the doors were blown out of their recesses or melted to slag. She found the communications interface, and opened a channel to the loudspeakers placed all around the spaceport, so that her voice could be heard by all those within a half-kilometer of the docking bays. "Attention all pilots and visitors to Yanibar. Your friendly neighborhood Imperial occupation force would like to inform you that the lockdown has been lifted, and you are all free to depart at your leisure. Thank you all for your patience, and have a great day." She switched off the interface, then stepped back from the consoles and unslung her longblaster from her shoulder, discharging a trio of shots into the computers and sophisticated electronics, melting them into slag with an eruption of sparks and errant electricity. She shifted her aim upward and fire another few shots through the centermost window of the balcony, and without a moment's hesitation, leapt through the open space and into the windy, bone-chilling air beyond.
Foyi twisted in midair, flipping over to land solidly on the ground, upright. Her knees bent at the impact, sending shocks through her body that agitated her wounds and bruises, and she could not help but stumble forward in the snow. She sprang to her feet, swiping at the ice and snow on her face with one hand while clutching the weapon in her other, sprinting forward, toward the rows of docking bays and her only way offworld. She ignored the nearby stormtrooper guards and patrols who were shocked to see an armored Twi'lek girl survive a twelve meter drop to the ground and take off running. Blaster bolts stitched the snow and ice around her feet, whizzing past her shoulders and head, impacting the stone walls of the nearest docking bay.
Foyi rounded the curve of the nearest wall and into the spaceport proper, which had become a free-for-all of alien beings running hither and thither, despite the patrols' attempts to contain and restrain them. She could already hear the heavy rumblings like earthquakes or thunder as the engines of multiple starships began spooling up. Even a few starships were already lifting off, their pilots determining that a cold start and race for the upper atmosphere were worth the risks if it meant escape from the Imperial lockdown. Foyi used the crowds and general pandemonium to cover her own escape, becoming just another face in the crowd, pushing and shoving through those who got in her way. A stormtrooper sergeant saw her, saw the weapons she carried, and pointed her out to his squad. Lasers streaked through the masses, eliciting screams as beings dropped to the snow, either from blaster burns or in an effort to evade the Imperials' indiscriminate fire. Foyi dodged behind a stack of crates, still a quarter kilometer from her destination. Lasers burned into the crates on the opposite side, or flew over her position of cover harmlessly.
She let out a primal growl of rage, felt the dark, hot, boiling waters of the Force coursing through her veins. She had no time for this. Tama had no time for this.
Her comlink pinged, and she frantically dug it from her pouch, palming the activation stud. "Not a great time, Pash!" As if to accentuate her point, a laser blast flew perilously close over her head, impacting the outer wall of the docking bay behind her with a shower of hot, stone shards.
"Where are you? The Acklay's prepped and hot, but if we don't leave in the next minute or so, this bay's gonna fill with stormies, and we won't be going anywhere anytime fast!"
Foyi raised her blaster over the top edge of the crate before her and fired randomly, letting sound and instinct guide her shots, hoping she hit at least one of the stormtroopers keeping her pinned down. "I'm stuck; the Imps have me trapped behind a pile of crates two docking bays down! I can't move without getting shot!"
"Alright, just stay put, and keep your lekku on! I'm going to do something really stupid, and you better be ready for it!"
Foyi grimaced as another few laser blasts stitched the sides of the crate beside her and blew away molten streams of metal slag in the snow, where they sizzled as the ice crystals evaporated rapidly. "What are you doing? Pash? Pash?!" But the channel had closed, the line dead. She was on her own again.
Foyi cursed the Empire, smugglers, and the galaxy in general as she went upright enough to peer over the nearest crate, bracing her DLT-20A on the crate's top and firing her shots carefully. The stormtrooper squad had arranged themselves across the street, using parked and crashed vehicles for cover, keeping up a steady stream of fire to keep her contained as a few of their fellows circled around, trying to gain flanking positions on her. Foyi shifted her aim and put a laser bolt through one of the flanking troopers' guts, sending him sprawling. Her aim shifted in a lightning fast maneuver to bring her sights upon another flanking stormtrooper, whom she downed with a shot to the leg. He cried out and fell forward in the snow, crumpling around his injured limb.
Foyi dropped back down behind the crate as nearly a dozen laser bolts converged on the spot her head had been visible from only seconds before. The lasers failed to hit her due to her quick reactions, but she could feel the heat radiating off the crate as it sustained more fire. She could not remain here long if she hoped to maintain cover from the Imperial troops. She settled in the Force again, letting it fill her up like a liquid being poured into a vessel, preparing for a burst of speed, or power, or something, anything, to help her escape...or destroy her enemies.
But her concentration was interrupted by the sound of a starship lifting off, not far from her position, the vibrations caused by its sound waves felt in her teeth and hammering through her lekku. She glanced down at the docking bay where Pash was, and saw the ugly, angular nose of the Hopping Acklay emerging from the open-air roof of the docking bay and rocketing into the air. It streaked up through the gray sky and the whirling snow, hooking around in a wide arc that circled most of the spaceport, then tipped its nose downward and screamed toward the street where the firefight was taking place. It sounded and felt like the sky itself was falling on her head as the ship screamed down the street, coming to a sudden halt midair, hovering mere meters above the ground between her and the stormtroopers. The Imperials' blastershots slowed only a moment as they readjusted their aim and began scouring the beaten and rusted hull plating with blaster burns, though their small-arms fire had little effect. From the underside of the ship opened the boarding ramp, squealing as its space cracked wide like the maw of some great, growling beast.
Foyi needed no other invitation. She vaulted over the crates and sprinted as quickly as her aching lungs, burning legs, and pounding wounds would allow. Some of the stormtroopers noticed her making a break for the boarding ramp and shifted their aim. But they were too late, for Foyi threw herself on the cool, hard metal of the ramp, rolling up it slightly and yelling raggedly, "Go!"
She was unsure if Pash would be able to hear her, but she had projected the plea for haste as much through the Force as she had with her voice, and if Pash had not heard her verbal yell, he would have felt the sudden urgency she aimed at him. The space between the ramp and the ship's hull closed quickly, though the environment outside blurred in rapid motion as Pash punched the ship forward and upward before the boarding ramp had even closed. She stumbled upright even as turbulence rocked the ship, the Acklay swinging from side to side, juking back and forth as rumbles shivered through its interior. She scurried as quickly as she could to the cockpit of the vessel, to find Pash strapped in the pilot's seat, sweat streaming down his face as he wrestled with the controls. Through the forward viewports could be seen the rapidly-darkening sky, lit briefly by brilliant green flashes and explosions all around them.
The ship's sudden lurch to starboard threw Foyi off balance, and she tumbled into the copilot's seat in a sideways position. Pash barely spared her a glance, his hand flying over the controls as klaxons reverberated within the cockpit. Foyi grunted as she tried to gain an upright position in the seat while struggling with the tangled crash harness. "What the hell's going on?"
"Turns out the Empire doesn't like its guests leaving the party early," Pash bit through gritted teeth. "They're firing their turbolasers at us, and the gunners have kept their skills sharp." The ship rocked from an explosion off the port side, and Pash gave a little yelp of fear as he lost brief control of his ship and it began to dip back deeper into the atmosphere.
Foyi forced herself to close her eyes, attempting to adopt a a meditative stance and calming composure. She tried to reach out to the Force, to find her center of peace, of serenity, but she was finding it too demanding to concentrate on not regurgitating her last meal. The Acklay bucked and wriggled midair again, and there was another explosion so close that she felt she could feel the latent energy and burning ozone in her nose and teeth. She merely gritted her teeth, her fingers digging furrows into the armrests of her seat, and determined to ride it out, as there was truly little she could do in this situation.
There came the roughest and most jarring patch of turbulence yet which was sustained for a long, agonizing moment. And then, there was peace again, as the feeling of explosions and the ship fighting Pash's commands stilled, and the Acklay flew unhindered, smooth and straight. She dared opened her eyes, and could not suppress a gasp. Outside the viewports was an expansive, all-encompassing darkness that stretched as far as she could see, the darkness' sovereignty and composition broken only by the thousands upon thousands of burning white lights in its expanse. She had seen the stars multiple times on the coldest and clear nights of the Yanibarran winter, but the feeling of insignificance in the face of the galaxy was nothing compared to what she was experiencing at the moment. The stars stretched out forever and beyond, the majority of their lights twinkling, undulating pinpoints of white, interspersed with more hazy, solid balls of reds, blues, browns, and greens, planets far from her and suddenly within her reach, planets full of millions of beings and fantastic technologies. Planets that she never expected to see with her own eyes, and though at thousands and millions of lightyears, she could make out no distinguishing characteristics of these mysterious worlds, she could still see them with her very own eyes.
Foyi turned to Pash, her mouth agape, her eyes wide as an Initiate's. Pash could not suppress a rakish grin, though his attention was focused on the controls for the navicomputer. "Pretty, ain't it?"
Foyi nodded, still overwhelmed. Pash continued. "Yeah, gets me everytime, too. I love coming up here, just being among the stars, going from place to place, world to world, no responsibilities, nothing to tie me down. Unfortunately, we can't stare all Hutt-eyed at it for long; if the Imps have any attack vessels on the planet below, they'll be sending 'em up here right now. We need to be in hyperspace before they show up to give us our parting gifts." He continued to input coordinates, then sat back, letting the navicomputer calculate the safest jump from Yanibar to their destination.
Foyi leaned forward, her eyes scrutinizing the solid lights that denoted planets and more solid celestial bodies than the vast fusion and fission reactions of stars. "Can...can we see Nar Shaddaa from here?"
Pash also leaned forward, peering out at the stars before gesturing toward a somewhat denser cluster of lights near the starboard side of the vessel. She traced the direction indicated by his gesturing digit, an invisible line that connected his finger to a slightly grayish-ochre star in the center of the cluster. "I think...I think that's it...that star cluster should be the Y'Toub system. Actually, Nar Shaddaa is a moon of Nal Hutta, so that star is more likely the latter rather than the former, but that should be about where it is. Where we're going...let's just hope your sister is actually there, and...okay."
Foyi's fascination with space and her new experience dimmed as her thoughts turned to Tama once more, and the overwhelming feelings of fear and terror she must be experiencing. Her hand came up to pinch the tiny light of Nal Hutta between her index finger and thumb. She reached out through the Force, imagining her thoughts traveling the vast distances of space and time, her spirit of comfort and encouragement reaching out like an endless ripple on the surface of an incomprehensible ocean, searching for her sister. Tama. Hold on. I'm coming.
The navicomputer pinged, and Pash placed his hand on the lever above it. He cast her a glance, his expression a mixture of excitement and concern. "You ready?"
Foyi merely nodded, her lekku sliding about her neck and arranging themselves around her shoulders. Pash turned to the handle, and pulled it downward; the stars outside blurred and elongated into white lines that stretched on into eternity, and the Hopping Acklay made the jump to the scintillating blues and whites of hyperspace, onward to Nar Shaddaa.