Emalda handed over the credits for her order at the front counter. The shop display featured meats and vegetables compressed into small ration cubes. They were stacked in multi-coloured pyramids, the steam-driven preservation process giving them a plastic-like sheen. Their less than appetising appearance had been offset by the ease with which they could be melted into something approaching edible.
The droid server used a shovel-shaped appendage to scoop the coins off the counter and into a sorting machine. The sorting machine beeped and the droid turned back to Emalda.
"Incorrect currency supplied," said the droid. "An extra ten credits needed to complete transaction."
"What?" asked Emalda. "Are you trying to cheat me? I gave you the exact change."
The squat sorting machine chimed in with its own sequence of beeps.
"The sorting machine says you are incorrect," translated the service droid. "Either you are mistaken or you are attempting to underpay the correct product price."
Emalda scowled and opened her mouth to complain when Ben and Anakin strolled past the shop window.
"Alright," said Emalda, pulling out her coin purse. "You'll get your extra ten credits but only because I'm in a hurry. And when the supplies are delivered, you can bet I'll be counting them carefully. If anything's missing, you'll be hearing from me again."
"We thank you for your patronage," said the droid. "Please come again."
"Not likely," grumbled Emalda.
Emalda rested a protective hand over the brown parcel tucked underneath her jacket, checking it was still secure. Satisfied, she stepped to the doorway and looked around for her escort. Crose looked up from where he was slouched against the outside wall and watched her carefully as she stepped through the doorway. Emalda ignored him and scanned the street. Ben was already out of sight in the crowd but she still see the taller Anakin.
She was about to call out to them when a red uniform caught her attention. Investigator Irus was striding through the crowd some distance behind Ben and Anakin. Emalda's first instinct was to slink into the crowd and disappear. The Investigator was ignoring her, and years of harassment by military officers had taught her that anonymity was a blessing. Instead, she stepped out to join the slow-moving procession, with Crose tailing along behind her.
Emalda eventually lost sight of Anakin but tailing Irus' red uniform proved much easier. The crowds began to thin as they reached the edge of a city branch and Emalda fell further behind to keep out of sight. There was now only a single row of buildings between the street and the black-soil plains that lay outside the city. Irus turned a corner, into an empty alley between a closed droid shop and an out of business dispensary that ended in an open plain.
Emalda walked casually past the alley entrance, unable to follow with no crowd to hide in. She got a quick glance of Irus stopped in the middle of the alley, looking upwards at an adjacent building – it seemed she'd lost Ben and Anakin. Emalda walked on and turned the next corner, unsure whether she should double-back or not. She waited for Crose to join her, wondering what he was thinking of their silent chase. When he didn't appear, she ducked her head around the corner only to see a completely empty street. The portly Crose was nowhere in sight.
"So much for protecting visitors," she grumbled. "Is there anyone I haven't managed to lose today?"
She backtracked, scanning the alley where she'd last seen Irus. The alley only ran the length of one building in that direction and there was no fence to mark the city boundary. In the far distance, a few scattered lights illuminated the silhouette of the next branch of the city. Emalda had never seen an urban street end so abruptly.
She walked into the middle of the alley and rested her hands on her hips. There were no doors as far as she could see, though the illumination was just as bad as anywhere else on Wefhuk – the nearly blind Kuhd didn't require it. She could see silhouettes on the droid shop roof, and guessed they were some of the shop's failed merchandise. The only advantage of the lack of artificial light was that the stars shone brighter than they did in most cities. Emalda stared at them for a while.
"Well, do you have anything helpful to say?" she asked the stars.
There was no reply but she stood looking at them for a while, taking comfort in their light. It was the only reason she saw the attack coming.
A figure appeared over the edge of the dispensary's roof. It took Emalda a moment to identify the shape in its hand as a blowpipe aimed in her direction. Emalda bellowed in both anger and fear, before back-pedalling towards the main street. A small metallic dart impacted on the wall beside her, narrowly missing her head. She nearly made it to the street when an old protocol droid landed in front of her in a shower of sparks. She threw herself to the side, losing her balance in the process. The rusted silver protocol droid had long been deactivated, half of its parts taken as salvage.
The sniper on the roof took advantage of her distraction and she had only just regained her feet when a dart hit her squarely in the chest. She landed on her backside, more from surprise than the force of the blow. The metal tip punched easily through her jacket, impaling itself on the brown parcel without touching her skin. Emalda pulled the dart out and threw it to the ground. She scrambled back to her feet.
"Oh, is that the best you can do?" she demanded.
The furious sniper missed with their next five shots as Emalda swung around and made a break for the other end of the alley. She fumbled with her commlink as she ran, thumbing the button.
"Help! Ben, help me!"
Investigator Irus came loping from the direction of the black plains, blaster in her hand. She fired a string of shots at the roof of the dispensary, forcing the sniper to stop firing and take cover. Emalda dropped the commlink in surprise and backed away, as frightened of the blaster-wielding officer as she was of her attackers. Irus seized Emalda around the waist and pulled her into the only cover there was - behind Irus' own body.
"This is Investigator Irus," shouted Irus. "Put the weapon down!"
Irus held out her blaster with one arm and held Emalda in place with the other. Emalda grabbed a fistful of Irus' jacket and hung on.
"There are two of them," squealed Emalda, only too happy to stay behind the other woman.
She gripped Irus' arm as there was movement on the roof of the droid shop.
Irus turned and fired, hitting a shadow that turned out to be one of the old droid carcasses on the roof. The droid's power-pack sparked, briefly flashing light across the roof. Emalda made out a figure with twilek head-tails before another hail of darts came from the sniper on the dispensary roof.
"Back to the main street," shouted Irus, shoving Emalda in that direction.
Irus fired at the greater threat from the dispensary as they ran. Emalda kept her head down, certain she would be hit at any moment. Neither of them were watching the roof of the droid shop.
A power generator droid tumbled to the ground in front of them, crushing what was left of the protocol droid. Unlike the vaguely humanoid protocol droid, the box-like generator droid weighed at least three times as much as the combined weight of the two women it narrowly missed. It blocked off most of the alley, leaving only a narrow gap between the droid and the wall. Both women slid to an abrupt halt, Emalda bumping into Irus behind her.
A dart slammed into the back of Irus' head and the Phindian's muscular arms went limp, dropping the blaster to the ground. Irus' back arched and she fell forwards, her muscles starting to seize. Emalda tried to catch her and they both went down. Completely paralysed, Irus watched with wide eyes as a head appeared over the edge of the dispensary roof. After another moment, the second head with twilek tails popped over the edge of the droid shop. Emalda fumbled for Irus' blaster, trying to shove the Investigator's stocky body off her own. The blowpipe was raised again just as Emalda wrapped her fingers around the blaster's handle.
Running footsteps echoed in the alley before a blue lightsaber flared into life to intercept the three darts fired at the two women. The darts were incinerated, leaving grey puffs of smoke hanging in the air to mark the spot. Ben stood over them with his lightsaber in hand, confident and unhurried as he watched the dispensary roof. Another trio of darts sped towards him and he picked them off precisely. Anakin raced into the alley with his own green lightsaber lit and ready. Anakin leapt using the Force towards the droid shop where a maintenance droid was teetering on the edge - directly above Ben's head.
Anakin's leap carried him almost to the top of the wall, where he clung to the edge of the roof with his free hand. With his lightsaber he slashed at the maintenance droid, cleaving it neatly into two halves. Both fragments of the droid toppled backwards, crushing the second assailant. The injured attacker screamed high and sharp. Anakin shifted his balance to vault onto the roof but instead released his grip as he sensed a stream of darts aimed at his unprotected back. Gravity caught him and he let it drag him to the ground, twisting to face the source of the sniper's fire as he fell. The stream of darts tracked him as he moved.
With the sniper focused on Anakin, Ben left his position over Emalda and Irus to leap towards the dispensary roof. The sniper didn't wait for him and took off running across the rooftops. Just as Ben mounted the roof of the dispensary, two grenades were launched from the droid shop behind him. Ben easily deflected the first with a casual wave of his hand but sliced at the second as it came at his face. The grenade exploded as the lightsaber hit it. Ben reeled back at the deafening boom and blinding flash of light. He dropped his lightsaber and rolled backwards in search of cover.
A second explosion sounded from up on the dispensary. Unable to see Ben, Anakin began to leap up to check on him. He had almost made the roof when instinct again made him turn, just as Emalda shouted a warning. A third grenade was dropping towards Emalda and Irus. Anakin let himself fall to the ground again, waving the grenade away. The grenade did not travel far before it detonated mid-way between Anakin and the women. Emalda felt like her head had exploded - her eyes burned and her ears throbbed. Her nose was full of a strong chemical smell, worse than the strongest cleaner she had ever encountered. She could still feel the weight of the paralysed Phindian across her legs.
Dirt flicked up against her face as someone landed in the alley beside her with a thud she couldn't hear. A strong hand gripped her shoulder and she felt someone's breath tickling her ear. She flung out a hand and hit a body less than an arm's length away. She followed the fabric up to a hairy jawline and a tangle of shoulder-length hair. It was Ben. She sighed and sank forward to rest her forehead on what she suspected was a shoulder. He put an arm around her shoulders and let her be for a while.