CHAPTER ELEVEN – CON MEN CAN HIT PRETY HARD

SABINE

"Careful, now." Vikil says, catching me before my head hits the ground. "We don't want to bruise your lovely face."

…

No!

Vikil hooks her arms under mine and drags me to one of the crates. She leans me against one and kneels before my immobile body.

"Let's take this helmet off you, shall we?" she half-suggests, placing a hand on either side of my helmet and easily lifting it off, setting it on the floor. "And the pistols. You remember your lessons; those'll have to go too."

With the helmet gone, it takes a few seconds for my eyes to adjust to the bright lights. Vikil's aged since I last saw her, in his late thirties or even forties. Her cruel gray eyes go from me, to a piece of flimsi in her hand, back to me…

She smiles. "You changed your hair."

My common sense whacks me. Make some noise, Sabine. Scream!

I pull in air and open my mouth to do so, but all that leaks out is a pathetic little whimper.

"Oh it's all right." she says, swallowing a chuckle. "Don't worry. I would never hurt my brightest student."

She reaches for my head, fingers outstretched. "You've grown since I last saw you. What a pretty girl..."

My feet tingle and I experimentally twitch my toes to dissipate the feeling. It doesn't make any sense; I've only been shocked a few seconds ago, they should still be completely immobile.

Unless Chopper, with whatever measure of control he had left, turned down the probe!

I twitch my toes again, then in one fluid motion yank my leg back and thrust it toward Vikil.

"Woah!" she shouts, as if I'm a child who's accomplished some impressive feat. "Feisty, are you? I guess I taught you a little too well."

I line up for another kick, but Nightwine grabs my legs and wrenches them together, clamping a pair of binders around my ankles.

"You came prepared."

"I would cuff her before she can use her arms." Nightwine replies, holding out another pair of binders.

"Of course," Vikil takes the cuffs from him. As she comes closer, I throw my weight to the side. Even though Chopper's reduced voltage is allowing me to gain control of my body faster, my range of motion is reduced to that of a flopping fish.

"Oh Sabine, what are you doing?" She chides and grabs me again. "That won't do any good."

"Ms. Vikil," Nightwine snaps. "I don't have all day. You have your girl, now I want my credits."

Vikil hands him a pouch of what I assume are credit chips. "It's all there, Nightwine. Pleasure doing business with you."

As Nightwine leaves I try to throw myself again, but Vikil catches me mid-toss. "Sabine, you need to be careful. You're going to hurt yourself if you keep that up. Now," she picks up the binders from the floor. "I'll just put these on your hands, and we'll be on our way."

Test your voice again.

I take a deep breath, and this time my vocal cords hold. "Not a chance," I rasp.

"Oh, we're talking now?" She grunts, yanking my arms behind my back. "I'd save your strength, my dear. You're going to need it later."

Keep her talking. The longer you stall, the more control you'll have over your body.

"Found Ketsu yet?" I antagonize, pulling hard on my arms to try and break her grip. No dice. "She was just as happy to leave the Imperial academy. Did you know she works for Black Sun?"

The binders lock around my wrists, and I wince.

Vikil leans me against the crate now that my arms are uncomfortably secured behind my back. "I couldn't care less about Ketsu Onyo. It's you who showed the real promise that would have secured my job."

Just like I thought: she's crazy.

She pulls the flimsi from his pocket. "Take a look at this photo for me."

I look. The man in the photograph wears an Imperial military uniform and a smug expression on his face.

"This is Commander Torrance." Vikil explains. "Your friends are hunting him down as we speak. By the time they realize he's been dead the entire time, we'll be long gone. I hope you have whatever you need in that bag, because we won't be coming back. In fact, I would get some rest right now; it'll make things much easier for you and there's a long journey ahead."

"A long journey where?"

"To Mandalore, of course." she replies. "The Empire will be more than happy to see you there."

"That still won't get your job back!" I shout.

"It doesn't have to." she replies. "Even if the Imperials don't offer me my old position, I can take you to Black Sun and they'll gladly pay my salary's worth as a bounty. Now, hold still. We're leaving."

Luckily for me, my training and my survival instincts kick in all at once.

I throw myself to the floor and start rolling like a log. Not the most sophisticated move, but it's the best I can do bound like I am. Vikil may have my pistols, but when she comes after me there's only going to be one possible position she can be in: on her feet.

Wait until she comes after you, roll onto your back and kick her in the knees, I order myself. That's your only shot. Once she's down, roll out of here and get somebody to untie you.

Vikil chases after me. "You little brat!"

I steel myself and flip onto my back, ready to slam my feet where it'll count.

She'll be here in five seconds…four…three –

"WAUGH-WAUGH WAH!"

"Oh, God no!"

But then the best surprise I've had all day comes. Chopper, swearing in Binary, slams into Vikil and knocks her off her feet.

No remotes, meatbag!

"Meatbag?" Vikil roars, scrambling back to her feet.

Chopper positions himself between him and me, prods out. The sight of the little rust bucket has never been sweeter.

"I'll show you "meatbag," you worthless -."

Suddenly Vikil's lifted into the air as if on a puppet string, then goes flying across the warehouse.

The Force. It has to be the Force! I roll onto my side to face the direction the blast came from.

Ahsoka stands in the doorway, her hand still extended from the force push.

"Nice try." She says.

Chopper wheels himself beside me, beeping and frantically waving his probe arms until Sierra rushes through the door, and up to my side.

"Are you all right Sabine?" she asks as she pushes me into a sitting position.

"Yeah" I nod, struggling with the binders. "I'll be better when these things come off."

"I hear you there. Chopper, a little help?"

"WUB-WUB WUH."

Sierra doesn't speak Binary, but I do. "What do you mean, you don't have a vibrosaw?"

"WUH WUB."

I sigh. "Hera took it so she could hone the blade? Great."

"Okay," Sierra says. "It's not over, we might be able to pick the lock." She ducks behind me to examine the cuffs and experimentally pokes around the lock.

"On second thought, we might need Steela."

I have no idea where Steela Gerrera is right now, but I'd bet my helmet she's more than ten seconds away.

Vikil coughs. "What is the meaning of this? You have no right to interfere with an Imperial arrest!"

Ahsoka waves her lightsaber. "Don't you dare speak to either one of them, slime. Sabine, who is she?"

"Her name is Lin Vikil. She was my espionage instructor at the Imperial academy before I defected." I announce. "I don't understand. Nightwine said you were looking for someone named Torrance."

"Tor?" Sierra asks. "Yes, we thought it was him at first. The bank statements Hutch found were impressively faked. But, what Nightwine forgot was that Tor would never operate somewhere so dirty."

"You're mistaken! This girl is wanted by the Empire for defection." Vikil shouts. "I need my old job back and she took it from me!"

Sierra's nails dig into my shoulders as she tightens her grip on me.

"Don't listen to her," she whispers. "Oh, where have I heard this before?"

"Sierra." Ahsoka orders. "Get Sabine out of here and find Steela to take the cuffs off."

"And leave you here with Lady Tor?No way!"

"There's only one way to make sure she doesn't go after Sabine again." She says calmly. "And that's to finish this once and for all."

"No way!"

"Sierra you are an actress, not a fighter. It's the only way. Anyway, she's over fifty now. Five-oh." Ahsoka snorts. "I'll be fine. Now you and Sabine get out of here and get the boys."

…

I can't believe Sierra actually listened, hefted me over her shoulder and left the warehouse.

"That's it?" I demand. "We're just going to run and leave Ahsoka behind?"

"No," she says, huffing and puffing from the burden of carrying me. "We need to get out of the range of their jammers so we can call the ship."

"Call the ship?" I ask. I can't believe this: we left Ahsoka with Vikil - who she called "Lady Tor"- I'm literally dangling from her shoulder bound hand and foot, and she wants to call the ship?

Sierra readjusts her grip around my waist and I slide off her shoulder and hurdle headfirst into the ground. My head hits the pavement with a hard, sharp crack.

"Oh my God," Sierra says, rolling me over and pressing a hand to my forehead to check. "I'm so sorry. Are you okay?"

I wince at the pressure on the rapidly swelling bump. "I'm fine. Why are we leaving?"

"Ahsoka only gets that look on her face when she's about to run a game on someone." She grunts, hoisting me again. "And I have no idea what she has up her sleeve. When I don't, Lux and Steela probably do. We need to get a signal!"

…

"You left her?" Lux shouts through the comm.

"She made me!" Sierra protests. "I tried to help, but we had to get Sabine out. She's tied up, I don't know how to pick the locks and to top it off, I just dropped her headfirst."

"I'm on my way now." Steela says. "I'll get those off you, Sabine.

Thank goodness. My hands and feet are starting to go numb and my head kills.

"Lux, she's running some kind of game." Sierra interrupts, finally setting me down. "I'm not sure which one, but she has her 'running a con' face on."

"You're the grifter, not me!" Lux protests.

"You're the one who's married to her."

Why is this exchange between the Bonteris suddenly reminding me of Ezra's and my bickering? I guess some things never change between siblings.

"Okay, okay." Steela says. "Just tell us what Ahsoka said and did."

"She said that she was staying behind so that she could handle Vikil and finish whatever this is instead of letting her have Sabine." Sierra explains. "When I offered to help in case she pulled something, Ahsoka said no."

"Why?"

"Something about Vikil was fifty, and she could handle it."

"But she's not fifty." I say, bemused. "That doesn't make sense; she's way younger than that and Ahsoka knows it."

"Hold it," Steela says. "Did she spell out that number? Fifty?"

"Yes," I say, wiggling my fingers in a desperate effort to continue circulation to my hands.

Steela growls. "I'm coming as fast as I can. Force darn it, Ahsoka!"

"I don't understand. What's she doing?" I ask.

"Think about those numbers for a minute."

Sierra shares a blank expression with me, until realization creeps over her face.

"I'm an idiot." She groans.

A/N: Just what does Ahsoka have up her sleeve that slipped past Sierra's grift detectors?

I am aware that this chapter is up very early, but I won't be home tonight and I wanted to post this on time so I didn't throw off any update schedules. I don't think anyone's complaining :)

Thank you to starwarshobbitfics and Rose Ravenclaw for your reviews. And speaking of which, please review!

Until next time,

Lux's Sister