Leannon switched off her communicator, ending a call with Eric. Ahlea looked at her sister with eyebrows raised. Eric called to ask if they were in trouble (they were) and if she'd heard of someone named Devon (she had).
"Devon? Is he cute?" Ahlea suppressed a smile.
Leannon flinched. "It wasn't like that." Already wearing black armor on her legs, she fit a bracer on her left arm. It was the armor her mother gave her.
They sat in a network of tunnels that Ruhtin led them to. He told them the mines were old and unstable, so they couldn't go far in. He seemed about to tell them more, but shook his head and remained silent. Brush covered the tunnel openings. Flickers of light entered the cave and danced about as the wind blew.
"Sure, we get into a little trouble and he comes flying across the galaxy to save you. Uh huh. It wasn't like that."
"He hasn't come flying across the galaxy to save me," said Leannon with a frown, pulling on her breastplate.
"Oh, so you hope he does?"
"No! Well, I mean," Leannon stammered.
"Ooooooh." Ahlea's face lit up.
"He'd be helpful, that's all I'm saying! He's really smart and…"
"Cute?" Ahlea interjected helpfully.
Leannon scowled at her sister. "Decent in a fight."
"Oh, so he is cute. I don't remember you mentioning him before, are you trying to keep him from me?"
Leannon's scowl deepened. "I told you about him."
"Anyway, I'm not going to wait around for your knight in shining armor to rescue you, Lee. I'll save you."
Leannon threw a punch at Ahlea, who dodged, laughing.
Ruhtin, who had stood guard near the entrance of the cave with Strathi, walked back towards them. He'd taken his helmet off. "The scout ships haven't been flying. We can move." He looked amused, which did nothing for Leannon's mood.
Ahlea tried to look around Ruhtin towards the exit of the cave. She'd be happier outside. The ceilings were low and wet in the tunnel. "Where should we go? How many of them are there? Do you think they'll send more hunters soon?"
Ruhtin nodded, "They will. There are only a dozen hunters besides Strathi and I. All slaves. There are many, many enforcers. They will force the hunters to track us. Then the enforcers will move in." He spat on the rock floor. "The enforcers are always off-worlders."
Leannon sat up, pulling on armored gloves. "Where are the enforcers from?"
Ruhtin shrugged. "They don't talk to us slaves." Ruhtin looked at Ahlea. "Former slaves. All I know is they are led by some cyborg named Djurisk. Slavers, I heard. Just the kind of scum the…"
Ahlea did a double take. "Did you say Djurisk?"
"You know him?" Ruhtin squinted at Ahlea.
"Um, maybe, the Djurisk I know wasn't a cyborg." She had a bad feeling.
Leannon, not noticing her sister's distress, cut in. "Just a dozen hunters? So if we take them out, the Hutts can't find us?"
Ruhtin frowned. "They are good people. We shouldn't kill them." Ahlea looked distracted so Ruhtin walked over to her. "We shouldn't kill them, my lady. We can, you can, free them. Like Strathi and me."
"Yes, um, of course." Ahlea winced again. She didn't feel like anyone's 'lady' and she knew she didn't sound like one.
Ruhtin bowed his head. "Thank you, my lady."
Leannon muttered under her breath, "I didn't mean kill them."
Trying to make up for her stammering, Ahlea put on as confident a face as she could. "Well, then we need to find them somehow." Leannon rolled her eyes.
Strathi called in a low voice from the mouth of the cave, "Maybe the Kuninkaan will help us."
"Hoffen?" Ahlea walked towards Strathi, with Ruhtin following.
"I've seen golden eyes looking at me every once in a while," Strathi said. "I think it's Hoffen. I don't think he likes Ruhtin and I. I don't blame him. Maybe if you go out to him."
Ahlea pushed her way past the shrubs and stepped out into the open. A clear evening settled over the mountains. She could see smoke rising from the forest fire several miles away. The breeze carried a faint smell of smoke. Ahlea didn't see Hoffen, so she took a few more steps away from the cave, closed her eyes and reached out with the Force.
"Oh!" Her eyes snapped open to see Hoffen staring right back at her. He'd slipped out from behind a tree. Her voice wavering nervously, "Hi, Hoffen. Um, who's your friend?"
As Ahlea spoke, Strathi poked her head out from behind the bushes at the cave mouth. She wore her black helmet with its ring of white teeth around her eyes. Hoffen retreated behind the tree.
"Ah, Strathi, I think Hoffen is scared of you." As Ahlea spoke, she looked into the forest, but past the tree Hoffen hid in. She'd felt another presence in the trees. Like Hoffen, but bigger, stronger… and more wild. Or was it ferocious? Angry? She wasn't sure exactly what she had felt.
"Oh, right," Strathi said. "Don't blame the little guy." She took her helmet off and set it in the cave. "Don't know how much good it's doing me anyway, without chest armor." She came back out and sat down, trying to hold still.
Not sure whether she should focus on Hoffen or the unknown creature in the woods, Ahlea said, "Come on, Hoffen, she won't hurt you, I promise." After a few minutes of coaxing, Hoffen came back out from behind the tree and jumped into Ahlea's arms. The brooding presence in the woods faded into the distance. Not feeling that she should discuss her feelings with Strathi, Ahlea pet Hoffen gently. She saw the look of wonder in Strathi's eyes. So eager. She realized that Strathi must not be much older than she was, despite the armor and weapons she carried.
"Come on Hoffen, Strathi's alright." Ahlea inched towards the girl, calming Hoffen, who started to growl if Strathi moved an inch. So Strathi froze, but her eyes sparkled so bright that Ahlea couldn't help but grin.
Inside the cave, Leannon approached Ruhtin in a suit of black armor. Unlike the sheen of Ruhtin's metal armor, Leannon's seemed to devour light, darker than the shadows of the cave. "Hey, look, I don't want to hurt your friends, but we need to figure out how to stop them from chasing us."
Ruhtin, standing guard behind the shrubbery at the mouth of the cave, nodded, and stepped away from the entrance. He knew that Hoffen would be unnerved by him speaking from behind the bush, so he signaled to Leannon that they should speak further into the cave. As they walked deeper in, they found Kura, still inside 5R-Z, meditating.
"Hi Kura, mind if Ruhtin and I chat a bit," Leannon asked. Though the cave, a former mine, went deeper into the hillside, Ruhtin told everyone, multiple times, that the caves were not safe and they should not go in very far.
Kura, keeping her eyes closed said, "Not at all," with a smile.
Leannon said, "Alright, what tactics do the hunters use when hunting people?"
Ruhtin didn't answer right away. "They usually locate us with our tracking devices. Since lady Ahlea took ours out, they won't be able to do that. So they will start with our last known location and track from there, spreading out and searching a grid if they lose the trail." Ruhtin had led them through and up several streams on the way to the cave to make them harder to track. Ahlea even volunteered to lift people through the air from the stream so they would leave no footprints or scent on the river banks. Strathi loved being flown through the air. Leannon jumped instead. Ruhtin had not liked Leannon's suggestion that Ahlea only did it to avoid walking further in the cold stream.
5R-Zed posed the biggest problem in avoiding trackers with his weight and size, so Kura took to jumping longer and longer distances, and in random directions, to leave confusing tracks. She loved it, despite a few crash landings in trees. Zed complained about damage to his paintwork and potential for worse. In the end, Kura won out, but even Zed admitted surprise at the capabilities of his new body.
Leannon ran her gloved fingers over the small bumps of her armor as she thought. "If they are moving in a grid, we should move laterally across the front of the grid as quickly as we can. I think we can move more quickly than they can. Hopefully we can flank them and take the team on the far side."
"But if we are caught in the middle of the net, we'll be surrounded quickly. Better to move away from them, find a choke point, and lay an ambush."
Leannon frowned. "Ruhtin, I know you are, ah, experienced, but don't the other hunters know this terrain as well as you, or close enough? They'll know the best ambush points and see them coming." She paused to let Ruhtin say something, but he said nothing and she couldn't read anything on his face. "How about a compromise, we move diagonally away and across their path, as quickly as we can, and I'll draw a small group of them into a trap. That should minimize the risk of being surrounded."
"I'll go with you."
"You'll just slow me down. Better you stay behind and protect 'the lady.'"
The corners of Ruhtin's mouth drew downwards. He leaned forward. "You don't know the forest, you don't know the hunters. I'm coming with you."
"Fine. We better get moving then. And you better keep up." Leannon walked towards the mouth of the cave. Ruhtin stood behind, watching her go and playing with a knife sheath on his belt.
Once Leannon was out of earshot, Kura opened her eyes. "She's a good kid, but a bit rough. I don't suppose you know anyone who was like her when they were younger?"
Ruhtin kept his eyes on the exit. "Why are you here, Kura?"
"To protect those girls."
The shadows of the cave emphasized Ruhtin's wrinkles and scars. He closed his eyes. Kura reminded him of someone. "Am I being a fool?"
A slow smile spread over her face. "Of course. You are on a new road. But you'll only learn how to walk it by pressing on."
He looked down and sucked on his teeth. "Where are we going?"
Kura didn't answer for a moment. She looked sad. "Be good to them, Ruhtin. They will need you."
Ruhtin looked at Kura, a question in his eyes.
Outside, Ahlea managed to walk within two paces of Strathi with Hoffen in her arms, but Hoffen wouldn't allow Ahlea to get any closer, with his growling turning to alarmed barks.
Ahlea backed up a few paces. "That's great Hoffen, that's really good. Strathi's a good person. You'll see."
Strathi, holding still, said, "People wearing armor like ours have been hunting him and his kind for generations." She frowned. "Sorry, Hoffen. I didn't want to do it. They would have killed me if I didn't."
Hoffen sniffed at Strathi and Ahlea smiled. "Hoffen seemed to like that, Strathi, maybe he accepts your apology."
Strathi smirked, too, but her eyes remained sad. "The kuninkaan belong in the forest, not in a Hutt cage. I've never seen one up close that wasn't fighting for its life or terrified. I'm sorry, Hoffen. I'll never hunt another kuninkaan, even if it means the Hutts kill me. I promise."
Hoffen jumped down and, to Ahlea and Strathi's surprise, approached Strathi slowly, sniffing. Worried about scaring him away, Strathi sat still as a stone, only her wide eyes following the small creature's approach.
Hoffen sniffed around Strathi's feet and circled her. Leannon came walking out of the cave, pushing past the bushes with her pack on, and Hoffen ran over to her and climbed up onto her shoulders. Leannon smiled and scratched Hoffen behind the ears. "Alright, everyone, time to get going. Hopefully we can find some food soon." Leannon turned to Strathi. "Strathi, do you ever forage out here? What is good to eat? I'm starving and I'd prefer to save our rations for later."
Before Strathi could respond, Hoffen jumped off Leannon's shoulders and ran into the forest, stopping not too far away and looking back at Leannon expectantly.
"Oh? You want to show me something, Hoffen?" Leannon started following the little animal.
Strathi stood up and watched, the hair on the back of her neck and arms standing up. Ruhtin came up as Leannon entered the forest with Ahlea. Strathi put a hand on Ruhtin's shoulder and whispered, "Hoffen, I think he forgave me. I confessed and he forgave me. And," she swallowed, "he might be finding for Leannon."
Ruhtin looked after them and exhaled slowly. He looked into Strathi's eyes, a deep frown creasing his brow. His hands trembled as he put his helmet on and he took a step forward. Strathi held onto his shoulder, "Don't get too close. Hoffen doesn't like us, our armor."
Nodding, Ruhtin walked slowly forward. Strathi called after him in a low voice, "Ruhtin, the legends are true. Kuninkaan do forgive. I couldn't believe it. He walked right up to me."
Kura and Zed stomped up and did their best not to destroy the bushes.
Ruhtin paused, watching Ahlea take off at a jog behind Leannon. "Careful, Strathi. Even if some of the legends are true, it doesn't mean all of them are."
"He forgave me, Ruhtin. It was amazing." She started pulling off the rest of her armor. "I'm done with this Hutt armor. I'm never serving them again, no matter what."
"That armor might be useful. The enforcers are coming."
"I'll keep my blasters and weapons." Strathi left the armor on her forearms and her boots.
Ruhtin watched her strip off the rest of her armor from behind his helmet. When she finished and walked up to him, the pair of them followed the sisters and Hoffen into the woods.
Kura leapt into the air with Zed shouting, "Not so high, master Kura, please! This is entirely unnecessary. We can achieve the same results with more efficient use of energy and less risk of permanent damage." They crashed through a thicket of branches and into the loamy ground with a heavy thud.
"Oh, just have some fun, Zed." Kura laughed and jumped off in a random direction.
Hoffen led Leannon and Ahlea to a strange pine tree with knobby fruits hanging from it and dropped on the ground. He picked one up in his small pair of hands and rolled it towards Leannon's feet. Then he grabbed another one and started tearing at it with his teeth, ripping off the knobs and revealing a pale-yellow flesh inside. Leannon shrugged and copied Hoffen, using her teeth to open the fruit. Ahlea stooped down and picked up her own fruit and picked at it with her fingernails.
Strathi and Ruhtin walked up and Strathi exclaimed, "Oh, keltain fruit." She walked over and grabbed one off the tree after squeezing it a bit. Suddenly shy, she gazed at the fruit. "Did Hoffen lead you here after you asked him to?"
"Yeah, I guess he did." Leannon chewed on the fruit and spit out a seed. "Hey, these are pretty good."
Ruhtin came up, but held back at a distance to avoid bothering Hoffen, who barely tolerated his presence. Strathi walked over to him through the trees, "Hoffen hunted for Leannon! Just like you said! The legends are true, Ruhtin. Everything you told me…"
Ruhtin interrupted, "One thing at a time, Strathi. We are still being hunted."
As Leannon tore into her second keltain, Ahlea whispered, "Lee, I think Hoffen has a friend in the forest." She had yet to take a bite of her fruit. She looked nervous.
Leannon looked up, eyebrows raised, "Really?"
"Yeah, I felt it out near the cave, but it was different than Hoffen. Hoffen's happy and likes being around us. The other one had a different presence. Wild. Angry."
"Huh. Do you think it's dangerous?"
"I don't know." Ahlea looked into the trees. "I think it's watching us."
"Well, aren't we popular." Leannon snorted. She gave Ahlea a wry look. "Almost wish I was back on Menetet. Some boring would be good now."
Ahlea smiled. "Boring would be really, really nice. Even if we had to camp in a tent and eat out of a fire."
"Deal. I'll make it happen." Leannon grinned. She looked confident to Ahlea, but Leannon felt anxiety grab a hold of her stomach. They hadn't really stopped since Ruhtin and Strathi fell out of the sky. She thought about her dad. He must be so worried.
Ahlea could see through Leannon's fake smiles. "I won't hold you to it." She didn't smile, but she looked at her sister with affection. "It's going to be alright. We'll get through this." Leannon always seemed like the strong one, but in that moment, Ahlea felt a strong desire to protect her sister.
Ruhtin walked up, causing Hoffen to growl and hide behind Leannon. "We can't hold still for long. Grab a few fruits and eat while we walk. We have to keep ahead of them." So they began moving again, oftentimes running and jogging when the forest floor was clear. Kura would fly overhead on occasion or tromp through the forest off in the distance.
Ahlea, jogging or hiking behind her sister, would sometimes let her focus spread out in the Force, trying to get another reading on the second kuninkaan that she'd felt near the cave. She felt like she couldn't rest unless she knew where that fierce forest spirit was.
After a few hours of moving through the trees and up and across streams, Ahlea turned off her mind and let her consciousness wander in the Force. Leannon ran faster and further than her, especially in that black armor, but Ahlea didn't mind running. Eric made her run through the snow back on Menetet and she'd never run to go fast: she used the time to think. So with Leannon in front of her as a guide, Ahlea reached out in the Force. She'd become much better at communing with the Force since she'd left Menetet. Monte had a frenetic energy that didn't lend itself to deep meditation, but Kura's rooted calm, despite her odd sense of humor, helped Ahlea learn to stop her mind from running in random directions, slow down, and walk with the Force.
At first, her mind went to the familiar. Leannon, focused and plotting their next move, Hoffen cheerfully hopping through the trees nearby, and a bit further off, Kura flying through the air. Ahlea could almost see the grin on Kura's face. The feeling brought a smile to her face.
Then something else. Like Hoffen, but with a darker and wiser energy, a sharper edge. Strangely, when her mind touched this yet unseen being, she felt the creature stop in its tracks, like it felt her in return. She saw golden eyes in her mind.
She was so focused that when Leannon slowed to a stop in front of her, she didn't notice and ran right into her, knocking them both to the ground.
"Hey, nerf herder," Leannon shouted, "pay attention to where you are going!"
Ahlea smiled sheepishly, "Sorry, I just felt the most interesting…"
Ruhtin turned around and held a finger to the front of his helmet. Silence. Everyone stopped talking and listened. They heard Kura land heavily from another one of her leaps in the distance. Then, above the gentle noises of the forest, the hum of a ship flying. Ruhtin motioned for everyone to come closer to him. They put their heads together and he said, "The sensors on that ship will pick us up. I hoped that they'd keep the ship in reserve after how Lady Ahlea shook it last time." He looked at Ahlea. "Can you do that again?"
Ahlea grimaced. "I think so."
"We need to prepare to defend ourselves. If I was them, I'd fly higher up to avoid Ahlea and then drop enforcers on the ground from a distance." Ruhtin pulled his blaster rifle into his hands and checked it over.
Leannon muttered, "It's the Hutt gangsters, not the hunters, right?"
Ruhtin nodded. They could hear Kura tromping towards them. Zed had learned to walk slightly more quietly than before, but he still weighed a lot and couldn't avoid breaking branches when he stepped.
Leannon licked her lips and looked up through the tree branches. She couldn't see anything. "Stay behind me, sis." Then she turned to Ruhtin, "How many sleemos can they fit on that ship?"
"Six at most, but they'll be some of their best, I'm sure of it."
As Kura approached, the sound of the flying ship returned. They could hear it hovering over the trees not too far away.
"Alli, hit 'em." Leannon pulled her lightsaber off her belt. She looked ready to jump into the sky and swat down the ship.
Ahlea closed her eyes and tried to find a mental grip on the ship. She couldn't see it, so it was hard for her to touch it with her mind. Several tense moments passed. She could hear Leannon and Ruhtin talking, which didn't help her focus. She redoubled her effort and found the ship, grit her teeth, reached out with hands and started hauling the ship down towards the tops of the trees.
The ship immediately threw on its engines, just like last time, and broke free of her grasp. Ahlea opened her eyes. "The ship's gone, but I think they got off the ship first."
Leannon nodded. "Good work, sis." Ruhtin and Strathi moved off through the trees to their left. Kura tromped into the woods behind them. Hoffen started to bark and growl.
"Go, Hoffen, get out of here." Hoffen ignored Ahlea and climbed up onto her backpack. Ahlea swallowed. She could feel a storm of butterflies in her stomach. She hated this.
Leannon looked so calm. "Six at most. We can do this. Just keep them off balance, Alli. Push them around. I'll handle them. Knock 'em into trees if you can." Leannon turned on her lightsaber. "Oh, and be ready for grenades, missiles, and flamethrowers. Push them away from me."
Ahlea, staring off into the forest in the direction of the ship, pulled out her lightsaber. Eric made her train with fake grenades at home. She hated that, too. This felt a hundred times worse. Her breath shaky, Ahlea tried to calm herself down and focus.
They could hear a group of heavily armored people running through the forest towards them.
Leannon shouted, "Hey, bucket heads, clear out of our woods!"
Laughter, and then two rockets came flying through the trees at Leannon. Ahlea just managed to divert them into trees, but the explosions knocked Ahlea to the ground. Somehow, Leannon stayed on her feet. To Ahlea's dismay, Leannon leapt straight at the mercenaries, covering twenty paces almost instantly. Pulling herself back up, Ahlea ran after her, turning on the lightsaber in her hand. She could hear flamethrowers and she sprinted towards the combat.
She found her sister surrounded by four heavily armored soldiers. Flames burned on the trees nearby. One lay flat on his back, but as Ahlea arrived Leannon spun behind another of the soldiers, who ignited his flamethrower again.
Ahlea pushed at the two other standing Mandalorians with all her might, throwing them hard into nearby trees with a resounding crack. Before Ahlea could take a breath, she felt a blinding surge of electricity cover her. She yelled and fell to her knees.
Two more soldiers stood behind her. As Ahlea struggled under the electro-net, they turned on Leannon, firing their blasters. The one on the ground rolled onto her stomach and began firing at Leannon as well. Retreating, Leannon grimaced as blaster bolts grazed an arm and a leg, despite her best efforts to deflect the shots with her lightsaber.
One of the two soldiers standing behind Ahlea shouted, "What do we have here?" He stood almost a meter taller than Ahlea, had a great metal horn sticking out of his forehead and a helmet that covered his face but for a thin slit for his eyes. Two blue lights gleamed from the depths of his helmet. Firing lazily at Leannon, he walked over to Ahlea and bent over her to get a better look at her face.
Ruhtin popped out from behind a tree and fired on the hulking mercenary standing over Ahlea. His shots seemed to have little effect, bouncing off his armor. He spun with robotic precision and shot at Ruhtin, blasting his rifle out of his hands when he popped back out from behind the tree again. The horned giant saw Strathi running up and shot at her, too, knocking her down with one shot.
Leannon retreated further away. Ahlea, gritting her teeth, got back to her feet and began to try to throw the electro-net off herself.
The giant shot at Ruhtin again, hitting him in the middle of the chest, then turned on Ahlea. "Well, well, well. Ahlea Kenna." He chuckled. He dropped his rifle onto the ground. He put his hands out to his sides, ignoring the battle between Leannon and three other soldiers. He shook his hands once and two short lightsaber blades slid out of his gauntlets.
Ahlea shook from the electric shocks and fell to her knees again. Terror in her eyes. "D-d-djurisk."
Djurisk brought the tip of the glowing blue blade on his right hand up to Ahlea's face. "New and improved."
Over the noise of Leannon fighting, Ahlea heard the whine of an approaching ship. A voice in her head told her to fight, to run, to do something, but she couldn't move.