- Location
- America
Maybe Tipros can accept and make use of her knowledge while he has the dubious benefit of being tied to a Sith spirit.
The Gardener's Tale [Star Wars SI]
- Thread starter YeahOkayCool
- Start date
- Location
- Alaska
You mean, pretend to fall to the dark side in order to learn their techniques, then bounce? That's a very risky move. Tipros remembers that people who pretend to join the Sith have a disturbing tendency to lose control of the masquerade and fall to the dark side for real (Ulic Qel-Droma, Quinlan Vos, Luke).
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Prince Charon
Just zis guy, you know?
Yes. (More seriously, 3 but mostly 1.)Do you mean:
- Pushing against a heavy/anchored object so you don't get flung backwards when pushing something?
- Pushing in multiple directions at once in a Force Unleashed-style burst attack?
- Both?
Also pushing down in a cone, or at three or more downward angles at once, to allow him controlled Force Flight.
- Location
- America
Didn't Leland Chee say that Luke only "nearly" fell?
Beyogi
and a fairy
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Because being Darth Worldburner (and/or puppykicker) is something a sane person doesn't aspire to?Oh well, in my defense it was about 2 AM when I read that. My error.
Poor, poor Occlus. All she wants is to pass her Sith knowledge on to the next generation. Why is Tipros being so stubborn?...
- Location
- Alaska
He did *almost* fall, but that's because he's Luke Actual Literal Skywalker, the Chosen One, and the normal rules don't quite apply to him. For an "ordinary" Force-user, is the risk really worth it?
Interlude: The Old Hunters
- Location
- Alaska
Interlude: The Old Hunters
Location: Room 305, Shady Arbor Assisted Living Center, Ravelin, Bastion
Date: 30 ABY
Cad Bane was sitting in his mobility chair, half-watching Sacrifice at Endor (Imp propaganda, but damned if it wasn't well-made) on the Imperial State HoloNet, idly considering putting on some instant oatmeal for a snack, when he heard the sound of metal scraping against metal. He turned to see Aurra Sing climbing in through his now-open window.
"Least ya didn't break it this time," Bane said, throat dry from lack of conversation. "I had a helluva time explaining that last broken window to the orderlies."
Aurra just smirked and waved her free hand dismissively. Bane rolled his eyes. Aurra Sing never changed. Damn woman always insisted on doing everything the most dramatic way possible, like she was trying to show off. He didn't mind, though, not really. She was his only regular visitor, and the only hunter left in the whole damn galaxy who still remembered the old days. Some things it was just useless to talk about with someone who hadn't lived through it, and if that meant putting up with her antics, then that was a fair trade.
The pale bounty hunter stood up to her full height and slowly approached with fluid grace, cold and dangerous, but smiling like an ghostly snake. Bane sunk into decades of combat training, eyes instinctively scanning her for weapons. There were a lot of them, as usual, but she didn't seem to be hostile. Well, not towards him, anyway.
Yet.
Aurra looked him up and down, dark green eyes flitting back and forth in their dark sockets. She nodded a greeting, still smirking a tiny bit. "You're looking well, old man."
"Yer one to talk," Bane grunted. "I'm only two years older'n you."
"Three years, actually. I don't turn eighty-two for a few months now."
Bane doubted that, but when you've outlived nearly all your contemporaries like Aurra had, you could make your birthday whatever you damn well pleased. He looked at the near-human and snorted. "Eighty-one."
Aurra ran one thin, long-fingered hand over her hips, just brushing the hoster of her blaster pistol. "It's a young eighty-one, my dear."
Bane rolled his eyes. Eighty-one. He'd been contracting with Aurra off and on since before Geonosis, and since then she'd hardly seemed to have aged a day. Whatever hybrid blood had gone into making her had given her a lifespan probably on the order of centuries at least. It hadn't really started to hit home for a few decades, but Aurra Sing didn't get old. She just... kept existing. She just lived on through the decades like she'd always been: ageless, constant, and very deadly.
Meanwhile, decades at the bounty-hunting life had finally worn Bane's own body down. His muscles were frail, his eyesight failing slowly, and he never seemed to keep himself quite warm enough. The scars and wounds that covered his body went back almost eighty years, each one a miserable little ache tugging at him. Some days he felt less like a person and more like a ghost haunting a corpse. The doctors had made it clear— even as healthy as he was for a Duros his age, he'd be damn lucky to see ninety.
And there Aurra was, looking just as young and athletic as if the Clone Wars had ended yesterday. Feh. Biology was a real bastard like that, sometimes.
"So, what can I do fer ya?" Bane asked. "Sure I got some instant caf somewhere in the kitchenette..." His hand reached for the controls in the arm of his chair, ready to mute the holoscreen.
Aurra's hand went up. "No, don't bother, I'll be on my way in a few minutes. This visit is all business."
"Business now, huh? Well, that's alright too. Got plenty o' time to chat next time you come to Bastion. Right?"
"Of course, my dear."
"Fine, that's fine." Bane shifted in his chair and sighed as the pressure fell away from his bad hip. "So what's this all about?"
"You're becoming a very popular guy, you know," she said, tossing her red ponytail back. "Why, I had no idea you had so many friends, Cad. A whole troupe of people—and a droid—coming in and out of here all week."
Bane scowled. "There a particular reason you been spyin' on me?"
"I'm on a job," she said simply. "It's for an... old friend of mine. He hired me to keep tabs on someone and inform him on what they're doing."
"Just following?" Bane asked. "That don't sound like you."
Aurra shrugged. "It's easy money. A girl's got to pay for weapons upkeep somehow, might as well stay nice and safe while I do it."
"Sounds like you've got this all figured out," Bane said. "If ya know I've been meeting with yer target, then you don't need my help findin' them. So what're you really here for?"
Aurra's eyes glinted under the fluorescents. "I want you to tell me what he's after."
"Hm. The big guy with the beard? He's Jensaarai."
Her brows went up and she smirked. "Really? Their order almost never leaves the Quence Sector, I wonder what he's doing out here? How interesting. But that's not the one I'm supposed to be following— it's the younger guy travelling with him. A male Mikkian, possibly Jedi, about yea tall, pale red skin, blue tips on his tendrils. Probably really nervous—apparently he's a twitchy little fuck."
"Yeah, I met the kid. His name's Tipros, and twitchy don't even begin to cover what's goin' on in his head. Good kid though, real smart once you calm him down." Bane frowned. "Why exactly are you following him? What's your employer wanna know about him for?"
Aurra spread her hands in mock-helplessness. "Cad my dear, you know I can't tell you that. I didn't ask why he had such a razorbug up the ass over the Mikkian, and frankly I don't really care. I was told that he might be a Jedi, and that they wanted someone with the Force to spy on him, just in case something happened. And from what I can tell, something is probably happening. Why are he and the others so interested in you?"
Bane drummed his fingers on his amrest, considering the question.
Location: Room 305, Shady Arbor Assisted Living Center, Ravelin, Bastion
Date: 30 ABY
Cad Bane was sitting in his mobility chair, half-watching Sacrifice at Endor (Imp propaganda, but damned if it wasn't well-made) on the Imperial State HoloNet, idly considering putting on some instant oatmeal for a snack, when he heard the sound of metal scraping against metal. He turned to see Aurra Sing climbing in through his now-open window.
"Least ya didn't break it this time," Bane said, throat dry from lack of conversation. "I had a helluva time explaining that last broken window to the orderlies."
Aurra just smirked and waved her free hand dismissively. Bane rolled his eyes. Aurra Sing never changed. Damn woman always insisted on doing everything the most dramatic way possible, like she was trying to show off. He didn't mind, though, not really. She was his only regular visitor, and the only hunter left in the whole damn galaxy who still remembered the old days. Some things it was just useless to talk about with someone who hadn't lived through it, and if that meant putting up with her antics, then that was a fair trade.
The pale bounty hunter stood up to her full height and slowly approached with fluid grace, cold and dangerous, but smiling like an ghostly snake. Bane sunk into decades of combat training, eyes instinctively scanning her for weapons. There were a lot of them, as usual, but she didn't seem to be hostile. Well, not towards him, anyway.
Yet.
Aurra looked him up and down, dark green eyes flitting back and forth in their dark sockets. She nodded a greeting, still smirking a tiny bit. "You're looking well, old man."
"Yer one to talk," Bane grunted. "I'm only two years older'n you."
"Three years, actually. I don't turn eighty-two for a few months now."
Bane doubted that, but when you've outlived nearly all your contemporaries like Aurra had, you could make your birthday whatever you damn well pleased. He looked at the near-human and snorted. "Eighty-one."
Aurra ran one thin, long-fingered hand over her hips, just brushing the hoster of her blaster pistol. "It's a young eighty-one, my dear."
Bane rolled his eyes. Eighty-one. He'd been contracting with Aurra off and on since before Geonosis, and since then she'd hardly seemed to have aged a day. Whatever hybrid blood had gone into making her had given her a lifespan probably on the order of centuries at least. It hadn't really started to hit home for a few decades, but Aurra Sing didn't get old. She just... kept existing. She just lived on through the decades like she'd always been: ageless, constant, and very deadly.
Meanwhile, decades at the bounty-hunting life had finally worn Bane's own body down. His muscles were frail, his eyesight failing slowly, and he never seemed to keep himself quite warm enough. The scars and wounds that covered his body went back almost eighty years, each one a miserable little ache tugging at him. Some days he felt less like a person and more like a ghost haunting a corpse. The doctors had made it clear— even as healthy as he was for a Duros his age, he'd be damn lucky to see ninety.
And there Aurra was, looking just as young and athletic as if the Clone Wars had ended yesterday. Feh. Biology was a real bastard like that, sometimes.
"So, what can I do fer ya?" Bane asked. "Sure I got some instant caf somewhere in the kitchenette..." His hand reached for the controls in the arm of his chair, ready to mute the holoscreen.
Aurra's hand went up. "No, don't bother, I'll be on my way in a few minutes. This visit is all business."
"Business now, huh? Well, that's alright too. Got plenty o' time to chat next time you come to Bastion. Right?"
"Of course, my dear."
"Fine, that's fine." Bane shifted in his chair and sighed as the pressure fell away from his bad hip. "So what's this all about?"
"You're becoming a very popular guy, you know," she said, tossing her red ponytail back. "Why, I had no idea you had so many friends, Cad. A whole troupe of people—and a droid—coming in and out of here all week."
Bane scowled. "There a particular reason you been spyin' on me?"
"I'm on a job," she said simply. "It's for an... old friend of mine. He hired me to keep tabs on someone and inform him on what they're doing."
"Just following?" Bane asked. "That don't sound like you."
Aurra shrugged. "It's easy money. A girl's got to pay for weapons upkeep somehow, might as well stay nice and safe while I do it."
"Sounds like you've got this all figured out," Bane said. "If ya know I've been meeting with yer target, then you don't need my help findin' them. So what're you really here for?"
Aurra's eyes glinted under the fluorescents. "I want you to tell me what he's after."
"Hm. The big guy with the beard? He's Jensaarai."
Her brows went up and she smirked. "Really? Their order almost never leaves the Quence Sector, I wonder what he's doing out here? How interesting. But that's not the one I'm supposed to be following— it's the younger guy travelling with him. A male Mikkian, possibly Jedi, about yea tall, pale red skin, blue tips on his tendrils. Probably really nervous—apparently he's a twitchy little fuck."
"Yeah, I met the kid. His name's Tipros, and twitchy don't even begin to cover what's goin' on in his head. Good kid though, real smart once you calm him down." Bane frowned. "Why exactly are you following him? What's your employer wanna know about him for?"
Aurra spread her hands in mock-helplessness. "Cad my dear, you know I can't tell you that. I didn't ask why he had such a razorbug up the ass over the Mikkian, and frankly I don't really care. I was told that he might be a Jedi, and that they wanted someone with the Force to spy on him, just in case something happened. And from what I can tell, something is probably happening. Why are he and the others so interested in you?"
Bane drummed his fingers on his amrest, considering the question.
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- Location
- Puerto Rico
Old 'friend' comes for a visit. I imagine Bane will tell her what he knows. He really has no obligation to keep their little mission a secret. Especially from someone he know all to well can extract the intel out of him.
- Location
- United States
Hey man, you try waking up in the desert having been kidnapped from your Universe and shoved into an Alien body, a shitty one at that too. Then go through that desert on pretty much the hell world of this Universe while having a crazy cat lady in your head, shit'd fuck you up really bad.
Pretty sure this is a typo.
Other than that, honestly, the reason they are their to begin with is shockingly meh for their interests, its generic jedi shit and its doubtful theirs a connection there.
- Location
- Alaska
TIPROS: "Shitty? I mean, being Mikkian's not all bad. Sure, I don't have hair anymore and my skin's an undeniably inhuman color and there's a giant noodly organ on the back of my head that means I can smell and taste every godawful thing in a fifty-foot radius and I can't sleep on my back anymore and it won't stop moving... yeah okay fair point, this blows. But at least I'm not a Hutt."
- Location
- Alaska
I'm not sure what part you mean. Can you highlight it or something?
Well, Krayt and Wyyrlok I don't know Tipros is just some random moron who lucked out yet. All they know is that an intruder barged into their hideout and somehow evaded or incapacitated everyone they sent out to kill him. Now they're trying to figure out if their secrecy has been compromised or not. So they hired an intermediary (a common tactic for the One Sith during this era) to find out the information while they burn everything and high-tail it to a new lair.
WYYRLOK: "We still do not know what happened, my Lord. The intruder provoked the Wookiee into a blood rage, subdued Apprentice Dician, and has since managed to evade all our search parties... and as far as we know, he was armed with nothing more than a simple torch."
KRAYT: "Is that so?..."
WYYRLOK: "He was not even wearing a shirt, my Lord."
KRAYT: "Hmmm, truly we are dealing with a skilled and powerful infiltrator."
TIPROS: [confused_screaming.png]
- Location
- United States
Ey, Tippy being a Hutt would mean you'd be fucking set, absolutely massive incredibly long lived and rich, having the potential to be tough as hell. Just face it you got a really shitty deal.
- Location
- America
Krayt's whole endeavor rests on not being discovered by the Jedi despite being in a static location, a planet associated with the Sith almost like a synonym, and in stasis for decades at a time , and being alive at the same time as Luke Skywalker-he isn't hiding in plain sight-he's hiding somewhere the Jedi are inclined to look and be suspicious of, and GM Luke of legends is an actual contemporary of his, Krayt at this time period must be extremely discreet and cautious -if he isn't-its all over. Tipros is a threat and has to be killed soon else the Jedi might investigate the tombs of Korriban.
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- Location
- Alaska
PROS: A centuries-long lifespan, probably super-rich, incredibly smart and patient
CONS: No legs, fat and slimy, one of the most hated species in the galaxy, the Vong basically destroyed your home systems and nobody cares because you're a Hutt and the entire galaxy hates you, being a Hutt...
- Location
- America
Maybe a Hutt SI could get the Hutts to abandon the policy of Kajidic and adopt a militarized policy once again.
KK
They hired her to keep tabs on someone and inform herself on what they were doing?
Crusader Jerome
Subsisting on Supplication
- Location
- My home away from Rome
I think it should be corrected to "what he's doing," since Tipros is one person and does not get a plural.
- Location
- United States
Oh yeah I forgot that this is a post Vong galaxy. Man my lack of EU knowledge is killer.
dhasenan
always lowercase
- Pronouns
- She/Her
"He hired me to keep tabs on someone and inform me on what they're doing."
Old friend hired Aurra. Aurra's job is to keep Aurra informed on someone's whereabouts. Old friend apparently doesn't care about someone's whereabouts, but does care about Aurra knowing. This is weird.
"They" has been used as a singular pronoun in English for at least five hundred years, and Basic is likely to have non-gendered pronouns, since it's for a galaxy with thousands of sapient species, probably with many incompatible genders.
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- Location
- Alaska
Yes, okay, I get it. It's been corrected. No need to get snide with me, it's just a grammatical mistake.
The Bastion Job: Chapter Nine
- Location
- Alaska
Book Two: The Bastion Job
Chapter Nine: In Which We Go Up, Then Over
Location: Wavlud House, Bastion
Date: 30 ABY
Sannah and I ran through the opulent halls as the alarms wailed, our feet light and our pace increasing around every turned corner. Somewhere behind us I thought I could hear the YVH's thumping metal footfalls as it pursued, but my tendrils weren't picking up the hunter-killer droid's scent. And I sure as hell wasn't about to slow down to look behind me. A tight pain lanced through my side where the YVH had punched me— oh shit, maybe it was a cracked rib— and I hunched over, stumbling. It felt like a knife plunging into my chest, over and over. Sannah surged ahead and I tried to keep up, but couldn't quite match her pace. This wasn't going to work; even if the injury wasn't life-threatening, letting the YVH catch up to us would absolutely be.
We needed a new plan.
Another turn down a corner and we emerged into a T-junction leading to an outer hallway. A good-sized picture window shimmered like crystal. The corridor lights were apparently set to "intimate," giving us a sweeping view of the floodlit Wavlud House gardens. And the many, many security goons and stormtroopers on patrol through those gardens. We curled to the side of the window, peeking out at the Imperials trooping through flowerbeds and across hedges. Blaster-mounted flashlights cut harsh white arcs through the air. From out here, they reminded me of lightsaber blades.
Occlus snorted mentally. I suppose the trooper uniform would have changed drastically in the last three thousand years, but whoever changed their armor from black to white should have been electrocuted. Were they trying to get their soldiers killed? The Empire really went downhill without Vowrawn and I keeping the fools in line.
That was a different Empire.
Apparently so. If I were on the Council of this new Empire, I would be having some serious words with the lead armor designer.
Well good luck with that, I said. They were Kaminoans, and I'm pretty sure they're all dead.
Of course it was Kaminoans, Occlus sneered. I ran into a cabal of them in the Rishi Maze once. This is just like them. Kaminoans are just the sort of oblivious savants to think that kitting out a Force-blind grunt in shiny white plastic is a brilliant psychological warfare tactic. They do very little to justify their high opinion of themselves— less than Wrath, even.
I heard a thumping noise down the halls, louder and louder, like metallic footsteps. And they were moving fast. My tendrils writhed like scalded snakes. Not the time, Occlus.
Very well then. But if you die here, I get first claim on your body.
Well that was... no, not even going to think about that. I firmly shoved down my fear (is it getting easier or is that just adrenaline?) and turned to Sannah. The determined set of her face told me she'd heard the YVH coming too.
"Looks like we've gotta take our chances crossing the garden," she said, raising her lightsaber to cut through the glass.
I put my arm in front of her chest. Or what would've been her chest if she was my height. My forearm brushed the top of her head, but she got the point and held back. "Wait a second," I said. "I've got a better plan."
"I'm listening."
"Up. Then over."
"What, you mean going up to the roof?"
"Yeah." My tendrils squirmed and I could smell-taste a whiff of machine oil and the sickly-sweet remnants of dioxis gas. Shit, no time for long explanations. "We get up onto the roof. From there, I think I can Push us over the garden wall."
Sannah's pale yellow eyes narrowed. "Flying."
"More of a big jump, but basically the same idea."
"And... have you ever tried this before?"
"Um, well, a little bit of Pushing from rooftop to rooftop on Susefvi. The principle is the same, I think. Look we don't have a lot of time, that droid's right behind us and probably gaining—"
The footsteps were getting louder now, echoing down the halls. Scratch that, definitely gaining.
Sannah heard it too. She tucked a dark curl out of the way behind her ear, thinking. Then she nodded, a determined look in her eyes. "Alright, let's hurry." She waved her hand and the window slid open with agonizing slowness, just wide enough for us to fit through.
We climbed out and hit the compacted mulch beneath the window with a soft thump. I reached up and quickly shut the window again. With any luck, the droid wouldn't know we were out here.
The cool freshness of the spring air felt amazing on my tendrils after all that fighting and running, and the breeze was thick with plant smells. It was an amazing smell-taste, like a rich soup of spices and nectars and nice earthy mulch. Like the Garden Level back at the Academy. Or the woods behind my childhood home Back Then. If we hadn't been running for our lives, I would have totally just found a nice tree to relax under and savor it all. But I wanted to keep on living rather badly, so getting to higher ground was top priority.
Speaking of, that overhang on the second floor balcony seemed perfect.
I tapped Sannah's shoulder and pointed wordlessly. She nodded and bent down. I felt the Force briefly pucker around her as she drew it in and suddenly shot up into the air like a five-foot-tall rocket. Her Force-assisted leap carried her effortlessly to the roof over the balcony, two stories up. She poked my mind in the Force, signalling the all-clear.
Okay then. I gathered in the Force with a deep breath, stretched out a hand, and Pushed the ground. The backlash thrust me into the air backwards, and I twisted around in midair to guide my descent. I was going to stick the landing this time, I could feel it in the Force. I could do this. For one silent still moment I hung in the air at the top of the Push's arc, Sannah on the balcony below, wind playing through my tendrils like... well, for a second I was remembering what it felt like to have actual hair, and fingers running through it. Okay not the time for this, dammit.
Then gravity remembered to exist again, and I started to fall. I gave a slightly weaker Push against the balcony to slow my descent this time, and remembered to roll to soften the landing. Nice, this was actually getting easier now! Even Occlus gave a little mental hum of appreciation.
Sannah lightly punched my shoulder, beaming. "Okay, that was super cool. Nice one!"
"Don't applaud quite yet," I said. "We still need to get to the rendezvous point. Ryke and Gand will be there soon."
"Yeah." Sannah leaned on the edge of the balcony, looking over the garden below us. "I think I can see it from here. The streetlight on the far corner over there."
I looked where she was pointing. That was the spot all right, but I was more concerned with the security down in the garden itself. The stormtroopers looked like little white ants from up here— hopefully the security fence overload would keep them focused on the garden until we got safely away. And hopefully the YVH droid hadn't called ahead to let them know about what happened in the vault. "You think it's worth calling Ryke and Gand, letting them know we're on the way?"
"The stormies aren't completely stupid," she said. "They're probably monitoring comm frequencies by now."
Shit, good point. I pushed myself away from the railing, letting my arms and shoulders loosen up. I could feel the muscles stretching and the tension ebbing away. "Alright then," I said. "I've never done this with a passenger before, so let's not leave anything to chance. First I need you to—"
Something thumped against the door to the balcony, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. Another thump, and the wood splintered and broke away, leaving a fist-sized hole in the door.
A fist-sized hole with a skeletal metal fist through it.
The fist shrank back through the hole, and a gleaming red photoreceptor peered at us from the other side. A smooth electronic voice purred out: "Hell-o, what have we here?..."
Oh, fuck.
"We need to get higher!" I shouted. Sannah nodded. Without another word we called on the Force and leaped to the peaked roof over the balcony. The tiles were made of some sort of clay or stone that clacked like pottery as we landed and scrambled for purchase. The roof was at a steepish angle, and I had to grip the tiles with my hands to keep from slipping. We began to climb, ignoring the thumps and crunches of the door giving way below. Every movement of my torso tweaked my rib and sent another stab of hot pain through me. That wasn't good.
"What the... how'd it find us!?" Sannah panted. She was keeping pace with me, but her face was red with suppressed pain. That shoulder wound probably hurt like hell. "No droid could be that smart, could it?"
My tendrils rippled as I tried to suppress the fear in my gut again. I had a theory about that, and it wasn't an uplifting one. "It's tracking us."
"Force, how's it doing that? Remember how many turns we made through the east wing?"
"I, ah, did some reading on this," I said, feeling for a handhold. "Apparently, Tendrando Arms studied Mikkian head-tendrils when designing the chemical sniffers the droids use. That means that YVH has, well, a crazy good sense of smell. As good as a Mikkian's. It's probably been following our scent. When we went outside, it must have figured it out and decided to cut us off. Probably wanted to corner us on the balcony."
"Dammit."
"Yeah."
Something crunched like shattering clay pots behind us, and my tendrils picked up the oily chemical sting of heated droid parts. That droid certainly is persistent, Occlus observed. It's behind us, you know.
I scowled, ignoring the ache in my hands as I clambered even faster. No time to look back. I'm well aware of that.
Ah, excellent, she purred. And are you also aware that your new plan, well, seems to not be working?
We reached the peak of the roof and I briefly straddled it, looking down at the YVH droid climbing after us. The silvery Terminator-looking machine was making slow progress, and it left a wide trail of shattered tiles as it slowly but steadily climbed after us. Its weight was working against it on the steep roof; it had to keep three of its limbs gripping the tiles— or the beams underneath the tiles, more likely— and it seemed to hesitate before fully committing to each new handhold. Of course, it didn't really need to hurry. We'd already cornered ourselves on the roof.
"Well," Sannah said, gingerly stretching her fingers, "at least—"
A blaster bolt thunked into the tiles by her thigh, leaving a cracked scorchmark that smell-tasted like burning sand. Sannah yelped and slid to the opposite side of the roof, ducking behind the peak. I was right behind her. A whole flurry of scarlet bolts whizzed by after me. Shitshitshit, now the stormtroopers had seen us. Now we really had to go. Suddenly that garden wall looked very, very far away.
Sannah made a motion like she was about to draw her lightsaber, but before she could I stopped her. "Wait, we can still get out of this. Call Ryke and tell him there's been a change of plans. We have to meet him on the other side of the grounds. Maybe over near that far corner, behind the tree. Tell them to hurry."
Comprehension sparked in her eyes— or maybe it was a reflection of the blasterfire— as she nodded. As she made the call, I closed my eyes and took some deep breaths. Lessons from the Academy echoed in my mind. Listen to your breathing. Feel the Force. Block out the distractions. The Force is everything, and everything is the Force. My tendrils waved in the air like fronds as the Force's cool clean smell-taste washed over and through me. I could feel the tension between my shoulder blades and down along my spine as the power began to build.
I looked over at Sannah. "You ready?"
She gave me a tight, eager smile. "Ready as I can be, Heatstroke."
Okay then, here goes everything. I stood up and looked over the side of the roof. The YVH was almost to the peak, crawling upwards through the storm of blaster bolts like a rhino surrounded by mosquitos. It looked up at me with that expressionless skull face, red photoreceptors boring into my soul. It brought its free arm up, and I heard a shrill whining as its blaster cannon charged to fire. The moment seemed to freeze in time as I gathered the Force within me.
Then I grabbed Sannah tight around the waist with my left hand, focused on the YVH droid, and Pushed with everything I could bring to bear.
Physics ensued.
We shot off backwards into the air with a crunch of shattering tiles and a cloud of dust. The YVH howled an electronic curse as it lost its grip and slid backwards off the roof, its massive metal skeleton shattering wood and clay alike. The droid's howl was echoed by Sannah's sudden scream of terrified joy as she clutched onto me for dear life. I let out an excited shout too, feeling my tendrils whipping in the wind as we rose into our arc. My whole body sang with adrenaline and the Force. The world was a hurricane of joy and relief and adrenaline and vengeance. You're terminated, fucker!
A shift of my weight flipped us around as we started to descend, soaring silently over the garden. A few bewildered stormtroopers looked up and fired at us, but we were too small, too fast, and too dark against the night sky. We arced down out of the air, wind clawing at us, whistling toward the ground like a laughing meteor. The wall was coming up fast—
I shoved my hands forward and Pushed off the ground again, weaker this time. We bounced slightly in the air and sort of tumbled sideways over the wall, with only inches to spare. Sannah let go and dropped into a hedge while I rolled to a stop in the dirt, scuffed and bruised but not too badly damaged. The adrenaline must have taken most of the impact, because I wasn't feeling a thing— even the rib was barely an ache.
Within moments the getaway landspeeder pulled up in a whine of engines. Ryke leaped out in full gleaming Jensaarai armor, bundled us inside, and we were halfway to the Cloudburst's docking bay before we even heard sirens. Despite the failure, and our narrow escape, I wasn't actually feeling that bad about the situation. We hadn't gotten Occlus' holocron, and we were battered and bruised and brutalized in half a dozen different ways, but we were all still walking away intact. Occlus wasn't too happy, but she was never happy. And not even she could say I hadn't held my own out there.
Now was the time to regroup. If we could get back out past Bastion's shield gate, obviously. There's always something, isn't there?
Chapter Nine: In Which We Go Up, Then Over
Location: Wavlud House, Bastion
Date: 30 ABY
Sannah and I ran through the opulent halls as the alarms wailed, our feet light and our pace increasing around every turned corner. Somewhere behind us I thought I could hear the YVH's thumping metal footfalls as it pursued, but my tendrils weren't picking up the hunter-killer droid's scent. And I sure as hell wasn't about to slow down to look behind me. A tight pain lanced through my side where the YVH had punched me— oh shit, maybe it was a cracked rib— and I hunched over, stumbling. It felt like a knife plunging into my chest, over and over. Sannah surged ahead and I tried to keep up, but couldn't quite match her pace. This wasn't going to work; even if the injury wasn't life-threatening, letting the YVH catch up to us would absolutely be.
We needed a new plan.
Another turn down a corner and we emerged into a T-junction leading to an outer hallway. A good-sized picture window shimmered like crystal. The corridor lights were apparently set to "intimate," giving us a sweeping view of the floodlit Wavlud House gardens. And the many, many security goons and stormtroopers on patrol through those gardens. We curled to the side of the window, peeking out at the Imperials trooping through flowerbeds and across hedges. Blaster-mounted flashlights cut harsh white arcs through the air. From out here, they reminded me of lightsaber blades.
Occlus snorted mentally. I suppose the trooper uniform would have changed drastically in the last three thousand years, but whoever changed their armor from black to white should have been electrocuted. Were they trying to get their soldiers killed? The Empire really went downhill without Vowrawn and I keeping the fools in line.
That was a different Empire.
Apparently so. If I were on the Council of this new Empire, I would be having some serious words with the lead armor designer.
Well good luck with that, I said. They were Kaminoans, and I'm pretty sure they're all dead.
Of course it was Kaminoans, Occlus sneered. I ran into a cabal of them in the Rishi Maze once. This is just like them. Kaminoans are just the sort of oblivious savants to think that kitting out a Force-blind grunt in shiny white plastic is a brilliant psychological warfare tactic. They do very little to justify their high opinion of themselves— less than Wrath, even.
I heard a thumping noise down the halls, louder and louder, like metallic footsteps. And they were moving fast. My tendrils writhed like scalded snakes. Not the time, Occlus.
Very well then. But if you die here, I get first claim on your body.
Well that was... no, not even going to think about that. I firmly shoved down my fear (is it getting easier or is that just adrenaline?) and turned to Sannah. The determined set of her face told me she'd heard the YVH coming too.
"Looks like we've gotta take our chances crossing the garden," she said, raising her lightsaber to cut through the glass.
I put my arm in front of her chest. Or what would've been her chest if she was my height. My forearm brushed the top of her head, but she got the point and held back. "Wait a second," I said. "I've got a better plan."
"I'm listening."
"Up. Then over."
"What, you mean going up to the roof?"
"Yeah." My tendrils squirmed and I could smell-taste a whiff of machine oil and the sickly-sweet remnants of dioxis gas. Shit, no time for long explanations. "We get up onto the roof. From there, I think I can Push us over the garden wall."
Sannah's pale yellow eyes narrowed. "Flying."
"More of a big jump, but basically the same idea."
"And... have you ever tried this before?"
"Um, well, a little bit of Pushing from rooftop to rooftop on Susefvi. The principle is the same, I think. Look we don't have a lot of time, that droid's right behind us and probably gaining—"
The footsteps were getting louder now, echoing down the halls. Scratch that, definitely gaining.
Sannah heard it too. She tucked a dark curl out of the way behind her ear, thinking. Then she nodded, a determined look in her eyes. "Alright, let's hurry." She waved her hand and the window slid open with agonizing slowness, just wide enough for us to fit through.
We climbed out and hit the compacted mulch beneath the window with a soft thump. I reached up and quickly shut the window again. With any luck, the droid wouldn't know we were out here.
The cool freshness of the spring air felt amazing on my tendrils after all that fighting and running, and the breeze was thick with plant smells. It was an amazing smell-taste, like a rich soup of spices and nectars and nice earthy mulch. Like the Garden Level back at the Academy. Or the woods behind my childhood home Back Then. If we hadn't been running for our lives, I would have totally just found a nice tree to relax under and savor it all. But I wanted to keep on living rather badly, so getting to higher ground was top priority.
Speaking of, that overhang on the second floor balcony seemed perfect.
I tapped Sannah's shoulder and pointed wordlessly. She nodded and bent down. I felt the Force briefly pucker around her as she drew it in and suddenly shot up into the air like a five-foot-tall rocket. Her Force-assisted leap carried her effortlessly to the roof over the balcony, two stories up. She poked my mind in the Force, signalling the all-clear.
Okay then. I gathered in the Force with a deep breath, stretched out a hand, and Pushed the ground. The backlash thrust me into the air backwards, and I twisted around in midair to guide my descent. I was going to stick the landing this time, I could feel it in the Force. I could do this. For one silent still moment I hung in the air at the top of the Push's arc, Sannah on the balcony below, wind playing through my tendrils like... well, for a second I was remembering what it felt like to have actual hair, and fingers running through it. Okay not the time for this, dammit.
Then gravity remembered to exist again, and I started to fall. I gave a slightly weaker Push against the balcony to slow my descent this time, and remembered to roll to soften the landing. Nice, this was actually getting easier now! Even Occlus gave a little mental hum of appreciation.
Sannah lightly punched my shoulder, beaming. "Okay, that was super cool. Nice one!"
"Don't applaud quite yet," I said. "We still need to get to the rendezvous point. Ryke and Gand will be there soon."
"Yeah." Sannah leaned on the edge of the balcony, looking over the garden below us. "I think I can see it from here. The streetlight on the far corner over there."
I looked where she was pointing. That was the spot all right, but I was more concerned with the security down in the garden itself. The stormtroopers looked like little white ants from up here— hopefully the security fence overload would keep them focused on the garden until we got safely away. And hopefully the YVH droid hadn't called ahead to let them know about what happened in the vault. "You think it's worth calling Ryke and Gand, letting them know we're on the way?"
"The stormies aren't completely stupid," she said. "They're probably monitoring comm frequencies by now."
Shit, good point. I pushed myself away from the railing, letting my arms and shoulders loosen up. I could feel the muscles stretching and the tension ebbing away. "Alright then," I said. "I've never done this with a passenger before, so let's not leave anything to chance. First I need you to—"
Something thumped against the door to the balcony, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. Another thump, and the wood splintered and broke away, leaving a fist-sized hole in the door.
A fist-sized hole with a skeletal metal fist through it.
The fist shrank back through the hole, and a gleaming red photoreceptor peered at us from the other side. A smooth electronic voice purred out: "Hell-o, what have we here?..."
Oh, fuck.
"We need to get higher!" I shouted. Sannah nodded. Without another word we called on the Force and leaped to the peaked roof over the balcony. The tiles were made of some sort of clay or stone that clacked like pottery as we landed and scrambled for purchase. The roof was at a steepish angle, and I had to grip the tiles with my hands to keep from slipping. We began to climb, ignoring the thumps and crunches of the door giving way below. Every movement of my torso tweaked my rib and sent another stab of hot pain through me. That wasn't good.
"What the... how'd it find us!?" Sannah panted. She was keeping pace with me, but her face was red with suppressed pain. That shoulder wound probably hurt like hell. "No droid could be that smart, could it?"
My tendrils rippled as I tried to suppress the fear in my gut again. I had a theory about that, and it wasn't an uplifting one. "It's tracking us."
"Force, how's it doing that? Remember how many turns we made through the east wing?"
"I, ah, did some reading on this," I said, feeling for a handhold. "Apparently, Tendrando Arms studied Mikkian head-tendrils when designing the chemical sniffers the droids use. That means that YVH has, well, a crazy good sense of smell. As good as a Mikkian's. It's probably been following our scent. When we went outside, it must have figured it out and decided to cut us off. Probably wanted to corner us on the balcony."
"Dammit."
"Yeah."
Something crunched like shattering clay pots behind us, and my tendrils picked up the oily chemical sting of heated droid parts. That droid certainly is persistent, Occlus observed. It's behind us, you know.
I scowled, ignoring the ache in my hands as I clambered even faster. No time to look back. I'm well aware of that.
Ah, excellent, she purred. And are you also aware that your new plan, well, seems to not be working?
We reached the peak of the roof and I briefly straddled it, looking down at the YVH droid climbing after us. The silvery Terminator-looking machine was making slow progress, and it left a wide trail of shattered tiles as it slowly but steadily climbed after us. Its weight was working against it on the steep roof; it had to keep three of its limbs gripping the tiles— or the beams underneath the tiles, more likely— and it seemed to hesitate before fully committing to each new handhold. Of course, it didn't really need to hurry. We'd already cornered ourselves on the roof.
"Well," Sannah said, gingerly stretching her fingers, "at least—"
A blaster bolt thunked into the tiles by her thigh, leaving a cracked scorchmark that smell-tasted like burning sand. Sannah yelped and slid to the opposite side of the roof, ducking behind the peak. I was right behind her. A whole flurry of scarlet bolts whizzed by after me. Shitshitshit, now the stormtroopers had seen us. Now we really had to go. Suddenly that garden wall looked very, very far away.
Sannah made a motion like she was about to draw her lightsaber, but before she could I stopped her. "Wait, we can still get out of this. Call Ryke and tell him there's been a change of plans. We have to meet him on the other side of the grounds. Maybe over near that far corner, behind the tree. Tell them to hurry."
Comprehension sparked in her eyes— or maybe it was a reflection of the blasterfire— as she nodded. As she made the call, I closed my eyes and took some deep breaths. Lessons from the Academy echoed in my mind. Listen to your breathing. Feel the Force. Block out the distractions. The Force is everything, and everything is the Force. My tendrils waved in the air like fronds as the Force's cool clean smell-taste washed over and through me. I could feel the tension between my shoulder blades and down along my spine as the power began to build.
I looked over at Sannah. "You ready?"
She gave me a tight, eager smile. "Ready as I can be, Heatstroke."
Okay then, here goes everything. I stood up and looked over the side of the roof. The YVH was almost to the peak, crawling upwards through the storm of blaster bolts like a rhino surrounded by mosquitos. It looked up at me with that expressionless skull face, red photoreceptors boring into my soul. It brought its free arm up, and I heard a shrill whining as its blaster cannon charged to fire. The moment seemed to freeze in time as I gathered the Force within me.
Then I grabbed Sannah tight around the waist with my left hand, focused on the YVH droid, and Pushed with everything I could bring to bear.
Physics ensued.
We shot off backwards into the air with a crunch of shattering tiles and a cloud of dust. The YVH howled an electronic curse as it lost its grip and slid backwards off the roof, its massive metal skeleton shattering wood and clay alike. The droid's howl was echoed by Sannah's sudden scream of terrified joy as she clutched onto me for dear life. I let out an excited shout too, feeling my tendrils whipping in the wind as we rose into our arc. My whole body sang with adrenaline and the Force. The world was a hurricane of joy and relief and adrenaline and vengeance. You're terminated, fucker!
A shift of my weight flipped us around as we started to descend, soaring silently over the garden. A few bewildered stormtroopers looked up and fired at us, but we were too small, too fast, and too dark against the night sky. We arced down out of the air, wind clawing at us, whistling toward the ground like a laughing meteor. The wall was coming up fast—
I shoved my hands forward and Pushed off the ground again, weaker this time. We bounced slightly in the air and sort of tumbled sideways over the wall, with only inches to spare. Sannah let go and dropped into a hedge while I rolled to a stop in the dirt, scuffed and bruised but not too badly damaged. The adrenaline must have taken most of the impact, because I wasn't feeling a thing— even the rib was barely an ache.
Within moments the getaway landspeeder pulled up in a whine of engines. Ryke leaped out in full gleaming Jensaarai armor, bundled us inside, and we were halfway to the Cloudburst's docking bay before we even heard sirens. Despite the failure, and our narrow escape, I wasn't actually feeling that bad about the situation. We hadn't gotten Occlus' holocron, and we were battered and bruised and brutalized in half a dozen different ways, but we were all still walking away intact. Occlus wasn't too happy, but she was never happy. And not even she could say I hadn't held my own out there.
Now was the time to regroup. If we could get back out past Bastion's shield gate, obviously. There's always something, isn't there?
NOTES: Yep, we're back. Now that my graduate coursework for this semester is done, I'm going to try to finish this book by Christmas. That means one new chapter or interlude coming out fast and hot, every day until Christmas Eve. All in preparation for the release of The Gardener's Tale Holiday Special, right on
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- Location
- America
Plagueis part one you mean?
- Location
- Alaska
Oops, my error. Fixed.
- Location
- The INTERNET!
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
I could hear Billy Dee Williams delivering this line as plain as day, 10/10 smooth motherfucking murderbot.