As she lowered her wrist from her lips, the assassin continued following the stretched speeder as it rocketed skyward defying reason and sense as it headed away from any of the traffic lanes. She narrowed her eyes in thought as she worked out a reason of her own, tapping several times at the comm device on her descending wrist, tuning out the chaotic hums and churning machinery of cargo transports making their way toward the Works behind her. “Why would you return to the scene of the crime Director….” She said to herself, reaching out with the Force to pull her saber to her from where it had clanged to an abrupt halt.
She could only assess that the man was hell bent on something that she couldn’t identify, something that would take him back to Ladshan Domestic, something that had afforded her time to ensure his demise as she waited patiently for own speeder to arrive. With a grin taking her lips by force she felt the thundering angst within blossom with vivacious gratitude, the involuntary pull toward the Dark energies of the Force around her flooding her resolve as she forged the mental path she would take to cut off her prey’s escape. A signature whine overcame the harsh dull monotony of the transport vessels that chugged at their own leisurely pace behind her, and she flipped herself into the air, landing delicately behind the yoke of her summoned speeder.
With a clarity she had come to relish, one that fueled her insatiable aggression, she slammed the throttle forward and angled the vessel upward. “Ladshan Domestic, 9034.” She said aloud, the speeders navigational assist monitor providing an unobstructed route without hesitation. She authored the ship back to its own control, following the designated route as she slid over to the passenger side of the craft for quick extrication. “Infuse my blade with your deadly precision, guide my hand with definitive accuracy and provide me victory, my chains are long since broken…” She whispered to the air, tickling the hilt of her saber at her waist, and placing her feet beneath her in a coiled spring of determination.
She spotted the elongated speeder as it emerged from within the building, a stow away lamp from the apartment itself clinging to the side of the vessel as gravity held it fast to the side of the highly polished, and now heavily damaged, escape vessel. With maneuvers too precise and fast, it turned from its trajectory, causing the lamp and other collected refuse to plummet to the streets far below their position, shooting forward with surprising speed in an angle the assassin would need to compensate for. She lept back into the pilots’ seat and restored manual control, throttling the smaller speeder in a direct path behind her target, yet still avoiding any of the space lanes that would have slowed the chase to an assured and quick victory.
She realized the vector they were traversing was taking them in a full sweep of the smaller residential district and back toward the Works from the East. She also realized the trajectory would allow the larger speeder more maneuverability and an open throttle of its own. She narrowed her green eyes as she pushed her own craft well beyond its threshold in an attempt to close the distance between the two, a chortled gasp from the forward thrusters forced her into an involuntary improvisation. She eyed the navigational display quickly and locked its software onto the signal of the vessel ahead of her, tethering her own craft to mirror its movements and rose from the seat with a hand on the windscreen, ripping the dark hood from her head and flaying her red curly hair flat in the terminal winds behind her. She kicked the auto pilot switch on as she swung a leg over the windscreen and willed herself forward over the flat expanse of the speeders forward section.
Jade fought the urge to return to the seat immediately as she pulled at the Dark energies all around, infusing herself to the breaking point with its determined embrace, eliminating any doubt in her own abilities as it suffused her consciousness with the resolution to finish what she had started. She opened a hand before her through the forceful winds of her forward progress and willed the racing craft ahead of her into her grasp, while supplying her stance with the foundation of her own obstinance, a rock-solid footing despite the breakneck speed. She could feel her hands wrapping around the tail end of polished black durasteel while she pulled herself and her own speeder faster to close the distance. She felt the framework of the vessel underfoot shudder as well as the building heat sourced by the thrusters that were becoming volatile and doomed to fail, plummet them both to a certain death.
With a final surge of stolen energy, Jade pulled again at the slowing speeder ahead of her, ready to close the distance with a timely, if ill advised, leap. The tandem pursuit entered the Works in a blur of motion, erected utilities that once serviced conduits of elevated power passed by in a staccato of imagery that only presented new ways to die. Seconds before the thrusters in her speeder finally failed, engulfing the rear of the doomed vessel in a comet like ball of flame, Jade made the leap that her mind had fabricated, coming to rest with solid footing on the rear expanse of metal that she had foreseen.
Without letting another precious second pass, she clung for her own life to a cosmetic bar of polished chrome directly behind the rear facing window, raised her opposing hand activating her pommeled saber and buried it into the tinted panel with a dedicated crash of shattered glass inward. With only a moment to ascertain her quarry she found the only occupants lying in the center of the rear compartment, both unmoving or responsive. Jade quickly looked forward seeing no one at all piloting the speeder. She couldn’t believe the fortune that had delivered her this bounty, fresh for the taking.
Just as quickly she lost sense of what seemed so assured as the speeder rotated furiously clockwise tearing at the tenuous grasp she tried to maintain. Centrifugal force held the unconscious occupants within in place as she was torn from her senses and her connection to the Force with a complete disarray of her determined focus. What was certain seconds earlier evaporated as she tried to reign in enough focus just to simply hang on and fight off the encroaching unease coursing through her bones, each one threatening to snap where they were from the increasing forces upon them. ‘Surely this will kill the occupants as well!!’ The thoughts seemed rational, although her mindset had already switched gears beyond any thoughts of success and into the realm of her own survival.
She had only seconds to realize where they were, finding some solace, as well as reassurance, in their trajectory toward the Limerge building ahead. The repurposed facility looming large beyond the cess pools of waste water and detritus left after decades of neglect. She had but an instant to react as she released her right hand from the rear windows frame, letting the blood run freely for a second from a gash she hadn’t even remembered, and slammed hard on her left wrist, activating a secondary call for assistance.
The maneuver proved costly as they whisked over the pools Eastern breach, her left hand began to slip from the mooring it had held upon the chrome bar, a finger loosening its grip from the violent twisting, then her hand completely just as a pulse of painful electricity shot through the outer cage of the speeder. Jade trained her focus solely on her descent and survival, angling her body downward with a slender profile into the slimy waters beneath her. She concentrated on reinforcing the erected energy field around her as its brackish surface gleamed of disease and contagion, knowing her bones would obliterate if she didn’t. She closed every orifice she could as her body slapped at the oils and congealing foreign materials just below its surface, her body skidding across for a full one hundred meters before the substance finally embraced its trophy, pulling her under its heavy surface with deliberate purpose.
Jade didn’t waste any time assessing her surroundings nor with observations of what were obvious injuries, focusing entirely on pulling herself with quick strokes toward the oily pool’s edge. As her head broke the surface she gulped in a mouthful of air and spotted the closing gates of the Limerge building to her left, its light snuffing itself out as the enormous gateway fit itself back into a restful state. She let herself relax somewhat to promote her own buoyancy as she waited as patiently as possible for her retrieval. Within seconds another vessel thundered its approach overhead, repulsors chugging with authority as they peeled the oils away from her scalp.
Jade looked up to see the underside of her heavily modified X4 opening its narrow belly hatch and a receding cable dangle through for her retrieval. She shot an arm up to grab the hook at its end as it switched directions, pulling her from the muck and slime with an audible pop and the slurp of her exit from the putrid cess pool. Jade let the contrivance carry her to the ships underside as she tried spotting the offending speeder that had ejected her without mercy, finding it disappearing over the dormant stacks and roofs of desiccated factories to her left. Reaching the lip of the vessels access hatch she pulled herself the remainder of the way through and stripped the oily clothing from her while teetering over to a subordinate control panel and relayed her quarries information into the X4’s navigational control.
Damning herself for splaying the panel in oils and questionable greases, she punched in a series of keys that would send her gunship on an intercept course before heading directly to the maintenance heavy flush stall and ridding herself of the nausea inducing chemicals that ran in oily striations down her body. She braced herself against the tiny enclosures’ rigid walls as the hot water scorched the detritus from her. “Retrieve my things from my robe and burn all the clothing.” She stated directly as she kicked her boots free and yanked the remainder of the underlying suit off of her entirely.
“Task complete….” A deep and heavily modulated voice responded as a humanoid looking protocol droid, in a muted a dull black from head to metallic foot responded to the unquestionable directive.
“Return them to my quarters.” Jade said without emotion, jogging free of the stall and up a short ladder with short bounds. She grabbed a dry towel from a simple rack in the central hub of the gunship and dark robe from the doorway to her quarters, patting at her body rapidly on her way to the forward cockpit, feeling the ship lurch in varying directions with each second that passed.
“Let’s try this again.” Jade stated as she dumped herself in the pilots’ seat of the vessel, knowing the speeder she was tracking was now well within her grasp. She focused on the signal that pinged within her navigational display, ignoring the rivulet of blood that seeped from the crease between thumb and finger on her left hand, ignoring the creaking of her bones and protests from her internal organs and throttled the heavily armed gunship toward certain victory, only a few seconds away.
✦
Shuum Katoe swiped at a Cros fly that had landed annoyingly on the edge of his snout, yet not giving it the attention it clearly desired as he poured over his ships manifest for the last time. Devoid of any trust he would offer Sulfyr Ore’s loading droids, he was certain there were at least three discrepancies between what he had purchased and what was loaded into the bowels of his heavy YV-929, despite the ordeal that had taken most of the evening to complete.
On the verge of hunting down the chief yards’ liaison, his ears perked up from beside his head as they picked up the strangest sound he had ever heard. Momentarily loosing track of the Ciptinu ore discrepancy, he tried to place it somewhere between a Rogits hound and a clan of malnourished Dubaks, finding neither a credible source that could be found anywhere on Coruscant, minus the zoo of course, but that was half a world away. He tried to focus his rather acute eyesight toward the horrid sounds that didn’t make sense, finding a screaming, heavily damaged and elongated speeder cresting the roof of the closest warehousing complex.
“How odd….” Shuum commented, his eyes fixated on the path the speeder was taking just as its starboard thruster burst into flame from a hail of thick green energy bolts, its pursuer making itself known as an X4 sailed in closely behind, skimming the warehouse briefly with its underside and tearing small sections of rusting sheet metal free in the process. The curiosity began to morph into hesitant apprehension as the speeder began to decant from its trajectory and line itself up with the massive rear cargo bay doors of his heavy hauler. Shuum positively burst from his stitched britches when the sub light array of his vessel began churning at the stale air before them with bright blue indications of online reactors.
He dropped the manifest from his hands completely, forgetting that had ever had any complaints as the ship thundered and shuttered beside him, lifting off from the solid tarmac of Sulfyr Ore’s loading tarmac without him. “Hey!” He shouted to anyone that would listen, finding only the closest loading droid pausing within its subroutine to wait on the ship to return to its designated coordinates in order to finish its task. It turned to him and squawked awkwardly, waiting for the Klatooinian to return his ship to its landing pads. Another brief flurry of energy bolts roused him from his stupefied reverie as it haphazardly pounded into the outer hull of his freighter and into the solid meters deep duracreet of the tarmac itself.
Shuum dived for cover behind a solid looking crate of unrefined and unidentified ore that was twice his size just as one of the bolts removed the head of the waiting loader droid. He twisted his head once he landed to see the speeder slowing only somewhat before it disappeared into the confines of his ship with a raucous that caused him to cover his delicate ears. The ships repulsors fired violently as its sub light reached critical mass, flooding the tarmac with a deafening thunder that stole his hearing altogether. “Not here!” He yelled as loud as he could, yet not able to hear a word he just uttered. With a jolt to the ground below his feet, Shuum was knocked back and could only watch as the ship lifted from the ground with a series of spine cracking vibrations. ‘I am sorry I ever complained!’ He thought to himself as the ship began to cant skyward with a slow forward progression. The pursuant ship coursing overhead in a blur released another flurry of blaster fire that ricocheted harmlessly off the freighters heavy hull plating as it passed by and rocketing right out of view again.
Shuum was watching his ship close its immense rear cargo bay hold while reaching at the crates edge to pull himself to his feet once again, noting the angling of the pursuing vessel to attempt another pass. He couldn’t fight back the lunacy of the image he was witnessing, watching helplessly as the vessel that hadn’t even been paid for outright was being stolen and someone else determined to destroy it. He had no idea if these would be his last moments as his vessel had reached whatever trajectory was intended just before he felt the shudder and vibrations of the sub light array fire with authority, clearing the tarmac like a giant broom from its superheated wash. His crate held fast as it was pinioned to the duracreet slab out of purpose, a purpose he would quickly realize as the pursuant gunship unleashed a hail of blue streaks from its forward tubes in a final effort to stop his departing freighter.
Shuum closed his eyes tight and prayed to whatever deity would listen as he gripped the backside of the crate with all his strength. His hearing returning at least partially with the registry of his own hyperdrives pinging with excited fury. ‘All nine of them!’ He thought to himself incredulously. He was close to damning his own safe harbor just to witness what his mind was telling him was transpiring, but common sense had gotten him this far in life, thank you very much, and relishing the choice decision as the ship shot from existence just as the launched torpedoes sped through the now vacant air and thundered the tarmac with destructive force.
Through a whirlwind of fire and raining debris, Shuum clung tight to himself in a fetal position at the base of the stoic crate, deaths hellfire flaring in all directions but his but only for a moment before the cool dark of night cascaded the scene into a mass of burning destruction and cinder. Shuum patted himself several times over to ensure that he wasn’t dreaming or imagining the nightmarish prospect, finding only himself beneath each sharp slap. A nagging impulse to open an eye won over the common sense and rationality urging him to keep them closed, finding trails of fire, burning refuse and the area clear of every obstacle but the crate that had been pinioned to the tarmac. Both ships were gone, the facade of Sulfyr Ore’s main warehouse was entirely blanketed in flames and there were no signs of any of the loading droids that had, at one point, numbered into the seventies.
Through a nod of his own devise, Shuum dropped to his knees and began thanking every deity that he could remember across all the worlds his business had taken him that may have been responsible for hearing his prayer.
✦
“This is insane...what is he doing?” Areti refused to seat herself, bounding up and down on her heels with every word.
“His duty,” Kallus responded, watching the tiny view of the rear facing cam within the speeders front dash just as movement whisked past the screen and changed its projection, at N’dali’s insistence upon the array inset in the rear cabins ceiling liner. They all watched as Coburn’s motionless body lay in Audenhoen’s cradling embrace, the man soundlessly conveying what effects he could finally entertain over the callousness of his demise. Rightly, N’dali cut the feed and explored several other options including a rear facing perspective that found Walker’s pursuer hadn’t given up so easily. N’dali manipulated the speeders control and broke free of the dwelling, enacting a sweeping and divergent curve that brought them back toward the Judicial district and in line with the Works.
“We will find passage off planet there.” N’dali said through CC-7’s vocater, already contriving a method to do so. Several ships flagged positive as they were either loading or unloading wares within the span of several kilometers of one another, but she was searching under very particular criteria, finding only one vessel that fit her metrics currently loading on the vast tarmacs of Suflyr Ore’s Coruscant operations. She quickly brought up the massive plant’s schematics and displayed them in the upper right screen.
“By the stars, that woman is insane!” Areti continued her evocations, noting, with an extended finger toward the rear facing view, the red hair windswept behind her back and the probing green eyes that delivered a laser like focus.
“Who is she?” Kallus was more concerned with identity than heroics, although he couldn’t deny the woman’s panache.
“Unknown.” N’dali responded, “I will endeavor to find out though.” Ensuring Kallus that the reborn Thebeskan had already captured some form of digital image and was probably already working some subroutine to do just that.
They all witnessed the leap, even N’dali, through CC-7’s vocater elicited a sharp gasp. “It seems improvisation will have to keep step with this woman’s actions.” N’dali commented as she accessed the stabilizer on the speeders flight control and enacted a tight patterned barrel roll at maximum velocity. The adamant pursuer improvised herself by clutching at a bar out of view of the cam, each of them noting the pace of travel as they watched the woman’s mouth tug open at odd angles and her eyes lose focus every few seconds.
“N’dali, Audy won’t survive those forces if you continue much longer!” Areti shouted as she turned her head from the view, quite a few shades of color draining from complexion as she gagged several times.
“Nonsense, the unconscious body can sustain more force than a conscious one. He will be fine.” N’dali responded, both Kallus and Areti looking toward one another.
“He needs to be awake for any exchange in vessels off planet N’dali!” Areti shouted, daring to return her gaze to the nausea inducing whirling of the cams view.
“In fact, he does, something I have already accounted for...hold please.”
Areti rolled her eyes into the back of her head, remembering how frustrating the Thebeskan could be. Kallus turned his gaze to hers and mouthed the statement, ‘hold please?’ followed by a quizzical shoulder shrug.
N’dali began burning through the speeder’s auxiliary and reserve fuel sources, accessing increased velocity through countermeasures, and pushing the craft well beyond its designated limits just as it breached the outer walls of the Works. The dizzying barrel rolls finally had their intended affect coupled with a short burst of rerouted power into the ship’s solid hull, spilling the daring intruder into the muck of the old reservoir below. With a satisfying lurch, the view began to right itself with a final and finely tuned roll that leveled the craft evenly with the skewed oily residue the view provided.
“She’s gone!” Areti barked her enthusiasm, only to be cut short but N’dali’s electronic warble.
“Not so fast, she has commenced a secondary signal, and we will be pressed for time if another vessel responds quickly enough to aid her.” N’dali updated them as she began overriding protocols on the freighter of her choice. “Her name is Jade, if that means anything to either of you.”
Both Kallus and Areti looked to one another for any sign of validation or confirmation, both of them obviously unfamiliar with the name.
“She has accessed an X4 heavy gunship and has reacquired our signal. She is in pursuit.” N’dali said for the benefit of the humans in the room, concentrating the sum of her focus on firing up the sub light engines and repulsors of the YV-929.
“This woman is determined, I will give her that.” Kallus noted, his eyes glued to the speeders rear facing view just as a barrage of white light filled the cams receptor on the distal end. “What the hell was that?”
“That was light laser fire, her mission is quite obvious.” N’dali responded quickly.
Another tight group of flashes spanned the screen, the view providing a noted lurch before it displayed nothing but static. “The cam is compromised, as is the starboard thruster. The speeder is stable enough.” N’dali commenced for their benefit alone. “Lower left screen.”
Kallus and Areti quickly switched views and watched as another view resolved with immediate action. Set deep with the confines of a vast cargo hold they watched the speeder careen into the open vessel with a skidding lurch, sparks flying profusely in all directions as the massive hold doors began to close. The speeder slashed its way through the cargo hold, knocking everything it contacted into a massive array of flaming debris and smoldering ores.
The view helped to ease the increasing squeamishness of Areti’s stomach with its form of stasis, only the trailing smoke of receding flames and unsettled debris any sign of life within the frame. “They will be off planet in a matter of seconds, but you may not want to watch this….” N’dali opined as she set the second phase of her rescue in motion.
Neither Kallus nor Areti tore their eyes from the screen as the speeder was suddenly encapsulated in a web of electrification, its volatile fingers dancing over the hull of the stationary vessel with a lethal embrace.
“By the dawn!!! Ouch!!!” A loud report sounded out from Areti’s makeshift audio device.
“N’dali, what are you doing!” Areti yelled, screaming toward the view, while on the tips of her toes.
“N’dali? Areti is that you?” She heard again from the improvised speaker, only now catching the Chalactan’s notice.
“Audio feed is two-way.” N’dali informed them all. “Director, it is highly advised that you get yourself, and anything else you deem necessary off that speeder and into the shuttle housed in its bay directly fore of your position. You have less than two minutes before Imperial response.”
“Move your ass Audy!! We’ll bring you home!!” Areti almost cried the words as she saw the door of the speeder fly open, the man’s foot clearly the reason why. She winced as she saw the obvious pain the man was in, never mind the garish shreds of metal imbedded in his back before he launched the deceased man over his shoulder and padded with a limp forward and out of view.
“Where am I going?” Audy stuck only to the basics, not wasting any energy on needless conversation.
“Just get in the shuttle, I’ll handle the controls. There is a small medical bay outfitted on the shuttle, do what you can to mend those wounds and we will have triage situated for your arrival.” N’dali all but ordered.
“Copy.” Audenhoen responded, N’dali switching views to an offering from inside the stated shuttle, displaying the man lying the deceased upon the med bays small bunk and strapping him in before turning to a set of surgical ceps and reaching behind himself with a drone aided assist.
“Inertia dampener is engaged, and I am sealing you in.” N’dali said as the tiny view of the man conveyed the pain he was clearly in, yanking vigorously as the ceps found purchase.
“You hit hyperspace from the planet’s surface didn’t you.” Audenhoen said.
“Yes.” N’dali replied earnestly.
“That was reckless.” He responded.
“No director, that was necessary. What were about to do is reckless…” N’dali conveyed.
“Why?? What are you about to do?” Areti turned to the droid with deep concern scribed into her already frantic features.
“Oh...oh my.” Kallus answered as the solution dawned on him. “N’dali has already assumed the freighter was tagged, or at the very least, traced.” He began pinching his chin between forefinger and thumb, “she would have already manipulated registry on the shuttle so it cannot be traced through Imperial channels…”
“For the love of…..” Audenhoen responded on his end.
“As I suggested, reckless. But, like the previous action, necessary. You need to remain dead Director.” N’dali inserted.
“What the hell am I missing?” Areti was both furious and frantic.
“I’ll either see you very shortly or I’ll be torn to shreds, my atoms strewn across dozens of star systems kid.” Audenhoen offered, staring discreetly at the decking under his bare feet.
“Areti, in order to remove him from a vessel that is currently traveling in hyperspace, with a forward-facing shuttle bay door mind you, he is going to have jump himself.” Kallus turned to her to spell out the downside to their engineered escape.