Private A Moment to Take Stock

[In Rhan]

Frankly, In was in awe of Niysha's ability to locate cool bugs and spot interesting birds. While she had no intentions of installing or maintaining a terrarium, she made a mental note that she'd be able to stock it with neat weasels if she gave Niysha the right motivation. And this planet was FULL of neat weasels. In was no expert, but it felt like half of the fauna they spotted were sleek, arrow-shaped, and rodent-adjacent.

"-and honestly, I don't think ferns get enough credit." In continued rambling as she pulled on some gloves and crouched down to carefully examine a dull purple berry hanging in bunches from a small plant. It looked fat and had matte coloring. Low as it was, it'd likely be ferret food if it agreed with their stomachs at all - but the amount of berries suggested it didn't. "For example, did you know they spore? No seeds. They produce spores that mature into self-fertilizing pseudo-plants called gametophytes." The Pantoran woman explained, carefully juicing the stubborn berry into a tube connected to an analysis machine.

The machine began to clack and whir, a small ring passing up and down over the tube. Fweeps, beeps, and a couple of squonks escaped the gizmo. "The ones we keep in the galley are what I make my shampoo out of. but they can also be used as a salve for coughing, asthma, and even some venomous bites." In continued to ramble, taking a knee in the underbrush.

The Gizmo chirped angrily a moment later. In gave it a smack. "Human blood? There's no way this can be right."

 

[Niysha]

As of this very day, Niysha now knew more about ferns than she ever had in the past. Gone was the time in her life when she could simply identify what looked like a fern pressed into a fossil sample; now she'd be able to determine the general base chemical of one from the pattern of its pinnules or the angle of its stipe. Truly she was blessed with a much greater wisdom than any living Miraluka on this exact planet.

Which... should have been a sample size of one.

In's gizmo and Niysha had both arrived at a similar conclusion in a similar timeframe. The gizmo noticed blood. Niysha noticed... life? Not nearby. Nearby was the imminently distinguishable aura of death. Fresh death, even. A life that had recently been ended, with the residual pain and fear that that entailed. She spotted the corpse about two meters away from In's feet, and raised her finger to point at it. "Over there. And be careful; it's dead, but I'm not sure what it is."

Her attention turned, though, to the life. Further off. She could sense it, but nothing was close enough to determine... what. Or how far. Pirates? They might have noticed on their approach... and even if she and In hadn't, the pirates surely would have. Unless they were... distracted. Niysha took a moment, set her jaw, and let herself slip away.

The world was tiny, in the grand scheme of things, but such a tiny thing could be so full of life. Without people around, emotions were few and far between, but the natural world was just as wild and dark as any civilized planet. Full of Need and Hunger and Desire, with virulent passions so pure they lacked words. Small spirits, entirely consumed with raw feelings and instincts, were so manifold that they practically washed away the aggregate memories and higher thoughts that up until recently comprised Niysha.

But those weren't the only thoughts and feelings. She swam deeper, tore through the wild, passionate, uncontained totality of the whole living planet around her to find more contained, defined thoughts like hers. The eidolon of In's construction was easy to spot, but there were others. Each was a beacon of darkness that varied in shade and depth. Most were simply jealous, greedy, fearful, but there was one...

Niysha fell back into herself with a start, staggering to brace herself against a tree. "...Pirates. Kind of."

In Rhan

 

[In Rhan]

THAT didn't make sense. If there was a body over THERE, why was the blood in the berry HERE? Unless the root system had somehow colonized the carcass, perhaps siphoning off the complex nutrients for-

Oh. There was a body right there. In glanced up from her gizmo and paled slightly. How had she missed it?

And how had she missed so many pirates?! In could have kicked herself, but it wouldn't have changed anything. "We need to get out of here, then." The Pantoran woman whispered despite their relative isolation, thumbing loose the strap on her holster. "No sense putting our lives at risk for the wease-"

Another gizmo on In's belt fweeped. As she brought it up, the handheld device informed her that she was no outside the safety range for her ship. In was in motion immediately, running out of the cover of trees and into a nearby field. They'd been hiking gradually up a mountain for most of the day, which meant she had a good view of the lake and her ship below.

Or, at least, a good view of her ship as it was carried off into lowe orbit by a salvage ship painted with Cartel colors. In gave an inarticulate sound of dismay, picked up a rock, and threw it in a fury. It came several kilometers short of the target.

Wordless anger. In slammed her boot into the sturdy trunk of a conifer, then threw another rock. "FffffFfFFKARABAST! MY SHIP!"

 

[Niysha]

In was in motion, so Niysha followed. Whatever was going on down the mountainside, it was far outside her field of view. She caught up to her very frazzled, extremely anxious partner's clear, vibrant aura, then took in the planet around her with her other senses. The feeling of "home" slipped away quickly, as did the roar of strange, not-Dancer engines. Sooo... they were marooned?

Not necessarily. In was far too angry to function right now, so Niysha took a moment and thought. Aloud, this time. It might help. "There are people on the planet. Fresh corpses means that they have a local stronghold. Local stronghold means they have a way of getting off-planet. If we hurry, we can use whatever surface-to-orbit craft they use to catch up."

If they could get back to the area with the bloodberry bush, Niysha could probably track any life signs back to whatever planetary structure they were using as a local base.

Time was of the absolute essence. Niysha set a small tracker on the backpack full of empty hydro trays from her belt, then took a couple of steps towards the forest and stopped to wait for In. "Come on!" The loudest her voice had ever gotten, slightly above conversational tone.

In Rhan

 

[In Rhan]

People - pirates. Niysha was right. As furious as In was, this wasn't unsolvable - and every minute she spent freaking out over it made it less likely she'd BE able to solve it. Niysha's tone brought her back, helped ground her. The Pantoran woman gave the flickering light of her ship being dragged off into space a baleful glare, then turned and jogged after Niysha.

Luckily, she still had her blaster, and enough supplies for the night. More importantly, enough batteries to keep the soft jizz playing from her belt speaker. The moment they didn't have music keeping them at bay, the curious little carnivores would no doubt swarm them looking for stimulation, treats, and eventually blood. Something to keep in mind for the pirates, whenever they located them.

In fell into brisk step beside Niysha, focused and stewing. "If they have a camp, they'll have some sort of music to keep the natives at bay." She speculated as she brought up a local map saved to her gizmo for hiking purposes. "Or their whole camp'll smell like burnt fur. You have better senses than I do, so keep a lookout for that. I'll look for good spots to hide an encampment."

 

[Niysha]

Niysha was too busy power-hiking towards the deeper parts of the treeline, through the path they'd gone through earlier to really stop and nod or confirm. That didn't stop her from talking. "Not a bad idea, but there's a faster way."

When they made it back to the corpseberry bush, Niysha stopped for only a second and concentrated deeply. Desperation was a powerful catalyst, and the Force was wild enough here that instinct was absolutely the right choice. Upon finding the fresh corpse, she followed the very first trail of life stronger than a rat leading from it and pointed decisively.

"That way. Not guessing," the Miraluka stated very simply, then started pushing at full speed through the underbrush. Her leg scraped on a vine pretty early, a second one on her midriff, but she didn't stop. "When we get within line of sight, be careful. I sensed a few people there, but one of them was a lot stronger than the others."

It wasn't uncommon for dark Jedi to sign on with pirate crews. And if so, In was in a ton of danger. For the moment, at least, they had the element of surprise, but if there was a trained Force-user in the ground crew, that wouldn't last for long. It was very, very hard to ambush a Jedi.

In Rhan

 

[In Rhan]

It wasn't hard to find the camp. About eight kilometers away, tucked into a small nook between two cliffs sat a tiny resupply base. A smuggler's hole that In guessed had been there for awhile and through more than one pirate crew - the structures were tucked too neatly into stone walls that had weathered around them, and pirates usually weren't the sort to do anything more ambitious than dropping pre-fabs into a slightly secure location. This'd likely been established by some ancient crew or guerilla force and reclaimed by criminals.

The pirates DID have enough signal-jamming equipment that In both recognized it at a glance at the large comms array, and no longer felt bad about not spotting the camp on a casual scan of this nowhere planet. There wasn't enough space to land anything larger than a shuttle - In's heart sank as she realized that they'd likely called a nearby crew to come pick up The Dancer when they realized it was nearby. Chances were, though, they'd expected the full crew complement of +/-20 people and come with appropriate guns. If they'd still been on the ship, she and Niysha wouldn't have stood a chance.

"Only one shuttle here." In hissed, laying in a thick shrub some distance away from the base. She peered through trinoculars, checking various spectrums and distances. "Base looks to be running from a subterranean fuel source. They have a refueling hook strapped to a speeder bike. I don't see the tanks. We could blow them if we find them, but..." She took stock of her weapons - a blaster, a machete, and a cool walking stick she'd found. "We might be better off running for the shuttle. If we can get it started and get out of here before anyone stops us, that'd be best. This is supply station, so it's not like they'll be abandoned forever."

 

[Niysha]

An eight kilometer hike wasn't nothing. Niysha had learned how to pace herself, but even with that, she was glad they brought supplies. By the time they'd come close enough that In could see anything, her calves were already starting to ache. Fortunately, one of the first things every apprentice - and padawan, she assumed - was taught was how to politely ignore the mundane limitations of one's body. It made exercise and athletics much less tedious. The simplest, most selfish, most rudimentary possible application of the Force.

They were still too far out for Niysha to be able to make anything out. When In stopped to take a peek through one of the vision devices that would be utterly useless to her, the Miraluka took a deep breath and did her own scouting. Getting a raw feeling for things and digging for premonitions was much more "guesswork" than following your instincts after picking up a trail, but it was relatively accurate guesswork when other Force-users were involved. Especially, Niysha had found, those who weren't super quiet about their existence.

Dark Jedi hired by pirates tended to like to spout off. They were less drops in the pond and more pebbles thrown with all their might.

It didn't take her long to confirm her suspicions. "At least one trained Force-sensitive down there. The general vibe seems to be greed, anger, and impulse, so we're probably not about to accidentally trip over a secret dispatch for the Wardens of the Sky or anything." She re-centered herself and turned to face In. "I'd say 'run if you see a lightsaber,' but I know you. So instead, I'm going to specify, as clearly as possible."

One hand on either of In's shoulders. Niysha made direct face-to-face contact and spoke with the closest thing to authority she'd managed all day. "In, run if you see a lightsaber. Please."

In Rhan

 

[In Rhan]

The force behind the insistence caught In slightly off-guard. She chuckled quietly, still crouched down in the bushes. "Love, in what universe would I see a lightsaber and NOT run in the other direction?" In quietly replied. The unforgiving weight of prophecy settled onto her shoulders. Not that it was real or anything.

For somebody who spent so much time and effort mentally denigrating herself, In was shockingly lacking in self-awareness sometimes.

In tucked her gizmos into her bag and hefted her blaster. "Stick with me. We go low, we go quiet, we steal the shuttle and get out of here." She reiterated, before leading Niysha down a narrow path towards the bottom of the valley - figuring Niysha couldn't climb especially well and also be sneaky. Which, in retrospect later, In would realize was hilariously presumptive of her.

As they drew close, In happened to spot a man relieving himself in a bush - away from the compound. She didn't hesitate to slam his head into a tree and drag him into the brush, trying to remain as quiet as possible.

Visualize your objective. See the vision cones. Then act swiftly.

 

[Niysha]

For the first time since they'd met, In and Niysha were both conscious and directed at the same hostile force. Honestly, "for the first time" full stop was probably more accurate, considering how aberrant both of them had been acting on Medi-Creen. In had been brave and reckless, gone along with everything without thinking for half a second. Niysha had been even more brave and reckless, charging into melee with zombies without worrying about her self-preservation. This time, neither was hopped up on adrenaline (or stricken dumb by infatuation, in In's case), and both could approach a pirate base with their full brain.

Niysha stepped in In's shadow and concentrated deeply. The tightrope she was about to walk was tricky, so she chose her batteries carefully. Fear was her standard, and always served her when she needed to hide, but here, obsession was relevant. She didn't fade into herself to scan her surroundings, but instead faded entirely into In's own presence. Her visual and audible footprint on the galaxy shrank and melded with In's, cloaking herself in the distraction of a single partner.

As they approached through the trees, Niysha expanded her vision away from her body, concentrating on the area ahead of them. She noted six people, and began preparing a way to deal with each of them. Having seen them once, it was exceptionally easy to maintain an awareness of where they were. And when she noted that there was an opening, she slinked forward with speed and purpose, bracing herself in the shadow of a small external reactor.

She wouldn't have long, of course, before someone's line of sight overlapped with her position. Her instincts told her the first threat would come from her right, up towards the lift, so rather than trying to protect that angle, she directed her attention towards the closest guard. Tall, broad, exactly what she'd expect. Heavily armed, but only a blast vest. Looked to be... Weequay? That was about right. His buddy nearby was much the same, though a little smaller.

Niysha waved her hand, and whispered extremely quietly. "It's lunchtime. You should swap out with the guys on the landing pad."

After a moment of dazed confusion, the larger Weequay approached his smaller companion and mumbled something in their language. Without further ado, both pirates walked up towards the lift, giving Niysha time and free space to change position to more secure cover behind a small building containing what was probably a power junction.

In Rhan

 

[In Rhan]

In didn't understand essentially any of the things Niysha did, but she didn't NEED to understand them - her trust was implicit, and she'd never been given reason to doubt this. The frizzy-haired Sith peeled away or disappeared, leaving In to figure things out. Currently, that meant staring at the back of a man's head while he smoked and trying to figure out if she wanted to try knocking him out or risk her odds on sneaking past him.

The Pantoran woman lingered in the shadows between a storage container and a chunk of electrical equipment, and while she might be able to tinker with the electrical boxes and create a little havoc - she sure couldn't with the guy leaning against them. The shortest path to the shuttle also meant going past him, which meant he'd likely eventually have to be dealt with anyway. Unfortunately for In, he was both large and well armored. She didn't like her chances in a fair fight, she didn't like them in an unfair fight, but she also didn't want to straight-up kill somebody if she didn't have to.

In leaned briefly against the shipping container and realized it was pulsing gently under her fingers - steady. Rhythmic. Lo-fi. Her eyes widened. If there was music inside the box-

In adjusted her hair wrap, then crept up on the grizzled-looking pirate enjoying a cigarette. He saw her a moment too late - he opened his mouth to raise an alarm, and the barrel of In's blaster went between his teeth before his hands could come up. He was quick enough to realize the score, or at least believe her willingness to kill him.

"Keys. Now." In hissed after dragging the pirate back into the shadows by the collar. He fumbled them over quickly as she relieved him of his blaster. Awkwardly holding her captive at gunpoint, In swiped the security credential blindly around the corner of the shipping container. It took her a moment to find the lock. With a chirp, the doors of the shipping container clanged open, and out poured a flood of melophobic mustelids, driven to a desperate frenzy by Rainy Naboo Street Traffic Sounds || Beats to Study or Meditate To.

In had only a moment to appreciate her carnage before somebody higher up in the compound raised an alarm and fired down at her. In dove for cover, leaving her captive to the ferrets.

 

[Niysha]

As expected, In dealt with problems in her own unique way. Niysha trusted implicitly that she could leave the Pantoran pilot to her own devices and she'd wind up both safe and successful; she had a pretty good track record. Plus, the scurrying, screaming rodents currently exacting their luddite revenge on one of the men downstairs was providing an impressive distraction. Whether or not In was going to have an easy time doing much from her position, Niysha needed to capitalize on this before the moment passed.

The time for stealth was over, so she needed to take a moment to find a direction in the chaos. For a long moment, Niysha took a seat and crossed her legs, fading from the madness into herself. Into the primal rush of a jungle world. Infinite tiny souls spiraling into the wailing hurricane of the Force. In the last moments of her existence as a single, shaped entity, the bits and pieces of experience and desire that comprised the memory of Niysha took hold of her body's immediate surroundings.

An infinite galaxy had infinite possibilities. The galaxy was an illusion, paritioned from the primal, eternal everything that was the Force. And in that partition - that fundamental deceit that every mortal told - there was only one truth: if the Force was infinite then so too was any individual part of it. Infinity led itself to order only briefly, the logic of any single moment fading as the moment passed, replaced by a new reality in the next. A single moment was held together by the most ironclad possible truth, and ripped apart in just the same way. And now, that ironclad truth was...

Niysha returned to her body with a quiet gasp, then reached down beside her and picked up a rock. Without hesitating, she stood from cover and hurled it full-force up towards the landing pad above. Just as it was about to reach the apex of its flight, a flock of birds passed by. The rock harmlessly beaned off one of them, sending the whole flight into a snit. The men on the platform were already firing blasters, so they made for easy and accessible targets for the dozens upon dozens of screaming avians to descend upon.

Under a cloud of angry crows, Niysha took off at a dead sprint. There were a few men remaining at the base of the lift, and the two that she'd sent up earlier were actively descending to deal with the intruders. Shame about the mind trick, but she had other options. In a panicked dash, the Miraluka made it to her next bit of cover and ducked behind just in time to avoid blaster fire.

Her instincts found... a crate.

After just a second or two, when there was a momentary break, she reached out with one hand and collapsed the distance between herself and destiny by a bit. She could only pull the crate towards her for a moment before another stray blaster bolt pinged way too close to her head for comfort. By the time she'd ducked back into cover, though, the chaos had returned.

That crate was on top of another, on top of another, on top of another. All were full of some kind of... ground meal? Feed? For the ferrets that these men were clearly exporting off-planet. The whole stack collapsed in a mound atop the man closest to Niysha's improvised cover, burying him in a pile of foul-smelling and probably highly flammable insect meal.

In Rhan

 

[In Rhan]

The situation had devolved. There was a full-on firefight happening, weasels everywhere, and now a flock of noisome birds had descended in all their fury. In had no idea why. Perhaps they had gangland beef with the ferrets? She tried not to spend too much time considering this as a pair of pirates pinned her with suppressive fire, plasma pinging off of her improvised cover.

There was a brief pause in the firing. In used the barrel of her blaster to get a look from behind cover - two men in an elevated position. The moment she poked her head out, they'd see and blow it off. She needed to get out of view.

Thinking quickly, In snatched one of the snarling mustelids trying to gnaw through her boots up by the neck and lobbed it in the vague direction of her assailants like a grenade. There was a confused expletive, and then screaming - PERFECT. Firing wildly, In bolted from cover and into one of the pirate habitats, directly into the arms of an extremely Balosar. The two went tumbling into the barracks, crashing through a couple of hastily-constructed cots.

When they came up from the tussle, In had her blaster drawn and pressed to the man's gut, his antennapalps in a death grip. On his back, the man's blaster was right between In's eyes. They lingered for a moment, the sound of stomping, screeching, and yelling nearby.


"Alay! Alayalayalay - Hagwa yatuka." The Balosar eventually broke the deadlock, flicking the safety on his blaster.

In did not, though she did grasp his palps less brutally. "Laka-wanna wunga? Chee boff moocha ma dyst."

"Dopo me goolana. Cheeba no lofi beats, ranna runga ferrets. Jee koza yako, wata alay tee-tocky. Boska jee foo uba?" The Balosar man pleaded, setting his gun aside and pressing his hands together.

In considered for a moment, but compassion won out. Nobody should be subjected to chill beats to work-slash-study to for that long. The Pantoran woman climbed up, offering him a hand up. "Fine. Don't make me regret this. Let's go." She warned, before offering a smile and his gun back. "Try not to kill anyone if we don't have to."

"I'm a bad shot." The Balosar promised awkwardly. "At your back, Captain."

 

[Niysha]

The lift was still coming down. Niysha could see a lot of things from her position - a half-dozen men left on the ground, another dozen up on the platform - but the thing that had her undivided attention was how many thugs were riding the lift. It was hard enough without reinforcements ruining the day. That was the focus of the moment, then. She curled up behind her cover and spread herself out. Lifts had power wires, follow the pulse...

Down to the lower control panel and power junction. It was about five meters away. Without hesitating, powered by urgent anxiety, Niysha took off at a dead sprint. She slid into cover behind the junction box just in time for the plasteel plating to eat a couple of blaster shots. Reaching down to her belt, the galaxy's least-violent Sith pulled out a spanner and opened up the power relay's front panel. From there, she had a vague idea of what she was doing and a strong instinct.

Vague idea: In had taught Niysha several things about the Dancer's wiring while they were fixing the electronics bay after the solar jump. She knew juuuust enough to know which one was the primary feed from the solar batteries and which one was labeled "lift." Strong instinct: after yanking a cable from a secondary feed out completely, she hooked the main power to the lift, flipped two switches that felt right, and then slammed the breaker. The effect was immediate and dramatic.

The lift reversed extremely rapidly.

The platform caught on the runners at the top, but the now dozen-odd men who were riding on it were catapulted up into the air at random angles. Several of them flew through the flock of birds, others fell back to the landing pad, still others were unfortunate enough to take the full fall into the thick jungle below. Most would probably be fine.

Niysha flipped the switches the other way and yanked out that line, then replaced it where it was. The lift coasted gently down at its normal speed. It'd be ready to ride all the way up in less than a minute. The blaster fire around her had stopped, probably as the men were either confused by what happened with the lift, or were being shot at by In and her new friend.

In Rhan

 

[In Rhan]

In and her new henchman crept out of the barracks and into chaos. She was nearly flattened by a man falling from the sky - the lift appeared to have gone berserk. Likely Niysha's work. The Pantoran woman beamed with pride, before charging from cover towards the foot of the lift - using a folding kitchen table as a makeshift shield to barrel down a pirate and drive him away from the lift platform.

"Choonga! The sound controls!" In barked over her shoulder as she began advancing on a remaining marauder.

The Balosar defector scuttled over to the control panel while In blocked shots, his eyes lighting up. He wrapped his hands around the volume dial as though embracing a long-lost lover, inhaling deeply. The moment, it was finally here. At long last. he sighed with bliss. "Mana oot nichee bolo."

And he turned the volume down past 0 into the negatives and twisted the knob off. The departure of lowkey Laid-Back Corellia Phunk Droidpop Rainy Day Mix Vol 19 left only deafening silence. Wind blew though the pines. A bird squeaked nearby.

And then came the weasels who'd been kept at bay by the music swarmed into the compound like a great wave, crawling down from the treetops and out of their burrows. Like a great tongue trying to clear something from teeth, they would be kept at bay no longer and set upon their grim task with fantastic enthusiasm.

The pirate In was brawling with cut and ran for cover, suction cups allowing him to scrumple up a flagpole with surprising speed. In grabbed her recruit and ran for the lift, thrown up onto the descending lift by the Balosar - whom she then helped pull up to safety. "NIYSHA!" In shrieked into the din, blocking a stray blaster bolt with her shield. "TIME TO GO!"

Unfortunately, several meters behind Niysha came the iconic snap-hiss-purr of a lightsaber igniting. Furious and trying to retain dignity despite the crow in her hair and stench of burnt ferret about her stood a glaring Cathar woman - visibly seething, barely out of her teens. "Found one of you rats." She snarled, dropping into an offensive stance in preparation to leap. "Step away from the switches. It is time to die."

 

[Niysha]

Much like the men who worked and lived here, Niysha'd become accustomed to the music rather quickly. Its silence was jarring, but the rising tide of quiet squeaking into a cacophony of rodent squeals replaced that very quickly. Two and two together, it wasn't difficult to figure out what happened. Months, possibly years of casual abuse by a bunch of part-time poachers had built up into an ancestral hatred. The pirates would likely be very safe... if they were aboveground.

In took to the lift, and Niysha waited until both her partner and her partner's new partner were safely on-board before she ripped the bottom two cords out of the box and slammed it shut. She could make that jump pretty easily, but the rats would have a much harder time. It was clearly time to leave, so Niysha stood and turned towards the lift with full knowledge of what was behind her.

"Dark Jedi" was a pejorative. The Jedi used it to condemn those whose methods they disagreed with. The Sith used it to refer to untrained, unschooled darksiders whose emotions were too wild to be effective. "Freelance" darksiders. It was shameful to be confused for one by most Sith, but greater was the indignation that they felt when dark Jedi were confused for them. Apparently, to sighted species, it was as simple as looking at the color of a lightsaber blade; red meant dark, all other colors were Jedi. Niysha had her own ways of telling the difference between auras, but the effect was the same.

The Cathar behind her was untrained. She might've been a Jedi who failed or a rogue Force-sensitive that had been poorly taught. Regardless, her power was mild. Chances were she knew just a few simple, aggressive techniques and might have had a bit of lightsaber practice. When she heard the sound behind her, Niysha calmly turned towards it. One thing was crystal clear: they would not have an easy time leaving with a Force-user on their tail. There were a few ways to deal with this... but Niysha didn't really have the time to think about them with the ferret tide washing towards them. She reached behind her to her belt and pulled out her lightsaber. "I don't really have time to play right now," she replied blithely to the threat. Her response was punctuated sharply by her own weapon's ignition, and Niysha settled into a uncommitted defensive stance. "I'll try not to kill you, but under the current circumstances, I really can't make any promises."

That... didn't really seem to be what the Cathar wanted to hear. She screamed and charged immediately, slamming a dramatic overhead swing into Niysha's guard. Both red sabers stopped right above the Miraluka's face. Her wrist locked tight, her attention focused sharply on the young lady in front of her, but her mind was preoccupied. She couldn't divert her gaze right now to make sure In was running away like she'd told her to, so all she could really do was hope and focus on the fight.

Niysha was keenly aware that she was running out of time. The ferrets were keeping away from them for now, but it was only a matter of time before one of them got brave...

In Rhan

 

[In Rhan]

In heard the distinct clash of lightsabers making contact. The flash of red made it easy to spot Niysha amidst the chaos below. And it WAS chaos - the pirate crew had turned on themselves, unsure who was to blame for the animal uprising or capitalizing on the confusion to settle grudges. Between these moments of violence, streams of ferrets poured from the earth seeking vengeance while crows still swooped the scene. They'd begun to retaliate for being hit with a rock, but had since moved on to simply looting and causing havoc for the sake of it.

In judged the drop, took a couple of steps back, getting ready to depart the slowly rising elevator - only for the Balosar to grab her wrist. "Lan chee joo na! Wata lontu!"

In pulled back slightly, offering a broad, reassuring smile. "Fidara nee chee, Choonga. Lakka canna?" She requested, giving his arm a pat. "Let's get out of here."

He hesitated, then nodded. In vaulted from the platform and into the fray, protected by her shield and courage - but mostly by speed - leaving a slightly love-struck Balosar in her wake.


The Cathar roared with fury, pressing down on Niysha through their clinch. "You were a SITH?!" She hissed, eyes alight with anger and... delight? "I should have known that a blind woman couldn't create this much havoc. I'll do the galaxy a favor and wipe your stain from MY Force!"

Untrained, but driven by anger and righteous indignation, the Cathar pressed the attack. With zero subtlety, the Cathar was Niysha's logical opposite - dumb strength, speed, and blind sanctimonious confidence. Her rudimentary saber training had been mostly basic blocks and effective simple strikes, and she made use of the latter by bringing her saber down repeatedly on Niysha's block as though she were hammering a nail into an especially stubborn board with a sledgehammer. While one certainly didn't expect the third, fourth, or even fifth identical overhand strike - they sure weren't prepared for the sixth. And the sixth one was key, since the Cathar followed it up by attempting to rake her meticulously-sharpened claws across her opponent's face and neck.


Some distance away, In had found her way into the crane used to load and offload cargo on the landing pad. As it already had a bucket of (rain)water ready to go, the Pantoran woman was carefully negotiating about ten thousand litres of scuzzy standing water above the dueling Sith...

 

[Niysha]

' Six '

Definitely a rogue, trained by a rogue. This poor kid was too rudimentary to even be a padawan dropout or failed apprentice. Niysha weathered the hammerbeat of overhead swings carefully. Her wrists would tire quickly when dealing with that much brute force applied that consistently, but fortunately, her opponent was predictable in the extreme. Niysha wasn't a terribly experienced saber duelist - her weapon was more a tool than anything - but she had one major advantage going for her. Lightsabers were functionally large sticks of white-hot energy in the purest possible form. Nothing was clearer to her from any angle or deviation.

Except, possibly, In making impressively fast and brave mistakes all across the scaffolding and over towards a crane. Niysha's gaze followed that crane, arrived at the vat it was holding, and formulated a plan. When the sixth strike came down, the one that she felt in her gut that she should watch out for, she altered her grip appropriately to deflect it to one side, rather than taking it straight-on. In the same motion she followed it down, ducking under the girl's claws.

There was a Sith heart beating somewhere in that chest; for once in her adult life, Niysha considered it a point of pride to illustrate the difference between herself and a random angry child with a lightsaber. That anger that she'd felt bearing down on her was messy and unfocused. Niysha's own had been tempered into fury and wrath, far more direct and powerful than a child's temper tantrum. One of them had met opposition they couldn't trample in seconds; the other had had their home stolen from them a couple of hours ago and was staring at a girlfriend who was recklessly endangering herself explicitly after Niysha had asked her not to.

The gulf between their passions was illustrated when Niysha's outstretched hand hammered the Cathar girl with a blast of Force energy so intense that it would've knocked the wind from a grown man's lungs. If she got the measurement right, she should've landed... riiiiight... beneath where that big vat of rainwater would spill if In tipped it over.

Still empowered, Niysha lept up and onto the power station in an uncharacteristically smooth backflip, then turned to face In and gave a thumbs-up motion. And, perhaps the most remarkable display of her impressive willpower: she did not trash talk once.

In Rhan

 

[In Rhan]

In responded with an affirmative 'Whoop!', slamming a toggle forward from the control booth of the crane. The confused Cathar first felt a couple of drops of water and duckweed land on her head. A heartbeat later, a deluge of opaque standing water fell in a potentially-lethal torrent directly on the furious warrior's head. Her lightsaber could only split the flow for a moment before it - and she - were washed away, along with a large amount of now wet, angry weasels.

Worst still, the water flowed down into their burrows and flushed them out to the surface. Howling with fury, the Cathar was washed through the base and into a growing heap of increasingly lacerated pirates - all of whom were becoming aware that the one transport on this rock was about to be stolen. Those who had the ability to move, opened fire wildly upwards.

This base was quickly becoming uninhabitable. The elevator to the shuttle landing was still rising. In pointed the crane skyward and climbed out, taking a deep breath. She was limber enough to clamber up onto the roof of the booth and see the path she needed to take.

The ground was nearly ten meters below, and only got further as the arm of the crane rose. In took two moments to steady her balance and nerves, discarded her shield, and then ran. Her balance was good - fantastic, even - due to years of dance and time spent in space. But it wasn't perfect. Especially not while running in hiking boots. One foot in front of the other, the gangly Pantoran woman ran up the metal arm of the crane with her arms out for balance once she could no longer sprint. Her footing slipped once or twice, but she managed to catch herself.

At the final step, In launched herself into the air and slammed into the rising elevator platform hard enough to knock the wind out of herself, having to pull herself up with the Balosar's help.

"Stop... lift... for Niysha..." She gasped, giving her recruit a shove away from her and towards the lift controls. "Not leaving... without her."

 

[Niysha]

That was actually just about exactly as effective as Niysha had expected it to be. From her position atop a small, waterproof, plasteel rise, she was completely safe from the deluge. That was a good thing, too, since the local mustelid population seemed a bit piqued by their sudden bath. It wouldn't take them long to overrun the whole area with the sheer mass of their numbers.

As the remaining pirates began to form a defensive ring to deter the unending vermintide, Niysha took in her surroundings. Her partner was climbing a crane, so that was her top priority for a few seconds. When In was clear, the triumphant barely-a-Sith deactivated her lightsaber and hooked it back into her belt and plotted out a route that would let her avoid getting anywhere near the swarm of furious weasels on the ground below.

With a quick, concentrated breath to steady herself, Niysha envisioned her path, then acted on it. She lept from the power junction, and the Force carried her to a toolshed nearby. Her feet barely touched the surface long enough to tense her knees before she was in the air again, passing over a river of wet, angry rodents to land on the seat of the crane. Her third leap took her clear to the top of the crane arm, and with her fourth she landed on the lift with too much forward momentum.

After she'd rolled to a stop and stood back up properly, Niysha smiled and waved at the Balosar pirate In had recruited, then walked over to In's position and crouched down to sit near In. "Spaz," she teased and stuck her tongue out.

The lift was moving slow enough for her to cath her breath and talk with her partner for a few seconds. Whatever was waiting at the top wasn't upon them yet. They had time to prepare. More importantly, they had time to not be in danger for a minute. Small blessings. "I don't know how many of them are up there. If it's just two or three we can handle them quickly, but if it's more than that, I want you two to run for cover, alright?" She dipped her head gently towards her belt, indicating her lightsaber. "I'm a pretty good distraction."

In Rhan