Blood, Chains, and Credits

[Dyllaefi Cridu]

The Smuggler's Moon never failed to take Dyllaefi Cridu's breath away.

But that was mostly because he didn't want to breathe. Nar Shaddaa had a stench all its own: corroded metal and old starship fuel, the dried vomit and sour sweat of a dozen species, the sickly-sweet rot of cargoes dumped and forgotten, the acrd tang of spent tibanna gas and scorched carbon, they all mixed and merged with the occasional whiff of high-end perfume or expensive wine. It was the smell of exploitation, of debauchery. It was the hunting musk of a predatory city.

The Red Light Sector layered the ever so pleasant aromas of stale piss and dried blood over the rest. This was the place to go for illegal body modification, prostitution, and spice deals. Gangs lurked in every shadowed alleyway off of the main concourse, vibroshivs clutched in bony, malnourished hands, waiting for some drunk tourist to stumble into their clutches so they could hack him up and sell his organs. Unfortunately, Dyll often had business here.

And then, of course, there were the slave markets.

Dyll had done a lot of things he wasn't proud of in the years since he'd taken up smuggling. Frankly, it was easier to list the things in his life that he was proud of; he could do it on one hand. He'd sold spice he knew would ruin lives and transported guns he knew would take lives, but he'd never trafficked in lives themselves. The whole idea of someone owning a sentient being, abusing them in every way for sport or profit, was beyond repellant to him. He drew the line at slaves.

But he couldn't afford to stick his neck out for them, either, no matter how much he pitied them; he had his own people to look out for, and that was hard enough. Besides, there were billions of slaves in the galaxy. What could he, one guy living paycheck to paycheck, possibly do that would make any difference? He wasn't some kind of Jedi. And some part of him whispered that, when money got tight enough, he'd try running slaves. It sickened him to know that it was probably right.

It was hard to believe that the Vertical City had one been leveled and Vongformed; the centuries had seen it return to much the same kind of place it'd always been. As Dyll walked back toward the hangars, careful to stay on well-lit walkways, he heard the calls of the slave traders. "Gentlebeings," one of them shouted (Dyll ruefully noted that there were no such beings in attendance), "I have a very special item for you today. Behold the Feral Girl, Blood Champion of Corellia!"

@[member=Katar]

 

[Slot 21]

Katar hated these days. These days were the days when she would receive a new master. Some disgusting piece of rotting meat that saw her as "profitable", just because she knew animals for what they truly were and how to use their techniques. Katar stood, anger seething inside of her as men placed a force collar around her neck and chains across her body. They wouldn't do much good if she went into a frenzy, but then again, nothing really would.

She was led up onto the platform by a chain connected to her collar, and two guards with shocking staffs were on either side of her. Katar rolled her eyes. They might as well have put a muzzle on her. That's what she was, after all. An animal. A savage with no brain and possibility of ever getting one. That's how everyone in the crowd saw her. And why? Because she never spoke? Because she fought like her woodland kin? Katar glared at all of them with her bright green cat eyes. They flinched slightly, some of them backing away from the platform. One of the guards jabbed her side with his shock staff. Katar let out a short yelp, and looked at him with the same glare, barring her sharpened teeth and growling.

The seller looked at Katar for a moment before turning to the audience once more. "Who wants the first bid on this prize?"

@[member="Dyllaefi Cridu"]

 

[Dyllaefi Cridu]

Normally Dyll would've just kept walking. It was none of his business, nothing he could change. But the sight of the young fem the slavers wrestled onto the sale platform stopped him dead in his tracks. She was just a teenager, but she had the look of someone who'd been through more than her years would indicate. She was muscular, clearly a fighter, with the scars of combat and beatings alike. More than that, there was a heaviness in her eyes, a hatred born of pain.

The guards weren't taking any chances with her. They kept their distance despite her chains, jabbing at her with shock staffs if she drew too close. Her sharpened teeth and feral gaze combined with such harsh treatment to tell a story: this was a slave who had killed her master. He hoped that ferocity would keep her out of the beds of the debauched; she was pretty in a strong, savage, youthful sort of way, and he didn't like the way many of the bidders were staring at her.

As the bidding started, Dyll tried his best to turn away. The fruits of his latest job had gone straight to the loan sharks hounding him; he literally couldn't have afforded to make the opening bid. Even if he'd been able to buy her, what would he do? Turn her loose on the streets of Nar Shaddaa, penniless? Take her somewhere else, running the risk that she'd see him as just another oppressor and kill him, too? He wasn't a hero, and he had no business trying to be.

Then the leading bidder, an obese Gran holding a pair of snarling, emaciated Kath Hounds on a short chain, licked his lips as he ogled the girl. Dyll nearly threw up in his mouth. The underbidder, a skeletal Rattataki, had brought a cage so small the fem would have to hug her knees to fit. Something inside the smuggler snapped. Moving quickly, before his better judgement had time to catch up, he turned to the wall behind him and yanked on the fire suppression system lever.

A deafening alarm blared through the enclosed courtyard, and gouts of fire-retardant foam cascaded down from the walls and ceiling to splatter over the confused bidders. Most of them panicked and hurried toward the exits; an alarm would bring the authorities, such as they were on the Smuggler's Moon, and none of these unsavory characters wanted to be around when that happened. The auctioneer, fuming, shouted at the guards to secure his prize slave. But the Gran and the Rattataki started forward...

@[member=Katar]

 

[Slot 21]

Katar flinched slightly as the alarms sounded. In all the confusion, She knew that this was her time to act. Her guards scattered, trying to escape. Katar tore the chains from her body and ran. Two of the bidders were in her path. The first unleashed two Kath hounds, the animals barreling toward her. Katar leapt over them and instead took down their master. She clamped her jaw around the Gran's neck. He let out a strangled cry before she pulled her head violently upward, his throat now in her mouth. She quickly moved to the Rattataki. He had a blaster pistol, and was readying to shoot her. Katar lashed out at his arm with her claws, forming deep gashes along his veins. The Rattataki screamed and dropped the blaster, turning and fleeing for his life. Katar then turned to the two Kath hounds. Both were growling deeply, barring their teeth at her. She did the same to them. This continued, Katar inching closer to them. When she was close enough, she reached out and touched them with her hands. The hounds ceased to growl. The came closer to Katar, and sat down beside her. She hugged one of their necks, nuzzling them. The alarms were still blaring, but the auction chambers were empty.
@[member="Dyllaefi Cridu"]

 

[Dyllaefi Cridu]

Eyes wide, Dyll watched with horrified fascination as the feral girl sprang into motion, shedding her chains like water. He'd guessed she was strong; there was a lot more muscle on her than most fems he'd known. But this, this was something else. Blood spattered in her wake as she flew, ripping and tearing, into the two bidders advancing on her. It was over in seconds. The Gran slumped to the ground, gurgling at clutching at the ruins of his larynx. The Rattataki vanished, screaming and bleeding, into the press of the crowd.

The smuggler expected the girl to be torn apart in turn; those starved Kath Hounds, freed of their former master's control, should have gone into a wild feeding frenzy, ripping into her and then the rest of the crowd in their desperation to fill their bellies. But it didn't turn out that way. Dyll tried to let his jaw drop a second time as the creatures nuzzled up against their teenage liberator, her presence seeming to calm them almost instantly. He had no idea what was going on, but he had a feeling that (as usual) he was out of his league.

His better judgement caught up with him like a speeding cargo tram. What had he been thinking? He was sure the auctioneer had him pulling the fire alarm on security footage, so whatever cartel he worked for would be angry. A being had been killed and another maimed as a result of his actions, so the authorities would be angry. And the vicious and deadly slave girl he'd helped liberate, now accompanied by two nearly as vicious and much larger canine predators, had no idea he'd helped her, so she would be angry.

"Dyll," he muttered to himself, "you have a way with people."

The girl was between him and the exit; he would have to think of something that would get him past her without becoming a chew toy. As soon as he did, he could leave the mess far behind. But the sympathy that had made him want to help in the first place reared up again. He'd only made things worse; this girl, who still had nowhere to go, now sat at the scene of a killing he'd enabled as the authorities closed in. She might be recaptured and beaten by the slavers or sentenced to death for murder by local enforcers.

He had to try to patch things up. Emerging from the shadows near where he'd pulled the alarm, his hands held out, palms open, by his sides to show that he meant no harm, Dyll stepped into the now-empty auction chamber. "Hey," he said quietly, doing his best not to show fear or seem threatening. "Look, people who wanna hurt you are gonna try to track you down now. You need to get out of here, to a safe place, and you need to get rid of your tracking chip. I can help." He spoke slowly, calmly. He hoped she understood.

@[member=Katar]

 

[Slot 21]

Katar's senses perked up when she heard another life form approaching her. She growled in the direction of the footsteps, the Kath hounds doing the same. A man approached with his hands out for her to see, as if he meant no harm. Katar was no fool. She had seen this act countless times before. But then he told her that he wanted to help her escape. She looked over her shoulder, contemplating what to do next. If what he said was true, then her captors were no doubt going to be coming to the main door. If she were to attempt an escape from there, they would catch her. She realized that her only chance to avoid capture was to trust this stranger. Katar ceased to growl, and the Kath hounds stopped also. Cautiously, she walked over to him, the Kath hounds with her. She sniffed the air around him. He didn't smell deceitful....
@[member="Dyllaefi Cridu"]

 

[Dyllaefi Cridu]

Dyll kept very, very still as the fem and her new pets approached. His breathing was shallow, his eyes wide, and his heart thumping so loud and fast he was sure she could hear it; visions of being stuffed, bit by bit, into three ravenous, sharp-toothed maws kept dancing through his head. He took it as a good sign that the trio had stopped growling at him, but the sniffing made him nervous all over again. He hoped he didn't smell appetizing; if any of them started drooling, he promised himself, he was going to draw his blaster and take his chances.

But that didn't happen. Breathing out a slow sigh of relief, Dyll gestured toward one of the doorways leading out of the courtyard, the opposite direction from the way most of the crowd had run. "I have the things I need to get your chip out back on my ship. It's just a few minutes' walk from here." He stepped forward, arms still held out by his sides to show that he meant no harm, and made to move around to the side of where the girl stood and make for the door. He wasn't eager to present his back to the hounds, but what choice did he have?

Mind racing, the smuggler tried to puzzle out how the kriff he was going to get the feral fem to the docking bay; the Red Light Sector was full of winding, crowded streets. They were unlikely to be spotted in the press of people, but the presence of a bloodstained teenage girl and her two hulking hounds would rapidly cause a panic. But if he took the back alleys, the gangs would come after them. This kid was clearly a fighter, but he still didn't fancy their chances against a starved, vicious gathering of armed cutthroats.

Turning back around, Dyll cleared his throat awkwardly. "It'd probably be safer if we... erm... I mean, we'll be really easy to spot unless... what I'm saying is, the hounds really need to stay here. We can't go out in public with them tailing along, and we really don't wanna risk going the back way." He really hoped she'd take that answer; she looked like she'd gotten pretty attached to the beasts already, and they to her, as if she was part of the pack. It saddened him to even try to separate them, but he already had so much on the line for no payoff.

He almost wished he'd let the Gran buy her. Then she could've killed him in private and spared Dyll all this trouble.

@[member=Katar]

 

[Slot 21]

Katar eyes grew wide for a moment as she realized that she would have to leave the Kath hounds behind. She tilted her head t the ground sadly and turned to them. This always happened. She would free her brethren, only to have to leave them to fight off more captors alone. She hated that. She knew animals better than most sentients, and she knew for a fact how loyal they could be. They just needed to be given a chance. She had endured what they had, and she knew this. Katar touched both of the Kath hounds' heads, petting them softly. They whimpered a little when they, too, realized that they couldn't come. Katar then turned her back to them. It was hard for her not to look back, but if she did, they wouldn't leave. The Kath hounds slowly turned away from her, then ran out the door. Katar whimpered for a moment as she heard them leave. Finally, she turned to the man. It was time to escape.
@[member="Dyllaefi Cridu"]

 

[Dyllaefi Cridu]

It was sad to watch, Dyll reflected as the hounds and girl both whimpered at their parting, but at least they had some kind of chance of blending into a crowd now. He was a little surprised the fierce little fem had agreed, and very much relieved; he'd been worried they'd decide that he wasn't trustworthy after all and rip him up for suggesting it. Now all he had to do was get a former slave covered in blood through six or so crowded public walkways without being spotted or causing panic while her tracking chip helped trouble follow them.

Piece of cake, right? Dyll grimaced. Why, again, had he gotten involved?

Moving to the doorway he'd chosen, the smuggler slid up beside the door frame and peered around the corner, alert from trouble. It'd been long enough now that they'd need to watch for the authorities Nar Shaddaa didn't have a police force, per say; the enforcers of the various Hutt cartels kept order in their respective sectors, and being brutal thugs they tended to shoot first and ask questions later (if ever). Dyll and his young charge would need to keep ahead of them, along with whatever slaver syndicate the fem had just escaped.

With a sigh of relief as he saw that the nearby halls were still clear, Dyll beckoned to the girl (he realized she'd never spoken, much less told him her name) and headed through the door. That was the easy part. Moving quickly, he headed over to the doorway back to the main thoroughfare of the Red Light Sector and gazed out. It was still packed; a little panic a few chambers over wasn't going to get in the way of local business. That was good; they still had a good chance of slipping unnoticed through the press of people and reaching the docking bay.

Turning back to look at the feral fem, Dyll silently hoped that she could handle crowds. The arterial blood that had spattered over her was starting to dry, clinging to her skin, and inwardly he swore; most of Nar Shaddaa saw things like that all the time, so they might be fine, but it still made them stand out. Reaching deep into his pockets, he produced a somewhat-clean scrap of cloth and offered it to the girl. He wasn't going to scrub at her himself; he wanted to keep his hands, and he'd feel like a dirty old man. He had a decade on her, after all.

"You'll be harder to spot if you can get rid of some of that blood. You gonna be alright in the crowd, kid?"

@[member=Katar]

 

[Slot 21]

Katar tilted her head for a moment, glancing from the cloth to the man and then to the cloth again. She then looked down at the blood on the front of her chest and torso. She gingerly took the cloth and quickly wiped it away. She could avoid crowds, if she needed to. So, when he asked her how she did with crowds, Katar shrugged. If stealth was what she needed, she'd become as invisible as possible. It still fascinated her that this man had not tried to tackle and chain her yet. It wasn't uncommon for people to trick her and get her where they wanted her before shedding their lie. Nevertheless, Katar would keep her guard up until she knew for certain that she could trust him.
@[member="Dyllaefi Cridu"]

 

[Dyllaefi Cridu]

The girl's shrug didn't inspire tremendous confidence in Dyll, but they were pretty much committed now, and at least she wasn't covered in blood any more. Despite the fact that the push of the crowd would try to separate them, he didn't dare take her hand; he was worried she'd see it as an attack. Inwardly reminding himself that he could probably be safe from most of the results of his idiocy within ten minutes, he took a deep breath and made his first steps out onto the main walkway, beckoning to the feral fem as he merged with the press of bodies.

The Red Light Sector never really slept; far enough down in the Vertical City that the sun didn't shine there anyway, it was full of traffic at all hours. Junkies and dealers, slavers and slaves, mercenaries and bounty hunters, thieves and fences, all of them rubbed shoulders in these hallways, but most of the people here were thrill seekers with enough money to buy a night at least of illicit entertainment of one kind or another. They came from hundreds of different worlds to sample Nar Shaddaa's delights; no small number wouldn't be going home.

Dyll moved as quickly as he dared, knowing that if the fem got left more than a few meters behind he might never find her again. Whichever way he turned people jostled him and stepped on his feet. The dull roar of conversation was deafening, the barrage of neon lights blinding. He was lucky he'd done this dance before; it was all too easy to get lost down here, and getting lost was really, really bad. He counted down the junctions he passed, waiting with bated breath for the sign advertising the seedy little docking bay in which Fate's Fool lay resting.

They were nearly there; he just hoped no one had spotted them. "Still with me?" He murmured over his shoulder.

@[member=Katar]

 

[Slot 21]

Katar was not at all perplexed by the sudden commotion of the streets. She kept her senses trained on the man helping her, keeping up with him and almost passing him a couple times. When he asked her whereabouts over his shoulder, she looked at him. She wasn't behind him, but right beside him. She tapped his shoulder once to let him know she was there, and nodded.
@[member="Dyllaefi Cridu"]

 

[Dyllaefi Cridu]

Dyll nearly jumped out of his skin when the fem appeared right beside him, but he had to admit that it was a good sign; she could keep up, even in the crowd, without attracting undue attention. He returned her nod with a strained little smile, then pressed on. They were running out of time; soon the buddies of the slavers who'd held her would zero in on them and bring all of their force to bear on the unlikely duo. It wasn't just a question of the money this girl, some kind of arena champion, was worth; it was about saving face. They weren't about to let some spacer embarrass them.

It was with great relief that Dyll finally spotted the sign for the hangar he'd chosen. He'd prepaid; it was a good habit to get into in a line of work like his, never knowing when you might need to make a quick exit. Fighting his way through the crowd, he managed to emerge from the heavy current of sentients and make his way over to the main door of the little cluster of landing pads. The ceiling ended at the main corridor; the docking area was open to the sky, though the stars were distant. Skyscrapers pressed in on every side, looming over this little architectural mistake that someone had turned into a business.

Making sure that the fem he'd gone to all this trouble for was still with him, Dyll offered her another nod and a bigger smile. "We made it," he said, his relief apparent. Not seven meters off Fate's Fool stood ready and waiting for her master, her swooping curves and elegant lines standing out beside the squat, buglike ships on the other pads. Pressing his remote, the smuggler lowered her ramp and started toward her. He needn't have worried; he was better at avoiding trouble than he gave himself credit for. Just one quick tag removal and he'd be on his way out of here.

An instant later he stopped in his tracks, his hand falling to his blaster and ice rushing to his heart. Four bulky humanoids strutted out from behind one of the walls surrounding his pad, menacing leers on their faces. A Gamorrean hefted a vibro-ax in each hand, an Anomid pointed a scattergun at his chest, and a pair of Rodians began to circle around either side of him, heavy blaster pistols at the ready. How could the slavers possibly have known where he'd be? There was no way they could connect him to this particular ship and then find it in the space of a few minutes. Unless...

Unless these thugs weren't slavers at all. Dyll's heart plummeted; these creeps were loan collectors. "Gentlemen," he said, a wide, false smile on his face. "And lady," he quickly added, surmising that the Anomid was female. "So pleasant of you to drop by. Thing is, I'm in a bit of a hurry. Can this wait?" One of the Rodians, the one circling to his right, spat at him. "Dopa-meekey ulwan," he hissed. "Mwa lorda naga do moulee rah mo do skocha." Double-crossing smuggler. My boss wants your payment or your burnout. Were they Vornaste's? Ceive's? It didn't matter; he didn't have the money they wanted.

Dykk wasted no more time with wisecracks. He threw himself backward, away from the two thugs flanking him and back toward the limited cover afforded by one of the railings overlooking the thousand foot drop into the deepest undercity. "Look out! They'll try to kill us both!" He hoped his shout would reach Katar in time. He could imagine few more perilous places to make a stand on Nar Shaddaa; they stood on narrow walkways, sheer drops on either side and all around the landing pad. Only the thugs had solid, reliable cover thanks to the low wall around the pad where his ship was berthed.

"Kako kreespa!" The Anomid shouted, and the three armed with guns opened fire as the armored Gamorrean charged forward...

@[member=Katar]

 

[Slot 21]

Katar took in the situation seconds before all hell broke loose. The gammorean was even more top-heavy than normal with two axes for extra weight. No problem for her to take out. The three firing at her weren't the best shots. If she moved fast enough, they wouldn't hit her at all, and she could use the gammorean as a shield. without any more delay, Katar leapt forward at the gammorean. It sung wildly at her with its axes. She bobbed and weaved faster than he could swing. Within minutes, blood spurted from his throat and chest as he slid to the ground, lifeless. The others fired reverently at her, but Katar was too fast. She grabbed the rodian and threw him into the side of the ship. With a sickening crack and thud, he also fell dead to the ground. Just two left....
@[member="Dyllaefi Cridu"]

 

[Dyllaefi Cridu]

He would never get used to the way this girl moved.

When Dyll had been her age he'd known nothing about fighting. He'd been a dancer at school, and a fairly good one, but not terribly athletic in spite of that; it wasn't for another decade that he'd begun to pick up even the basics of how to handle himself under fire. But even the people he knew who had gone into the Republic military at eighteen, even the ones who'd been selected out for special forces, still couldn't match the way this fem fought at an age before their training had even begun. She must've been fighting most, if not all, of her short life. And somehow, she must've been winning.

She ducked, dodged, weaved, flexible and light on her feet, and the wild swings of the increasingly irritated Gamorrean flew past her again and again. Any hit from one of those vibroaxes, the blades as long as Dyll's forearm, would have shattered her little body, but they never came close to touching her. And then, all at once, she pounced. Blood sprayed from the thug as he stumbled back, his throat a ruin. He hit the railing and tumbled over, head over heels; with his windpipe gone, he couldn't even cry out as he fell down, down, down, to the very base of the moon. And then Katar pounced again.

That little duel had been over quickly, but Dyll had been busy in the meantime; the other three hadn't bothered shooting at the little girl, afraid of hitting their partner and probably underestimating her, and so they'd been shooting at Dyll instead. Blaster bolts rang off of the railing and singed the smuggler's hair with the heat of their passage; one blew a hole in his jacket, narrowly missing kneecapping him before flying out the other side. With his foes taking cover behind the low wall, Dyll didn't stand much chance of hitting them; they could easily duck back down into safety, while he had no such luxury.

Then Katar pounced on the Rodian circling to Dyll's right. Dyll's eyes widened as she picked him bodily off of his feet (he had to weight twice what she did, but she lifted him with ease) and threw him into the side of Fate's Fool hard enough to shatter bones. The thug's head snapped back, and when he fell to the ground he lay still. The smuggler seized the moment. Vacating his impromptu cover, he charged the Rodian circling to his right. Blaster in hand, he laid down withering fire at the section of wall the thug had chosen to keep him down, hoping against hope that it would be enough.

It was; no more shots came his direction for a moment. And so he grabbed the wall and swung himself over, feet first. The soles of his boots crashed into the Rodian's face, knocking it to the ground. Dyll didn't give his opponent a second to recover. He stomped on his foe's blaster hand, feeling the bones crunch and eliciting a howl of agony, then kicked the fallen blaster over the edge into Nar Shaddaa's depths. He could've killed the Rodian, he knew. Probably should've. But he'd never killed anyone before, and it made him feel sick to think about killing someone helpless.

Meanwhile, the Anomid was trying to line up a shot on Katar. "Behind you!" Dyll cried, trying to get his own blaster up in time.

@[member=Katar]

 

[Slot 21]

Katar moved her head slightly left as the next blaster shot whizzed past her ear. With her senses in a frenzy, she could hear the last thug's heavy breathing, the quiet cursing in a language that Katar did not understand. And lastly, Katar could hear the thug's heartbeat. This happened in a matter of seconds, and even before the next shot was fired, the woman was already being mauled. The thug's screams died in a minute flat. Katar positioned herself in a protective stance in front of her helper, glaring at anything in her sight with her teeth bared and her claws ready. She knew how to protect things. And she did it well.
@[member="Dyllaefi Cridu"]

 

[Dyllaefi Cridu]

The girl was on the Anomid in the blink of an eye, ripping and tearing. Dyll could hardly watch; dead was dead, but some ways of getting there were worse than others, and he didn't particularly fancy being mauled for a full minute. Turning around, he kicked the fallen Rodian hard in the head, sending the thug tumbling into the depths of unconsciousness. Then he turned back to the fem he was trying so suicidally hard to help, holstering his blaster and holding his hands out at his sides again. "It's ok now," he said, trying to calm her from the frenzy combat had instilled in her. "We're gonna be fine. Take it easy." He just hoped he wasn't next on her target list.

Moving slowly, never presenting his back to the girl, he circled around to the ramp of his ship. He kept the tools he would need to remove her tracking chip, field surgical instruments left over from his time with CorSec's paramedics, close to the entryway along with the rest of his medical supplies in case he needed to reach them in a hurry. Grabbing his kit, he moved back down the ramp and popped it open. The sooner he got this done, the better; he'd been involved in far too many deaths today to go unnoticed, and it was only a matter of time before someone tracked him down. He'd done minor field surgery before. Opening up her shoulder and pulling the tag would be easy.

So long as she didn't rip him to bits for trying, anyway; he knew she was fully capable of that. "Like I said back... well, back where we started, they put a tracking chip in you," he began, preparing a dose of symoxin. The stuff was a pretty mild and safe painkiller, the least objectionable medication he had on hand. "Unless I pull it out, they're gonna keep coming after you. I can have it done in twenty seconds tops, I promise. I'll just put this needle in your arm," he said, gesturing at the syringe he held, "to keep away the pain, then make one cut, pull the thing out with some tweezers, and stick a quickseal pad over it. Quick and easy; the only part that'll hurt is the needle, and only a little."

The smuggler licked his lips nervously. "Will you let me?"

@[member=Katar]

 

[Slot 21]

Katar looked at the needle, then at the smuggler. She shook her head, and took the syringe from him, throwing it away. She then held her arm out to him. She didn't need a painkiller. It couldn't hurt any less than being nearly clawed to breath by an animal, a certain situation that she was all too familiar with. Besides, the syringe brought back some painful memories. She didn't need to be reminded of them.
@[member="Dyllaefi Cridu"]

 

[Dyllaefi Cridu]

The girl slapped the syringe out of Dyll's hand, and he nearly jumped out of his skin at how fast she'd moved. It was an unsubtle reminder that he was on very, very thin ice here; one misstep could get him torn apart, as he'd witnessed several times now. But then she held out her arm. It took the smuggler a moment to understand; she wanted him to go through with his impromptu surgery but minus the anesthesia. He frowned; he didn't want to hurt her more than absolutely necessary, but she was making that difficult. Still, he couldn't force her to take the injection. "Alright. That's fine. You might wanna bite down on your sleeve or something; this'll hurt. Try to hold still as much as you can."

The best thing he could do now was get it over with as quickly as possible. Dyll stepped in close, holding her proffered arm steady with his left hand while he readied the scalpel in his right. He'd done this sort of thing hundreds of times during his years with CorSec, and he'd done it enough times since then to keep the art fresh in his mind. His hand was steady, his incision laser-straight. It wasn't quick, taking several seconds as he parted the skin just deeply enough to reach the embedded tag, but it wasn't drawn out either. The cut was so clean it hardly even bled. Letting go of her arm, he took the tweezers in his left hand and slid them gently into the wound, fishing for durasteel.

Moments later he gripped the little device and tugged it gently from the wound, dropping it to the floor and crushing it under his heel. Every motion came from drills he knew by heart; it was automatic to clean the tools, to replace them in his kit, to fish out the adhesive foam applicator. On backwater worlds doctors still closed up incisions with needle and thread, but anyone from the core knew that it was easier and safer to use bacta-infused medical foam; with a cut like this, it wouldn't even leave a scar. The foam dried rapidly on the fem's skin; it would flake off the next day, leaving her shoulder whole and unblemished. The whole process took perhaps three minutes.

"There we go," Dyll said, offering a nervous smile. "All done." But an unspoken question thundered in his head: now what?

@[member=Katar]

 

[Slot 21]

Katar watched with fascination as the man cut her arm with shiny little tools and pulled out a small metal chip. She barely felt it at all. When the man crushed the chip beneath his foot, Katar sighed. Hopefully that meant that the slavers wouldn't find her this time. She smiled genuinely at the man, showing her pearly white sharpened teeth. It was the only way that she ever said thank you.
@[member="Dyllaefi Cridu"]