(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction

[Kitt Solo]

[member="Gerion Ardik"] or [member="Darth Adekos"]

With her home planet and family destroyed, naturally, she turned to bounty hunting in an attempt to find some form of normalcy. A good thing her current boyfriend, [member="Flint Michigan"], supported her endeavors. She told him where she was going just in case. Just. In. Case. The endangered Corellian happened to have some bouts of recklessness that ran in the family.

Unfortunately, her ol' mentor Hannibal was sipping some tropical drinks on some tropical beach. The poor cyborg-guy would miss all the fun. She would make sure to link some selfies later and tag him.

Armed with two Electrorays, an MK2 bolter with a mix of rounds, including cryoban, her blaster, and probably a few other toys, she walked casually toward the reception area within her target's headquarters. The Master Empath had successfully manipulated the emotions of an entire Fringe Star Destroyer crew.

She was already sending her invisible tendrils in the force ahead of her to all the organics within the building with one simple command: sleep.

A bright red-lipstick titled Fire of the Jawa's Passion, smeared over the poor receptionist's face as her head hit the desk unable to finish its application.

 

[Flint Michigan]

Truth be told, Flint didn't like what was going on at all. Kitt didn't exactly tell Kitt everything of what was going on, but she told him enough for him to know what she was doing was dangerous. Dangerous enough to tell him where she was going, and approximately how long her journey should have taken. He had a feeling she was going off to fight something "mere mortals" like him normally couldn't, or shouldn't. And considering some of her previous bounty hunting stories, not all of which she actually remembered telling him(I really need to help her with that drinking problem) those things could be pretty powerful, if not downright terrifying.

In the end Flint was stuck sitting at the commands of the Star Destroyer he'd stolen, looking at a triple-barreled shotgun with all sorts of specialized ammunition. Normally such things would be regarded as the tools of a powerful bounty hunter, or a distinguished admiral, but in Flints literal and metaphorical hands they felt inadequate. If he needed to he'd track her down, find out what happened, do his best to save her, but the reality was that he very likely couldn't. He supposed that all there was left to do was hope Kitt Solo had everything down.

Deep down, he was worried sick. But on the surface? He was pissed the feth off that he was a grown-arse man reduced to being a cheerleader.

 

[Caulder Dune]

[member="Kitt Solo"]

Adekos was still riding the elevator up to his office when everyone standing in it with him suddenly collapsed. A hand reached for his electrum-coated lightsaber as the doors finally opened, revealing all the assorted staff in his part of the office building to be collapsed onto the ground, sound asleep. Some were slumped over their desks. Spilled coffee mugs and dropped lunches were everywhere. He could feel something nipping at the back of his mind, but it was clearly something intended for the lesser inhabitants of this building. He locked the elevator doors open with Mechu-Deru just long enough to drag the sorry inhabitants out, then started making his way to his office. Whatever stormtroopers were on duty were probably already asleep, save for Epicanthix Bob who was stationed in accounting. Accounting was another three stories above his office, unfortunately, so he wouldn't be able to get into contact with Bob.

Fortunately the droids could be reached more reliably.

The Umbaran entered his office, marching straight for his desk and pressing a button located on the underside. The holographic image of TD-0501 popped up.

"There's been a security breach. Shut down the elevators, send the droids. They shouldn't be beyond the third floor."
"Roger."

The main power to the building shut down, plunging the building into a darkness illuminated only by dull red emergency lights. A distress signal was also dispatched to the Coruscant Security Force, who would arrive within the hour. In the meantime, the squad of seven grapple droids sprinting towards Kitt Solo would have to do.

 

[Kitt Solo]

[member="Darth Adekos"]

The bounty hunter was leaning over the lip-stick smudged attendant, eyes scanning the holoscreen when everything went black save for some crimson emergency lights that seemed a little....well...low-end. Perhaps this Darth Adekos fellow put more money into his employee pensions or assumed every employee had an i-Comm with the flashlight app rather than spending the extra creds on some standard emergency lighting. Or, perhaps he just had a flair for the dramatic.

She heard a cacophony of sounds that clearly weren't human. Droids. Lots of droids.

Aw, feth.

The dull, red-lighting glinted off the armor of some nasty-looking droids as they entered the reception area across from her position at the desk. Fingers clutched one of the electro-rays. For a second, the idea of letting the droids take her whispered across her mind. Would she still feel the pain of Corellia if her heart stopped beating? Was there peace in death?

Her finger twitched down on the trigger as she fired at the first pair of droids. Apparently, her muscle-memory wasn't agreeing with the wavering suicidal thoughts. R.I.P Tahira Solo.

Grim-voice cut above the clatter of droids and her weapon-fire. "Tell your boss I'm here to collect his bounty...as peacefully as possible." Sugar.

 

[Caulder Dune]

[member="Kitt Solo"]

"She is here to collect your bounty."
"Preposterous. I have no bounties." Adekos grunted, sounding more insulted than frightened. "I'm no war criminal. She should be harassing... Well, literally anyone else."
"Perhaps she is looking for an easy capture."

Adekos had no idea who this woman was or that she had been here before. That prior incident when she tried to get into his office was quite some time ago. As far as he was concerned, this was probably just some renegade Jedi. He hoped it was DragonsFlame. Aside from incredible crimes against style and humility, the man was a complete and utter fool. Darth Adekos also found himself hoping that it wasn't that one fellow... What was his name? He had been quite scary back in the day. Darron Wraith, yes. He had been escorting the then-Chancellor Aledis Idjet during their summit on Chalacta. A bygone era he could only get nostalgic about.

Meanwhile, on the ground floor, one grapple droid summarily crumpled to the ground after being hit with an ion blast. That was all well and good, but there were still six more running around. Kitt was most likely closer to knowing whether or not there was any pain in death than she would have lived. One droid stumbled over the prone form of his ex-colleague, face planting into an unconscious accountant. The rest continued their charge. Two lunged at her from the front, intent on embracing her the same way they would have liked to embrace Tahira Solo. Rest in Pepperoni.

Two more, meanwhile, darted around their colleagues on either side in an attempt to close in on Kitt's left and right flank. The other two slowed down and held themselves in reserve.

"Wait, what was that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing, your Lordship."

 

[Kitt Solo]

[member="Darth Adekos"]

She back-peddled away from the reception desk as the four droids charged. Force speed was her friend as well as the second electroray that found itself into her hand. Myrtle-ellipses caught the red-glint of an exit sign behind her. Should lead to the stairs. Senses extended in the force.

This fether sith was a long ways up.

She fired at the first forward charging droid and the one that was trying to cut off her path to the stairs. Solo-senses tingled and she bobbed back as one of the droid's arms missed their tackled by a hair, saber-like arm slicing across the thin armor of her upper arm and drawing blood to the skin below. One electroray clattered to the ground, shred to pieces.

Gorramit.

Her speed wavered as she spun into the stairwell door, hitting it with her other shoulder and hip. A wave of raw force energy built from her core. She released it in an invisible pulse at the two nearest grapple droids with enough force to send them flying backwards if they weren't hunkering down.

She stumbled into the stairwell prepared to fire or throw up a force barrier for what was on the other side. If nothing, she would begin the arduous climb upwards toward her target, thankful for her gym membership on the star destroyer.

 

[Caulder Dune]

[member="Kitt Solo"]

The two droids shot buckled and fell over uselessly, though one of them still managed to score a hit. Harsh mechanical laughter emanated from the one that struck successfully, only to be cut short when Kitt Solo responded with a Force Push. The other two droids were flung across the room, crashing into walls and tables. Both of them abruptly deactivated as a result of the sheer concussive force, but there were still the other two that had lingered behind as a reserve. Their comrades now permanently out of the way, these two bolted forward to follow Kitt up the stairwell.

"She's heading for the stairs. Should I send the droidekas?"
"Yes, please. The grapple ones."

Grapple droidekas were really just droidekas with hands instead of blasters. A pair of them rolled down the stairs with great speed, rounding corners before eventually coming to the stairwell Kitt was trying to make her way up. One of them unfolded, remaining menacingly at the top of the stairs. The second and final one continued to fly down the stairs, rolling towards Kitt with incredible speed. The intention was to bowl straight into her legs, knocking them out from under her. She could attempt to shoot it as it rolled down, but that would leave her vulnerable to the two other grapple droids bringing up the rear.

 

[Kitt Solo]

[member="Darth Adekos"]

Again, force speed was her friend. But that didn't mean she wasn't huffing and puffing too. Ain't no force-user look graceful when rushing up multiple flights of stairs with vindictive grapple-droids in hot pursuit.

She caught the blur of the fifth floor door as she passed. And the reflection of the state of her hair and her red-hot face. Oh Feth no.

A screeching, mechanical ball-sound interrupted her thoughts and she slowed down to a light jog seeing the droideka come barreling down toward her. She caught its little buddy sneering just above, too. Seriously. What was with this sith dude and droids?

She could've thrown up a force barrier or thrown out another push but sometimes the simplest solution was the best. The force channeled into her leg-muscles and she jumped. High. As high as the stairwell would allow. Hopefully this thing would take out one of the grapple droids behind her. Unfortunately, it didn't take out both, though. One of those droids jumped too.

In mid-air, one arm circled around her waist, pinning one arm to her side with bone-crushing strength. Gravity took over and she and the droid fell against the stairs. Luckily Mister Handsy Grapple took most of the brunt of the fall, acting like a cradle.

She still had the gun. Raising it, she aimed it at the second droideka still at the top of the stairs while speaking to the one pressing into her ribs. "Hey darlin.' I'd prefer we go out to dinner, first. Or better yet, just have your boss surrender or deposit the credit amount of his bounty into my personal bank account." Squirming slightly, she went to angle the gun down to the grapple droid's 'thigh' for a second shot.

 

[Caulder Dune]

[member="Kitt Solo"]

"What's going on? Are we winning?"
"Probably."
"How assuring."

TD-0501 certainly had some serious reservations about his employer, but he had more important things to think about. The Grapple Droid at the top of the stairs was summarily deactivated by the Ion shot and tumbled uselessly onto its back. Lucky for Kitt, it didn't roll down the stairs onto her and her new best friend. While she struggled with the grapple droid that had successfully caught her, the Droideka and the grapple droid it had knocked over untangled themselves and got back to their feet. They were too late to save their friend from taking an Ion shot to the thigh and subsequently perishing, but they threw themselves at Kitt while she still lay prone anyway. There was nothing sophisticated about their movements- they just wanted to pin her to the ground underneath them.

Meanwhile, in the lobby, the first responders had finally shown up. Three CSF officers armed only with their handguns, set to a pleasant stun setting. They fanned out, following the path of destroyed droids over to the stairwell Kitt had recently run up. It would be a few minutes before they got anywhere important, and a longer while before more of their friends showed up to secure the building.

 

[Kitt Solo]

[member="Darth Adekos"]

With a shimmy and a shake, she kicked free from the droid's 'lifeless' body only to see another metallic dogpile coming. Free-hand rose and sent an invisible blast of energy at the two metal-heads that probably had enough force to push them through the opposite wall of the stairwell. She clucked her tongue.

"Manners. Manners."

Without wasting too much time, she picked herself up and ran further up the stairs taking two-three at a time and making sure to skirt around the motionless droideka at the top. Extending her senses in the force, she found her target's dark-aura pulsing ahead. Latching onto his emotional senses, she began to pump in subtle feelings of self-doubt and surrender.

She kicked the door to the seventh-floor open, gun-arm raised.

 

[Kitt Solo]

BOOH DELETE ME

 

[Caulder Dune]

[member="Kitt Solo"]

Evidently those feelings of doubt and surrender had worked wonders on Adekos. The office Kitt entered was littered with unconscious people- some at their desks and some crowding the pathways. There was only one still-waking person who could be seen in the gloom of the darkened office, and that was Darth Adekos. He wasn't exactly easy to see, however, because he was curled up under a desk, whimpering incessantly and puncturing these incessant noises with the occasional shiver. By all appearances, the pathetic robed Sith Lord had responded disproportionately to Kitt's meddling. He was scared out of his mind.

Meanwhile, the CSF officers secured the first floor. More arrived, starting to evacuate the people they could find. Oddly enough, this wasn't the worse thing that had happened in an office building on Coruscant. Not since that trenchcoat-wearing lunatic had bombed another office building with hallucinogens.

 

[Kitt Solo]

[member="Darth Adekos"]

Myrtle-ellipses narrowed through the gloom and potential nerfsh#$ of faker sith lords. At least there weren't any droids yet. Those karkers were a pain in her butt...hip...and shoulder. She swapped weapons for a blaster set on a high-powered stun as she gingerly stepped around the unconscious bodies toward the whimpering sound beneath the desk.

She felt the pulse of darkness that confirmed the location of her prey.

She continued to push subtle feelings of cooperation and surrender through the force. "Hey sweetpie," Southern-Corellian accent called quietly as she neared the corner of the man's desk. Blaster-arm raised slightly, finger pressuring on the trigger. "Just come out slowly with your hands up and everything'll be alright."

She felt the others below but her attention remained on the sniveling sith lord.

 

[Caulder Dune]

[member="Kitt Solo"]

The little ball of wimpering Sith quivered violently at Kitt's approach and tried to press itself further into the desk.

"N-no, you... You... You can't."

 

[Kitt Solo]

[member="Darth Adekos"]

A small part of her felt a twinge of guilt for something like the flicker of a span of a second as she rounded the corner of his desk. She saw him. Cowering. Of course, he probably never cowered before in his life. Besides that pesky thrown-breaker business that she had no idea about IC. He certainly didn't cower when he slammed some gangly, blond slicer's head into the floor which again, Kitt Solo had no idea about IC.

The twinge of guilt didn't last because gorramit, she was a professional bounty hunter. A. Professional.

"Shhh. Shhh," lips puckered as she shushed, maintaining her grip on his emotions through the force. Finger squeezed down on the trigger, sending a volley of three stun rings toward his cowering form.

Time to tag and bag.

 

[Caulder Dune]

[member="Kitt Solo"]

The stun rings ripped through Adekos, smacking into the desk and causing the illusion to dissipate. This was probably a surprising turn of events to someone who had never interacted with the ever-duplicitous Darth Adekos before. Adekos was a cowardly fellow, but he was no groveler. Especially not where filthy bounty hunters like Kitt Solo were concerned. Surrender, Force-induced doubts and sadness nonwithstanding, was never an option. If anything he would have just climbed up a different stair case and sent more droids after the intrepid Solo.

But running away from his problems never really helped all that much in the long run. Which is why he laid a trap instead.

Once Kitt had fired and the illusion was blasted into oblivion, the real Darth Adekos promptly blinked back into existence, about five feet behind her. Again, this would only be surprising to someone who had never witnessed how the Umbaran handled his business before. Trickery and ambush tactics were his bread and butter. His hands were already extended into claws, and it wasn't until the storm of Force Lightning blossomed from his fingers, on a collision course with Kitt's back, that he started cackling.

Like a jackass.

 

[Kitt Solo]

[member="Darth Adekos"]

All too easy.

((Because this writer is a nerd and imagining Adekos as The Sith Lord))

She couldn't say she was completely surprised when his form disappeared and her stun bolts thudded into the empty space beneath the desk. She had expected something. Anything but that cackle.

Danger senses were already tingling up her spine and her muscles responded.

RUN AWAY

Without bothering to glance back she launched herself to slide over his desk, knocking flimsipads, computers, sharpeners, autographed photos of someone named Reverance...anything that was in her way off. That gave her a small amount of satisfaction. The lightning crackled and burned against the terentatek jacket on her back as she hit the floor on the other side of the desk.

She was literally, smoking.

"Alright sugar, we're gonna do this the hard way. Don't ever say I didn't warn yah."

With the back of her smoking jacket pressed against the front of his desk, her entire body started to glow as she released a sudden flash of force light to fill the room in its glow.

 

[Caulder Dune]

[member="Kitt Solo"]

"You're a fool coming here." He sneered, lightning abruptly ceasing after she vaulted over his desk. Why didn't that work? "Even if you did capture me, you'll-"

Adekos paused in his rant, sensing a sudden build up in the Force. Not just any build up- a gathering of the power of the Light Side. Had this Umbaran ever been smacked with the power of Force Light before? Probably not. Was he aware of the Jedi technique and its affects on people like him? Dimly. Even if he wasn't fully aware, did he want to wait around to see what kind of hogwash this crazy person he couldn't presently get to was cooking up? Absolutely not.

So he turned and fled, the Force speeding his movements as an explosion of light followed him to the door to the stairwell. If Kitt listened closely, she could probably here him scream as he flung himself through the door and down the stairs. She probably wouldn't want to, however, as the string of profanity that left the Umbaran's mouth were not suitable for such young audiences.

 

[Kitt Solo]

[member="Darth Adekos"]

Teeth ground in her mouth. The pulse of force light disappeared as quickly as it came. Gorramit, she had a runner. Pushing to her feet, the bounty hunter ran after him, the force pumping through her toned-legs. Raising her blaster, she clipped off a few stun rings at the back of her target as she pushed into the stairwell after him.

"I'll what, darlin? Be a little richer?" Her voice hollered after him, above the string of profanity. Raising her free hand, she blasted off an invisible force push for his legs.

 

[Caulder Dune]

[member="Kitt Solo"]

Darth Adekos barely had time to stand himself up among the wreckage of the droids Kitt had previously disposed of before she bounded after him and started firing again. Acting quickly, Adekos wrenched one of the destroyed grapple droids off the ground with the Force, using it as an impromptu shield against the stun bolts. After the last one impacted the droid he tossed it aside and snarled. "Don't call me darling, you damnable harpy."

He was about poised to send off another blast of Force Lightning, but suddenly an invisible wall smacked into him and sent him tumbling down the stairs again, this time down the final flight to the first floor. It was certainly a good thing he wasn't pregnant. Otherwise this would have been very scandalous and everyone involved would have felt bad. The Umbaran rolled to his feet, wheezing in pain, and kicked open the door to the lobby. He promptly fled, startling the plethora of CSF officers that had arrived and the paramedics who were tending to the unconscious.