Invasion A.D.

[Arage Bao]

​

~Nar Shaddaa~​

The Streets​

[SOUNDTRACK]​

Nar Shaddaa, the city. It was alive, organic, a system in constant flux. It takes being born or living there for a prolonged time to truly get the implications, but if I would have to explain it to an outsider… I would say it has to do with the tidal shifts, one moment the situation is x, the other it suddenly shifts to y. That is how I explain my own reign, one moment I am a common thug, then I become a Jedi, followed soon by the realization that I ain’t like ‘em, end up being a bartender (or something closely resembling it) and now… now I ain’t entirely sure what I am.

But I do know what I have to do, there is a new drug on the streets and it is my concern because of two reasons. One, it is downcutting my own profits, two, it’s a toxic waste of a product. People are dying, yet they keep buying it. Ya know how it is, ya gotta get that fix, no matter the cost of it. So I did the responsible thing, through the usual channels I called in the help of a particular Jedi.

[member="Kana Truden"].

Know her from the boat exercise with the fidgety girl, mouse I had her nicked and yet she has outgrown the name. She still calls me Blasto though, so I suppose I gotta keep calling her by my own moniker. ‘Sfair right?

Anyway, I am currently standing on the roof of what seemed to be a random building and I was waiting for her to meet me here. Told her to come inconspicuous, lightsaber outta the way, none of that Jedi robe nonsense, we didn’t want to get made - ‘least not immediately.

Lit up a cigarette, while looking out into the cityscape.

My city, it was a beauty.

 

[Kana Truden]

It had been weird to see a message come from [member="Khaleel Malvern"] again. It seemed like so long ago yet somehow not very long at all. The last few years had passed by at a relatively fast pace as the duties of a healer-in-learning had gone underway. Well, maybe it stopped for a bit with the galaxy going balls-to-the-wall crazy but with the eventual resurfacing of the people lost she got to practice the non-force aspects of her trade. The message she had gotten was in a way a reminder of that.

Drugs had become a considerably more universal word than Kana would have expected at first. Either it was medicine, the good kind of drug, or it was… Well, drugs. The bad kind of drugs. To receive a message from her old acquaintance had come as a surprise. Even more of a surprise that he’d ask of her not to wear a robe considering for the last few years that Kana had spent with the Jedi there had not once been a time when she wore one. Still, perhaps this was as good of a reason as any to get back into civilian clothing once again.

She had stared long at her old leather jacket and then her jumpsuit as the ship left hyperspace over the Smuggler’s moon, a place she no longer had authority over. Then again, did anyone ever? The choice made itself: Civilian Comfort. After all, she couldn’t walk around in her lingerie all day. Even if that’s what some people seemed to believe was her second most likely line of work if going by looks.

The ship touched down. A wary eye scanned for any Red Ravens looking to steal her stuff but unlike last time it seems she was lucky. Well the message had said to have Khaleel meet her at the platform but he was nowhere to be seen. Was she early, or had she mixed it all up?

Datapad withdrawn she held it up in front of her face to go through the message again. Where was he?

 

[Arage Bao]

It was the sobering reminder that not everyone was as familiar with the city as I was, the reminder came as I saw Kana trundling all around the place trying to seem at home in the place. Already she was picking up the interest of the unsavory elements of the street. It was her walk, it was the smell of clean soap and good intentions.

Finally I sighed just a little bit and whistled. The sound was twofold, one part grabbing her attention to the higher platform - the roof I was currently standing on with a slightly raised brow. Two part a sign to the dogs that this one was off limits.

At least for now.

 

[Kana Truden]

Nope, message said something about being by the platform and she was if anything right on top of it. By definition she was quite literally ‘by the platform’ right now. People had begun looking at her like vultures to a corpse. All eying her up and down as if looking for a weakness of some sort. A quick pat at her jacket had her lightsaber thrust against the side of her chest and she could certainly breathe easy again.

A sharp whistle later and people suddenly dropped their attention from her. Must have been something in the way [member="Khaleel Malvern"] whistled or Kana would without doubt have found herself at the pointy edge of a vibroblade or blaster right now. With a few half-worried looks at the ‘lowly’ beggars around the area she set off in a fast pace for her friend. Usually the homeless wouldn’t have been a problem to her but with the way this planet worked and with her previous experiences she was very much on edge.

“Where were you?!” A muted shout-whisper. “And why does everything smell like garbage? Is everyone on this forsaken planet in charge of ‘garbage disposal’ or something?”

She couldn’t cover her nose unless she wanted more unnecessary attention. Simply ignoring it would have to do.

“Is there anywhere ‘nicer’ we could talk? Last time I landed here the Red Ravens blew up my damn ship and I have no intentions of witnessing that again.”

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Kana Truden"]

Part of him was amused, the other less dominating part was busy pondering if she had been a good choice for the job. Probably not, but some things just had to be done and had to be done the right and proper way. Khal turned around to reply, and for a single defining moment he was taken aback by Kana.

Inwardly he cursed, why did it seem like every girl he was meeting - in and outta the job - closely resembled beauty contest winners and lingerie models? What was up with that? Was like they were doing this on purpose or something.

The moment passed as quickly as it came though and thank god for that. The last thing he needed was become some drooling asshat and make both of them embarrassed at the implications of that. Instead, Khal took another puff from the cigarette and then gave her the best relaxed shrug he could muster right now.

'Keeping an eye out, Mouse.' Raised eyebrow was kept in place though. 'You eh.. look good, Kana. How ya been anyway?'

Keep it easy, relaxed skipper. All will be okay, honest word.

 

[Kana Truden]

A wave of her hand would try to get a majority of the cig smoke out of her face. Signs of a woman out of her depth was quite clearly being broadcast through the streets as Kana stepped next to Khaleel walking down the cold corridors of a planet he seemed eerily comfortable with. Not that the guy had ever crossed her mind as a ‘proper’ jedi but for a knight in that whole ‘gray area’ mess he seemed pretty alright. Perhaps a bit too much emphasis on the word pretty.

“Since last? Well I've been covered in blood, child vomit and bacta.” A small chuckle parted her lips. “Not necessarily in that order or from the same person, mind you.”

“And you look…” There was an obligatory pause for a scan up and down of [member="Khaleel Malvern"]. “... Pretty good too. Considering where you live. I tried to not go for that whole vagrant style my, uh, crew has going.”

People seemed to back away from the duo. Eyes fell upon Kana but not as many as before. She suppressed the urge to rapidly eye back and forth in suspicion between the actual vagrants and her friend.

“So tell me about that, uh, your friend. You said you worried about him getting out of hand.”

Hopefully Khaleel was as good at being subtle as Kana was. Could be they really did have to find a quiet place to talk business if he wasn’t. Which Kana really wanted to do either way. Less eyes and more drinks was always a tempting notion.

 

[Arage Bao]

Bemused was made apparent from his expression, if this was her way of being subtle... well... Khaleel wasn't going to comment on it anymore than he had to. This was his game, his playground and home, whilst some felt anxious walking these streets he felt alive. Perhaps it was all a matter of conditioning and getting used to the common buzz of the streets or maybe it was because he had been born here, either way Khal was perfectly fine here. Of course, the fact that most people here were too afraid to even look at him might be a factor, he could have walked around in his birthday suit and they would have done nothing.

Reputation, important stuff. It was all that mattered here, having the proper street creds and then some, not that Kana would know that. Not yet, at the very least. But if she stuck around for a while she would figure out how big a name was in these parts, how it underlined everything you were trying to accomplish here.

'Yeah, he ain't in good shape.' the scoundrel picked up the line smoothly, with a sad shake at the end of it. 'Used to be alright, not good, but living here ya don't expect much. These days he's getting worse, ya know?'

'He got new fancies'

 

[Kana Truden]

Okay, yeah, Khal was good at subtle. Better than Kana and suddenly it was time to screw being subtle. Really, it was her biggest fault when it came to being smooth and stealth-like. All [member="Khaleel Malvern"] would have to do was ask Kian about the time she acted decoy on a Shadow mission and nearly gotten herself killed due to her underestimation of the enemy. Well, that and because she couldn’t sneak worth jack. All in all she simply wasn’t built for all this outright sneaky stuff.

She raised her eyebrow at the man. “You know what? Let’s just forget this whole subtle approach thing. You should find us somewhere nice, or at least quiet to talk where you can voice your concern without risking anyone overhearing us.”

The streets were far from the corridors of Ossus or even Ruusan. There was something to the air, that hint of desperation and fear mixed with narcotics, murder, theft, assault and maiming. Really, the mere idea that this man had set up an academy around here was pretty impressive. She had yet to see it but she had no expectations to see it during this visit either.

“So besides the uh, problem, What have you been up to, … Blasto?” Something about that nickname made her smile. It just felt so right. Also it was probably the only nickname she had come up with that truly stuck around.

“Considering where you live I can only imagine the headaches you’ve got.”

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Kana Truden"]

They had been slowly walking to Jimmy's, the one place that had stayed a constant for the entirety of his career on Nar Shaddaa, they would be relatively safe there and more importantly have the time to talk quietly about what was happening here right. Without worrying about being overheard which might be the most important part.

'Ain't got much to say, Kana.' Khal responded to her later query and for the moment letting the question of the why br where it was currently. 'Been from hell and back, literally.'

She would know what he meant, Khla had been there on Alderaan providing support fire until he- not important, point was he had been gone for sometime before returning to establish some order.

'Headache ain't as bad once you get used to the smell, heh. What about yourself, Mouse? Shatterstar still hounding you for a date?'

 

[Kana Truden]

A very unamused look tried to pierce the back of [member="Khaleel Malvern"]’s skull. “No.” Her throat hissed as she tried to apply fire to said look. “He hasn’t really paid me any mind since I told him off. Just because I taught him a few things didn’t suddenly mean I was interested in him.”

“Can’t say the same for one of my friends though. I heard something about pushups and him being shirtless? High School stuff, really. The ab-rocking, pectoral-blasting jock with a heart of gold.” Maybe a questioning look about how the heck Khaleel even knew about Varus was in order but she settled for a jog as she tried tocatch up with her friend. “Trust me, Khal. The chances of you getting any, well uhh…”

The subject wasn't one she'd truly thought on in ages. She dropped it. “Just, don’t do that. Nobody likes it.”

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Kana Truden"]

They were all marginally in the same order, Shatterstar's commitment to sleep with at least one of the beautiful Jedi women was not a secret, maybe a public secret. But those weren't actual secrets anyway. Things like shirtless handstand push-ups had a tendency to travel quickly through the small tightly-knitted community, anyway. Khaleel looked back with some amusement when she gave him the advice not to do it himself.

'Kana, I appreciate the advice.' he responded with not even the slighest trace of sarcasm. 'But do I strike you as the, quote, "High School. Ab-rocking, pectoral-blasting jock with a heart of gold.”?'

A shrug, and he slowed down a bit to give her the chance to catch up.

'If I am interested in a woman I ask her out or kiss her, depending on the situation.'

 

[Kana Truden]

No he did not strike her as the jock persona she had mentioned. At least not the pec blaster part. Gun blaster, perhaps but that's really as far as her line of thought would go.

"Right. Yeah, no." She couldn't help chuckling just a little bit. "You strike me more as the 'shoot first, ask later' guy. You said as such yourself, right? You're the guy with the blaster."

"I can't even remember it." Kana furrowed her eyebrows. "There was a time before the Order yet here I am and it all just seems like a long forgotten and distant memory." Things were simpler back then. "Sorry, I shouldn't get all uhh, nostalgic."

"Are we there yet?"

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Kana Truden"]

Another shrug, this one more thoughtful and less joking about than the last one. So many things could be related by something as simple as a shrug, a grunt or even a single explicitive. Her musing brought him back to his own simple days, when he had first found about the Ysanna from Shule's library-card and everything that had followed from it. A smiling woman, laughing eyes, long trees and hunts, nights spend at a fire on the outskirts of a lake.

Things weren't vague for Khaleel, he remembered the good old days fine. It was what hurt most these days, the reminder of how much better things were when he had been a stupid kid who hadn't appreciated what he had had.

'Ain't no worry, Truden.' Khal finally responded, scratching the rough skirts of his chin. 'We all got musing times.'

'Almost there...'

She would notice the difference immediately when they stepped foot in Exchange territory, the streets were cleaner, space more orderly, people less dead in the soul and with more purpose, security booming. It was a pocket of space and time hidden away from the dirt, cultivated and nurtured by Malvern.

 

[Kana Truden]

Kana allowed herself to smile at the man’s response. Perhaps it was something in the air, it felt cleaner and safer. While the residual aftertaste of criminal activities certainly seemed to be ever-present it wasn’t as in-your-face as it seemed to be elsewhere. The looming presence of a small modicum of safety actually seemed to linger in the air and despite knowing better it made Kana feel good.

“Did we just enter an oasis of some kind?” She dropped the smile and spun around to throw a few curious glances around the immediate area. “What happened to the smell and that overbearing gut feeling you’re about to be robbed?”

Perhaps she was exaggerating a bit. “It’s like I’ve suddenly found myself in the upper levels of lower Coruscant again. I mean, add only a slightly vaguer smell of desperation and you’d be right on.”

[member="Khaleel Malvern"]

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Kana Truden"]

‘That is the smell of progress, mouse.’ Khaleel replied with just the littlest twinge of satisfaction made apparent. He wouldn’t ever stake his claim to the order made, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t satisfied with what he had accomplished here. The Gray Paladins, the Exchange, his leadership… they were doing things to the little pockets on Nar Shaddaa. It was a slow process and Khal doubted it would ever span the entire planet, but there would always be the little parts of civilization within the chaos.

They entered Jimmy’s and he brought them over to a back room, they wouldn't be interrupted here, things could be said here with reproach.

‘So, how much of the briefing did ya get before getting here?’

 

[Kana Truden]

What would he mean by that? Clearly it was a smell of progress, but why was it that there was a small hint of delight in his voice? Actually, did she truly want to know that? She shook it off as a simple inhabitant being content with what he had helped shape, or something similar. It was wishful thinking, perhaps, but considering the planet she truly didn’t want to know.

As the man led her into a bar she couldn’t help letting the small hint of tragic nostalgic memories come forth again. Jimmy’s reminded her of one of the cantina’s she frequented before. Granted, the other one had a bit more of an Alderaanian vibe to it. Could have been cause it was on Alderaan and all, but hey, it was a good-bad memory of what she had been before.

Right, they had business to discuss. “Oh uh, you told me about this new drug. Highly addictive and deadly yet people insist on purchasing it. I suspect there’s more you could tell me. I may have kinda just skimmed it.”

She was ever honest. Her code told her to be as such after all.

[member="Khaleel Malvern"]

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Kana Truden"]

Khaleel had his own particular brand of justice, his own code so to speak, and yes he was very well aware how cheesy that sounded. Fact of the matter was that he didn’t particularly felt bad about lying every once in a while, sometimes it was simply the right thing to do in a difficult situation - he could come up with about five situations right there and then when lying would be the desirable thing to do. But why bog down the conversation with needless exposition when the story needed to continue forward? Exactly. So the Gray Paladin did what was right once again, put out his cigarette and trundled over to the cabinet to get out some drinks.

She probably wasn’t the drinking kind of sort, but this sort of discussions always left a foul taste in his mouth and what better way to resolve that than to wash it away with some paint-thinner? He pondered about the choices while slowly getting the facts in his head together, there were a lot of facts buried away in that brain of his, but which ones were the most pertinent to this situation?

‘Heh. Gotcha.’ he replied while pouring something wicked in two glasses. ‘Ain’t got a street name yet, too new for that for now. But we call it Blue Inferno… ya don’t wanna know why.’

Khal shrugged and brought over the glasses, pushed one over to her and sat down.

‘It popped up on the streets a week ago, maybe. Wherefrom? Unknown. Got a few artists working on it, preliminary testing shows that it’s pure-grade. They are selling it cheap, Kan. Means they don’t care ‘bout the profits.’

She would make the obvious deduction from that.

 

[Kana Truden]

No ‘official’ street name, highly addictive and sold cheap. The deduction she’d draw was that someone was trying to undermine others’ influence. Perhaps steal customers from a rival gang, getting them hooked and then ramping the price. All Kana needed, wanted or cared to know at this point was the mortality rates and addiction. As much as she would love to see the planet change for the better it was a moon of iniquity orbiting another den of iniquity. As far as outlooks on change went you could pretty much forget the happy ending.

The glasses set upon the table. A smooth little push and Kana had a drink of her own. Her hands wrapped gently around the glass and she raised it towards her lips. The only real decision that she had any problem making her mind about was whether to detoxify the alcohol or not. A pause felt appropriate as she gave it some more thought. A quick sniff of the beverage would force her into a shrug. Having her senses dulled, even for just a little bit, was probably going to make the next few hours a lot more manageable.

“They want to undermine the balance of the trade by securing customers from other gangs. As time passes they’ll eventually start squeezing them for all they got.” Kana’s first sip of her drink had her in a coughing fit. The ancient and long forgotten burn felt like meeting a familiar friend; warm and kind of awkward. “Right, I forgot what that burn felt like.”

“So what do you intend to do, Khal? You can’t exactly blast the guys, can you?”

[member="Khaleel Malvern"]

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Kana Truden"]

Khaleel was about to drink down his own shot when she brought up her own conclusions. It was mostly in line with his own thoughts, there were people, a lot of them that wanted to see business turn back to the ol’ days when everything was down and all people were high up in the skies. The Exchange had cleaned the streets up, at least as clean as it could get with the filth and litter crowding ‘em.

Not to everyone’s liking, Khal supposed. But that was the way of life, there would always be the stranglers that didn’t like how things were developing, in the end Kana brought up another point.

A question wrapped around in a statement. He wondered if she would like the answer to it.

‘Can’t I?’ blue eyes looked right back at her, suddenly more cold than vibrant. Breaking the eye contact he finally drank down the glass.

 

[Kana Truden]

A second sip was followed by a few others. The coughing fits quieted down for each sip until the point where [member="Khaleel Malvern"] questioned her question. Imitating his move she too downed the drink, perhaps a bit more than she should have but eyes refused to set from her friend. The whole ‘guy with the blaster’ name seemed to resurface from her memory.

“No you can’t, Khal!” She burst out. “What comes next if you do? You take one step down a bad road and the rest comes a lot more easy, and you know exactly what road I am talking about.”

“If you’re going to have me worry about your walk in life you might as well surrender yourself right now, because I will drag you to the temple and re-educate you myself!” Nope, definitely not a good idea to take that drink. “You will get yourself killed, or worse. Is that what you want?”

“A drug runs rampant. I can understand your urge to kill the man responsible but we still have to respect all life, no matter how much that is a horrible test of your own resolve.”

[member="Khaleel Malvern"]