Private Nar Shaddaan Nightmares

[Isar du Vain]

NAR SHADDAA,
UNDERCITY - DARKLANDS

Night lay over Nar Shaddaa, but the urban sprawl refused to sleep. Far below the reaching fingers of its skyscrapers lay the undercity. Much like Coruscant, it was place of squallor and utter lawlessness. Only worse, for on Nar Shaddaa the corruption ran far deeper, down to the very core of the moon itself.

Beneath the Red Light Sector, a turbolift shaft led to the Darklands. A place utterly devoid of electricity, where the worst denizens dwelled. Standing in front of the turbolift was Isar, the nearby neon playing shadows across his face as he puffed on a cigarillo. He'd a hand stuffed into his spacer jacket and leaned against the permacrete of the shaft with a bored expression.

Few people passed by in the alleyway. Never alone. Not the type of place you walked alone, absent a certain caliber of hunter. Which Isar happened to be. He'd been given a job by the local Syndicate rep. Someone had been snatching bodies off the Red Light. Made it tough to do business when people were freaked to even go there in the first place. Oh sure, they knew it was seedy, but that was one thing. Getting disappeared was another. Isar had managed to track down the source of the problems, sort of, to a gang of slavers - operating without the consent of the Syndicate - right under the Red Light sector in the Darklands. They'd use those tunnels to go straight to a nearby spaceport and then traffic the bodies elsewhere.

Isar's job was simple: kill them all. Send a message, right?

And since the job was killing slavers, he figured it would be the perfect opportunity for his new acquaintance, Sael , and so had dropped her a line. Now, he waited. Odds were, she'd show. Not every day you got to go practice shattering minds on some hapless slavers.

 

[Sael]

​

Seedy or not, it was probably unwise for Sael to walk anywhere alone. Sure, her eyes and the depth of red of her skin were startling, striking even, but nothing about her composition imposed.

Ashline Terminal was probably the only place on Nar Shaddaa she could walk around with some levity and not look like someone's next meal ticket.

Thus she did not walk alone this night either. So close to her side was a giant Lasat, long leather jacket, massive fists, that they looked companionable.

Far from it. To the massive cat creature, Sael was the only alluring thing that could keep him from drowning in the sea that shouldn't have belonged on Nar Shaddaa. But he was now convinced that this low down, the world could burst and flood at any moment. And the only lifeline was the little red, white haired Zeltron. He glowered menacingly at anyone whose eyes lingered too long, cracked his knuckles if anyone stepped too close.

Mercy didn't necessarily approve of Sael's readiness to accept Isar's invitation — for two reasons: Misandry (of course) and trying to encourage Sael not to give second thought to slavers.

But it was impossible not to. For all the power she was coming into now, she'd spent her formative years in terror. Lost her mother and her only friend. How could she say no?

And besides, Isar fascinated her.

"Retrieval services?" She asked as soon as she saw him, bathed in a neon glow and puffing away. Was he high? He said often..

Recalling the crash after the high, her stomach flipped.

"Hell of a location. Coincidence or you keeping tabs on our mutual Mercy?”

She stepped forward, just a foot or two away from her bodyguard.

But the Lasat did not depart just yet. Even though he was fascinating, she wasn't sure she could trust him fully. And Mercy would kill her if she'd come all this way to meet the tattooed Zeltron just to be taken advantage of.

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Isar du Vain
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[Isar du Vain]

The orange-red ember of the cigarillo pulsed with an indrawn breath, a tiny hearbeat in the shadows cast by the glare of neon signage, then flickered dark again. Threads of smoke curled up around Isar's face. Through the haze, a lilac stare studied Sael and her imposing, furry friend. Isar took a moment, seeing past the physical toward those strands of emotion threading between the Sith and her companion. Fear and subjugation could turn even the most imposing warrior into little more than a meat puppet.

Isar took his cigarillo between finger and thumb and tapped out some ash on the ground, which he ground beneath his heel, actions disguising the flicker of disgust that flashed across his face.

"Depends. She the one what's snatching blokes off the Red Light and sellin' them?"

But no. Not exactly Mercy's speed. This tamed Lasat though? It had Mercy written all over it. He tilted his chin back, peering down his nose at the odd pair.

"Cute. This her idea? He even have a name?" he jerked his chin at the looming behemoth, who puffed out his chest even further in response, if that was possible.

Oddly, the sight of Sael with the Lasat made him think of Jogon and he wondered what his Dashade friend was up to these days. They'd cut a similar sight, only he hadn't been liquifying Jogon's brain the whole time. Maybe he should have.

"Nevermind. Doesn't matter. I found a hideout full of your favorite type of people, slavers, yeah?" He jerked a thumb toward the turbolift behind him. "Figured you might enjoy blowing off some steam. Practice and such."

Sael

 

[Sael]

​

Isar already knew the answer to his first question. She could feel it. Sael only gave a sly, tight lipped smile in agreement to his conclusive no.

But the idea? Yes, sort of. Mercy looked at Sael like a tiny little thing. And at the Kaggath, she'd been very concerned someone would take advantage of her. And this district Isar had invited her to reminded Sael of every dirty place she'd ever been before — where she'd been small and unprotected. Now, she could solve half of the problem.

"Partially." She answered, despite him giving her an out.

Should she feel bad that she didn't know the name of the Lasat at her side? Names were precious things. Born of love, usually, a gift from mother and father to child. Something they could wear and grow an identity from. She'd never been given one properly. Just a price tag, again and again, until For Sale became her stand-in.

"You can name him if you like." She pat the giant's arm and looked toward the lift. The sound from the Lasat sounded almost like a purr.

"But he's not for you, don't worry. His job was to keep the streets from taking advantage of me." Her eyes slipped from his violet watch to his moustache and back again.

"You're not going to take advantage of me," .. again.. "Are you?"

White hairs slipped over her shoulder when she tilted her head to the side, considering a fresh thought.

"He wasn't going to come with us. Unless you want some extra muscle?"

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Isar du Vain
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[Isar du Vain]

"Don't care, love." Isar flicked the cigarillo away into the street. "Bring the nameless slab of meat if it makes you feel better."

He punched the turbolift button for "down" with a finger. A low, whirring hum came from below, along with some rattling. Definitely needed to be serviced.

"But seeing how I wasn't the one who wiped his mind, bloke's not my responsibility to name, savvy?"

Some wisdom? Nah. Isar just didn't want the emotional toll for when the big guy got his head blown off without knowing where, or who, he was. Sael wanted that burden? She could have it. Isar had done more before. And worse.

The tattooed Zeltron pursed his lips and looked down at her with dead eyes.

"As for taking advantage of you..."

The turbolift chimed, door squealing open.

"Not unless you want me to." His lips twitched, the memory of a smile.

Isar stepped into the turbolift, pushed the symbol for the lowest level, then tucked his hands into his jacket.

"You coming?"


Sael

 

[Sael]

​

Having the Lasat tag along did make her feel better. At the very least, it was a good exercise for her ongoing manipulation.

​

Silently she entered the lift. So did the Lasat. The thing was ill-maintained to the point of wobbling a bit under the duress of the sudden weight change. Isar and Sael were relatively normal, the Lasat added an unaccounted for extra poundage. Sael put her hand out for balance.

"What's your plan with this? How does this usually happen?" His invitation had been vague, but it didn't matter. She'd been delighted at the concept. All he had to say was killing slavers.

She appraised him, leaning against the lift's glasteel wall at an intersection of bar supports.

"You look lightly armed."

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Isar du Vain
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[Isar du Vain]

"Well, people like you and I are never unarmed," he tapped his head, then pulled open his coat slightly, showing the butt of a blaster pistol peeking out from a shoulder holster. "But I always bring insurance. We go in, turn them against each other - there's a thing I can show you. And then-"

Grimacing, Isar got pressed into a corner as the bulky, furred alien stomped into the turbolift to join them. The vacant-eyed Lasat took one look at the buttons for the various floors, then started poking at them, a small smile on his too-big head.

"Hey, stop that."

The Lasat lowered its finger slowly, looking disappointed and distantly threatening. The buttons for a half-dozen other floors now glowed brightly.

"Fuck's sake." What had he been saying?

The first floor dinged. The doors opened. Isar stabbed the button to close them. They started downward again.

"Anyway, shouldn't be too hard to find them. Nobody else lives down here. We'll sense them and-"

Ding.

Floor two. Isar stabbed at the close doors button again, then closed his eyes and let his head thump back against the glasteel.

Sael

 

[Sael]

​

Drawing a blaster and using her mind and chemistry to manipulate someone were two very different timetables. She'd rather be armed with something that could truly pierce a hole through a chest, rather than the delay of trying to sort through fears and emotions and finding a way to use those against someone.

"You trust your mind to work as fast as pulling a trigger?" She asked, voicing her concerns. Maybe that was the thing he'd show her: Speed.

Part of the reason she liked Isar's company was the familiarity. While Mercy was all muscle and brawn, she didn't understand the nuances of mentalism. Just found herself in awe of it from time to time. And she'd said she would set her up with another fearsome mentalist but Sael had enthusiasm and doubt of equal measure. What would be the benefit to this new teacher, what would she want from Sael in return?

Isar was a little clearer — he was stoked on kinship.

And — hung in the air, finished only with the mechanical ding of the lift. The Lasat looked vaugely pleased, eagerly looking at each floor as the doors whirred open. Despite being gateways to entirely different worlds, no level looked remarkably different than the previous. Just...neon and grime at each stop.

"And..?" Sael encouraged, leaning from her spot to close the lift door.

They descended one more. And then two more, and for a brief moment, it seemed as though the lurching stops would end— oh, nope. The Lasat had only missed two floor's buttons. The rest still glowed.

Ding.

"Hopefully timing isn't everything tonight."

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Isar du Vain
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[Isar du Vain]

Isar muttered something under his breath and started patting his coat for another smoke. He thought he might be out. That was just his luck.

"Yeah. We sense them. Then we kill them."

The man sniffed, mustache twitching, and jammed his hands back in his coat pocket as they continued to stop at nearly every floor on the way down.

"Don't over think it."

That was his motto. And he'd gotten here this far hadn't he. Where "here" was and how far he really wasn't sure, but he was still amid the living and as long as he could get a drink, a smoke, or a f-

The Lasat suddenly yawned and stretched both arms out in the cramped compartment, making Isar retreat further into his corner.

"Overgrown monkey lizard."

They finally arrived at the bottom floor. Isar tugged at his jacket as they exited. He was starting to regret bringing the meat puppet with them. Stretching out in front of them was a long, utterly dark alley. Isar pulled out a flashlight and clicked it on, showing that the alley led to a larger plaza at the other end. Probably used to be like a market square, back when this place had people instead of insects and traffickers.

"Why don't you have him wait here and guard the exit." Isar thought that sounded like a plausible excuse for saying this idiot isn't coming with us one step further.

Reaching out with his mind, he felt for presences in the Force of living beings. Just as he thought, it was not so difficult. Unfortunately, there were a lot more than he expected. Over a dozen. And he couldn't tell if those were the slavers... or the slaves. Probably the slaves.

"Got them. They're across that plaza, probably an abandoned warehouse back there that they use as a camp."

Sael