Private Once More, With Feeling

[Caulder Dune]

ROXULI SYSTEM
DERELICT STATION - CONTROL ROOM

Dagmer Ren had been having a good day. Like all days, it started with him telling people what to do, and having his own space station, and shooting up spice. Now Dagmer Ren was strapped to a chair. Now Dagmer Ren had a cauterized stump where his right arm, past the elbow, used to be. Now Dagmer Ren had no people who would listen to him when give orders, because they had all been killed. Or captured, maybe, but probably mostly killed.​

​

And now Dagmer Ren's face was starting to swell, on account of being slapped around by a rotating shift of Nanogene Troopers.​

​

This was no longer a very good day for Dagmer Ren. But for Darth Adekos, it was presently middling.​

​

The Umbaran gestured for a pause in the current beating and stepped forward, kneeling slightly so as to be eye-level with Dagmer. "Once more. Where is the shipment?"​

​

"The Ren," Dagmer wheezed painfully, "Cares not for what it consumes."​

​

"I am not asking you to care. I am asking you to recall. Can the Ren recall what it 'consumes'?"​

​

Dagmer licked his split lips, "It can. It remembers the slaughter with satisfaction, the exquisite pain of your men as they died. But nothing more."​

​

Was that supposed to bother him? They were clones. They were quite literally bred to die. That was the problem with these Ren devotees: all flash, all fury, no substance. No brains, no goals, and no ability to read an enemy. One had to wonder what the First Order ever saw in them.​

​

Adekos furrowed his brow, and opened his mouth to respond, but was interrupted by one of the Nanogene Troopers monitoring the security feed. "Lord Adekos, an unidentified ship has just docked in hangar four."​

​

Great. Someone else had come looking for these worthless bandits. He stood promptly, smoothed out his shirt. "Keep an eye on it, then," he snapped, eyes settling on a different trooper. "And you. I think we're ready for the next phase of interrogation."​

​

An electro-baton crackled to life, and Dagmer did his very best to look brave.​

​

Hazel Scheler​

 

[Hazel Scheler]

In the hangar an undesignated AT-120 Freighter settled down with all the grace of a mildly perturbed rancor. It had been assumed an interloper and as such came in with shields up and guns hot. Curiously enough, no resistance had been met. Down went the loading ramp and out came the armored pilot, flipping a Vorcha stun-stick in one hand and setting the blaster in her other hand to stun.

[This seems ill-advised, Miss Scheler,] the ship's AI buzzed in her internal comm.
"Someone's already hit this place, they just haven't left yet. Is the target still on-board?"
[Yes but-]
"Is the target still alive?"
[It is and-]
"Then in we go. See if you can find me a layout of this beefcake."

STOP WHERE YOU ARE

PEW!

One droid down. Hazel pressed forward to a lift.

[Importing station schematics. Target has been tracked to the control room on Level 2. Scanners are picking up multiple life forms.]

Hazel tapped her foot to the music presently playing in the background of her helmet, holstered her blaster and the Vorcha, then reached over her shoulder for the rifle on her back. The power module whined and clicked to STUN.

 

[Caulder Dune]

Hazel Scheler

"Lord Adekos, your protocol droid has been shot."​

​

Adekos pinched the bridge of his nose. So close. He had been so close to getting through this without a huge complication. And now a maniac had landed and gunned down his protocol droid. That was fine. Everything was fine.​

​

"Lord Adekos," the Nanogene Trooper reported, with the same rigid cadence, "The hostile is now taking the elevator here."​

​

Curse these compact space stations. At least they could get this over with quickly - whatever it was.​

​

"Defensive positions," Adekos droned, activating his lightsaber. "Put Dagmer in a closet or something."​

​

Dagmer muttered inconsequentially about the Ren as a pair of Troopers dragged him into a utility closet and stuffed him in. Chair and all. The rest took up positions behind whatever cover they could: control consoles and storage containers, mostly. They trained their weapons on the elevator and waited with programmatic patience.​

​

The elevator doors creaked open, but no one fired yet.​

​

Except for Darth Adekos, whose opening volley was more of a verbal sort. "That's quite far enough. Who are you? What do you want?"​

 

[Hazel Scheler]

"If you like Pina Coladas
And getting caught in the rain..."​

Hazel fidgeted with something clipped to her waist, pulling what appeared to be a softball sized metallic orb off a belt and turning it over in her hand. Nope, not the right one. She put it back.

Ding.

The lift came to a grinding halt and the doors wheezed open. Hazel stood out of sight just behind the doorframe.

"That's quite far enough."
["Brom how many lifeforms are in the control room?"]
[Scanners detect eleven lifeforms, including the target.]

"If you're not into yoga
If you have half a brain,"​

She unclipped another orb. Nope. Damnit, which one was it?

"Who are you? What do you want?"
[Miss Scheler I think you-]
["A tut-tut-tut, don't interrupt the man, Brom."]

Clink. Ah, there we go.

"Me?" she volleyed back, "I've got a date with Dagmer. Promised to take him on a nice ride all the way back to NIO space. Scenic route, you know?"

"If you'd like making love at midnight
In the dunes on the Cape,"​

"But first we were supposed to have a good, old-fashioned heart-to-heart. Get some things off our chest in a nice, quiet, private setting."

She turned the orb over in her hand: Trablech.

Trablech? Where the hell did he come up with these words...

"Wasn't expecting company. Who are you?"

"Then I'm the love that you've looked for
Write to me and escape."​

 

[Caulder Dune]

Hazel Scheler

​

The Umbaran frowned on as the interloper answered, idly fiddling with what appeared to be a wide assortment of grenades. Probably some kind of bounty hunter. This one was a regular joker - which meant that success was probably routine and effortless. Or she was incredibly stupid.​

​

"I'm afraid you'll have to reschedule. Mr. Ren is especially busy today," Adekos loosely gestured, red lightsaber whirring with the motion. "But once I'm through, you're welcome to whatever's left."​

​

Adekos sensed fear seeping through that utility closet. Could Dagmer hear them? How novel. But he also sensed something else: a passing familiarity, a profound feeling of déjà vu.​

​

His eyes narrowed. "Your presence. I've sensed it before. Who did you say you were?"​

 

[Hazel Scheler]

"Well I have a problem with that, you see, I need Dagmer whole and-"

Ding.

The lift doors chimed with their happy obligation to shut after the pre-arranged timeframe of nothing-doin. Hazel threw a hand forward to catch the door and nudge it back into place.

"-and unspoiled."

"Your presence. I've sensed it before. Who did you say you were?"

"Didn't," she paused. Bounty Hunter Rule #12: never give out your credentials on the job when you don't have to, "but I'll tell you who I am if you give me Dagmer." She gave a facial shrug within her helmet.

Worth a shot.

 

[Caulder Dune]

Hazel Scheler

Adekos smiled weakly, apologetically. "How much despoliation Dagmer endures will be entirely up to him. But I'll be sure to let him know someone has a vested interest in his continued living."​

​

That made two people in the whole of the galaxy. And yes, that counted Dagmer.​

​

This was quickly becoming a waste of time. Adekos had an interrogation he wished to return to, and this uncanny trollop who he couldn't quite place was standing in the way. Figuratively, of course.​

​

"I'll leave Dagmer to you after I have what I need. Then we can exchange business cards, or whatever it is you people do."​

​

There was a chorus of clicking noises as the Nanogene Troopers adjusted their sights and trained their weapons on the solitary woman.​

​

"Go wait on your ship, bounty hunter."​

 

[Hazel Scheler]

Despoliation. Good word.

The solitary woman had for the duration of this informal exchange remained out of sight, behind the cover of the corner of the lift. Ideal position it was not.

An audible sigh echoed from the lift, "Fine, fine." Hazel pushed the close-doors button.

Ding.

She hung back for a second, and then with a few inches gap left before they closed, tossed the round metallic orb into the room.

"TRABLECH!"

The lift doors sealed shut and inside the control room the Velokron that had been tossed in suddenly expelled a Master-level Force bellow.

 

[Caulder Dune]

Hazel Scheler

He thought it was a thermal detonator, but rapid analysis from his optics suite indicated something else. No electronic components. Standard metallic casing and a crystalline interior. A presence in the Force. Adekos glanced up from the sphere to the elevator doors, which were not rattling closed, as the bounty hunter screeched something.​

​

A nonsense word. Or profanity in a language he wasn't familiar with. In either case, it was the last thing he heard before everything abruptly went black.​

​

Only for a moment.​

​

Adekos' vision slowly returned to focus, accompanied by a blinking red string of text to inform him the audio-visual system had been overloaded and recalibrated. He blinked wearily, and so did a dull pain in his back. Sitting against a console now? There was a vague sensation that he had been launched somewhere.​

​

There was a curse in Umbaran - an exceedingly long compound word - that denigrated a person's friends, lovers, and entire familial dynasty. Darth Adekos said this out loud now, and was troubled to find that he could not hear himself. Or anything. He gripped the console he had landed against, and gradually came to stand.​

​

The world slowly rotated around him, and the elevator doors opened again.​

 

[Hazel Scheler]

And out stepped the Mercenary who promptly stuck the nearest soldier in the armpit with her Vorcha stun stick.

GZZZT

The man gave a strangled yelp and slumped to the floor. Handy things, Vor'cha's, stun through armor and everything. Hazel was about to make her way to the next man when the voice of negotiations hauled himself to his feet. There came a pause in her steps as she looked over, HUD fixating on Adekos' pallid face and immediately identified the man as Tyrin Ardik. There was no mistaking that face. She blinked.

"Tyrin?"

"Don't mo-" tried the soldier to her left. Hazel leaned toward him without taking her gaze off the Sith.

GZZZZT

One of the guards was puking blood in the corner from the concussive blast of the Force Bellow. Two more were already unconscious.

 

[Caulder Dune]

Hazel Scheler

​

Darth Adekos looked on with the distant expression of a stunned fool. Things happened around him, but it was all meaningless. It was all just visual stimulus he could not make sense of. A world on mute, moving in distorted slow motion around him. He might as well have been staring into an aquarium.​

​

The bounty hunter was stalking over to him now. Did she say something? Hard to tell. But she hesitated nonetheless. He stared at her, dumbfounded, for a few more scant moments before a cold awareness snapped back into his eyes.​

​

His hand shot out, and the Force answered a push that would catapult his assailant into the wall furthest from him. Adekos distinctly heard the crash of the impact, followed shortly thereafter by a helpful ding. Audio back online. Truly something to celebrate.​

​

"That might be one of the last mistakes you'll get to make," Adekos rasped, gesturing loosely and summoning his gilded lightsaber back into his grip.​

​

The lightsaber reignited.​

​

"Let's both hope it was worth it."​

 

[Hazel Scheler]

Mercenary met wall with a clang of metal against metal and landed in a heap.

Ouch. Hazel shook her head and pushed herself carefully back to her feet, staggering in place with a broken sort of chuckle. What a welcome from former-beau. She wondered if perhaps she should be angry with him, and her eyes tracked the progress of the illuminated blade as it hissed to life. But, as with most all previous encounters, "I deserved that," the mercenary nodded and lazily lifted a hand to point at the lightsaber, "but I'm not sure I deserve that. Sooo ~"

A deep, mildly bruised-lung wheezing breath, she glanced around for a body. Any body? Oh, that one will do.

The nearest body to her, which had been in the process of standing before being flattened by the leavings of Force Push, struggled in the grasp of her vice grip. She shoved the Vor'cha into his hip and gave him a tiny sizzling hit, eliciting a yelp. His leg instantly went numb and buckled under him like a wet noodle. Hazel offered a helping hand by looping it around his neck and squeezing. Hurk.

"What did you do with Dagmer ..." another glance around, "don't tell me you stuffed him in the maintenance closet."

 

[Caulder Dune]

Hazel Scheler

Adekos stopped in his tracks as she brought one of his own men into play as a human shield. Cybernetic clone trooper shield. As far as improvised cover went, she had lucked out. Nanogene Troopers were engineered with an eye for durability. But that was against conventional weapons, and there was nothing conventional about the Force.​

​

"I'll be the judge of that," he said, through gritted teeth. Either Darth Adekos was greatly displeased or he was still in some pain from the blast.​

​

Oh, why not both?​

​

He sneered at her question. "I booked him on a one way flight to Zeltros, What do you think?"​

​

Ionic energy cackled in his free hand. Clearly he was thinking of dispensing it, though for some reason he still hesitated. And it was probably not out of sympathy for his captured guard.​

​

"I'll ask again. Who are you?"​

​

 

[Hazel Scheler]

He really didn't recognize her?

Ouch. Ouch. For a man who had dispensed the word love to her in their last encounter, that particularly stung. Perhaps it had just been a fluke? Or did the corruption of the Dark Side also cause forgetfulness? She wanted to lean toward the latter, but that distinct flavor of scorn felt a little worse for wear.

She eyed the crackling energy around his free hand, the skin of her face reflexively twitching at the memory of Darkside Lightning scars. It would be nice to forgo more of those, the searing agony of pain that preceded them notwithstanding.

Well feth, what did she have to lose?

"You can call me Ivy," she glanced down to the man in her grasp, "...not you."

 

[Caulder Dune]

Hazel Scheler

Lips pressed into a razor-thin line. Now he remembered. The cadence, the mannerisms, the ridiculous stun stick. It was starting to make sense, as far as anything in this hell-galaxy ever could. However bad Darth Adekos was with faces, he was even worse with helmets.​

​

"Ivy Lasranae," he repeated, as if reaching a grand epiphany. "Or Hazel, as I recall you preferring. How kind of the Force to convey you back to me."​

​

Something in his tone implied that 'kind' was not the word he really wanted to use. In spite of that, his lightsaber switched off. With a free hand, he ran his fingers through his hair, attempting to set it neatly again. As if that could restore his dignity after such a miserable tumble.​

​

"Dagmer is in the leftmost closet behind the main console. Go collect him. He's yours."​

 

[Hazel Scheler]

Ivy Lasranae.

Something about that name sliding off his tongue that made her skin prickle, but not in the bad way it usually did. It was a name she hadn't gone by for the past 30 years since awakening from cryostasis. A name that had engendered unyielding bouts of PTSD, delirium, nightmares, and panic attacks. The woman's grip on the man's neck loosened and she moved to watch Tyrin fuss with his hair.

Instead of anything of the former, the only thing the name now manifested were the memories of a particular pilot's chair that no longer existed and the most comfortable bed she'd slept on in three decades. For a moment Hazel could almost smell cinnamon.

"Dagmer is in the leftmost closet behind the main console. Go collect him. He's yours."

A blink. What? Immediate deflation.

"Well then..." Hazel released the man from her grip and he crumpled to the ground with an indignant grunt. She stepped over him, navigated her way through the men rousing from Force Bellow, and pulled open the closet door. Dagmer toppled out and promptly introduced his face to the floor. Hazel pressed a boot into his back, "That's awfully kind of you, but I can spare him for information if that's what you need. I also need information...why don't we try my way?"

 

[Caulder Dune]

Hazel Scheler

Darth Adekos very politely stepped out of her way as she went past. After clipping his lightsaber to his belt, he folded his arms across his chest and hung around where he was rather waspishly. His eyes lit up a dull red color, and strings of text scrolled across his vision. Interfacing with a local network, relaying commands to his ship, no doubt.​

​

He scoffed. "Be my guest. Ask him where my shipment is. He'll know what I'm talking about."​

​

Dagmer grunted when Hazel put a boot in his back, squirming against the ground. The severed stump of his right arm flailed impertinently, and he, several times, referred to Hazel as an impolite word that rhymed with hunt. This was dispersed between various mutterings on the Ren, how it would consume them all. Eventually. Inevitably.​

​

Riveting material, really. Adekos had heard it before with only minor changes in vocabulary, and so did not appear keen on joining Hazel over there.​

 

[Hazel Scheler]

"Alright Stumpy, simmer down," Hazel may have her morals to maintain and a non-lethal status to uphold, but that didn't stop her grinding her boot heel into the back of scumbags like Ren-aldo here. Right hand folding over left forearm, she opened a utility compartment on her armor and withdrew from inside a mini-stim containing light purplish fluid. Leaning down, her left hand pinned Dagmer's head against the floor while the right injected the stim.

Only it wasn't a stim.

Hazel tossed the empty cartridge over her shoulder as she stood and gave her shoulders a gentle roll. Most of the men had recuperated from their encounter with the Velokron, though the two unconscious men were still laying prone on the floor. None of those presently awake were looking upon her with favor. Just another day for Hazel.

She folded her arms at her front and tapped her foot at Dagmer's back, "This will take just a few moments."

Dagmer had been injected with a concentrated concoction of Truth Serum mixed with carefully measured amounts of Avabush Spice. She didn't have Force frippery to work with, but technology sometimes provided an equivalent.

 

[Caulder Dune]

Hazel Scheler

Dagmer must have sensed his pending injection, as he began to resist quite forcefully. Whatever he had said about the Ren swiftly dissolved into grunting and snarling. It didn't do him much good - Hazel just kept him pinned with her foot and injected him anyway. Dagmer tensed for a moment, only to suddenly relax.​

​

His eyes became dilated. No one ever got injected with Spice without getting to ride the space unicorn, so to speak.​

​

"The Ren is all I have. They wouldn't let me be a Knight; everyone else left me," Dagmer drawled, and when he paused he had a stupid grin on his face.​

​

Telling the truth felt good.​

​

He began to cry. Very gently, but with the kind of building intensity that suggested the worst was yet to come.​

​

Darth Adekos, eyes still flashing with data, now turned his head to directly observe.​

 

[Hazel Scheler]

"Chair," Hazel gestured to a nearby wheely-stool at some tall console. Adekos' men gave her an incredulous look.

"Chair," she repeated, and the sizzling zap of the stun stick made a nearby soldier jump. He glanced at Adekos, reached for the chair, then rolled it across the floor to her. She stepped off of Dagmer and leaned to heave him up, one-armed, "come on then, let's get you up. What a mess you are. Here, have a seat and we'll get you cleaned up."

He slumped into the chair like a sack of potatoes. Hazel leaned down, dusting off the man's knees and quietly slipping a restraint around one of his ankles and the trunk of the stool. It wouldn't stop him from attempting an escape, but it sure as hell would make it interesting to watch.

"Now let's see if we can help you out here, hm? What's your name, where are you from?"