Private Refuel

[Starlin Rand]

In the adventure tales told of star-travelers, the storytellers usually neglect to mention how many times the heroes had to stop for fuel.

If you were traveling along a major hyperspace route, odds were you could find a space station, or at the very least an efficient fuel depot. The farther off the beaten path you flew, however, the lower the quality of the stops—to say nothing of the exorbitant price of goods in the farthest reaches of known space, where the trappings of civilization were scarce.

So when Starlin heard the telltale chime informing him that he needed to refuel, he let out a groan. He and Eli were returning to Coruscant after a jaunt in the Outer Rim, and Starlin wanted nothing more than to get home and scrape off the dust he’d picked up along the way. He had some bad experiences with fuel stations in this part of the galaxy—he chalked it up to the fact that they tended to be operated by underpaid attendants rather than automated by droids.

But it looked like they didn’t have a choice. Refuel or get spaced. Muttering under his breath, Starlin found the closest documented station and pulled the Defender of Ossus out of hyperspace. He thumbed the button on the ship’s intercom to inform Eli.

“Rest stop to refuel. We might be here for a little while, if you wanna get out and stretch your legs.”

Lief​

 

[Lief]

Eliphas sat with Jacen Nimdok 's loaned holocron set before him on his bunk.

He had not tried to communicate with it. He had not tried to make use of it. Instead he'd sort of just sat and stared at it, conjuring up the confidence to put it to good use. At the very least he could interact with the Gatekeeper right? Why was he stalling?

In his mind he still held the image of that corruptive holocron from Ossus. Or maybe it was the fact that Nimdok had openly stated that these things could lie...

Maybe he was afraid he'd mess up and not be able to activate it. Or that he'd damage it somehow.

Or---

Starlin's voice rang out over the intercom, and he lifted his head up. Blinked his apparently sore eyes; had he been staring so much he'd forgotten to blink? By the Empress....

The boy stretched out through the Force and tried to grasp at the holocron, to lift it up from the bed. It sort of rocked back and forth, lifted an inch, then dropped back against the blanket. He sighed, then lifted it with his hand instead. Set it back into the drawer beside his bed, for safe keeping, then rose up and glanced around for his boots.

They were laced up in no time, and then he was out in the main body of the ship seeking out Starlin as he brought them in to the rest stop.

"Never been to one of these before" he remarked, peering past Starlin and through the viewing port, "The Atale had a set path that accounted for planets and stations. Could be cool to look around."

Of course what the boy didn't mention was that he'd been the mastermind behind that. The less random stops they had to make, the more efficient they could be in the long run. He'd enjoyed that process, in truth...

Starlin Rand

 

[Starlin Rand]

“Of course,” Starlin murmured with a smirk after Eli admitted he’d never been inside a fuel station before. Rich kid, go figure. “It’s not really anything special, trust me. You’re likely to find a lot of weirdos hanging around in there. I don’t mean charming eccentrics, I mean crazy people, so watch your back.”

Belatedly, he realized how scary his words sounded. “I’m sure you’ll be fine,” he quickly added. “Anybody gives you shit, just flash your lightsaber hilt, and they should back off.”

As the Defender latched on to the station, Starlin stood up from the pilot’s seat and headed for the umbilical. He most definitely wanted to stretch his legs…

“Oh, and don’t buy any food they sell here,” he said as he walked. “Well, stuff that’s sealed should be okay, long as you check the expiration date, but if you see pizza or hot dogs they have cooking in a fryer, don’t bother. It’ll probably make you sick.”

Lief​

 

[Lief]

"Well, great," he mumbled, as he followed Starlin back through the ship and toward the airlock, "Now I really, really want pizza..." He'd only ever had it once or twice growing up, but ever since hanging out with Iris Arani during her recovery he'd come to love the greasy food. Was it bad for him? Hell yeah! But even so, every once in a while? Well it couldn't hurt, could it?

"So what, people just linger around here while their ship's refueling?" he asked. Crazy people, apparently. What was it about some place like this that attracted crazies, he wondered.

"So long as we don't have another witch on our hands, I think we'll be fine... Right?" Eliphas paused at that thought, and gave the man a curious glance. "Say, how did you make me strong enough to face her down, anyway? Some sort of spell?"

Starlin Rand

 

[Starlin Rand]

"Now I really, really want pizza..."

"You don't want fuel station pizza, you want that Coruscanti pizza gourmet." Starlin's made a chef's kiss gesture.

"Say, how did you make me strong enough to face her down, anyway? Some sort of spell?"

"'Ashla, grant him the strength of the Rancor; show him he can be strong without anger. Grant him the speed of the Falcon; show him he can be swift without passion…' I only had the strength spell, so I made up the speed one on the spot. If you want to use it on yourself, just change all the hes and hims to mes and Is. It not only enhances your strength, it makes you look buff as hell, too."

Why Eli would want to temporarily look jacked was his own business.

They headed into the station proper. It looked like, well, your typical station—except a lot smaller and dinkier. The walls were rusty, and the viewport windows were dirty. A problem with the ventilation system had prompted someone to set up a fan inside the convenience store section of the place.

Starlin looked around, then shrugged. "Well, I've seen worse." He went to pay for their fuel at the counter.

Lief​

 

[Lief]

"... I need to start writing these down" he stated with a soft frown, mumbling the words a few times to himself in order to try and set them to memory. Then he slapped his forehead, feeling like an idiot, and activated his holopad. The device flashed into life, projected from his wrist. He quickly jotted it all down, then nodded once to himself.

There. That was easier.

"I'll try it later" he said, shrugging, "You know, in case you told me it wrong." A cheeky smirk, as they made their way into the station. His eyes drifted over the various convenience foods and the like on offer. Nothing really stood out to him though. He wandered among the shelves as Starlin prepared to pay. There was an area dedicated to tacky memorabilia. "Who buys these..?" he mumbled, seriously confused by the whole idea of wanting a magnet with some pitstop's name on it, or worse yet a tshirt.

Wasn't like they were visiting some vacation world; even then, Eliphas didn't understand it. Tat... Tat for tat's sake.

"You want a drink?" he called out to Starlin, as he came before a cooler and peered inside. Not the best selection, but hey it was something different to what was on the ship.

Starlin Rand

 

[Starlin Rand]

You know, standing in front of a cooler is a pretty easy position to get knocked out from behind in. Just sayin’.

Starlin meanwhile was complaining under his breath about the price of fuel. “Fething Tithe,” he said, only for his brow to furrow. This wasn’t Alliance territory, so whose fault was it? “Hey, who’s in charge around these parts?”

The Toydarian cashier blinked dully, shrugging his shoulders. “Eh, somebody that gets paid more than me.”

Starlin snorted, then heard Eli ask him if he wanted anything to drink. “Do they have Fizzyglug?” he asked. Yet he didn’t hear an answer. “Fizzyglug!” he yelled across the store. Still nothing. “Eli?...”

Lief​

 

[Lief]

"Let's see here..." His eyes drifted over the various drinks on offer, some caf' in a can, juice that looked like it was more sugar than fruit, and---

His danger sense flared just a second before everything went black.

If Starlin Rand came to investigate, he'd find the kid sprawled out before the upright cooler with a distinct lack of both blaster and holopad on his person.

 

[Starlin Rand]

Starlin didn't have a chance to investigate. No sooner had he drifted away from the counter to try and find Eli, a stun baton struck him, knocking him out cold.

When he came to, he was tied to a chair in a musty storage room. Eli was similarly tied up, the back of his chair pressed to Starlin’s. Their weapons and any other gear had been confiscated.

“Oh great,” Starlin muttered, flinching against a splitting headache. “Eli, you okay?”

Lief​

 

[Lief]

He'd awoken first.

Tied to a chair, a rather damp musk to the air around him, he'd initially tried to move only to find his chair backed against another. He could just about sense Starlin in the room with him, though the lingering effects of the stun made doing much more than that with the Force little more than a pipe dream. His head hurt something fierce, and his throat felt oddly dry.

It wasn't long before his Master stirred behind him.

"Mm," he mumbled in response, turning his head this way and that and feeling a few small pops in response. "Stiff, but fine... You?" How long had they been sat there? He didn't know. What he did know was that he'd been stripped of pretty much everything that wasn't clothes. His heart sank; the lightsaber... The lightsaber with Yara's crystal inside.

He struggled against the bindings, a renewed vigor washing over him.

"Empress," he breathed, slumping back in the chair soon after. "What happened?"

Starlin Rand

 

[Starlin Rand]

“Head’s killin’ me.” Starlin took another look around the musty, dimly lit storeroom before muttering, “I wonder where the gimp is.”

At the very least, they weren’t totally helpless. “I don’t think our captors know we’re Jedi. Or, well—if they took our lightsabers, I guess they know now, but maybe not when they decided to hit us over the heads and steal our stuff.” How had he come to this conclusion? “There are ways to capture a Jedi that will stop us from using the Force. Universal energy cages, ysalamiri, nullification resin, void stones, all that crap. But I don’t sense any limitations in here…”

He paused. “Hey, that gives me an idea. Let’s do a telekinesis lesson. You find something that looks like it could get us out of here, and float it over here.”

Eli wasn’t facing Starlin, so he couldn’t see the chit-eating grin on his face, but the mirth was present in his voice. He clearly wasn’t taking their captivity all that seriously.

Lief​

 

[Lief]

"Gimp..?"

Eliphas' brows knitted together in confusion there, but he was more or less immediately distracted by Starlin's rundown of Force-reducing items. There was a lot more than he'd been expecting, and as each was rattled off he tried to set them to memory. At the very least he could research then when they got out of here.

... If they got out of here.

The boy frowned at that thought.

If nothing else though that meant his own resistance was likely going to wane. In fact even now, with each passing second, he felt his connection strengthening. He closed his eyes and inhaled a calming breath. His Master didn't seem too concerned, so surely that meant he had no cause to be too. Right?

In fact, Starlin was looking to turn the whole thing into a lesson. Telekinesis, no less. He'd started himself on that journey when he tried to throw a pillow at Miri, but it didn't come very easily to him yet. The idea that their lives rested in his hands was a little unnerving, but maybe it would give him that extra boost he needed to get it done.

"Uh, I can try" he said with a small nod, then glanced this way and that for something, anything, which might help with removing the rope. Nothing, nothing... There. Left atop one of the semi-open boxes. A retracted box knife. "Uh, I think I have something but, I don't know if I can actually make it useful" he said, with a frown, "If I get it to you, can you try and get the blade out?"

If. If he could get it to Starlin.

Eliphas huffed out a breath of hot air, then slowly reached out with the Force to try and grip the boxcutter...

Starlin Rand

 

[Starlin Rand]

"Gimp..?"

“Haven’t you ever seen Flimsiplast Fiction?” At the (presumed) continued confusion of his Padawan, Starlin just sighed. “Forget it. It’s, heh, hard to explain.”

Eli found a boxcutter. "Wow, really? They just left an obvious sharp cutting tool in here with us? What a bunch of amateurs." Starlin nonchalantly flicked the blade open and closed with telekinesis. Their lives didn't actually rest on Eli's shoulders—if he couldn't pull it off, Starlin would step in. "Float on, kid..."

He trailed off, hearing footsteps outside somewhere outside. "Make it fast, baby."

Lief​

 

[Lief]

"You're a baby" he muttered back beneath his breath, as the footsteps on the other side of the door became more pronounced. Okay, Eliphant, time is of the essence. Let's go...

With his heart race picking up, and the opening closing pretty fast, Eliphas grasped at the box cutter and immediately tugged, pulling it through the air and toward the pair of chairs without a second thought. Much to his surprise it actually worked, the damned thing levitated toward them and then drifted over his hand and into Starlin's lap.

It happened so quickly that the boy was caught off guard, his eyes widened. Those footsteps drew closer, though, and he turned his head to stare at the door. "Don't open" he whispered, hoping that Starlin would have enough time to cut the ropes. "Don't... Open..."

Starlin Rand

 

[Starlin Rand]

“It’s a term of endearment, bay-bee.”

Eli moved the boxcutter into his lap so fast, Starlin was grateful he’d decided to close the blade beforehand. Otherwise it might’ve wound up embedded in his thigh, or somewhere much more painful…

The door opened to reveal the Toydarian cashier from the station store. “Uh,” the alien said, scratching his hairy chin. “I think there’s been a tiny little mistake.”

Starlin, who was clenching his legs together as best he could to hide the boxcutter between them, tried not to look suspicious. “A mistake?”

“Uh, yeah. We normally only rob travelers that don’t carry lightsabers. The other guys want to just kill you, but even I can see that’s a dumb idea. So, uh… how about we let you go, and uh, no hard feelings, eh?”

Lief​

 

[Lief]

"Still a bay-bee" he retorted, though there was much more humour in his tone now. Hey, maybe that was why Starlin was so lighthearted all the time, there was something about being silly in serious situations, helped to elevate th---

The door opened, and his eyes widened in surprise. A teeny tiny squeak rose up and barely escaped his lips. Eliphas had not been present at the register to recognize the guy who fluttered before them. Nope, all he saw was danger.

All at once the thousands of lessons Nimdok had provided him with flooded to the forefront of his mind, and after briefly closing his eyes the boy reached out through the Force and tried to put some of it to good use. Namely: stun. No tickling this time, no messing around and making the fiend laugh, the kid put his all into knocking out the creature so that they might make their quick escape.

Truth be told only half of what the Toydarian said even made it past his lips before Eliphas had made his attempt.


Starlin Rand

 

[Starlin Rand]

Alleviate, not elevate.

Just saying.

Starlin watched as the Toydarian fell to the ground unconscious, having only gotten about halfway through his sentence before Eli hit him with stun. “Okay, that works too,” he said. Seizing the boxcutter, he sliced through the ropes binding them together. Which brings us to an interesting question—couldn’t they have just used telekinesis to untie them?...

Once they were free, Starlin checked the area outside the storeroom. Nobody else was in sight, but they most assuredly weren’t alone on the station. “Now to get our stuff back,” he said, spinning the boxcutter between his thumb and forefinger. “You wanna split up, divide and conquer, or stick together?”

Lief​

 

[Lief]

Not when you're talking about elevating moods, dear friend.

Frankly the boy hadn't expected his attempts to be quite so sudden or successful. Maybe he'd just numb the creature and leave it unable to flutter around on all-too-small-wings, maybe he'd just anger it unintentionally, but nope. The urgency and the severity of the situation had emboldened him and in response down went the Toydarian.

Well, if Starlin didn't have an opening before now he certainly did. Their binds were removed soon after, and after shaking off the remnants of rope he rose up and stepped over the slumbering creature to glance through the doorway and down the hall beyond. Left, right, there didn't seem to be anyone immediately on their way.

He turned back to his Master, who had done a similar act, and then pondered the question. "How large is this place?" he whispered. Truth be told the last thing he wanted was to split up, much less when he had nothing on his person to defend himself with.

Then he remembered the spell from Erakhis. Okay, so he wouldn't be entirely indefensible. He nodded his head, gulped down his doubt, and steeled his eyes.

"We can divide, might be we can get out of here faster."

Even as the words escaped him he was regretting them, but too late now. He couldn't be that person who immediately went back on their word. Nope. So he inhaled a slow breath. "I'll go left, you go right?"

Starlin Rand

 

[Starlin Rand]

“Hell if I know. Probably not that big, it’s just a fueling station.” That didn’t mean the halls weren’t labyrinthine, though. Given that they’d been taken captive, who knew what hidden passages it might hold…

But that seemed a lot more competent than the Toydarian had been, and Starlin had little reason to believe his accomplices were any better. Sometimes even incompetent people could get the drop on somebody smarter, stronger, faster, and better looking than them.

Not that good looks were relevant, of course. Starlin just felt like roasting these clowns.

His head still hurt.

“You sure?” he asked, detecting the regret in Eli even as he said they should split up. “‘Cause that’s how we got knocked out in the first place… Eh, feth it, I’m impatient, I want my laser sword back now.” He started walking in one direction, passing by a hat stand. Pausing, he took one of the hats and put it on his head, as if wearing it would protect him from further hard knocks, then continued down the hall, whistling faintly.

Lief​

 

[Lief]

As Starlin wandered off one way, Eliphas paused and breathed in a shaky breath to calm himself. Then he began to mutter beneath his breath, drawing upon the Force as he did so.

"So that I may continue to play this game unmaimed," he began, closing his eyes to conjure up an impression of a dagger within his curled fingers, "Ashla conjure a weapon from the infinite flame!" Though quiet, it was said with conviction; much to his surprise, a small knife appeared within his hands, made of pure Force energy, as unexpected as the first time it had happened.

One of these days he'd have to get a peek in Starlin's spell book...

He opened his eyes and glanced left, then began to head that way into the unknown. At least he wasn't entirely unarmed now, and knowing that there was a good chance they'd be targeted helped with anticipating further ambushes. Eliphas reached out with the Force to broaden his senses, and approached another doorway...

Starlin Rand