Private Shadows over Corellia

[Jason Darklighter]

"Yeah... I think."

Not a CorSec safe house. Could not trust those.

Jason only had one other option: Hutts. His lips pulled tight in a grimace. Partly pain, but mostly annoyance at having to leap from the frying pan into waters that might be boiling.

Approaching the door cautiously, the detective rapped his knuckles against it twice.

Bzzt. Bzzt.

A robotic eyeball on a mechanical stalk erupted from a slot beside the door and examined the pair of them one with an unblinking black photoreceptor.

"Haku do Uba Naga?" asked a monotone voice.

Great.

"Vota ma pateesa tuta Nal Hutta," Jason repeated the passphrase.

The robotic eyeball stared at him for a moment, then shrank back into its slot. A large thunking sound announced the unlocking of the door mechanism, then it hissed open.

Jason ducked under the doorframe and stepped hurriedly inside with 'Sam' in tow. The door slammed shut behind them ominously. Eyes adjusting to the lowlit interior, Jason began searching the furnished studio. The place was a little sparse, no decorations except an odd painting on the wall. Looked like there was a bed that pulled out from the wall. And there was a walk-in sanisteam. Jason didn't care about any of that at the moment.

"Make yourself comfortable," he muttered, "That door is reinforced. Even if those troopers track us here, they aren't coming in without a lightsaber."

The odds unfortunately seemed relatively high, considering they were Sith agents.

Grimacing again, Jason started rifling through the kitchenette trying to find a medkit.

Solara Gale

 

[Solara Gale]

Huttese.

Sol frowned but kept a lookout behind them. No movement of sith troopers from the mouth of the alley. But she couldn't step over that threshold too soon as it hissed opened. Her shoulders finally relaxed as the door sealed shut behind them. Pale eyes giving the room a quick run-over. Gingerly peeling her brown jacket off and left with a slim, dark grey shirt she stood near the trash compactor, which was parked on the wall near the kitchenette. Carefully, she began picking out the shards of glass and dropping them into the awaiting machine to crunch and grind up.

Eyes flickered to Jason as he searched.

After a quiet beat, her lips parted.

"Solara is my name."

Clink-clink-clink went the glass

"I haven't been able to use it since I left the jedi."

Clink-clink-clink

"And I wonder now if what happened to me was no accident. If I was getting close to finding something out."

 

[Jason Darklighter]

There.

A cabinet cluttered with junk yielded a small med kit. Jason pulled it out and opened it. He shrugged out of his trenchcoat and set it on the counter, then started cleaning his wound as he listened to the Jedi. Well... former Jedi apparently.

"Nice to meet you, Solara," he replied, sourly.

Not the first time a source has lied to me.

"Only thing I figure is who else knew you were going to be there. Me, you... and our mutual friend in CorSec."

Jason hated to think it, but when the shoe fits...

"Unless someone else knew? What was it you were looking for?"

If she'd been following a lead, then she was right. This might have been a two birds, one stone opportunity to take out both of them at the same time.

Solara Gale

 

[Solara Gale]

A small flinch as she felt his miffness beyond his tone.

Pffft. He had no idea what she'd been through.

But she recognized enough to know his feelings weren't about her. Most likely the whole situation and the getting blasted part.

"No one. Only Alen." Stepping around him to the refresher, she snapped on the water and began washing his blood off her hands. Then she got to work on her jacket. It was clear, the small things she did own, she didn't take 'em for granted.

"I kept getting these messages from someone who claimed to be a Shadow. When I was at the Academy. I was trying to figure out who it was. And why they were sent to me." Lips pressed closed as she thought better about sharing more. "I'm not safe to be around," looking over her shoulder pointedly at his wound, she shut the water off.

Then began foraging for food.

 

[Jason Darklighter]

“Hm.”

A contact claiming to be a shadow?

That did not feel right.

Tossing the wrapping of a bacta pad in the trash, Jason applied it to his wound and grit his teeth against the pain as cold bacta jelly squelched into roasted tissue and muscle. He could not hold back a small grunt and clenched his eyes. The sensation lessened somewhat as the numbing effects of the pad’s adhesive took effect around the wound.

Rolling his shoulder experimentally, Jason looked over at Solara who came out of washing her hands and jacket off to start rummaging around the kitchenette for food.

She could still eat at a time like this?

Or maybe getting shot just gave him a loss of appetite.

“Unless you’re being tracked some other way, all signs point to Alen.”

Damn it.

“Normally I’d try to find a reason to get him alone, or stake him out. I don’t think we have that kind of time or resources though. Do you still have access to your old Jedi records from the Order? Old holomail accounts, databases… that kind of thing?”

If she had any residual data on a device, he might be able to use that to try to determine who this shadow was who had been reaching out to her.

The better idea would be to make a list of all shadows, but that kind of material would be incredibly hard to come by if it even existed.

Solara Gale

 

[Solara Gale]

Sol didn't answer right away.

She kept searching cupboards with the casual persistence of someone who'd learned long ago that abandoned safehouses always hid something. A sealed ration bar. Half a bag of caf beans gone stale. Finally—

"Gotcha."

Triumph came in the form of two vacuum-packed nerf jerky strips tucked behind a stack of chipped mugs. She pocketed one and tore the other open with her teeth. Not exactly a feast to help her recover from the force she'd used but it would have to do.

The first bite gave her something to do besides think.

His question lingered.

"No."

She swallowed.

"When I left... I left."

There hadn't been much worth taking besides the clothes on her back. The Order had been her life. Walking away had meant accepting she'd never really belong there again. Holomail accounts, archived lessons, access codes—those had all become someone else's.

She leaned against the counter, turning the unopened ration strip over in her hands.

"Anything tied to the Order would've been deactivated years ago." A small shrug followed. "Or someone smarter than me changed the passwords."

A faint smile tugged at one corner of her mouth before disappearing.

"I kept the messages."

Pale eyes lifted to him.

"Not on the Academy network. I copied them onto a different server because..." She hesitated, realizing how obsessive it had probably looked. "...because they didn't feel like a prank. Something just didn't feel right before things happened." And instinct. Something before that day of betrayal must've sparked her instincts to copy up things. And it's a good thing she had or else she would've had no evidence left. Of anything.

Her thumb traced the edge of the ration packet.

"If we can get access to a public terminal, I can get them."

Then, quieter:

"If whoever sent them wanted me dead, they had plenty of chances before today."

She looked toward the sealed door, listening to the silence beyond it.

"Which makes me think they wanted me to find something first."

Her gaze settled back on Jason.

 

[Jason Darklighter]

“Me.”

The Kiffar started shaking his head, running the fingers of his good hand through his short cropped hair.

The game always chases you. Light against dark. Sith against Jedi. And you came right back into the viper nest.

That was part of why he’d left for the Rim. In Hutt Space, he’d been investigating other crime families, errant mistresses, tracking down debtors. That type of thing. But back here in the Core somehow behind every serial killer there was some Dark Side cult.

Maybe I should have stayed gone.

“I think they want this thing to be eradicated. For people to stop asking questions about where all the Alliance Jedi went. Force knows the Republic doesn’t seem to care.”

His lips curled with disgust. Couldn’t ever trust governments. Too corrupt. Noble houses worst of all. They might look pretty on the outside, but on the inside they were just as bad as the Hutts.

Looking down at her as she leaned on the counter beside him, Jason realized that maybe he had been hungry after all.

“Any of those left?” He asked hopefully.

“We should lay low for the night and then hit a public server in the middle of rush hour tomorrow. We will try to blend in with the traffic.”

Ideally.

“… why’d you leave? The Order.”

Solara Gale

 

[Solara Gale]

She frowned. Solara never even thought about The High Republic as an option to retreat to. Not after everything that had happened with the jedi and the alliance. If she was smart, she'd hightail it to the Rishi Maze or beyond. But the thought of leaving her family completely, didn't sit well with her. They would probably be hunting her down as well, though she kept hiding for their own good.

For a long moment, Solaria said nothing.

Finally, she dug the second nerf-jerky stick out of her pocket and offered it to the Kiffar Detective.

"The Order was already unraveling long before anyone admitted it. Before I left. Masters disappeared on assignments they never returned from. Entire enclaves went dark. Every answer raised two more questions, and eventually..." She gave a faint shake of her head. "Eventually there was no one left willing—or able—to answer them."

Her eyes drifted toward him then, searching his expression before continuing.

"I always thought someone higher up could still see the whole board." A humorless smile touched the corner of her mouth. "Turns out no one was holding all the pieces. And when I started looking on my own, it was too late for me."

She folded her empty wrapper one final time before setting it aside.

Her expression hardened almost imperceptibly.

"I was set-up to take the fall for a lot of deaths."

She met his eyes fully now. She wasn't going to say anymore. Not try to defend herself. Whoever had done it to her made sure the evidence out there - if any was left - damned her.

"If what we found tonight is connected..." A pause. "Then I don't think either of us should expect this to end quietly." Pushing away from the counter, she headed toward the fresher. "I'm gonna clean up. I'm tired." In so many ways beyond using the force had left her.

In no time, she was stepping out, a towel drying off her wet hair. Skin glistening with that fresh-clean look, though she'd tugged on the same clothes she'd been in that day. Light eyes seemed a little darker in color as they flickered to Jason. "Next."

 

[Jason Darklighter]

Jason opened the door and the steam rushed out into the rest of the tiny studio.

“Hm.”

She stood there in the refresher, looking even more like a ten million credit model had somehow ended up in the wrong safe house after her sanisteam. Muscles in Jason’s jaw ticced and he looked at her in the fogged mirror.

“Take the bed, I’ll sleep on the floor.”

Before she could argue, Jason started to tug off his shirt. That usually ended an argument, he’d found. It was more difficult using only one arm and he grimaced in pain. Tossing it aside, he waited for her to leave and then shut the door.

The sanisteam felt like a moment of calm in an otherwise hellish day. Getting shot and chased by Sith troopers on Corellia of all places hadn’t been on his worst fears of the day. More worried about the Hutts, to be honest. But here he was.

After rinsing off, Jason put his clothes back on and opened the door.

“You see any more fo-“ He stopped scrubbing his head with the towel as he saw a huge, bulky Aqualish sitting at the desk chair. There was a blaster pistol on his lap. Death hammer model, Jason noted.

“Uh…”

The Aqualish let out a whufffing chuckle, “You’re a bold one, Jason Darklighter. Using Golga’s safe house with the kind of debt you owe.”

Shit.

Solara Gale

 

[Solara Gale]

Sol took note of his shirtless form. Her eyes lingering on the bacta patch over his wound. As soon as he shut the door to the sanistean, she peeled her boots off and crashed onto the bed. Out the moment her head hit the pillow. Sol's superpower was being able to sleep deep and well wherever she was. Sitting up. Cramped in a public transit.

She didn't stir when Jason came out.

It wasn't until the foreign voice rung out did her ears prick toward consciousness.

She rolled over groggily and mumbled. "Wha-canyoukeepitdown?" Heels of her palms pushed against sleepy eyes then propper herself up on her elbows. "What the kriff?"

Fully awake now.

"Hey pal. I'm sure we can have a nice, calm chat about all this." She flashed a charming smile to the Aqualish in the midst of bed-head.

 

[Jason Darklighter]

“Pipe down, hot stuff,” replied Biff the Aqualish.

“This is Biff,” Jason said helpfully.

“Yeah, I’m Biff. Who is she?”

“Just somebody I found on the street.”

The Aqualish’s four eyes were alien, but not that alien. The look he gave Jason said he wasn’t buying any of that.

“Uh huh.”

“She’s not a part of this. Golga wants his cut, it’s due next month. The money will be there.”

“Yeah, see… plans have changed. Golga wants the money now.”

Jason clenched his jaw tight and tried to keep from going off the deep end. Especially with how Biff’gan was pointing that pistol at him.

“I don’t have the money now.”

“Too bad. Maybe I kill you now and see how Golga rewards me.”

“Golga hates killing off revenue streams,” Jason snorted, “besides, I’m his best Skiptrace.”

“Heh, maybe.”

“Give me until the end of next week. I’ll get him the money.”

The Aqualish stared for a moment, then sighed and stood. “Fine. Fine. Next week… but if you don’t have it you will be needing a new kneecap, Darklighter.”

Jason smiled thinly.

The door hissed open and shut as Biff left. Jason let out a huge sigh he didn’t know he’d been holding in.

That could have gone worse. Except now he needed to come up with ten thousand credits by the end of next week. Jason let out a groan and collapsed backward onto the bed next to Solara.

He was so fucked.

Staring up at the ceiling, Jason put both hands over his face and massaged his temples, muttering. “This couldn’t possibly get any worse.”

Solara Gale

 

[Solara Gale]

Sol let out a breath she'd been holding. And all that energy she'd been drawing in with the force. The outside of one of Jason's freshly cleaned thighs brushed against her own. Her eyes lingered on the door a little longer before turning a sideways look at him.

"Ten thousand credits, Darklghter?! CHIT." She was one to talk but he didn't have to know that.

"How the kriff did you get a debt like that?" Kriff. She probably owed that much...across a few places. At least the Pyke Syndicate wasn't around here. And he didn't need to know about her teeny tiny vice. Nerp. They had enough chit to deal with. Tracking down the mysterious Shadow messenger. Fleeing from sith on fricken Corellia. And now, apparently, getting 10,000 credits for Jason.

"There's a job board at the spaceport," her voice trailed off as she turned on her side to look at him.

 

[Jason Darklighter]

“Yeah?” Jason scowled, then sighing and putting a hand back behind his head as he lay there.

A regular old job. Imagine that.

It didn’t matter. Somehow, trouble always found him. He could try his hand as a line cook at that cafe and the next day he would be neck deep in a murder investigation after touching a patron’s spoon or something and witnessing the double homicide they committed two weeks ago. It was just the way these things worked for him.

”Why didn’t I think…”

The Kiffar man turned his head to the side to look at her and found himself staring into those pale irises as he lay on his side. The end of his joke died in his throat. This close, he could not help but get sucked into the orbit of her beauty.

Bad idea.

But here he was… laying right next to her.

His throat bobbed as he swallowed.

”We’ve all got daemons in our code.”

He shifted and his knee brushed against her leg, causing him to freeze for the barest moment, but when no blast of psychometry hit him the ghost of a smile touched his lips.

"Just different kinds… isn't that right, hot stuff?"

Solara Gale

 

[Solara Gale]

An elegant brow arched. Her eyes studied his and that small smile that slid over his lips. There was no doubt about it. He was attractive. He was the type of guy her parents' warned her about. She liked them scruffy. A scoundrel's smirk brushed against her lips.

Then she couldn't hold it any more.

A bark of laughter and roll of light eyes as she flipped over onto her back, hands coming to slip behind her head as she smirked up at the eyeless ceiling.

"Hot stuff? Does that really work for you Darklighter?"

A flick of her head, eyes still ablaze with amusement as she glanced at him.

A beat.

Then she looked up again and closed her eyes. "You don't have to sleep on the floor but if you start snoring I'm shoving you off.

 

[Jason Darklighter]

Jason’s brows twitched in surprise, but he kept it from the rest of his face.

“Seems fair,” he replied, a model stoic.

Did it work? Maybe for Biff. Jason would have given it a solid ‘absolutely not’ except that she hadn’t immediately kicked him. And he was still laying on the bed…

”But I should warn you,” Jason began, intonation very serious, “Shoving me with a boot or something might cause me to go catatonic while I catch your entire life story.

Or at least the story of wherever she’d worn the boot.

He tapped his skull.

“Psychometry.”

A blessing and a curse.

Not that that had happened recently… Jason vividly remembered echoes of what he’d seen when he’d touched her jacket. He would have to ask her at some point what it all meant.

“Bare skin not so much.”

Solara Gale

 

[Solara Gale]

She searched his face for the tell. The twitch at the corner of a mouth. The glimmer that said got you.

Nothing.

"Huh. Always thought skin contact was worse." Solara turned her head, studying him now with open curiosity.

"So if I bean you with my boot..." she pointed vaguely toward the pile of discarded gear by the door, "...you get a highlight reel of my questionable life choices?"

A beat.

"Good news is the boots have seen less than my jacket."

Her smile lingered for only a moment before softening.

"Does it ever stop?" she asked, quieter now. "Or are you just... constantly worrying about what you touch?"

Lifting one hand up, she flexed her fingers. Studying them in the Corellian lights outside that broke through the edges of the blackout curtains.

"I can't decide if that's the coolest thing I've ever heard... or the loneliest."

 

[Jason Darklighter]

Jason shrugged.

“Helps with the job.”

The ability to touch an object and see its history at will gave him an edge over the average detective.

“Normally I only see an object’s past when I concentrate. But if I touch an object charged with too much emotion then it can uh,” he gestured at the air, “… yeah.”

Either her jacket had some history, or she was just that powerful in the Force that her emotions lingered on what she touched.

Looking over at her, careful of his bad shoulder, Jason held up a finger and then slowly reached over and pressed it to a finger of her outstretched hand.

Her skin was warm against his.

“….see…. Nothin.”

Solara Gale

 

[Solara Gale]

"You go full on overdose," she completed his sentence even though it was unnecessary. A small crease formed as she pinched her sandy-brown brows together in thought. Light eyes shifted to the embrace of their fingers. Then back to his face just to make sure he was telling the truth.

That smallest touch was surprisingly comforting.

When was the last time she'd even gotten a hug? A squeeze on the shoulder? Something more and something less?

Not since she'd fled the jedi. Not since before she'd woken up to be surrounded by her friends' bodies. She swallowed and moved her hand away. That bravado mask easily slipping on her face.

"Good to know if I need to slap you, you'll make it through." Eyes alight with that devilry smirk again. Swagger and playfulness in her eyes. Adjusting the pillow beneath her head, she held his gaze for a long moment before she let her eyes close.

"Get some sleep, Darklighter. We gotta find a gig tomorrow to make some credits. And this kinda gig is probably not the kind you're used to."

Probably not above the law.

And like a switch, the was out. At some point during the night, she'd worm her way over to the heat his body provided and curled into him. Her dreams swirled around someone else she used to do that to.