Smogfall [Tia]

[Mirra Voss]

​

​

Smogfall​

The Caves, Efavan​

"Smogfall, verb - Slang used by dwellers of the lower layers of Efavan to refer to someone or something falling from above, usually with unsuccessful, dangerous or fatal connotations."

Long data-conduits fall from the tangle of wires and scrap that formed the roof of the shanty in a rough circle around the center of the larger of the two rooms within.

A flicker of motion, blue and white against a grimy wall. Eyes try to track the target, my hand grips the blaster tighter. There, no, th...

Glittering green and purple neon lights flicker into life and then fall dark again in time to the pathetic chugging of an ancient smoke machine, both of them on a faulty timer circuit the owner simply had not been able to fix.

No blood. How could there be no blood? Five gang bravos dead, some of them missing limbs, all of them with surprised looks on their faces. An alien figure walks away into the darkness.

The dark lenses of last decades state of the art holoprojector units reflected the dull, empty room, as black and empty as a Hutt's heart.

My heart beats faster, a terrified hammering that drowns out all the sound in my world. This just a dream. They're all just dreams. None of them are real... only...

Cheap theatrics for an even cheaper audience.

There it is, a blur of white and blue filled with disgust and deeply repressed anger. The world around it seems almost tranquil, without emotion. It's features are still as it kills men and women like the reaper itself. A devil birthed from the Force.

Sweat stained the tiny cot in the second room, the sole contents aside from this years state of the art, stolen Slicer deck, the cables still held in the sleeping hand of the eyeless figure who tossed and turned as if physically assaulted in her dreams. A wordless cry leaves her lips, but she does not wake.

Deeper now, into the smog that is the roof of the world above this one. They say the world above that has sky, but I have never seen it, not even with my sight. I have dreamt it, it holds terrors. Terrors like this demon which now haunts the worlds above. Descending.

The room has almost no floor, just a tangle of pipes above the drop to the water of the Sinks below. Safety precaution. No one would break in here. They say the Oracle will see it coming in the data, anyway. They're half right.

Further now - a trail of bodies from those who get in her way, criminals, muggers and thieves all. But isn't that all there is in this city? Good people live in the Spires. Well, rich people, anyway. I've dreamt of their sins as well. I know their names, their faces, their weaknesses. I was too good. Too lucky. They saw through the act. Oh. No.

Above the bed, a long line of bottles of neon liquids, some half empty, some full sits like a mute testament to abuse. A final judgement of the woman who stirs restlessly in the bed of herself.

It's coming here. Below sky, below smog, below earth - the caves, then the sinks. Here. For me.

Mirra awoke with a scream, this was nothing unusual, her hand flew out, groping for one of the flasks above her bed as her heart thudded so hard in her chest. She needed the one that worked, but she couldn't see that one, her hand caught it and she felt rather than saw the splash of liquid across her chest, decorating her with a neon fluid she couldn't see with her sight, then a tinkle of glass. After a moment, she sullenly activated the optics in her mask, backup, her father had always said. You couldn't rely on the Sight, it lied to you.

Mirra knew it told only the truth, which is why she had that bottle. It was the only thing that truly let her sleep, her chem-addled body almost immune to everything else.

Yes. A bright neon stain ran across the dark, rumbled jumpsuit that passed for clothing she'd fallen asleep in, and she was still here, a girl just on the cusp of adulthood, with no future and nowhere further to fall, limbs weak from mild malnutrition and replacement of needed nutrients with stims and sedatives in alternative doses. The shakes were already starting to set in, and she grabbed one of the green and blue bottles and greedily drank it, a trickle of neon staining her lips.

Nowhere to fall, but she needed to run. Now. They all needed to run, she'd finally come to the end of the line. A demon from the Force was coming to take her away. Just like had happened to Maris.

Maris had been a selfish chit, but she'd sort of been a friend to the Nexu. Mirra had tried to warn the girl, but she was cocky and Marris was secretly terrified of her. She hadn't pushed hard enough that the girl was pushing too hard. Now Maris was dead, or worse, taken by whatever devils the Dark Lords summon to pluck servants from the earth.

There were no angels in heaven. Mirra would have seen them. She always saw the truth.

Up and out, no time to stop, no time to think. Grab your go-bag (thanks dad!), grab your 'deck and get out, now, emerging into the noisy confusion and dark, murky grandure of the Caves. Whole villages sat at the base of the spires, fishing junk and stealing from the water supplies of the rich like cockroaches at a banquet. Whole towns, whole economies of junk and filth spiralled their way up the columns that supported the roof of this world.

The lowest world. The Underworld, some called it.

Outside, a dark-skinned woman with bright neon lips and a brilliant neon tribal tattoo - and no clothes that could be seen - startled up and drew a cheap hold out blaster from nowhere. Mirra made the hurried sign of cross - Crosstown, her home, what passed for a brilliant light of civilisation in this part of the galaxy. What a joke. Mirra might have laughed, if she had anything to laugh about. But above, one of the rattling gantry cages descended to the towns main elevator port. Mirra stared, did demons use elevators?

No matter. She had to run, even if she didn't know where she was going to run to. Away, and... down, only the desperate came this far down, only those with a death wish - or death mark - went deeper, into the Scraps.

Mirra might have cried, if she had tear ducts, she thought she'd long ago given up cursing the galaxy for being unfair. It turns out, she still had a little disappointment in it left in her. Down, then - along a rickety alley high above the dizzying drop, winding her way towards the bottom of Crossroads. Then she'd have to take a risk and take an elevator car, or climb.

[member="Tia'Ilandra Shaasa"]​

 

[Tia'Ilandra Shaasa]

Necessity and convenience had driven the nomad to make planetfall, she had arisen from her solitude to discover her tired vessel, Pursuivant, had once again developed a fault somewhere in the energy transfer coils. A visual inspection had convinced the traveller to seek out aide in her repairs - meditating on her options had suggested that Vorzyd was the path she would take. The failing transfer coils had required the pilot stagger her hyperdrive use, what would have been a matter of hours had taken almost two days.

As she had slept, the huntress had dreamt of the chase.

---

The long dark night, the forest floor beneath her feet a maze of roots and hidden missteps to foul the step of the unwary, the smell of blood flooded her senses and to her flanks she could hear the snarls of the canids that hunted in her dreams, The forest was hot and humid, the impenetrable canopy above banished all light from sun or moon above. Instead, what little light the Huntress detected seemed to come from the red gleam of beady eyes within the trees or from ahead where her quarry awaited.

The heat and light drew the huntress closer, her perspective that of the canids now as she ran with the pack. A scent on the air told the huntress that the prey was wounded. She drew up short as the prey was sighted.

The fawn lay alone in a clearing, head lowered out of sight. But as the pack approached the slight beast rose to peer into the shadows and the dark. Empty eyes gazed back at the huntress before the prey took flight and the chase had begun.

---

Becaad market had been the closest thing to actually living that the traveller had witnessed since her arrival to Vorzyd. Crowded and busy with all forms of life, livestock and worked by vendors with wares ranging from tech junk to gene crops, to stims and downers illegal on any world with sense. Hidden suspended beneath the smog line of Efavan’s considerable pollution problems and towering megastructures, concepts of night and day ceased to be meaningful for the denizens of the dark places. Becaad never slept.

The upper levels of the megacity was a tourist trap, polished and prettied but no practical or positive use for those who lived for anything but the vice of avarice. Becaad was the true heart of local life sandwiched between the grandeur above and the misery below. Finding her way this far had been the work of several hours and she had been obliged to decline several attempts to sell her illicit substances or relieve her of her possessions on the way.

The air was dry and stank of pollutants, hydrocarbon fumes and the press of bodies, mixed in places with the sweet smell of fruits or the smoky scent of preserved foods or spices.

Standing at almost two meters tall, horned and with her skin striped blue and white the traveller was stood out amongst the locals, mostly a mix of green-skinned Vorzydians, pallid looking humans and the furred Selonians. Her traveller’s robes were unadorned in a mix of grey tones and though they were reminiscent of those worn by her order the nomad made no attempt to draw attention to herself so close to the borders of the Sith Empire.

Presently, her path brought her alongside a row of vendors specialising in tech, components and repairs, her ice blue gaze drawn up to the vivid graffiti on display across the walls between each unit. Stylized tribal eyes, horned skulls, even bird iconography vied for dominance on the walls and the shutters of the traders’ stalls. The traveller stopped and raised her hooded head to regard the vandalism again, red-eyed birds seemed to dominate this area, but there above one trader a vivid blue orb in luminescent paint still watched over the market.

Something in that eye drew her closer, and she looked over the wears for a moment before the merchant approached her, a diminutive Vorzydian, wearing overalls, eyes enlarged by the magnifying lenses built into a pair of goggles he wore.

“Watcha want, M’am?” the green-skinned native croaked in a rasping voice that suggested to the stranger that the man might be suffering from his cities atmosphere. “Anythin’ you don’ see, I can get.”

She flashed the trader a list of components her failing ship would need but the Togrutan’s eyes were drawn to a stack of holoprojectors tubes. Each looked used, restored or repaired, but one, in particular, stood out to the visitor, the casing was marked with vivid fingerprints stained in luminescent pink and blue, and there in the centre of the lens a thumbprint left the impression that the lens was another eye watching her.

“What is this?” the huntress asked, her voice a rich and cultured, with a deeper timbre that matched her predatory aspect.

As she spoke the visitor gestured to the item with an open hand and awaiting the vendor's nod before she lifted he slender tech, immediately the feeling a connection in the object, as a familiar sensation washed over her.

The fawn with empty eyes. Splashes of neon liquids, the fluttering heart of flight winning out over fight. Confusion and fear of the shadows.

“Holo, that one’s entertainment. Songs and dancers, you know?” the shopkeeper nodded encouragingly, raising a brow and continuing in a conspiratorial whisper. “I have others, for other discerning tastes?”

Her eyes assessed him again, this time reaching out with the force to probe the mien of this merchant. Not him, not the one.

“Tell me how you came to have this..” she made the command with the tone of a question but the twist of influence pushed the shopkeeper to comply more readily, a bemused look on his features as he spoke in reply.

“Wha-? Oracle?-”

---

The descent lower into the darkness and filth filled the huntress with a growing sense of sadness, as though she could taste the misery in the air as she passed, or share the desperation she felt so keenly from the souls around her.

The drug dealer who Taro had sent the nomad onto in search of this child had come with her own price. She specialised in glowing vials of exotic slow flowing liquids, Braindance, Brighteyes, Shivverspike, Dreamblade.

The Togruta carried little of value she was willing to pay to the dealer of misfortune and so they had come to blows then, she felt the change in her informant's demeanour as if it were written on the human woman’s painted features. The rapid approach of the dealers enthralled was met with a calm and measured act of violence on the huntress part, it cost several of the aggressors' hands and digits, one - a life.

The dealer talked then, and lower the huntress descended, each step further from the city above into the wild place that lay trapped below, the ugly soul of Efavan.

Eventually, her path brought her to the Oracles wresting place, a nest of wires and broken things, a fiend’s hideaway where the user had sought to ease a troubled heart and mind with the worst of the dealer's potions. The towering huntress ducked to examine the neon-splashed sleeping spot, touching her fingertips to the still warm blanket, soaked in perspiration. The visions of the girl who had slept there flooded to her, the young woman's face was writ upon every wall and the nomad felt as if she could hear echoes of her crying.

Strong she was, but afraid, so very afraid.

The towering figure straightened again, and turned to leave, seeing the eyes of hidden watchers all around as the local gangers simply watched the ghost pass through. Each offering a silent prayer for the Oracle, that the ghost might never find her.

---

The flesh of the world was visible now, the further the rattling gantry cages descended toward the towns main elevator port, the more keenly she felt the young woman; Shared her fear; Listening to the drumming of her erratic heart. Down in the deepest darkest place was no place for one in her state of mind, Tia’Illandra remembered the lonely fear-filled dark as clearly now as she ever had.

The force had brought her to this stinking tomb of a world, to this deep well of despair, to this lost soul. She would not stop now.

[member="Mirra Voss"]

 

[Mirra Voss]

The elevator would be to slow, but Mirra didn’t rate her chances of climbing down - it wasn’t the dizzying drop to still water that bothered her, after all, you couldn’t live here and not have a head for heights. It was the Kingfishers.

She’d been told that a Kingfisher was a type of off world avian, and that might well be true, but down here the Kingfishers were a ‘gang’ - more of a tribe, really - of painted freaks who used insane neon-lit gliders to ride the thermal blooms from the Scraps below, the great bubbling vents that fed the whole planet - even the Casinos - with warmth. They were rarely bold enough to attack a town, or even a caravan - but a poorly defended elevator, or worse, a lone climber? Easy meat.

Past Lovers Drop and the twisted bodies of people who simply couldn’t take life anymore, the long flickering brightly coloured streamers marking their passing. No one wanted to die unremembered.

Down through Fisher Town, the complex web of cables suspending acrobat scrap collectors who ‘fished’ the great drop below with long, braided monofilament lines. Frankly, better to get a job on a scrap boat if you were that crazy.

Uptown, ironically named given it was one of the lowest points, but the locals had a sense of humour. Mirra slipped through the packed mass of human and alien flesh as if the people simply did not exist, never so much as touching one as she hurried to the elevator.

A neon-painted face here, a waving mass of tentacles - the local brewer, as it happened in Mirra’s opinion she brewed better ale than the topsiders, then slipping between a incipient knife-fight before it even began, the Oracle knew this town, and this town knew the Oracle.

The message was out, word was on the street, you didn’t need to ask anyone to know - a Hunter was in town, and if the Oracle was scared... well...

Damn, damn, damn and maybe chit and a few Selonian curse words that would have gotten a slap from even her hardened father. She could feel the gangways become alive, the town start to empty and the predators come out. A hunter might pay for the Oracle, after all - maybe even pay enough to get out.

There. The elevator, the latest car coming in to dock above the dizzying drop, a scrap metal construction attached to an ancient construction gantry high above. She’d made it just in...

... blue and white, unmistakeable, towering over most of the surrounding humans. A presence that radiated determination, calm and... Mirra didn’t stop to look, the fact she could sense the figure and it’s form from clean across the boarding plaza and it’s heaving mass of decrepit commerce was enough.

A demon, sent by... someone. There had been rumours for months now. Planetary takeover.

Mirra had dreams of far off battles, of worlds burning. She knew what they meant - she knew this demon was here to involve her in that, and no good could possibly come of it.

If she’d stopped to think, to even take a second glance, then the situation might have been different - indeed, she might never have been found, this was her domain and untrained or not, she had the advantage.

But she bolted without thinking, turning down the nearest alley and running.

Straight into Licktown.

No part of Crossroads was safe, but running into the heart of the area close to the center inhabited by the Licks - a tattooed, scarred mercenary gang that did business too dirty for anyone else up and down the city, and made their home here because, simply, no one would bother them, was perhaps not the wisest of plans.

Still, she didn’t do badly, evading the outer guards on instinct, only to have everything come horribly unstuck when Vance ‘Ready’ Kilorf, a brutal figure somewhere in the region of two feet taller than the tiny girl and three of his lieutenants confronted her.

What really sent things non-linear to the land where the reprocessed waste product is flung against a rotary air impeller was not when Vance menaced her, nor threatened her life, liberty and... other matters, or even when when of his goons dutifully reported someone was looking for the girl and had killed doing so.

No, it was when Mirra grew a spine and shot the very startled Vance stone cold dead with the tiny, grossly overpowered hold out blaster she’d been given by her father.

It didn’t feel good, as his body slumped to the floor, all her senses had warned against the action. But she was so very, very tired of running from everything, and here with her back to the wall, between demon, sinner and the great green Sinks, what else was she supposed to do?

The blaster fire seemed to be in slow motion, the flash of red contrasting with the green and purple neon the Licks lit their part of town with, a spray of blood flew across the garish licking tongue symbol someone had graffitied on a wall years ago.

Then his body hit the floor, and Mirra became quite shockingly alert that the gun had three shots, and there were four men, one dead, three surprised - but surprise merely makes a mercenary drawn down, not back off.

It would be wrong to say her life flashed before her eyes, but she did briefly bitterly regret everything that came before.

[member="Tia'Ilandra Shaasa"]

 

[Tia'Ilandra Shaasa]

The rattling carriage approached the foundation of one of the mighty columns that held bore the great weight of the Efavan megacity. Through the gaps in the wire lattice caging Tia watched the acrobatics of neon-streaked air riders above and spindle-legged wading platforms below, the latter of which appeared to stagger through the dark lagoons, strobing searchlights illuminating rainbow reflections across the surface of the tainted liquid.

Chaos, yet Harmony.

The tripod striders trailed dragnets through the thick fluid, hauling up tech waste as well as a catch of barely edible crustaceans that lived in the ever dark.

In a place bereft of natural illumination the locals had apparently taken to embracing light itself as equally important to colour in their fashions. The crowded spaces below seemed to churn with the weaving movement of meagre points of light that adorned countless people living lives in the shadow. Hope was rare, Tia’Illandra felt the pull of the dark side lying heavily here, crowding around yet burned back by the pyre of the light the Togruta radiated.

We fear what we do not know.

Closing her eyes the huntress found that she could almost taste her prey now, fear was no stranger hear but the Oracle was far beyond that emotion. Terror gripped the girl, a chemical cocktail of stimms enhanced her emotion until the youth seemed to broadcast her fear, the very intensity of the emotion worming its tendrils into those around her.

The carriage came to an abrupt halt, though Tia’s balance remained impeccable. As the rickety doors creaked open the sounds of clanking where replaced by the hubbub of the streets.

She is here.

The Huntress opened her eyes, knowing who she would see.

The waif fled, darting into the darkness and barrelling headlong into a winding path that led from the neutral ground to gang marked alleys.

The towering Togruatan followed, sensing the kid's confusion and beginning to feel the ill touch of misfortune gathering about them. She strode through the crowd, a lightless spectre passing through the crowd of illuminated locals. They parted like prey making way for a passing predator, flowing around her with eyes averted, stealing side-eyed glances. None interfered, the Oracle had doomed herself, no point in cursing themselves in her stead.

Pain, Shock, Revulsion,

Tia felt the girl’s reactions as the sound of the blaster’s report echoed. The situation had evolved and the Knight’s concern for the woman’s immediate wellbeing caused Tia to hasten her arrival. She leapt; A running vault, enhanced by her training, Tia landed atop the nearest squat sheet metal roofed shanty and maintained her stride.

She came to a sudden halt, a shadowed silhouette looming above the vignette playing out before her. The neon-splashed youth stood with her back to her, powerful pistol in hand, it’s muzzle slowly dimming as the residual heat left the emitter. Three men were drawing weapons, bodies painted with green and purple luminescing gang markings, faces pierced, eyes raising from the ground where the body lay.

The kill, a man with a crater of burning flesh in the centre of his chest, and a look of surprise fixed on his cold dead gaze as he seemed to stare up at the Demon.

As one the realisation settled in the eyes of the men, the Oracle was going to die.

A sound like the first spark of a flame preceded the energetic thrum of hardened light and heat, the sudden flare of intense blue light bathed and startled the men, forcing their gaze up to the silent hunter whose horned visage was half illuminated in the cool blue light of her blade, her robes billowing lightly in the drafting breeze

“Flee.” her rich low voice ordered toward the tallest ganger, ominously certain in her authority as she brought the point of the blade to point toward his heart. “Whilst I still allow it.”

She had never been the best at mind tricks. The first of the blasters pitched up to fire in defiance of her threat.

[member="Mirra Voss"]

 

[Mirra Voss]

(music)​

​

Somewhere in the background, one of the neon-painted street jockeys who busked for music using clips of old datacrystals assembled into a remarkable variety of street music slipped on a new track.

The blue light illuminated the three men in front of her, even as Mirra quite literally saw her own death in every outcome of the future... except... how had it done that? She should have felt it, before now.

A canid, powerful and lithe, slinking through the woods in defence of it's cubs, teeth bared to the myriad predators in the darkness.

The vision passed in an instant, Mirra had never looked away from the three men in front of her, but all the same she could see, she could feel the figure standing on the rooftop of the shanty overlooking this back alley. The very same canid from her vision. The demon.

Only...

Up close...

A huntress, a point of calm in the ever moving world that swirled around her, forever hunting... peace. A peace that did not extend to her core. It was not merely her voice that gave that away, although Mirra could not say why for a moment. But a huntress clothed in the trappings of calm, forever searching for a moment of peace. A defender. Mirra could feel, but not understand, that she had tried to resolve this peacefully, even though she was a killer.

That earned a slightly scornful snort - Mirra didn't quite know how that slipped out, but as if you could talk down the Licks on their home turf.

Are you ready for it?​

​

The blaster fire strobed across the dark space in a rapid staccato of brilliant life, and Mirra took the huntresses advice and rolled out of the line of fire while she wasn't the primary target.

Chit... was that... a lightsaber?

Sith and Jedi were just legends below the smog layer, ghosts, phantoms and devils who devestated worlds and lives... or preserved them.

She had the same taste as her father, this huntress, different - he was a falcon, avian and powerful. She was a canid, Mirra could even now visualise the wolf snarling and ducking the teeth of her attackers.

Not now, Miri! This is real.

No time for visions. She risked a glance over the top of the crate she'd thrown herself over, no immediate sign of the huntress, but the blue glow radiated unmistakably out from the wall to one side of her at body height, clearly held in a hand. She couldn't hear the huntress, but she could feel her. And she wasn't alone the lightsaber was a beacon to every single predator here in this ill-lit nightmare hive of a settlement, including a lot of pissed of mercenaries.

What do I do? You run. RUN!

She saved your life.

"Hey, upworlder." That was a stupid word. "Wolf-lady, turn that light off or you'll start a riot." Mirra didn't have eyes to hurt from the light, but down here, even the reflection could be enough to blind someone... or attract them. It was too late to hope they hadn't seen it, but anyone nearby might be stunned from the light and the volley of blaster bolts.

It never occured to Mirra to ask how the Huntress had survived that volley of blaster bolts, or what had happened to the people firing them. She pretty much figured anyone carrying a bar of solid light you used as a sword pretty much trumped three of the Lick's goons, if she thought about it at all.

[member="Tia'Ilandra Shaasa"]
​

 

[Tia'Ilandra Shaasa]

The world seemed to still as the scratching sound of the street buskers crystal-deck cued up the next track, at the first beat of the electronic medley the gangers found their hearts and opened fire. The knight had felt the move an instant ahead of time, her hands moving the blade in the first fluid motions of her kata, an old routine, one of the first lessons her master had imparted to her - the first lesson she had truly found a passion for.

With a flowing flourish of her weapon she made her move, striding left first and dropping down past the youth who had dashed aside - showing promise that she might have some wits left. Trust in her form and her focus directed the motion as much as accuracy or luck. One of her foes fell to a deft ricochet which connected with his neck, dropping silently as his hands flailed for his throat.

The other pair had fallen back with her approach but still fired on her. Or more precisely, fired on the blindingly bright blade in the dark. Another tumbled back into a wall in time with a chopping gesture of Tia’s arm in his direction. As he lay winded, the knight closed on his position and brought the hilt of her sabre down upon his rising head, knocking him out cold whilst her the blade reflected the last attacker's shots with what would look like no effort on her part.

He had seen enough, the man began an immediate retreat, the demon allowed watched him withdrawn, her pace slowing as she came to a stop.

"Hey, upworlder." the girl's voice called out from back along the alley, the Togruta had not felt the Oracle move far since the shooting had begun.

"Wolf-lady, turn that light off or you'll start a riot."

Wolf-Lady. She had never thought of herself as a wolf. Her people lived close alike packs, but Tia had lost her own tribe long ago. The Tigress. That was as close as she had come to think of herself in such terms. Perhaps her time on Maelstrom had changed her.

She returned to where she had last seen the girl before she deactivated her weapon - unwilling to chance the girl waiting to shoot her on her return. With the weapon deactivated Tia was shrouded once again, but as she passed through the invisible rays of a blacklight the vivid white markings of her face and lekku were momentarily illuminated.

Tia’Illandra stopped a few meters from the young woman who was still stained with luminescent liquid on her clothes and face as evidence of her addiction.

“You are the Oracle, You fixed this.” She brandished the holotube from the Becaad Market before gesturing down to the corpse of Kilorf, “His friends will be back soon."

"Come with me, If you want to live.”

[member="Mirra Voss"]

 

[Mirra Voss]

The world seemed to still for a moment, and Mirra stared up at the tall Togrutan before her, the way the blacklight caught on her markings - what did they call those, anyway? Now really was not the time to be considering that.

Then she held out the holotube, Mirra remembered it - a simple fix, kind of pretty, really. The lens seemed to warp and shift, everything seemed to tip on its end, physically and metaphorically. The still world flashing away into a bizarre moment of clarity she could only attribute to either the drugs that ran through her system, or...

The tube became a column of neon light, then a building. A small, scampering lizard rezzed into existence and started to climb the tube. The lizard climbed higher and higher, up the side of the neon building until it reached the top. Then fearless, it leapt into space. Mirra had to follow, but she didn't know how to climb the slick walls of the tube. But she had to follow the lizard.

Reality snapped back as something crunched loudly behind them, too loudly to just be mercenaries. Where where the mercenaries? The Huntress had been right. A tiny lizard scampered across the floor, then ran across her boot, running from the sound.

Well, that decided it.

"Okay."

A beat.

"But not that way. There's an old cargo lift over on the dockside. The slips lead down there, don't fall or the razoreels will get you."

Mirra figured anyone with a lightsaber and who could leap onto buildings probably didn't need too much explaination, so she turned and ran, not waiting to see if the lizard... the Huntress followed.

They made it as far as the rickety iron and durasteel tubes that webbed the old building slips, back when there had been industry here, thousands of years ago. Now people used them to breed razoreels, which were a staple foodstuff and a staple source of population decline among the poor frakers condemned by the mutual agreement that past for justice to harvest them.

Which was when the scrapdroid reared up out of the waterway it had been slinking down, it's tripod structure and hexapod tentacles coated with green algae, grime, the brilliant neon paints that once adorned it still shining madly through the surface as it let out a roar of triumph, ignoring the thousands of razoreels currently trying to angrily chew their way into it. The lightsaber really had attracted something unpleasant, the rogue droids that once formed part of the harvesting fleet almost never attacked a power source this close to town.

The Edge... There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over.

A bellowing mechanical wail of binaric shock the tubes, nearly causing Mirra to tumble to her death, but the Huntress caught her arm and they ran onwards maybe the Huntress could kill it, but Mirra wouldn't survive.

The world was crazy now, a fractal of colours, probabilities, fortunes and designs that Mirra couldn't discern from one another - some where likely the sight, others her drug-abused system shutting down under the sensory abuse. Oddly, this all made more sense to her.

Just follow the lizard.

She thought, as she danced nimbly and apparently effortlessly across girders and tubes she could barely even see or sense.

[member="Tia'Ilandra Shaasa"]​

 

[Tia'Ilandra Shaasa]

The Knight watched the young woman consider her words. The blank visor masked much of her expression but the child was unpractised in hiding her emotions form those sensitive to the force. It was clear that Oracle had some grasp of her power, but in a dark hole like Vorzyd it was unlikely she would ever fulfil her potential.

“Okay."

The girl paused for what seemed like half a minute, a slight sway to her stance.

"But not that way. There's an old cargo lift over on the dockside. The slips lead down there, don't fall or the razoreels will get you."

Tia exhaled slowly, watching the girl turn and run in a direction of her choosing. After taking a beat to centre her thoughts and listen to the whispers echoing in the young woman’s wake, the Huntress set off after the Oracle, gathering pace with each stride as she watched for trouble following behind.

The pair made good progress, the youth apparently still surprisingly surefooted despite the cocktail of drugs in her system; Perhaps that was just a spot of good fortune.

The route the Oracle had selected brought them ever closer to the waterway, dark liquid glimmered beneath their path and something about the reflections on the surface gave the Knight pause for thought. Too late she realised what it was that had bothered her, as a sickly foetid jet explosion of water heralded the arrival of one of the bizarre wading machines she had observed, emerging from beneath the oily waters with the speed and ferocious intent of a Kraznian sea widow.

The knight steadied herself as the rogue droid, rose up to its full towering height, though long lost to its masters the droid’s lumenstrips still emitted the same eery green glow as it’s tame counterparts, but all across the rest of the mechanisms superstructure phosphorescent blue and purple algae gave the droid a scaled, reptilian aspect.

Long looping tendrils lashed out to strike at the suspended walkway as the creation sounded a baleful scream of blurting corrupt data. Tia had felt the youth slip, rather than seen it happen. Only with the gifts of her training and instinct was she quick enough to drag the youth back from the brink before shoving her onward and away.

The retreat was a dangerous dance across the pipes and stanchions, half gymnastic talent and half sheer will to live seemed to guide the kid - for which Tia’Illandra was grateful. Her full attention had to be focused on the creation that pursued the pair. With a hum, the saber was alive in her hand again and parrying the reinforced tentacle manipulators that assailed them both. The force guided her steps as much as her eyes, trading blows whilst she retreated, dancing from foot to foot. Ducking a blow toward the head, skipping over a sweep for the legs.

Light sparked from the mechanoids carapace as the two traded blow after blow, the heat of the saber impacts heating the monstrosities claws until the metal glowed orange and red.

Climb, the girl called out, seeing some route Tia did not, and she looked over long enough to see the youth start her ascent, clamouring from pipe to pipe with admirable strength, fear had a way of driving the body to live.

Distraction was a killer, the lashing tentacle swiped at Tia’s calf, the sickly edge slicing into the meat of her and drawing a growl of pain from the knight. She reacted with a savage blow that severed the offending manipulator with a clean strike to an exposed coupling.

Emotion, yet Peace.

The Togrutan’s lip curled in frustration as she leapt after the Oracle, higher they climbed by each handhold. To her dismay Tia watched the mechanical terror take a grip of the youth and attempt to throw the Oracle down into the murky, eel infested depths.

With a grunt and a deep breath, the Huntress kicked off, leaping in a backward somersault, and landing awkwardly atop the slippery slick plates of the machines command hatch, which was long since forgotten. The kid was fighting the good fight, struggling and holding on as she tried to kick free, but the battle was one-sided and she wouldn’t survive much longer, force or no force.

Kicking a slithering eel aside Tia turned and wiped much and oil from the pilot's window, seeing the desiccated corpse withing staring up at her eyeless and forgotten. With a deft move, she reversed her grip, Igniting the saber down into what served as the rogue droids de facto brain, doing her best to ignore the urge to gag at the stink the pungent liquid gave off when superheated.

The droid continued at first, but then the whipping limbs slackened. Its movements, ever erratic, became slugging and ponderous, then the lumens dimmed and the droid began to topple back into the murk.

Tia vaulted back over toward the girl, caught hold of her to steady the youth and gasped at the renewed pain in her thigh.

“More are coming..” she stated, gesturing that the climb should continue with haste. The youth seemed to know what she meant.

[member="Mirra Voss"]

 

[Mirra Voss]

(music)​

​

The grinding of gears, the ripping of metal on metal and the bizarre noise the lightsaber made was beginning to assault Mirra's bleaguered sense of hearing, if she could have taken the moment to clamp her hands over her ears, she would have.

The Jedi - Mirra didn't believe she could be anything else - moved with such a fluid, beautiful grace, her movements somehow utterly predictable, yet too fast for Mirra to follow with her Sight. It was strangely like watching a holo-vid - even when she was caught up in it.

She didn't scream, beause frankly anyone who didn't learn screaming never helped, no matter how scared you were, didn't live very long down here. Rather, she bit her lip hard enough to draw blood until the tentacle loosened and the immense creature fell away below, the Jedi almost seeming to fold space rather than vaulting from it's back. Mirra didn't need to know much to know this person had trained in combat a lot more than she had.

She was also right, the bio-neutral array that... well... had been 'grown' to replace the standard droid brains (and eventually gone bad, cheap knock-off Vong Biotech, was the going rumour) was programmed to send out a signal upon death. The scrapdroids were numerous, could reproduce after a fashion and were well known to hunt down and slay those who killed them, to... discourage such activity. The problem was, Mirra couldn't see droids all that easily - they were there, in the Sight, but they were dead metal.

Fear clawed at her heart, but the strangely serene look on the Jedi's face caught her for a moment. She would have given quite a lot for some of that serenity right now, but if push came to shove - and it had - she'd take the short moment of calm. The quelling of the stirring colours and the stilling of her heart.

"Right." She said, but didn't turn to climb. "They use a triple helix encryption, it can't be broken easily, but..." She reached out and plucked a datapad from the Jedi's belt - old and worn, apparently she wasn't much richer than your average person on this planet, no time in the Casino's for her. But... she didn't seem the type. "... if I reset the transmitter on this, and you give me that hololens... uh..."

She didn't think about it, as much as think about possibilites - every time around her was a... chance, a chance that something might change, a chance she could do something with. Sometimes she thought she saw the wider chances beyond them - a great... she didn't have words for it. But whenever she had dreamed that dream, she'd woken up in pain. As long as she focused on the hear and now, she knew what would work and what wouldn't.

"There!" She set the pad down on a flat surface, briefly jacked her skulljack into the appropriate port and downloaded a simple program before putting the hololens on top. Immediately, a wide field of multi-coloured static light began to spray outwards like a fountain. "They'll all come to that, everyone will. But the droids won't see through it and the cage isn't far... come on."

Feeling useful - or at least in control for a few moments - felt good, it gave her a different sort of energy in her limbs as she turned to climb.

"At the top, then along to the right - the old lift is just up there. Smugglers use it." A pause. Oh yeah. Social introductions, names are useful in panicked darkness. "My names Mirra, not Oracle. That's just what I let people call me so they don't ask stupid questions like 'how can you see the future'."

[member="Tia'Ilandra Shaasa"]
​

 

[Tia'Ilandra Shaasa]

For all Tia knew the girl was right, triple helix encryption.

It would be a gross error to consider Tia’Illandra dim or ill-educated. She had been gifted with a great capacity to absorb large amounts of information quickly, the archives of Ossus had been a trove of information for the teenage Tia. But despite her thirst for knowledge, some subjects just never seemed to engage her. Slicing was one such gap.

The Oracle had hesitated and failed to start climbing, and although the knight considered pushing the matter she made no move to stop the girl taking the datapad, as useless as it seemed to Tia. On request, she proffered the holo-lens - she had known that it had some part to play when she had purchased the piece of junk.

As the ganger worked, the towering Togruta pulled an equally battered illuminator from one of her many pockets, sweeping the light across the pool toward the distant shapes that she had sensed converging on their fallen sibling. Three, maybe more, but such lanky things - they would be no use once the pair reached high ground.

Through whatever fundamental techno-wizardry the girl had employed the improvised device began to pulse and spray cycling waves of light, spanning the range of the spectrum and casting twisting shadows all around. The new light in the dark would draw in more than the droids.

This - Oracle was running scared in the darkest places of the world and of her mind, with only a stranger for company. The task at hand seemed to crystalise the youths resolve and Tia had faith in the youth’s certainty.

The towering alien woman's expression softened as the girl urged them onward, giving her an appreciative nod and gesturing that she should lead the way.

“Top, and to the right.,” Tia’Ilandra repeated in confirmation, her voice resonant as she continued after the ganger, keeping pace with apparent ease despite the unfamiliar terrain.

“I’m honoured, Mirra. Tell me, why is the question so stupid?”

They reached the next gangway, the sounds from below suggesting that some nosey gangers had risked investigating the light show they had left down below.

“Few see the future, few have your gift. We fear what we don’t understand. I am Tia’Ilandra Shaasa,” the blue-grey skinned huntress gave a polite half-bow in greeting. Her name seemed as much a lyric, made musical in her tones, “But for our purpose today, Tia will suffice.”

“We must move on, quickly now, red-eyed birds watch from our shadows, best we are away from here.” The elevator would be in sight at any moment if Mirra’s memory was to be trusted.

[member="Mirra Voss"]

 

[Mirra Voss]

To anyone else, a bizarre statement on red eyed birds might have been taken as complete nonsense.

Mirra took it as fact - she didn't even ask if it was metaphorical or real birds, the question didn't even occur, truthfully it did not even matter to her.

"Tia. Right."

Breathing was harder now, Mirra could remember a younger girl who had been able to climb this far with ease, but she wasn't stupid, she knew what years of those drugs had done to her body. Handhold here, move a leg to... no, that would give way, to here. What might look like skill to others was nothing more than a crudely refined talent. The immediate future held few surprises for Mirra on an average day, so much so she'd simply gotten used to the fact.

"It's stupid because people don't believe it without a commonplace explaination. It's stupid because there's nothing to fear from the Sight." Well that wasn't true, she lived in fear of the dreams. "Other people have nothing to fear from it, anyway."

Up and over... her muscles burned worse than she could remember, was she really in that bad shape? Probably. Definitely, apparently.

"Look. Tia, all this may be pretty normal to you. But people like you just don't come down here, so if they did, perhaps people would understand it better. But no one who lives up above the clouds wants to admit that, or allow it."

Mirra wasn't angry, her tone was matter of fact, as if she were the mentor on the facts of life.

"Along here..." Down a narrow catwalk, breathing easier now. She really, really wanted to stop and drink something... but she hadn't brought anything... special with her. She felt faintly disgusted at the weakness that need brought to her. No, more than faintly disgusted, but it was so old a feeling she didn't really know anything else. When you've fallen to rock bottom - literally - you get used to it.

"It's stupid because all my people can do what I can. It's stupid because if they did listen, they'd know this whole world will engulfed in a darkness worse than anything else soon enough. But I don't know what, and that makes me stupid."

She could have gotten angry, the fear wanted to make her angry, but even her father had admonished her against that - it clouds the Sight, if you get angry, it makes you want to control what cannot be controlled.

"And I can't do anything about it but lie to them, I guess. So that's what really makes it stupid, the fraud and being helple..."

The explosive slam of a metal talon being driven into the walkway cut Mirra off, she hadn't sensed that coming, karking droids. Karking sight. The lift cage was right there - she found she didn't want to die just now. This karking stupid woman with her karking stupidly awesome light sword just might have some answers. And for once - just once in the last three years - Mirra was going up in the world. Literally. Perhaps metaphorically too.

A hand grabbed the back of her clothing, then she felt herself propelled into the air with... not impossible force, exactly, but with an unseen force that carried her with as much haste and less grace into the lift cage as she heard the now familiar snap-hiss of that light sword.

Even as she scrabbled for the controls, she turned to look. The tiny part of her that was still a child and dreamed of heroes didn't want to miss this, even if it killed her. Besides, she wasn't much more than a passenger now.

[member="Tia'Ilandra Shaasa"]​