Private Special Delivery

[Arris Windrun]

Some Compound
Narsh

Old iron-toned blast doors opened, and in entered a pair of gank killers hauling a slab of frozen carbonite on a hover dolly.

"C'mon! Let's get it inside!"

In stepped Arris Windrun - bloodsport celebrity and, as far as the Black Sun was concerned, Mauve's personal handgun. The two cyber freaks she was with were among the growing collection of groupies and fair-weather fans she had begun to surround herself with. They followed as she led them to the Ithorian of extreme interests.

Jerec Asyr and Arris weren't exactly acquaintances, but the two had been in the same room or a bad situation together on a couple of occasions now. Suffice it to say, the cyborg wasn't really interested in the man himself, but she was very interested in his money.

She gestured for the ganks to stop, just short of where the Ithorian sat. They adjusted the dolly from supine to vertical, allowing the distinct impression of a humanoid to be visible beneath the carbonite. A woman called Triaso Latain , but Arris did not know the woman, and she wasn't even certain this was a Jedi... though the gambler she won it from included a damning possession: one double-bladed lightsaber which Arris had clipped off her hip.

"One Jedi frozen in carbonite... I believe that's what you asked for." She leaned against the slab with a grin.

 

[Jerec Asyr]

Exciting times, but Jerec tempered his enthusiasm. Anyone could have a lightsaber these days. Rare, but market price comparable to a seat on a ship across the galaxy - hardly out of reach of randos.

"Alrighty then."

He'd watched a couple of Windrun's kaggath fights and they'd been in that one thing that one time in the place and so forth. He couldn't remember if she'd also been the one bashing on Nero Drake for his pronunciation or whether that was someone else. The cyborg was clearly worth taking seriously just in terms of pound for pound dollar value, and if this paid off, maybe more seriously than the sum of her parts.

<Thaw them out,> Jerec said in fluent Gank. <Let's see what we have here.> He never went anywhere unarmed these days, so he got out his blaster and set it to stun.

When the Ganks hesitated, Jerec took the requisite three or four steps and tapped the control panel mated to the slab.

Arris Windrun Triaso Latain

 

[Triaso Latain]

As Jerec pressed the button on the control panel, the slab burst to life, a molten red overtaking the features of the frozen person within as they began to thaw. It was clear from her style of clothes that she was old. Ancient, even. Though whether or not she was evidently a jedi was a different matter altogether.

A matter that wasn't helped by her limp body plummeting to the ground with a pitiful thump. A matter that wasn't helped even further by staying still. At least for a few moments.

Finally, Triaso groaned, her brain finally catching up to the fact that she was alive. She tried to push herself to her feet, but she was so disoriented that her limbs struggled to obey her commands.

"C-Can't see..."

She noted, before attempting to reach out in the force on reflex. What she felt was not what she expected. Rather than the greeting of an old friend, it was more as if she'd connected with a foreign and ancient entity, overwhelming her senses and causing her to groan again as she continued her struggle.

Jerec Asyr Arris Windrun

 

[Arris Windrun]

Arris pushed past one of the ganks.

"Wait - I thought you wanted to like, hang this on your wall, y'kno---"

Jerec walked right past and decided to do it himself. The cyborg placed a hand on each hip, resigned to the client's process, and watched as the slab began to grow hot and began to thaw. As far as she was aware, people really weren't intended to survive such a process. She imagined her credits literally vaporizing like the carbonite itself.

"Sheesh... Talk about a fashion disaster," she mumbled.

The woman's style needed some work. Reminded her of agriworld dirt farmers, or whatever they did farm on those worlds, the urbgirl really didn't know.

Cyber eyes glanced between Jerec, the ganks, and now the helpless woman who struggled to even stand... and apparently see.

Arris squatted before the microwaved meal. "How ya feeling, sleepy head?"

Jerec Asyr | Triaso Latain

 

[Jerec Asyr]

Jerec squatted, blaster held loose, and peered down at the fallen ex-carboniteer. They were kind of a pathetic sight and he was in no way beyond sympathy, but there was kind of a parallel reality thing going on where this person was a) a Jedi and not worth pity but definitely worth credits and probably re-carbonitization and also b) not a Jedi and destined for a nice evening with a very pleasant medical droid and Windrun took a walk out the nearest airlock. Keeping those two realities in mind simultaneously was not a task for the weak.

"Can't see? Alright, we're a pair of Hutts. I'm the better-looking one."

He flicked the safety of the blaster on and off meaningfully.

"Are you a Jedi? Either way you're not getting hurt."

Triaso Latain Arris Windrun

 

[Triaso Latain]

Triaso struggled to get her bearings as she was asked the questions, the young woman's eyes flicking meaninglessly in different directions as she tried to use them. She slams a fist against the ground, part frustration and part determination, trying her best to just get to her feet.

"Awful." Came the first reply, which wasn't inaccurate. Nothing felt right to the poor woman, who had been frozen so long that the carbonite sickness that was generally felt had been compounded by multiple factors.

"J-Jedi... Guess so." Came the other one. She was a jedi, right? That sounded right. Triaso tried to remember more about herself, but even as her mind swam to pull facts about itself from hibernation all she felt was a fuzzy lack of purchase on anything concrete.

She heard the clicking of the safety, though she wasn't sure exactly what it was. She couldn't tell much of anything right now. Though she was moderately sure that whoever was speaking to her weren't hutts. Most hutts didn't speak galactic basic, after all.

"What's going on? Who are you people? Where am I?"

Then came a barrage of questions, the woman slowly relearning how to stand. She pushed herself onto her shins and knees, then placed a shaky foot flat on the ground and found herself to a knee... Then she had to stop herself to let her head stop spinning. The onlookers could see her struggling, her torso swaying to and fro as she barely managed to stay upright. She almost looked like she had been drinking. Almost.

Arris Windrun | Jerec Asyr

 

[Arris Windrun]

"See?" She glanced over to her client. "Told ya it's a Jedi."

An eye curiously spied Jerec's twitchy finger, which played with the safety like a nervous tic - or at least that's how she interpreted it.

Attention turned back to the thawed lady when she began to ask question, after question, after question. Arris ran thumb and fingers through the side of her hair, tucking some of it behind her ear. Then, she placed hands behind her back and stretched.

Preluded with a yawn, "Listen, miss, I'm sure this is all very weird for you, but you're fixing for a panic attack asking questions like that."

She looked at Jerec, then unclipped the double-bladed lightsaber from her hip.

"She had this."

Held in hand, but not offered. She'd keep it away if he tried.

Jerec Asyr | Triaso Latain

 

[Jerec Asyr]

Jerec eyed Arris, the saber, and the struggling Jedi, then got up from his squat, a position that was no longer comfortable for him at his age. "Ugh. Frelling decrepit. Not a scrap of fun in it today but it's a fair take." He dug out his datapad and transferred the appropriate six-figure sum. "There, paid."

Which left the question of what to do with a random Jedi in terrible shape, for whom he'd just paid a hundred-someodd-thousand.

"Alright, kid, I'll level with you. The nice lady here's the hunter who brought you in. I'm a criminal and forty years back the Jedi murdered my copilot. They keep on digging their own grave, and there were some, you know, events and shavvit, and I put a bounty on a Jedi in carbonite, any Jedi, to hang on my wall. But frell if I can stomach hanging you up there, ya wet dishrag.

"So here's the plan. I've got a med droid and an authentic Umak Leth Universal Energy Cage. I toss you and the droid in the cage, you get spruced up, I find out if you're worth, eh, headlining an arena match against a dozen Ewoks or a rancor cyborg. Or if you want a career as a mind-slicer or prophet or something else that makes good money."

Triaso Latain Arris Windrun

 

[Triaso Latain]

Criminal? Hunter? A bounty on jedi? Even if the questions she was asking weren't bringing her into a panic attack like Arris said, all this talk of being put into a death arena or having to work as a local attraction for this criminal certainly were. Triaso's breathing quickened, her head feeling light as she struggled to remain upright and stay calm. This was all wrong.

Out of reflex, she reached out into the force once more, trying to understand the basics, and managed to feel the faint but familiar presence of her kyber nearby; the only familiarity she'd felt since she had woken up. Slowly, methodically, Triaso shakily pushed herself to her feet, letting her breathing calm as she pushed away her panic and attempted to focus. She didn't know where she was or how to get out of here, but what she did know was that if she stayed, things were probably going to get even worse for her.

Adrenaline filled her as she held out a hand towards her lightsaber, sending it flying into her grip as she flicked the switch to ignite the blades. A dull blue filled air around her hand as the lightsaber hummed to life, the unmistakeable burnt smell of vaporized dust filling the air as she swung it wildly. As the lightsaber arced blindly, Triaso grunted with the effort, looking and sounding like a cornered animal as it arced through the air.

To those with all their faculties about them, it was clear that her intention wasn't to kill or maim, but to cause her companions to get some distance before she executed the most basic of instincts: running. She'd be having to do this blind, she knew, but hopefully her danger sense would let her know when she was about to slam face first into a wall. She couldn't trust her eyes, but she would have to trust the force. Her legs shakily pushed off of the ground, one after the other, as she broke into the closest thing to a sprint she could in her current condition; best described as the hobbly jog of a wounded beast.

Arris Windrun | Jerec Asyr

 

[Arris Windrun]

The lightsaber slipped from Arris's hand, leaving the cyborg rather a little dumbfounded.

Should I have expected that?

She tilted back a little when the brilliant blue blade swung recklessly, then watched the Jedi run ferally away from them. The cyborg received a notification in her skull that the credits had been paid to her account.

Arris placed a hand on one hip and laughed. She glanced at Jerec, then back to the scrambling woman.

"This better not be your idea of sport, Asyr."

Jerec Asyr | Triaso Latain

 

[Jerec Asyr]

Jerec backed off hastily. He had a couple kinds of gear for going up against a lightsaber, but none of it was on him. The room didn't have a ton of room and sooner or later she'd either discover that or manage to open a door.

"I mean, as entertainment goes, I've often had to settle for worse."

He sighted down the blaster pistol and started firing stun shots, zappy little blue concentric rings. You could dissipate them with a lightsaber but not bounce them back.

"Be cool," he said loudly. "Come on, kid, lighten up. You'll do great against a dozen Ewoks."

Triaso Latain Arris Windrun

 

[Triaso Latain]

Triaso was lucky, in a way. Lucky that the only kind of retaliation she was currently getting was Jerec firing stun rounds at her. Lucky that the first thing that every jedi learns is how to block ranged projectiles with their lightsaber, even devoid of sight.

Her blue blade hummed as it swung through the air, cleanly bisecting the stun rings as Triaso tried to figure out how to get out of here. Truthfully, her escape plan was malformed at best. She didn't know the layout of the facility, let alone the room she was in. It was likely that Jerec wasn't going to be the only one shooting at her, but she had to try nonetheless.

As her muscle memory kicked into gear, she reached out with the force again, trying to let it guide her in any direction away from where she was currently.

It succeeded, in a way.

Her legs moved on their own, her arms struggling to continue to bat away stun rings as the wet rag of a jedi slowly trudged towards the door to the room. It was locked, of course, but the back half of her blade found the control panel as the front bisected another stun ring, causing the door's hydraulics to seize and pull the door up into the ceiling.

She continued her march.

Arris Windrun Jerec Asyr

 

[Arris Windrun]

"I mean, as entertainment goes, I've often had to settle for worse."

"Then you find your entertainment in the wrong places."

Arris had to do a double-take when Jerec began to fire stun shots at the slippery Jedi. The latter seemed more capable than first thought, which earned a small chuckle from the blonde. Her expression turned serious when the dethawee managed to open a door and marched right out into the alley.

From there, it wasn't too far from a busy street where denizens walked and speeders parked.

She looked at Jerec, back out to the rainy street where the Jedi disappeared, then back to Jerec.

Her look said puzzled. "Are you playing with her?"

Triaso Latain