Private Where the light barely touches

[Jacen Voidstalker]

"They have something on you?" Jacen asked. He couldnt help himself. Even when the Alliance had build a prison for sith suspended in a chamber of magma, he had tried to find the good in those held there. Jacen had tried because he had been held in one of those same cells for calling upon the dark side of the Force.

Her blindfold was lifted up. Jacen would have thought to deal with it sooner, but it barely blocked his own senses.

"You have some tools in your boot?" Jacen asked. He hadn't even removed his own blindfold.

 

[Lierra Lunora]

Lierra grimaced a little as he asked if they had something on her. The truth was that they did, but she was ashamed to admit it. A soft sigh slipped from her lips as she shuffled over to the lock on the door.

"Yeah... They do." She said quietly, her voice tinged with disdain and sadness.

She had to twist around awkwardly to start fidgeting with the lock. It was difficult to pick a lock with her hands behind her back, but it wasn't impossible.

"Don't really have much of a choice anymore." She added.

The door clicked and then she spun around to start trying to shim Jacen's shackles.

"Not like it matters..." She mumbled. "Door's open for you though."

 

[Jacen Voidstalker]

"There is always a choice," replied Jacen. It was a very frustratingly jedi thing to say. Sometimes he meant those proverbs, having been around jedi who would communicate almost exclusively through them. Sometimes he just liked to be frustrating.

He heard the soft click behind his back, catching the manacles before they could hit the deck and make a sound. He quietly set them down.

Jacen finally removed his own blindfold and looked around. They didn't have much space. They would be stooped over to walk through the rear doors.

"Here let me try yours. I suppose we can either wait for this thing to pull over and hope we can ambush them. Or...do something unexpected."

 

[Lierra Lunora]

"And what exactly would be unexpected?" She asked softly, brushing over the remark about her always having a choice.

As far as she was concerned, her only other choice had been death. That wasn't much of a choice in her book.

She turned her back to him, letting him work the manacles off her own wrists. A sigh of relief escaped her as they sprang free, which she also caught and carefully lowered to the floor.

 

[Jacen Voidstalker]

Jacen swayed on the spot. The stun blast was one thing, but he had also struck his head on the way down. He was nauseated and tired. His limbs felt weak.

"Unexpected would be stealing this speeder. Or jumping out of a moving airspeeder into another vehicle."

He narrowed his gaze. She had to know what he was by now, but his use of the Force hadn't seemed to phase her.

"Still a group of swoop bikes with us as an escort."

 

[Lierra Lunora]

Jacen was not the first force user she'd encountered her life. Though he was one of the first that wasn't actively trying to catch her or kill her. It was a nice change of pace.

She shook her head. "As thrilling as that'd be... It's all I can do to stay upright at the moment." The woman murmured in a quiet voice.

Her golden eyes turned to Jacen and she managed a weak smile. "How are you holding up?"

 

[Jacen Voidstalker]

"Not good," he admitted. He reached behind his head and winced as he touched the bruising. His fingers came away stained with blood.

"Not in a good place for another fight," he admitted. He looked around the empty back of the airspeeder.

"Got any plans? Could put these back on and play along but if they're not going to keep us around...kark, I can't think straight."

 

[Lierra Lunora]

Lierra laid down next to Jacen, her head resting lightly on his lap as she closed her eyes, trying to think of what their best option was.

"Do... You have a ship planet side?" She asked quietly, pinching the bridge of her nose as she tried to focus.

"It won't matter if we can't get away."

 

[Jacen Voidstalker]

"I have ship," he stated. "And I have enough friends who could get us off-world if we had to."

Those friends were mostly ex-alliance or jedi. They would certainly question him helping a criminal escape Nar Shaddaa.

"Are you...going to be in danger for not completing your...job... assignment. Maybe I should just say they stsbbing?"

 

[Lierra Lunora]

Her eyes opened and she turned her head just enough to look up at Jacen. It was dark in the back of the speeder, but she could at least make out his silhouette.

"Yeah... An assassin that can't finish the job isn't exactly worth much to a cartel." She muttered, shaking her head.

With a heavy sigh, she dropped her hand down to the floor with a full thud. "They'll either kill me or enslave me and try to turn a profit."

The answer was blunt, but honest. Her voice was monotone, as if she was trying to resign herself for the fate that inevitably awaited her.

"And that's if these guys don't do that first..."

 

[Jacen Voidstalker]

"Do you happen to have a safe house put aside for a rainy day?" he asked. Jacen didn't know much about assassins. It sounded like something an assassin in a holofilm would have had.

Jacen was reaching out towards the mind of their pilot. He had yet to figure out what he could do with that influence but he was hoping something would come to him.

 

[Lierra Lunora]

Her golden eyes fluttered open for a brief moment at the question he asked of her. She pursed her lips, struggling to think straight. Even breathing was becoming more difficult that she would have liked to admit. One hand wrapped over her chest as she expelled a particularly heavy breath. "Yes... there's one that... might not be... be compromised."

When she spoke, it sounded as though she had just finished sprinting a hundred yards -- not a particularly good sign.

"Paliki District. At the Safe Stay. Room... kriff... room 213. Reservation under Loskio." She managed to explain to him. As far as she was concerned, Lierra didn't think she would be around long enough to see the quaint little hotel again. Her last act might as well be trying to help someone, after all the pain and trouble she'd caused.

In the back of her mind, she heard the familiar whisper of the mantra she'd made up to get through her servitude to the cartel. They don't blame the knife that killed someone, they blame the hand that wielded it. You are a knife.

 

[Jacen Voidstalker]

Jacen sighed, trying to immerse himself in the Force for one last exertion. He could see now way forwards but risking burning himself out. That seemed a better end that letting the Hutt enforcers decide it for him.

The Jedi master turned towards the front of the air speeder. He held out one hand, palm open. His fingers trembled.

"I am going to need a navigator," he said quietly.

Jacen closed his hand. The metal between them and the drivers peeled open like a flower. The high pitched scream of the tortured steel rang out.

He pulled himself up and darted forwards. There was a gust of wind that followed him.

The two men looked back in disbelief at the wall torn apart. They barely had time to complain before a telekentic blast parted them and threw them out of their respective doors.

Jacen threw himself into a chair as the airspeeder started to drop. Horns rang out as other traffic complained at the suddenly plummeting vehicle. He grabbed the stick and drew them level. The wind slammed the doors back closed.

"Those bikes are still on us," he called. Much of the colour had drained from his face, calling on the Force taking a lot out of him.

 

[Lierra Lunora]

As the speeder started to drop, Lierra was thrown up into the ceiling and back towards the hatch she'd unlocked earlier. The impact slammed her into the metal surface, causing a sharp lance of pain to blossom in the wound she carried. She gasped for breath as the agony sparked dots in her vision, gritting her teeth together as the speeder finally leveled off.

"Ow..." She growled, staggering her way up through the torn metal into the cockpit.

There had to be a weapon hidden up here somewhere. It was a speeder that belonged to gangsters, after all.

Head spinning and unbearably nauseated from the poison that was seeping through her veins, it took her far longer than she would have liked to find the blaster rifle hidden behind the seats. Thank the stars it wasn't a bat or something else equally useless.

"I'll deal with the bikes." She said in a low voice, talking through clenched teeth, trying not to vomit. Her fingers tapped on a display screen built into the console and after a few moments the device chimed happily.

A green line flashed on the console, a waypoint set for Jacen to follow.

"Just fly as smooth as you can... And get us there in one piece. Don't head in that direction... Until I've got the bikes off our tail." She added, lightly patting the Jedi's shoulder before she crawled back through the hole with the rifle in hand.

Cautiously, she opened the large hatch and then laid down on her belly to make herself as small a target as possible. Traffic raced by and she could see the bikes gaining on them through the busy air lane. It was a difficult shot, but not impossible.

She took a single breath as she lined up her first shot. One of the bikers had a pistol in his hand, he was aiming for their speeder, but his shots went wide. Slowly, she exhaled and pulled the trigger as her body went still.

This was what she'd been trained to do. Hone in and kill. Her entire life revolved around how efficiently she could accomplish the task. Failure was not an option, not when your life was on the line.

Her shot connected with its target -- center mass on the broad chested gamorrean. It wasn't enough to kill him outright, but it was more the sufficient to knock him off the bike and send him squealing to his death.

"Splash one." She called back to Jacen, her voice shaking.

 

[Jacen Voidstalker]

A blaster bolt lanced through the whole airspeeder and through the windscreen just to Jacen's left. It left a neat, glowing circle of orange and a wider patch of glass deformed by the heat.

The plan had been entirely foolish and formed only from desperation. It had exhausted his reserves and they still had swoops chasing them. Only his new friend, an assassin owned by some cartel, had any chance of finishing them off before more arrived. There was little chance of him escaping the agile swoops in the urban jungle that was nar shaddaa.

"Which part of town is this safe house?" he blurted out. He could at least point them in vaguely the right direction of the endless city.

 

[Lierra Lunora]

"Paliki District, North of here!" She called back to Jacen over the roar of wind and traffic out the back hatch. If he had to make any sudden maneuvers, there was a high chance she would meet the same fate as the gamorrean she'd just killed.

There were only three bikes left and she'd made harder shots in her life -- though they were usually done on her own rifle, not some gangster's piece of garbage. Not to mention she wasn't typically on the verge of death from some poison-laced metal slug.

Each shot took time, of which she had precious little left, and a considerable amount of concentration. It didn't help that her targets were moving and shooting back at her. What should have only taken three shots, one for each bike, ended up taking five much to her chagrin. Taking each pursuer out resulted in a splash call being barked over her shoulder to her new found companion.

The last bike tumbled out of the sky in a fiery inferno and she rolled onto her back, finally dropping the rifle as she caught her breath.

"Alright... alright. They're all gone. We can go home."

 

[Jacen Voidstalker]

Jacen felt his vision blurring. There was a chance that the airspeeder they were in could be tracked, or at least found and reported. He dumped them on a landing platform and found an air taxi. Nothing but stubborn determination kept him on his feet. He needed sleep after the blow to his head.

As the taxi joined the streets he heard sirens blaring. A second taxi from the next landing pad and they were taken high above their destination. He was in no condition to walk anywhere, but a lift could take them nearly a straight kilometer down away from where they were dropped off. If this had been Coruscant they would have been seen by fifty cameras on the way, but this was Nar Shaddaa.

"Good shooting," he murmured as he leaned against the wall of the turbo lift. One of the lights flickered overheard and the dull groan made him think it was going to grind to a halt at any moment. His hand trembled against the railing he was holding onto for support.

 

[Lierra Lunora]

The assassin was similarly exhausted, but for a different reason. Her companion's condition would improve with rest, whereas hers would likely only worsen. She didn't know what her next step was going to be, but she needed something. Maybe there was a favor she could call in...

It took her a moment to recognize that Jacen had spoken, his deep voice reverberating off the thin metal walls of the turbo lift. Her eyes weakly blinked open to look over at him, a hint of a smirk gracing her tattooed face.

"Good flyin'." She retorted with a nod of her head.

She could see the exhaustion and tension coiled in the man across from her, his handsome features drawn and strained. He seemed a decent enough fella, at least he hadn't tried to kill her yet.

The lift carried the barely conscious pair down into the deep bowels of the city tower. When it chimed their arrival, Lierra gathered her strength and motioned for Jacen to follow her. Breathing was difficult for her now and she staggered when she walked.

Still, she remembered the way to the safe house. It wasn't strictly hers, but the woman who did own it wasn't directly tied to the cartels. In fact, everyone called the woman Sawbones. She was the closest thing to a doctor that shady, underbelly scum like Lierra could get.

Right. Call Sawbones. Duh.

She tumbled with the keypad to punch in the right code, grimacing in the vacant hallway.

"C'mon..." She muttered under her breath and then the door unlocked, slowly sliding open on damaged rails.

Her golden eyes flicked to Jacen and she gestured a hand towards the door. "Home sweet home..."

 

[Jacen Voidstalker]

"I kept an airspeeder vaguely straight," Jacen replied. He knew where his skill set was. Piloting was not at the top of the list. It probably didn't feature on the list at all.

Jacen took one last look behind him before stepping inside. He couldn't see anyone watching, but it was the shady end of town where there could have been eyes in any window or alley.

The inside of the apartment matched the outside. It was sparsely decorated, with an old sofa in the centre of the front room. He made for that and all but collapsed into it. He leaned back and looked to the ceiling. From the stains people had smoked inside this apartment a lot.

He was conscious enough to evaluate the situation. He was in a criminal safe house with a paid assassin. He had stopped a paid murderer from doing her murder and then protected her from a different group of paid killers. Jacen couldn't tell if that was a very jedi thing to have done.

"How are you holding up?" he asked.

 

[Lierra Lunora]

She shut the door behind Jacen, locking it with a quick press of a button. All she wanted to do was curl up on the floor and go to sleep, but she knew if she did that she wouldn't wake up again. Taking a shakey breath, she staggered over to the kitchen area and yanked open one of the top drawers.

"Dying..." She croaked back to Jacen in response, shaking her head a few times as she pulled out an emergency first aid kit and a comm link.

A few moments later, she practically collapsed into the couch next to the ex-Jedi.

"Use that. Has the Doc's number on it... You'll probably need her if I don't make it." She instructed him while she tore open the medkit.

Her hands were shaking as she tried to assemble an injector for a shot of sedative to slow her racing heart.