Ask Having a Crait Time

[Juniper]

Getting a ride to Crait hadn't been easy, but she'd managed it. Desolate, remote and undeveloped, it was the last place you'd think to look for important information. But that's where Nara was.

Before she'd left the Jedi Order, she'd been interested in old bases and sites of importance. One archive had mentioned an old Rebel base, repurposed as a brief Resistance command during the First Order takeover, over a century before. Whilst the chances of finding any Jedi artefacts there was slim, both groups had been searching for remnants of the old Order for years. Maybe they had some more leads for what she was looking for?

Finding the base wasn't all that hard. The ancient bulkhead had started to wear, with more than a hundred years of erosion and salt. It still bore the massive scars of some attack, some sort of explosion that punched a hole right through the thick metal. Nara could barely imagine what sort of weapon did that. Made her shiver as she clutched her cloak around herself. Still... it meant an easy way in. She stepped in through the hole, hearing her boots thud on the melted, old remnants of the bulkhead. Inside, she reached into her pack and took out a glowstick, cracking it to life and bathing the darkness in a soft, green light.

Crates that once held supplies and weapons lined up amongst the vast entrance, with trails and rails for moving them deeper into the mine system. It felt like nobody had been in here for decades. If she could find the computer system and somehow spark it to life, she could get in the network. She could find some hint of where to go. Perfect.

@Casmer

 

[Dhari Rast]

So far, Crait was little more than salt and sand and rocks. The Blacklight limped across the endless salt pans, its repulsorlift engine throwing up salt into the air. Dhari flew her ship low to the ground for most of the time, rising into the air only in brief intervals to get a grasp of her surroundings. The Blacklight's repulsorlift engine had started sputtering when she arrived on Crait a couple of days ago, acting up like a cantankerous and sickly old man. Flying on ion in the atmosphere was not something Dhari was looking forward to, so she kept the repulsors going for as long as they were able. The ship was definitely overdue for a repair.

Hence why Dhari was even on this kriffing dustball. If she hadn't lost that last shipment of spice, she would have turned the cantankerous old man into a strapping specimen of durability and virility. But she had lost it. And now she was almost completely out of pocket. At least enough to risk flying this corpse of a freighter through hyperspace. Not to mention her more complex relationship with the ailing Hutt Cartel, whom she now owed the value of the lost spice.

The repulsors spluttered again. Dhari directed the Blacklight upwards into the air, disengaged the repulsorlift engine after the ship had climbed slightly, and first pressed, then pushed, then slammed her fist on the button that reset the antigrav mechanism. The repulsorlift engine re-engaged just in time for the Blacklight to skid across the salt, a sickening crunchy sound emitted from its dorsal hull. Salt was thrown up like a blanket, enveloping the ship.

This shithole better pay off, Dhari thought. That's why she was there. On the last climb, she had seen what looks like the outline of a facility in the distance. Way back - like, waaaaay back - Crait had been a battleground. An battlegrounds usually contained merchandise. Stuff. Scrap metal, at the very least. Crait's main selling point, really, was that Dhari was unlikely to meet any opposition here. No one in their right mind would make the trip out to Crait without a good reason to. Like being up to your eyeballs in debt.

A short time later, Dhari set the rattling Blacklight down on the salt outside a massive bulkhead that looked like it had been blown open. Upon closer inspection from the cockpit's viewport, it most definitely had been blown open. Good, Dhari thought, rising from the pilot's seat and making her way back towards the landing ramp. There'll be scrap metal, at the very least. Disembarking the Blacklight, Dhari would walk towards the gaping hole in the bulkhead. First, she would scout out the place and decide what things to salvage, after which she would return to the ship to get the lifts needed to load it into the freighter. And then back in, to find more stuff. And back out, to load it onto the ship.

Dhari sighed. If I ever see those two spice-stealing nerf herders again, I'll throw them out a kriffing air lock.

@Charndley

 

[Juniper]

It took a little bit of weaving through old, rusted hulks and abandoned mining equipment to find what she was looking for. Near the back of the vast cavern lay what looked like a command centre. Or... what once was a command centre, anyway. Climbing up the metal steps, she stepped into the room and looked out through the huge, glass windows. Old scorch marks and the erosion of many decades had made them pretty opaque by that point, but it wasn't like there was much to see.

What they did have, though, was computer equipment. Consoles, portable networks and projectors, all hastily left by whoever was last there. A promising start, if any of it would turn on. Nara leaned into the first console, tapping on a couple of the keys. She waited. One second. Two seconds. Three seconds...

Nada.

Nope. No power, probably. The only thing she could hope for was that the cables and connectors were all somehow okay and that she just needed to provide some kind of juice. She could do that. Scrambling around the sides, she knelt down and pried open the maintenance panel, getting right into the console's innards. Her fingers traced over wiring, looking for the familiar braided, shielded core cable that was usually the power...

Got it. Let's just shift you around slightly.

Didn't take long for Nara to jury rig something up, using one of the batteries from her datapad. Enough to pulse some power into the system and maybe boot up an old generator or something. With her fingers stained black from dust and dirt, she tapped a few keys and the screen came to life, in a glitchy, low power text.

LOW POWER
LOW POWER
LOW POWER

The message repeated constantly, flooding the screen. It took Nara a little more fiddling with the keys and controls, managing to find a command to restart the generators. C'mon, don't make me go and try to refuel them.

ACCESSING POWER COMMANDS...
ACCESSING POWER COMMANDS...
_
_
BOOT SEQUENCE INITIATED

The creaking, awful hum of long-forgotten machinery and pipework coming to life echoed around the facility, as the generators started to cycle up. The screens around her flickered as Nara looked around. In the cavern itself, fluorescent lighting strips slowly pulsed back to life, illuminating the dark cavern suddenly. It was pretty obvious by now that someone would be there.

@Casmer

 

[Dhari Rast]

Dhari entered the facility with a torchlight clipped onto the collar of her flight jacket. Besides the strip of light invited inside by the gaping hole in the bulkhead, the place was dark as the belly of a sarlacc. Her eyes having not adjusted to the relative darkness present even with the torchlight on, she was still able to notice what apparently was a cavernous hangar with high ceilings. And there, looming in the shadows, were stacks and stacks of crates. It can't all be just army rations, Dhari thought hopefully.

Whilst Dhari wasn't afraid of running into other sentients - no one in their right mind would willingly go to Crait, and if they did, well, there was enough scrap metal that they didn't have to fight each other for it - she knew that the hole in the bulkhead was large enough to allow some pretty big creatures inside. Now, Dhari had no idea what animals called Crait their home, except for the crystalline foxes the Blacklight had slammed into as it skidded along the surface of the planet. But if there were any large predators around, a place like this seemed too good a shelter for them to pass up.

So, Dhari did something she hadn't done in a while. She had donned her lightsaber. The feeling of it hanging at her left hip had become unfamiliar. She wasn't going to use it, of course. That's what the blaster pistol at her other hip was for. But there was a sense of security in know that, if she really had to, she could ignite the crimson blade and probably scare of any predator that stalked her.

With a sigh that echoed faintly in the hangar, Dhari set about the work of searching the crates for anything of value. She walked over to some crates on her right, searched for a panel that would open the crate, then ran her fingers along the edges of the lid, hoping to find a small indentation, a tell-tale sign of a manual lever. She found it, pressed the indentation, and heaved the lid open. And there was... nothing. Dhari shrugged. "Alright, it's alright," she muttered to herself. "So someone's been here. Can't have taken it all." She lowered the lid of the crate gently back into place, then moved on to the next crate, repeating the procedure.

She had gone through five or six crates and was beginning to think she might have to start looking for scrap metal, when she found what she was looking for. "Oh my," she whispered. Inside the crate she had just opened, there were racks of blaster rifles, military grade by the looks of it. Run them by the right buyer and they could fetch a decent pile of credits. She ran a quick estimate in her head. If there were just three more boxes like this one in the hangar, she might just be able to pay for thorough repairs on the Blacklight - enough to make her spaceworthy for smuggling runs with the type of high-risk-high-reward cargo she needed to pay back the Cartel. 'Bout time my luck turned, she thought, her face spread-eagled in a grin.

In that instant, the hangar was illuminated. It was like someone had thrown a flash grenade the size of a house into the room. Instinctively, Dhari covered her eyes with her hands, shielding them from the glaring light. As she did, the lid that she had been holding up dropping like dead weight, slamming down in its socket with a crack that reverberated through the room. "Kark! Kriffing nerf herder's sticky butt! And his mother!" Dhari wheezed, allowing more and more light to filter through the slids between her fingers until she was able to make out fluorescent lighting strips that ran across the ceiling. The profanity wasn't only on account of the pain in her eyes. Unless for some unlikely reason opening the crates had made the lights turn on, it meant that there were other sentients in the facility. And by dropping the lid of the crate, Dhari had just announced her arrival.

@Charndley

 

[Juniper]

Nara slapped the side of the console with delight as everything started to power up. Maybe her luck was turning after all. This was getting a little more promising. Hey, maybe it'd go further and the first file she looked at would tell her what she needed. Hey, we found this weird ancient cube thingy when looking for supplies, here are exact coordinates where we presume it lay undiscovered for a hundred years...

She'd just managed to hook her datapad up to the main hub when she'd heard the noise. Something loud dropping. Her head poked up, trying to look out through the windows. Far too scratched and stained to see much of anything. It could have just been a coincidence. A door slamming shut after coming back to life. Some circuit exploding with the sudden rush of power after many years. Better to be safe than sorry though!

Nara pulled her blaster off her belt and moved carefully to the doorway. She edged a little round, peering out. Nothing there. Carefully, she moved round and stepped out of the control room, scanning in search of anyone there. Blaster held high, ready to shoot if someone appeared. On her belt, her saber hilt hung ready. Keep things calm and casual. Don't need to flash the laser sword if I don't need to.

"Identify yourself!" she called out, hearing her own voice echo in the huge cavern. "State your business here." Watching and moving slowly as she spoke, waiting for where the noise might come from... or where she might spy some movement.

@Casmer

 

[Dhari Rast]

With her eyesight still impaired by the blinding lights, Dhari scurried back behind a couple of crates stacked high enough for her to hide behind. And then she waited for her eyes to adjust completely to the bright surroudings. But she didn't run away. She wasn't a child who had been caught in the act of stealing a pie from a window sill. She was a scavenger and a thief, with every bit as much of a right to be in this place as any other scoundrel in the Galaxy. She needed those guns. If push came to shove, she might consider sharing them - if the option to stun whoever was in here with her and leave them to thaw in a corner somewhere while she ran away with the goods didn't present itself, that its.

"Identify yourself!" a voice called out. It asked her to state her business. Of course, like any smuggler worth their salt, she didn't. Not truthfully, anyway. Putting all of her effort into the best droid impression she knew, she said: "Greetings, Sentient Being. I am 4C7-RA-7, and my business is to serve." Dhari grimaced. She came up with the dumbest ideas sometimes. Drawing her blaster pistol, she moved carefully from the cover of one crate to the cover of another along the right-hand side of the cavern, hoping to flank whoever had called out for her.

@Charndley

 

[Juniper]

Nara heard the reply. She barely had time to huff in response. The very least you could do is try to be convincing if you were going to lie your ass off. That sort of bullshit was insulting. She heard the voice echo from somewhere towards the right, which was helpful. Less helpful was the ton of crates there, with plenty of room to skitter and hide behind. There could've been someone hiding behind any of them.

Well, let's make this more interesting.

With her free hand, Nara reached out. Gritting her teeth, she lifted one of the crates with relative ease, letting it hover in the air for a couple of seconds. Then, with a flick of her wrist, she fired it into a bunch of crates next to it. Boxes of wood and metal smashed together, sending sharp shards and splinters through the air around it. The clang echoed through the cavern as old battery packs, desiccated rations and bent, twisted blaster rifles spilled out onto the floor.

"Let's try this again! Who the hell are you?"

@Casmer

 

[Dhari Rast]

It was a good thing that Dhari had moved. She had made it past the first couple of stacked crates when she felt a familiar, but ominous sensation. Something tugged at the Force, reminiscent of the sort of sucking force you experience holding a hand over a drain in a sink that's emptying of water. No, she thought. What are the kriffing odds? Peering out from the side of the crates she was hiding behind, her suspicion was confirmed. A crate - one of the ones contained the blaster rifles Dhari had discovered earlier - hovered in the air with no lifts or straps lifting it. She felt another tug, and the crate rocketed into the first stack of crates she had hidden behind. The noise from the impact echoed between the walls of the cavern as the guns - her guns - spilled out onto the floor, many obviously broken.

A flash of anger ignited Dhari. She could feel it calling for her from within, beckoning, promising so many beautiful things if only she would let - it - out.

Kriff this.

Dhari moved the hilt of her lightsaber to the backside of her utility belt so it wouldn't be visible unless she turned her back to whoever was throwing crates. Then, she stepped out from the crates she hid behind and into the center of the room. "Alright, you obviously aren't stupid enough to fall for the old I'm-a-droid trick," she yelled, hands raised, palms open, fingers spread. "That was disrespectful. My bad. I'm assuming you're here for the guns too. It's alright. We can share. But only if you stop destroying the kriffing merchandise!"

@Charndley

 

[Juniper]

Guns? There are guns here?

Nara stared out at the scattered, twisted lumps that were once blasters. Didn't she feel stupid? Of course there'd be guns there, she knew this was a Resistance hideout, once upon a time. There could be all sorts of dangerous equipment hiding around. Blasters, ship armaments, explosives...

Ooo, explosives, now there's a thought.

Somebody was here for the guns. A smuggler, probably. Just her luck to come looking at the same time as some gutter rat. Least she could relax now. Smugglers and thieves were greedy lowlives and easy to understand. Also fairly harmless, so long as you didn't mess around with them much.

"Yeah, no. I'm here for something else. Keep your blasters, just leave me out of it." She kept her blaster in her hand, in case the smuggler tried any ideas. "You can have whatever you want from here, just keep out of the control room and we'll be good. Good?"

Let the rat have the guns. If they could somehow get them out on their own, more power to them. She hoped they'd be very happy with their antique weapons.

"Well, we got a deal?"

@Casmer

 

[Dhari Rast]

Well well, isn't that interesting.

Dhari had come to Crait to salvage guns. She'd found the guns, alright. Should be a simple job to lift the crates of blasters out and load them onto her ship. This other person who'd interrupted Dhari's work didn't even want any of them. She could have all of them, if she wished. An hour, maybe an hour and a half, and Dhari could be moving on to the next place. Done and gone.

However, there was the issue of this person clearly being a Force-user. And the itch of anger that Dhari could feel under her skin. And the fact that this person was after something other than the guns. Whatever it was, it had to be worth more than all of the merchandise in this place combined.

"Yeah, I don't know," Dhari answered. "How do I know you're not going to shoot me in the back as I'm bending over to collect the blasters you sent flying, huh? How do I know there aren't a dozen of you holed up in that control room? At least come out so we can look each other in the eye. I don't like making deals with a faceless person."

Dhari was opportunistic, but she wasn't an idiot. If they were more than one, she would take the guns and be on her merry way. If they were alone, however. Well, Dhari didn't mean 'curious' in Mirialan for nothing.

@Charndley

 

[Juniper]

How would this person know Nara wouldn't shoot her in the back?

"You don't."

She rolled her eyes, trading barbs with a shadow. Why did she find the only ruin that was being picked through by a grave-robber? Nara thought about how much to reveal. She could say that she was there for information from the computer system, but that might get some questions.

"Well, how about I seal this door behind me and you can get on with your thieving in peace? I'm on Jedi business," she lied. Like whatever thug was there would be able to tell, anyway. She could use the Force. She had a blue lightsaber. She could come up with some crap about balance and peace if there were awkward questions.

Something beeped behind her.

"Speaking of which..." she muttered, stepping back into the control room. By now, hopefully her datapad had been able to access some of the systems. Info. Info she needed. Planets linked with the Jedi, planets where the clues might be. Where she might find what she was looking for.

@Casmer

 

[Dhari Rast]

"Pretty kriffing rude for a Jedi," Dhari said, staring at the woman who had come into view. A human. She's got the face of a Jedi, Dhari thought, searching the woman's tight-knitted face for any signs of ill-intent. Beside the general cool that she radiated towards Dhari she didn't look like someone about to pounce. Dhari shot out her lower lip and shrugged. "Fine by me. No second thoughts, though. The guns are mine."

Dhari may have said that she was there for the guns. And that was true. She wouldn't leave them behind. But seeing as the crates wouldn't magically grow legs and run away from her, she figured there was no harm in focusing on other matters for a while. Whatever the Jedi was looking for, Dhari wasn't going to prevent her from doing so. Now, whether she would let her leave with whatever she found was a different matter entirely. But the Mirialan figured it would be a while before the Jedi found what she was looking for, and so she simply turned on her heels and continued her search for other salvalgeable things.

There was plenty of stuff strewn about in the nooks and crannies of the cavern. Scrap metal, warped metal, spare parts in various stages of decrepitude - none of which interested Dhari. However, as she was rifling through a pile of junk in a far corner of the cavern, she noticed the unmistakable outline of an astromech. It's chassis was tarnished, dented, the paint job looking like an old Corellian garage door. There's a very good chance this thing is complete scrap, she thought. Somehow, though, she couldn't quite let it be. It looked... pitiful, really. That was a feeling that Dhari rarely felt. Not a lot of beings deserved pity. Mercy? Sure. But pity? It didn't help anyone.

Dhari let out a sigh. "Alright." She grabbed the astromech, hauled it out of the junk pile, and started wheeling it towards the exit of the cavern. Its wheels dragged on the floor, clearly faulty. "Worst case, I sell you for scrap," she said.

Dhari would run to her ship and retrieve the cargo lift. Returning to the cavern, she would begin to collect the weapon crates and lift them closer to the entrance. She would continue doing so until the Jedi eventually emerged from the control room. If the Jedi made her way towards the exit, Dhari would position herself on the Jedi's path, arms crossed and a defiant smirk on her face.

@Charndley

 

[Juniper]

Nara cared little for what the smuggler said. If she wanted to take century-old blasters and hawk them on the black market for tiny amounts of creds, well... more power to her. When she was younger, the up-and-coming scum of the Galaxy would actually y'know, try and score heists instead of digging through graves. The times must've changed.

Nara sat at the console, setting her datapad to download any crucial information. Already the systems were flowing with information. Maps and notes about worlds they'd once searched, worlds linked with the Order of the past. Worlds where they'd stepped foot long ago, or caches of information hidden along with Resistance and even Rebellion dead drops.

This is going to need a lot of sorting through.

Part of her felt guilty for taking this information... but it'd been here for a long time. If anyone else was looking for it, they'd had plenty of time before her. An idea came over her. This amount of information was dangerous. Too dangerous to be left alone. What if the Galaxy's Worst Smuggler out there got some idea about checking over the computers? What if she started trying to find these places? Or worse, she sold the info to someone who did.

The decision was made. Once she had the info, she unlinked her datapad and slipped it into the inner pocket of her coat. Taking a mental note of the layout of the room, she primed the control room door open. Before she left, however, she took out her lightsaber again. Lit it. As the room glowed blue, she thrust the blade deep into the wiring for the power control.

The lights fizzled instantly through the base.

Nara smirked as she turned the saber off and carefully shuffled towards the door, reaching out to feel with her finger tips. All that remained was making her way to the massive hole in the bulkhead door.

@Casmer

 

[Dhari Rast]

With an instant fizzle, the lights went out in the cavern. It summoned a frown to Dhari's face. That can't be a coincidence. She sat on the domed head of the astromech unit, waiting for the Jedi to leave the control room. And it seemed that the Jedi had just announced their intention of leaving without saying goodbye.

Knowing that the hole in the bulkhead was likely the best way to enter and exit the cavern if you didn't want to spend hours searching its innards for an exposed crevasse, Dhari didn't feel like she needed to play a game of cat and mouse. She stood up, gave the salvaged astromech a pat on the head, and went to stand in the strip of light that entered through the hole.

She cupped her hands and yelled out: "You could have at least asked if I was done with the loading." She let her voice echo in the cavern for a moment before adding: "Going somewhere?"

@Charndley

 

[Juniper]

Nara stalked between the boxes and crates, using the light from the hole as a guide to help her. Looked like the smuggler had decided to be a pain. Well, two could play at that game. She leaned around the side of one of the crates, cupping her hands.

"Oh sorry, I thought you'd stolen enough guns by now. I guess you were slower than I thought," she said, wondering how far she could needle her. Angry people make mistakes, she knew that better than anyone. She moved a little further away, between some different crates before continuing.

"Well, after such scintillating conversation, it'd be hard to step away but I've got places I need to be. If you really want, I can smack more of these around, destroy a few more guns?" she suggested. To really prove a point, Nara reached out. Lifting a crate (which she presumed was empty), she pulled her elbow back then shoved, sending the crate spinning off to the top of the bulkhead. When it hit, it'd smash and splinter, raining shards of wood down.

"I'm sure you're far too busy taking everything that isn't screwed down to care about the Jedi," she suggested, with an edge to her words as her hand reached for her saber.

@Casmer

 

[Dhari Rast]

Shards of wood rained to the floor in front of Dhari. She tilted her head, said: "What can I say? I'm thorough. I'd rather do a good job than a fast job."

Dhari took a few steps forward. "More than can be said about you, though. Seems like you've got some impulses to fight, huh?" She crossed her arms. "You know, sometimes the first idea that pops into your head isn't necessarily the best idea. Slapping crates around like this? A show of force. Scare tactics. Leads me to think that you've got something much more valuable than guns to carry out of here."

"So yeah, I do care about you, as you put it," Dhari scoffed. "And I'm not afraid of you, Jedi."

@Charndley

 

[Juniper]

Great. Of all the scumbags in all the Galaxy, I get the one that think she's the self-improvement coach.

It didn't seem like this one would be impressed by her throwing stuff. That left only two more options to get outta there. She could ram a metal container into her and reduce her to a fine paste, which seemed excessive even if she was a little smug. Or... direct confrontation.

Nara stepped out into view, taking a few steps towards Dhari. Hands by her side, as opposed to the crossed arms that she had. An unimpressed look on her face.

"Someone thinks she's good at psychoanalysis. Weird training for a thief." Her eyes ran over her again, checking for weapons. Explosives. Anything that she needed to be wary of. "I knew a hundred like you on Nar Shaddaa. Desperate for the next score. Scrabbling to try and get something to prove yourself. It never ends. It'll chew you up, spit you out while the ones on top play their games and suck the profit off your bones."

She lifted her hand a little and curled her fingers. Her saber hilt flew into her palm. She twisted the dial and it ignited, bathing both of them in blue.

"We don't have to do this, you know. Step aside and you'll never see me again. You can have your guns, your scrap, whatever else you found in this pit."

Nara shifted, crossing the blade in front of her in a defensive stance.

@Casmer

 

[Dhari Rast]

"I'm sure you knew many on Nar Shaddaa who fit that profile," Dhari said, eyes narrowing against the blue sheen of the lightsaber's blade. I act like a thug and dress like one. Not hard to see why she would flag me as such. And she could easily have played the part, giving way for the Jedi to leave and made do with the guns, or even followed her to wherever she was going, if she really wanted to take whatever the Jedi had found off her hands. She could've played the long game.

But the hum of the lightsaber and the lustrous blue of its blade trapped her. The situation took her, claimed her before she was even aware of it. She had forgotten why she was in this cavern in the first place. Whatever the reason, it must have had to do with the Jedi. Her lightsaber taunted Dhari, goading her with its promise of confrontation and the sweet deliverance that opening herself to the Force would give her. For she would doubtlessly have to use the Force if the Jedi attacked. Very few individuals in the Galaxy could fight a Force-user without the use of the Force, and they were usually formidable warriors in their own rights. Dhari could try, but she would fail. Likely with death as the price, because the readiness with which the Jedi drew her lightsaber, and the way she acted, told her that this particular Jedi had no squabbles with killing. She could call it scare tactics or whatever - Dhari knew the eyes of a killer when she saw them.

It was like looking in the mirror.

Widening her stance and uncrossing her arms, she reached her right hand slowly around her back, retrieving the cylindrical hilt of her own lightsaber. It ignited with a hiss-crack, casting the area around her in a crimson cloak that combatted the Jedi's blue. Dhari looked down at the blade, and something deep within her rejoiced. She looked up at the Jedi, her face was caught in a grimace of equal parts joy and regret. "But I'm not just another Nar Shaddaa runt, am I?" she said loudly, so as to be heard over the hum of the lightsabers that reverberated against the walls of the cavern. A smirk burned its way onto her lips, against her will, it seemed. "You know, you're very bad at making friends."

@Charndley

 

[Juniper]

Everything was going just how she'd expected it... until she pulled out the saber. The red clashed with the blue of her own blade and for the first time, Nara felt a flicker of uncertainty. She hadn't been expecting that, not at all. The situation was quickly deteriorating, heading towards violence. Whether she knew it or not, the th-, no, the Sith had made this much more difficult.

"I don't make friends with Sith," Nara told her, jaw hardening as she considered her options. "You were much better when you were just a thug. Now? You're just scum."
Enough talk. The presence of a red lightsaber meant this could only really go one way. Nara breathed in and drew on the Force. With her saber hilt in both hands, she rushed Dhari. Moving with enhanced speed, she slashed her saber in a harsh, wicked movement, from her bottom-left to top-right, aiming to diagonally slice her. Though in reality, it was a probe. A test. See how trained this Sith really was.

@Casmer

 

[Dhari Rast]

Engaging the Jedi was an illogical move. Dhari was fully aware that the couple of years of training she'd had in the Sith Order would be no match against a fully-trained Jedi. This one didn't wear the tell-tale braid of their learners, so she would've been at least a Knight. It was folly to think that she could best her.

But Dhari had long since stopped thinking rationally. Slipping into the pit within without even noticing at first, it was now far too late to back out. Dhari's life was hard enough, but now this Jedi had stepped in her way. She had been rude, she had destroyed the merchandise, wantonly, like a child throwing a temper tantrum. She had wronged Dhari.

No one wrongs Dhari.

Feeling the surge in the Force an instant before the Jedi attacked, Dhari still barely brought up her lightsaber to meet the diagonal slash from the Jedi's blade with a deflection that flicked it away just far enough for a sidestep to clear Dhari of the deadly blue blade. She wasn't aware how she did it; she just did, and she felt warm and fuzzy and angry at the Jedi, but even the anger felt like a hug from a loved one. With a surge of her own, she jumped backwards, flipping mid-air, landing on her feet. Immediate, she pushed - no, not she, something - pushed the advance, closing in on the Jedi's position with speed she didn't know she had, feigned a slash from above, only to twist her hips and flick her wrist, attempting a diagonal slash downward, going for the Jedi's sword arm.

@Charndley