Price of a Life

[Jiang Winters]

"I'm going to ask a question. Answer if you can."

Rourke leaned forward and rested his elbows atop his knees. He buried his face in his hands, folded his ears back, gritted his teeth. His stomach tied up in knots and sank, his throat tightened. He felt anger. Fear. Desperation.

"What is the price of a life?"

The man opposite the table grinned, his gold tooth glinting in the office's dim light. He was well-dressed with a charcoal suit cut in an old coruscanti style. The businessman's gray hair was slicked back, and circle-framed spectacles rested on his narrow nose. His eyes were close-set, dark, his face thin. Wiry - that described him best. A small man, yet bestowed of great power. He was a doctor. Doctor Oros Chern. Mei, Rourke's little sister, had enjoyed his tender hospitality for over a month.

"I can tell you, if you'd like. A hundred thousand credits. A tenth of a million."

A twisted little smile curled his lips as Rourke's shoulders hitched, then sank in defeat. The Kushari was well-dressed. A blazer and black slacks, dress shoes and a red tie. A fine-pressed white shirt, leather suspenders. A little pendant was hidden under his shirt, and a weathered steel ring on his left ring finger. Rourke slowly sat upright, then leaned back in his seat and stared at Chern.

"Oh, don't be a melancholy man, Mister Rourke. You know how this ends."

Kelden's eyes watched as a slip of paper, a form, was turned towards him and slid across the desk. He reluctantly pulled it down into his lap and skimmed it.

"Pay today, or I do what I must to make sure her stay remains profitable."

Slavery. That's what the man intended to do to Mei. He'd sell her to the highest bidder. Chern would make sure she was a pleasure girl by the end of the week. Kelden put his tongue in his cheek and crumpled the paper up into a little ball, which he tossed between his hands.

"Doc," Rourke said softly, "You know my pockets aren't that deep. What do you really want?"

Chern chortled merrily and held his palms up. "Don't be so narrow-minded, lad, hard credits aren't the only currency in the 'verse! You've got something else I might, just might, trade the young Miss Rourke for."

It clicked. Kelden frowned and rose from the chair. "You want the slaves I took from the Tyguff Syndicate." He scowled. "How'd you find out about that? It wasn't even in this sector."

"Mister Rourke, oh, Mister Rourke - let's focus on our little transaction, shall we?"

Rourke had stepped behind his chair, and leaned on the hand-carved back. His fingers tapped against the old wood, and he dropped the crumpled form into the seat. "I'll sell the ship. I'll get you your money."

Chern laughed. It was a hollow, bitter sound, holding only sadistic glee. "I think it's too late for credits now. That'd be far too easy! No, no, I think I'd rather make you choose - who'll it be, Mister Rourke? Two hundred tiny, insignificant lives, or a single bright one?"

The Kushari didn't answer. He half-turned and started for the door. "I'll think on it," he muttered, "And I'll be back with your answer tonight. If Mei's hurt in any way, or she's gone from here, I'll kill you."

Doctor Oros Chern cackled and slapped his desk. "Don't make me wait, lest I seek your sister's... Pleasurably company! I'd hate for her to suffer for your tardiness, my friend."

He ignored the taunt and left. His tail flicked violently, his limbs shook with scarcely controlled rage. It was tempting, so tempting, to draw his pistol and end Chern's existence. It was only Mei's safety that prevented him from turning murderous. She was in his custody. If he died, she'd be sold off or worse in a matter of hours. Far faster than he could save her. The walk back to his ship gave him plenty of time to think. The only way he had to guarantee her safety was to trade the slaves. Every last one would have to go to Chern. He couldn't save them and his sister. Not on his own.

Phoenix's ramp lowered as he approached. It was parked in a dusty, garbage-choked shithole that passed for a shuttle bay on Nar Shadda. Phoenix's gleaming white hull and black belly stuck out against the filth and gray of the city it was stuck inside. Soft light streamed out of the ship's bay and illuminated the swirling dust and debris and the cascading rain enveloping the ship. The bay had no roof - it barely even had walls. Primitive chain-link fencing was all that kept the ship safe from common folk wandering the pads. Kelden ran his paws back through his mane and slicked the soaking-wet mass of fur back.

There was a storm coming down outside. It only made the world all the more miserable.

He shrugged off his blazer and draped it over one of the two hundred cryopods laying head-to-toe in his bay. He brushed off the pod's window and stared at the young boy inside. He couldn't have been any older than fourteen. A low huff rolled off his lips and he hung his head.

"I can't do it," he muttered quietly. His hands clenched and claws dug furrows into the pod's surface. He wanted so badly to strike out, to hit something, to hurt someone. But there was nothing to hit. No other options. Two hundred lives - he could save them. He couldn't gamble them away to save Mei, no matter how precious she was. Defeated, the cat half-turned and slumped down against the pod. He stared up at the ceiling. "It'd have been nice, god, if you'd taken my side. Just this once."

 

[Rom]

Years had been spent wandering along every corner of the galaxy, following the little nudges and feelings that guided him into the strangest situations and places yet somehow always where he was needed most, and Harue had still not figured out how to tell where he was bound and what he was needed for. He simply knew that he was needed, and he went. That's how it had always been, and the hulking Kushari had no doubt that it would be that way until the day he died. Using his staff as a walking stick, head bowed beneath his ragged white cloak and hood against the cutting wind and freezing rain, the monk silently asked himself if his senses had come any closer to discerning where on this miserable planet he was meant to be and received crickets in response.

'Fantastic... as if wandering around Hutt Central wasn't bad enough, my inner self has picked up Alya's cartoons as it's sense of humor. Just brilliant."

Growling under his breath, the 2.45m feline winced as a togrutan ahead of him suddenly bowed out of the way in fright while chattering away in Huttese about not meaning to get in his way. The people on this planet weren't necessarily slaves, but with the Hutts ruling the Smugglers Moon like an iron fist, they may as well be. It railed against every single moral belief and instinct he held, but his Gift thrummed in warning and urged him to keep walking; there were some things he was not meant to meddle in, not yet anyway. Lifting his head as he activated his Force Sight, Harue looked around in forlorn hope for some sort of path to appear before him only to gape in surprise as the gift prodded him along stronger, the feelings coming through in new clarity and guiding him towards his destination. The feline allowed the feral grin of a hunter to spread across his face as his prey proved to be close by, before brutally crushing the feelings of the Hunt that surged through his veins like liquid fire; he was not some young hothead anymore, and he faced the unexpected with a level head and practicality most did not expect from someone of his stature.

After a few more minutes of walking, the Kushari perked up as a blast of wind threw another wave of water at his face, but carried with it the musty smell of wet Kushari; something that Harue definitely did not expect to smell all the way on the other side of the galaxy within Hutt Space. As his head turned to regard the new direction, his Gift practically singing in approval as he approached a dilapidated spaceport, the scent getting stronger as he skirted the edge and approached a single pad where the familiar outline of an N-49 Peregrine blurred into his sight, along with an unspeakable mass of life within it's cargo bay. "I didn't even know these things were still flying! Talk about a blast from the past...."

His trip down memory lane was drowned out by the crackling lightning and the thrum of thunder bursting through the heavens, as was his unaided leap over the fence and feather soft landing on the edge of the pad. As he prowled across the pad towards the open bay, his sensitive ears picked up what sounded to be a fellow Kushari in distress; the huff of breath, the silent pacing, the swishing of the tail cutting through the air like a fuzzy club. He came to a halt at the top of the ramp, looking down into the bay; the dark stormy sky stretching out behind him as he observed a young - too young, his mind observed - Kushari slumped against a cryo-pod, his voice broken as he sent a reproachful plea towards heaven and the almighty; the cry of someone with the weight of the 'verse on their shoulder and feeling powerless to change it.

The wind outside of the ship howled as the storm moved deeper into their territory tugging and billowing the white hooded cloak out behind him like wings within the storm, the golden aura beneath his blindfold shining in the gloom as he lightly tapped his staff against the durasteel floors, the thud echoing around the cargo bay and bringing the depressed youths gaze whirling around to behold a massive Kushari clad in white wielding a staff taller than himself, with the lightning behind him and the glowing eyes behind a cloth wrapped over his eyes creating a halo of light around his form; and for a moment, he appeared to be an angel sent to answer the young man's pleas.

And in a way he was.

"Son, in my experience the Lord doesn't take sides.... but he usually is pretty good about getting the good guys their chance to save the damsel and crush the villain. I don't mean to pry.... but it seems like you could use some help. What's the matter?"

 

[Jiang Winters]

Kelden hadn't expected a visit - certainly not from his own kind. The feline's ears tilted back as his eyes slowly lifted to behold the titan before him. A shiver coursed down his spine and raised his hackles. There was a strangeness about the white-robed giant. An aura of power, of strength. A storm howled behind him, yet he stood unmoved. He was in the presence of an angel. It seemed that God hadn't forgotten him after all.

The young soldier hauled himself off the deck and tried to stand tall, but he was barely taller than 1.9 meters. Though stout in build and scarred from combat, he couldn't hope to match the blind giant's awesome presence. He swallowed quietly as the elder Kushari spoke, and was struck by the depth and warmth of his voice. Not a single element failed to impress. His poise, his stature, his voice; everything was a gift sent straight from the heavens.

"I pulled these folks out of slaver's hands." He rested a hand atop the same cryopod he'd marked with his claws. "Two hundred people. And now I've got to give them up to save my sister."

His teeth clicked together and he briefly turned his eyes away from the angel. Rourke's lips turned down into a tight frown as he clenched his jaw and let his temple throb. A low growl rumbled briefly in his chest as he curled his fingers into a fist and rested his knuckles against the pod. His situation had left him bitter and angry. A lesser man might've already succumbed to his rage, but Rourke was in control. Every muscle in his body tensed. His neck bulged and his forearms tightened, even his tail curled at the tip.

"But I'm not going to do that. What's the price of a single life? It sure as hell isn't two hundred souls."

Rourke's nostrils flared as he released a heavy sigh and forced himself to gently pat the pod's lid. There was fury in his voice, hidden just beneath guilt and despair. The soldier, this man of steel, had been left helpless to protect his own family and it was killing him. "But I can't lose my little sister." He pushed himself off the pod and took a step away. His green eyes turned to the giant again, and his hardness broke. The anger inside him disappeared behind the fear and the loss, and he looked up for answers. "What would you do, Preacher? How do you save a life?"

 

[Rom]

Harue felt a surge of pity shoot through his chest as the young Kushari slowly explained the circumstances he found himself in, the choice between the lives of strangers or the life of a cherished love one and the agony it clearly put him through to choose the former. Harue was all too familiar with the keen emptiness that came from losing family, but to know that they were alive but shackled beyond your reach seemed far worse than the certainty of death. Stepping forward into the cargo hold, his booted feet making no sound as he crossed over to the young man and put one lhuge paw on his shoulder in a show of solidarity.

"Young one, you're facing one of the most difficult decisions in life, and doing so admirably. All of us are forced at some point to choose between what is right and what is easy; the easy thing to do would be to turn these people who you've never met or known over to the men holding your sister, and leave them behind. The right thing is not to put one life over another, and to keep these people you just rescued from slavery from returning to it under a crueler master...."

His voice trailed off for a moment, causing the young one to look up at his face and see a careworn smile containing a hint of mischievousness.

"However, no one ever said it was impossible to do both."

He let his words hang there for a moment, allowing the full meaning of his words to impact on the young feline before squeezing his shoulder and reaching out with his mind and hand, pulling a sub-machine gun off of a desk on the other side of the bay and pressing it into the other Kushari's arms.

"Nothing worth having in this 'Verse is easy or free, my young friend.... and the value of a life comes from what you put into it. Sometimes the only way to save a life, is to fight for it.. and I will shield you in this endeavor. Come, brief me as we travel... we're going to save your sister."

His voice was firm, warm and filled with conviction. His confidence that this was not a question of if they could save the girl, that her deliverance was a foregone conclusion would spread through the young feline's heart and mind in an uplifting inferno; the monk was using his power in the Gift to bolster his young companion's heart. He moved to walk back towards the exit of the cargo bay, the pistols and nodatchi on his waist and the heavy staff in hand showing that he was armed and ready for conflict, before pausing to look back over his shoulder at the gobsmacked kushari and wink.

"Also, I'm an Ethereal, not a preacher. You can call me Harue."

 

[Jiang Winters]

Rourke tightly gripped the sub gun. It was one of the old fashioned 'defense carbines' he'd left laying about the hangar so that he'd always have a weapon in easy reach. He put his tongue in his cheek as he looked over the weapon, while the preacher's words filled his head. They were going off to fight. They'd fight, and in doing so, they'd guarantee Mei's freedom. His spirits lifted as he started after the armed giant. No doubts clouded his mind. Only confidence was left, and that confidence drove out many of the darker emotions that had been plaguing him.

He grinned as the 'preacher' paused to correct him. "I'm Kelden Rourke," he replied as he made for the bay exit, only to pause just before the ramp. To hunt a monster, one didn't carry a sub machine gun - one carried something with a bit more bark. He half-turned and made for the side of the bay. There was a loose panel on the wall, hidden by an old double-breasted peacoat. He swung the peacoat onto his shoulders and pulled it on, then tore the panel off. Concealed behind it was a tightly bundled tartan blanket, which he traded his sub-gun for. He joined Harue on the ramp as he gently tugged the blanket open. Gleaming steel and carved wood came into view as the folds of tartan pulled away, and slowly, the sleek lines of an ancient double rifle became visible. He caught a leather cartridge holder as it fell from the bundle and slipped it into his pocket, then dropped the blanket away as he tucked his rifle in between his elbow and side.

It was an old weapon - far older than Rourke, and perhaps even older than Harue. The double-rifle was from a bygone era, when gunsmiths wrought weapons as beautiful as they were powerful. Precise, old-fashioned, dangerous; it complimented the former Marine perfectly.

The barrels tipped down and he slid two gargantuan rounds home. "The fellow responsible is Oros Chern. He's a doctor here." A deft snap of his wrist snapped the barrels up and locked them into place. "His right hand is Vek. Ex-Mando. His own clan kicked him out. I don't know much about him, but he's brutal even for a Mandalorian. He hired and trained most of Chern's security."

Kelden gestured off into the skyline and pointed out a towering high-rise, its glittering lights stabbing high into the storming sky. "Chern wants to meet at the hospital, but that penthouse of his - I'd bet my bottom dollar that he's keeping Mei there." The Kushari's lightly scarred features turned blank for a moment, before grimness settled over them. "And if not, then we can beat her location out of him."

 

[Rom]

Harue grinned nostalgically at the sight of the old-fashioned rifle; his mentor in the Dai'sabre had wielded a similar weapon and treated the gun with more respect than any living being could have hoped to earn. He listened attentively as the situation was explained further, growling softly deep within his chest at the mention of the ex-Mandalorian. While he himself held a great deal of admiration for the old Clans, the wandering mercenaries could be some of the cruelest and black hearted scum to haunt the Outer Rim... and this Vek seemed to fit that description to a T. Glancing to the side at Kelden, the hulking Kushari nodded his head to show his agreement with the basic plan; while he himself had pledged to never kill again, he knew that death would come to this corner of Nar Shadda before the night was through and while he himself would not take part in the killing, he would not allow anyone who served a devil like this Chern escape without at least a few broken bones.

"Alright, so we have a basic plan but how exactly do we plan to get to his penthouse? I sincerely doubt that going in the front door will get us anything but shot."

 

[Jiang Winters]

"I was thinkin' we'd just take the elevator up and go in through the front door."

Rourke cast a quick glance at Harue as a wicked grin dominated his scarred features.

"They don't guard the lobby, and there's only two men at the elevator door once we reach the penthouse. I haven't seen a lot of its interior aside from the hallways and rooms connecting to Chern's office, but I know there's a fair bit of cover and about one or two guards per room. I'd guess we're looking at a dozen men, not including Vek and Chern. Maybe eighteen, maybe."

The apartment complex loomed closer. A few people shuffled about just outside the lobby, but the towering structure wasn't exactly a bustling hive of activity. It may've been the storm driving people indoors, or it may've just been that milling around on Nar Shadda was a hilariously bad idea and very few people did it. No matter the reason, there weren't many people, and there were fewer still near the elevators. All of them were innocent civilians, save for a single armed guard who was half-asleep in a chair off to one side of the cavernous lobby.

"We'll just make a real quick detour to the basement first," Kelden paused as he stepped into the elevator and turned to face the panel, "I want to see if I can remotely shut off power to the penthouse's lights. That'd give us a hell of an advantage. Chern and Vek are human, and most of their gang are humanlike enough that they'll have problems in the dark. We won't have that problem. Even if it only lasts thirty seconds, that's half a minute of pure hellraising."

 

[Rom]

Harue grinned tightly as they crossed the lobby of the tower, his senses stretched out around him and feeling for any hint of danger or malice; it wouldn't do for them to be ambushed here where the civilians could be harmed. In the end though, they made it into the elevator and were moving down into the bowels of the building in just a few short uneventful moments. He chuckled ruefully at the young Kushari's words, his hands calmly moving along the center of the staff and separating the wood into two large clubs that he easily hefted in his massive paws.

"Lord knows that I won't be worrying about light or dark -- sometimes being blind really does have it's own advantages."

The elevator doors opened with a soft ping and released them into the sub-basement, the whirring of generators filling the air in a dull cacophony of machinery and sparking electricity. "So, knock the power out and then bust heads hmm? I like this plan."

 

[Jiang Winters]

Kelden took a single step off the elevator. The feline took a quick glance around, those keen ears of his perked and twitching as he studied the room and its buzzing generators. A massive, cigar-shaped energy conversion system bridged two humming plasma generators together, and it was that intricate and delicate converter that the Marine selected for a target. "Close your ears," he muttered as shouldered his rifle.

A moment later the rifle cracked and barked. A massive .545 caliber slug snapped across the room and embedded itself in one of the power couplings mating a plasma generator to the converter. A second shell whipped out, a plume of crimson fire and smoke trailing behind it as the incendiary tracer smashed its way through the opposite coupling. Energy arced and danced against the converter; a klaxon sounded as both generators snapped off, smoke and fire now billowing from the converter's ends.

Rourke snapped the rifle open. Smoking cases were ejected o'er his shoulder; the feline didn't bother policing them. He simply reloaded, sliding a pair of brand-new incendiary tracer shells home as he moved back towards the elevator. He paused just long enough to rip an auxiliary power supply out of its wall cradle. He dropped it in the center of the elevator and uncoiled a cable from the APS, which he hooked into a small port on the rear wall. The elevator flickered back to life, even though every other system in the building was dead. He turned and pressed the button for the penthouse.

"Was gonna remotely disable it, but shooting it out is a little more permanent. They'll have it fixed up good as new in a few hours," he murmured, as he lifted his rifle 'till the muzzle was aimed at the doors, "But we'll be long gone by then."