Socket To Me

[Irma Kinton]

When Valar grabbed her by the thigh for support, Irma squeaked, wriggling slightly. It was enough to maker her ignore the human's warning.

"H-Hey! Don't grab me the-"

Facing away from the blast, the little Tintinna wasn't as badly effected as she could have been, but her world still turned white. Her vision returned gradually over the next few moments, and she was distracted from most of what Valar was doing by her own cursing and rubbing at her eyes. By the time she had been dumped into the driver's seat of a speeder, she could see more or less clearly, though spots still swam in front of her eyes.

Shaking her head, she put her trembling hands on the wheel. Adrenaline surged through her, and that made her react more quickly than she otherwise might have to the situation. Scooting forward in her oddly contoured seat, she nodded.

"R-Right!"

Irma's foot came down on something soft, but the pedal depressed, and the cab jounced away from the scene, turbines whining. Briefly, Irma felt a sense of relief.

That was, until the dead cab driver lolled forward against her back, causing Irma to look up. Her eyes went wide, and she gave a startled and disgusted scream as she stamped on the break peddle, bringing the cab to a halt against as she flailed and struggled to get the dead man off of her.

"Oh no no no no no!!" She shrieked at Valar. "You psychopath!!"

It was only in that moment that she became aware of Eider, sitting in the back seat, whistling and gesticulating urgently. The Tintinna's eyes bugged out even more.

"What do you mean 'it's still back there'?!"

Turning, Irma looked in the rear-view mirror of the cab. Some distance behind, the gang members were starting to come to, and in their midst...

"ARE YOU KRIFFING KIDDING ME?!"

Something within the once apprehensive little Tintinna almost audibly snapped when she saw the crate containing her droid socket in the hands of the criminals. Her teeth gritted, and her expression became hard. Reaching down, she found the taxi's gear lever, brushing the dead driver's hand off it and shifting violently into reverse. She mashed the gas peddle again, and the turbines whined anew as the vehicle shot backward...

@Nefieslab

 

[Valar Dohaeris]

Was he a psychopath? Valar didn't think he was but, he supposed, most psychopaths probably didn't feel like they were either - still didn't make it a good idea to call a psychopath one as an insult. Insulting a psychopath who had already killed people just sounded a bit dumb to Valar if he was honest.

"If I'm a psychopath, do you really want to be shouting and insulting me when I'm currently saving you rather than carving you open?"

... that was, admittedly, probably something a psychopath would say.

Still back there? What was still back there?

Looking out of the window, Valar paused for a moment when he realized what she and the droid were talking about. He stared at the crate that had been left behind before groaning. He had performed a near flawless escape strategy but had somehow managed to lose the gods damned crate? Well he supposed setbacks happened to the best of them.

She shoved the taxi into reverse.

Valar had been hanging out of the window to get a good look at the thugs - meaning she reversed his head right into a signpost, causing him to fall out of the damn taxi while she was reversing back. Groaning, he stood up as she continued towards the thugs and he was left behind meters away with a sore head.

"Who taught that bloody mouse how to drive?"

@AutoFox

 

[Irma Kinton]

Irma glared into the rear-view mirror as she accelerated backward toward the cluster of thugs, not even having noticed Valar's ungraceful exit from the vehicle. Something had taken hold of the young librarian; she was not going to lose what was hers to a bunch of low-life street punks. Well, now she was surrounded on all sides by a quarter-inch of durasteel, and had all the power of an ion turbine at her command. Now she had the advantage.

And then one of the thugs, still blinking from Valar's force-generated strobe, aimed a cheap Weekend Special blaster pistol vaguely in Irma's direction and pulled the trigger.

Irma felt and heard the turbine flame out, its whine coughing and exhaust smoking as it rattled and died. Almost immediately, crash safety systems kicked on, and the taxi began to slow, losing more and more momentum until, with a bump, one of the thugs caught the rear trunk lid with both hands and stopped the vehicle altogether.

Irma's rage-fueled self-confidence rapidly melted away as the crowd of angry gang-bangers slowly surrounded the disabled vehicle. The Tintinna shrank down in her seat.

"Ohhh kriffbaskets..."

@Nefieslab

 

[Valar Dohaeris]

Right... he had to save the mouse.

That was what he had been doing before he had gotten that bump on the back of the head. Speaking of which, Valar wasn't entirely sure that he was as okay as he had initially thought he was. The hit to the sign had been bad, sure, but he thought he was fine... and then he tried to stand up.

Almost immediately the world spun and Valar found himself stumbling to his hands and knees again.

The world was wiggling in place and he could swear he was tasting purple. He didn't know what purple tasted like - except that it tasted like a mixture between red and blue. Which he somehow knew what they tasted like. Groaning, he drew his pistol slowly because moving too fast made everything sound shaky.

He squeezed one of his eyes shut and lifted his pistol up.

He fired - the shot bouncing off the ground beside the cab. It got the attention of the thugs but, well, that wasn't really a good thing.

"... this mouse owes me."

He rolled to the side, narrowly avoiding a return fire shot, and almost immediately felt like he was going to be violently ill.

@AutoFox

 

[Irma Kinton]

Irma shrank back as the thugs gathered around the taxi, leering and taunting her, occasionally reaching out to rock the vehicle on its repulsors. The little Tintinna, far from being paralyzed with fear, began to feverishly pump the gas and twist the ignition key, pounding the steering wheel and dashboard.

"Come on, come on, start you piece of-!"

"Ay girl..."

Irma turned in panic to see one of the thugs had leaned into the car through the broken window, inches from Irma's face. He leered at the smaller sentient, beady eyes roaming over her. Irma, for her part, desperately continued trying to start the taxi as she stared back at the man, not nearly with so much interest as terror.

"G-Get back! I-I'm warning you!"

The gangster gave a barking, sour-breathed laugh, grinning at the Tintinna with yellowing teeth. It was then that Irma noticed that he carried her lost crate under one arm, her gaze flicking briefly to it.

"And give that back!"

"Ayyy sister don't be like that! I just wanna tell ya, you owe us for a lot today. And whatever this is? Well, it ain't gonna be near 'nuff." Said the thug, jostling the crate. "Was gonna take it outta your hide, but y'know..."

Irma felt as much as saw the thug's eyes travel over her again, and she shuddered.

"...you may not be human, but I could still see us getting our trouble's worth outta you better ways..."

The thug leaned further in, causing Irma to scoot over across the seat to avoid him. She continued to pound at the dashboard and twist the key, desperate to make the taxi start again. The thug laughed at the Tintinna's actions, leaning in further and further.

"So lil' sister, who's the one you want?"

Irma gritted her teeth, pounding the dashboard even harder.

"Karking START!!"

The thug laughed, leaning in even further.

"Hey lil' sister..."

Several things happened in rapid succession.

As Irma struck the dashboard one final time, there was a click and a pop, and the taxi's glove compartment sprang open, disgorging a selection of aged sonocassettes, a transparent case of what had to be death sticks, and a gleaming device that Irma immediately grabbed for. In a swift motion, she brought the muzzle of an old blaster pistol up into the leering gangster's face. Her previous expression of hard rage swiftly returned.

"KRIFF OFF!!"

The shot was at point-blank range, and sent the thug spinning back out of the speeder. The crate, which had been brought up to rest on window frame of the speeder door, toppled inside, and Irma quickly pushed it across the bench seat to the unoccupied passenger side. At that point, Eider, who until that moment Irma had not been paying attention to, gave a squeal of triumph. The taxi's turbine began to spin up, and Irma looked back to see Eider leaning over an open interior access panel; the droid flashed her a thumbs-up with one of its manipulators.

Irma spun back to the controls, a feral grin on her face.

"Right then!"

The Tintinna mashed down the accelerator, and the turbine shrilled. Behind her, a man's shrieking mingled with the engine noise; one of the thugs who had been standing directly behind the exhaust had been torched by the afterburner. Irma peeled out, traveling a few yards before stopped beside the armored figure who had been hobbling back toward the fight. Eider opened the back door, and Irma shouted to the Sith.

"Well get in!!"

@Nefieslab

 

[Valar Dohaeris]

Valar was well past the point of caring when the mouse woman rocked back up with the taxi. He didn't care if she had gotten the part back or whatever - all he cared about was that she was offering sanctuary and he could REALLY use that kind of thing right about now! He was still tasting purple and hearing spice.

Jumping into the back seat of the cab, the door shut behind him and Valar just laid there, sprawled out across the back seats. He groaned, trying to keep his eyes open.

"Mouse... tit-mouse...!" he slurred, very obviously either drunk or concussed, "Don't... don't let me fall asleep... bad for... bad for head..."

And, naturally, that was the exact moment that Valar's body decided that falling asleep was the best thing in the world to do because he began to feel his arms and legs growing heavy and his eyelids heavier still. What a bloody day this had been eh? He deserved the chance to sleep, right?

@AutoFox

 

[Irma Kinton]

"Valar? Valar!"

Irma's cold determination melted away shortly after the Sith slumped into the car and then passed out. She put the taxi in gear, however, accelerating away from the scene, cursing to herself. Reaching over, she clicked on the speeder's navigation system, frantically punching in a destination.

"Please hold on back there..."

--------------------------​

Some time later, Irma was walking along the street, Eider trundling beside her, again pushing the crate with the precious socket parts. Behind her, down the street, loomed one of Coronet City's huge general hospitals. Inside it somewhere, Valar was being looked after by no doubt the finest medical staff the place could muster. Irma felt slightly guilty about not staying with him, but he had left him with some contact info on a scrap of flimsy, so she imagined she would hear from him again, someday.

Herself, the young Tintinna had ditched the stolen taxi and the dead driver. The hospital wasn't far from the neighborhood where she made her home, and this sector of the city was at least marginally safer than where she had been before.

Reaching down, Irma felt the reassuring firmness of the old blaster she had acquired from the cab. Even if anyone gave her trouble now, she wasn't exactly helpless; the memory of what she had done so recently made her shudder involuntarily, but also filled her with a strange confidence in her abilities that hadn't been there before.

The Tintinna yawned widely.

Kriff, I need some sleep...

Irma would go home, and get some well-deserved rest. Glancing over at the crate being pushed along beside her, she felt a small flutter of excitement.

Yes, she would rest. And then, very soon, the next phase of her adventure would begin...

/THREAD.

@Nefieslab