Ask The Path: Liberation

[Zay Kartan]

Black Spire Outpost. The last stop in the galaxy before wild space, the edge of the map. Zaylos, perched on a handrail as he took in his surroundings. He felt out of place in this adventurer's paradise, but it's where he'd landed. His life since escaping Lotho Minor had been nothing but chaos, and having a place to stand without someone thrusting him into harm's way felt... well, it felt normal, and that scared the crap out of him. Luckily he had his empty wallet to ground him to reality. Kartan needed to make some cash.

Zay stamped out his cigarette underfoot and entered the cantina. The establishment was bustling with activity, most of which would be considered illegal closer to the core, but out here at the galaxy's edge who gave a damn? He made his way to the bar, and as it turned out lady luck was sitting pretty in his favor today. The cantina owner, a lanky indigo duros, whacked a malfunctioning server droid repeatedly with a ladle. With a smirk, Kartan stepped up.

"Uh, 'scuse me."

The duro turned in Kartan's direction without missing a beat and barked, "What ya little twerp, can't you see I'm busy?"

"Looks like you've got some droid trouble, I could fix it if you want." offered Kartan.

"Oh yeah, and what pray tell, will I need to part with to thank you for such a kind gesture," asked the cantina owner sardonically.

Zaylos smiled, "Not a gesture, it's a proposition. I fix the droid, you feed me, sound fair?"

The Duro's wide yellow eyes narrowed watching Kartan intently. "Fix this piece of junk, and maybe, I'll feed you."

Kartan shrugged, "Okay." With the owner's permission Kartan slipped behind the bar, powered down the droid, and got to work.

@Feng Mian

 

[Song Wren]

Song checked her armor, her knives, the blaster on her waist. She was a creature of habit, because before stepping foot in a cantina, she always made certain she was ready for a fight. At the edge of the galaxy, it was practically needed. Adventure’s paradise or not, she was an unwelcome outsider.

As a faceless Mandalorian bounty hunter, she imagined the only thought that’d go through anyone’s head at the sight her would be: is he here for me?

Of course, they'd be right to think it.

Song was on the hunt. A gang had been wreaking havoc on frontier settlements during the last month and she’d been contracted to deal with the problem. According to her intel, that very gang was lurking in Black Spire, and she was determined to smoke them out. She had a feeling they might be around the cantina, and not because her intel had said so too, but her gut.

Criminals seemed to have a tendency to gravitate to the closest, shadiest bar they could find. She had the experience to know better. All Song would have to do was kick up some dust and she’d find her mark soon enough.

Without a second thought, the Mandalorian plunged into the cantina. She attracted a few glares but otherwise, no blasters had been drawn and no bottles thrown. All around, a good start.

Taking a seat at the bar, she absorbed the faces around her: a lanky duros serving an exhausted-looking mechanic, a couple peddlers drowning in spotchka by the door, two men speaking in hushed tones at a booth in the corner. She almost didn’t catch the young man, dark haired with light stubble, kneeling behind the counter. By the looks of it, he seemed a good starting point.

“Hey kid,” she said, which was ironic considering he looked only a couple years younger than she. Not that he’d ever know, thanks to her voice modulator and padded armor. “I’m looking for an old friend. Nobody special. Goes by the name of Voss.”

Song didn’t expect him to really know, but she hoped others might be listening in. The point was to attract attention, after all. The right answer would find her eventually.

 

[Zay Kartan]

Zaylos scanned the inner workings of the server droid. It's chassis was covered in grit and grime, it's main processor was caked in dust, and it's left photoreceptor had blown a fuse.

"Should've asked for two meals," muttered Kartan as he fished a pair of pin-light magnifying specs out of his toolbelt. He became engrossed in his work, sifting through the droid's inner workings, making small adjustments and tweaks as navigated the droid's infrastructure.

In this trance, his sense of hearing became incredibly acute. The bustle of the cantina was deafening, but it operated as a sort of white-noise that helped him think more clearly. On the occasion, a bit of conversation would slip in and threaten to distract him, but Zay was pretty good about staying on task. Today, however, he heard something he wished he'd never heard.

"We rendezvous with the main force tonight, those settlements'll never know what hit 'em," Zay's blood ran cold. His hand slipped and he dropped his screwdriver. He tried to casually look around, but he wasn't totally sure where the voice had come from. Then he spotted the pair in the corner. Before they noticed him he whipped around dropped to the ground and started to look for his screwdriver.

Under his breath, he muttered, "It's just in your head, there's no way you heard that."

Zaylos snatched up the screwdriver and returned to the safety of the droid. That's when the Mandalorian spoke up. The ambiguously distorted voice of the hunter nearly made Kartan jump out of his skin. He managed a quick bob of the head and a weak, "sup," when the figure addressed them.

"Sorry, I don't really work here, and honestly I've only been here for like thirty mins, you might wanna ask the owner. He's the Duro over there."

His heartbeat like a drum and he had a familiar feeling tugging at his gut. Fate was about to intervene on his behalf once again, and once again he found himself at it's beck and call.
@Feng Mian

 

[Song Wren]

The young man sounded so weak at first it was laughable, but she had remind herself what she looked like. No name, no face, almost six feet tall and armed to the teeth: she was not exactly the picture of approachable, so she bit her tongue and listened to what he had to say.

Nothing helpful, which she’d expected, but a point in the right direction. If the Duro was the cantina owner, there was no doubt in her mind he knew where to start looking. Then again, she also didn’t doubt he would demand some form of payment for the information, and lately, Song was down on her luck. Last week she’d spent the last of her funds repairing her ship for what had to be the seventh time. She couldn’t afford another cheap bribe.

“I can wait.”

So, the Mandalorian leaned back in her seat and did just that. Patience was her least favorite virtue, but her hunts on Krownest had taught her a thing or two. Hold your breath, keep your blaster close, and the mark will come to you. Maybe the boy would keep her company, and maybe that’d put a target on his back too, but it was a price she was much more willing to pay.

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught one of the two men in the corner booth paying closer attention to her than usual. He’d stopped talking to his friend and his ear now favored her direction. If he were eavesdropping, he was doing a poor job of it.

But she could make do with what was given.

“I'll ask again,” she said to the kid, feeling the weight of her blaster on her hip. “I’m looking for someone named Voss. Maybe you haven't heard of him, but I know they’ve been stirring up trouble around here. Raiding settlements, caravans. Just tell me where I can find them so I can to put them down like the dogs they are.”

At that point, her words were filler, nonsense. The point was for the man to hear, and boy, did he hear. She could see his eyes widen, his brows crease, before he whispered something to his partner. They both looked over at her, painfully obvious, not even bothering to hide it.

Song leaned against the counter and, through her visor, stared down on the strange mechanic. “I might suggest you stay down, friend. Things are about to get a little heated in here.”

 

[Zay Kartan]

Zaylos swallowed as the hunter settled in.

"Great," he managed before attempting to slink away. Just before he was able to get out of earshot and back to the droid he'd been working on the hunter spoke again.

He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but it felt like she was talking to someone else while looking to him and his perplexed expression would indicate his confusion at the tactic. That is, until they mentioned the settlements. The blood in Kartan's veins came to a halt, coagulating on the spot as hell froze over. What were the odds that this hunter was looking for the dudes in the corner? Based on the anxiety gnawing at his innards, he'd guess pretty karking good. He felt a bead of sweat slide down his spine as his fight or flight instincts kicked into overdrive.

The Hunter leaned forward and paid him a warning. Kartan couldn't stop the impudent glare from blossoming on his face, but before his tongue could get him killed the sound of chairs violently sliding across the duracrete floor told him to the deck.

Zaylos dove back toward the Server droid, needing to put anything between him and the hunter, in an attempt to keep his back against the bar and between him and the dudes in the corner. Blaster fire erupted across the bar. The smell of burnt ozone filled the air as superheated bolts of plasma collided with flesh and duracrete. Each resounding bolt sent a shockwave of fear through him. He buried his head in his hands as he tried to cover himself from the violence surging around the formally docile cantina.

He was a ship lost at sea in a vicious storm and inevitably the storm would swallow him whole... Was this what life was supposed to be?

A bottle exploded next to him showing his uncovered arms in shards of glass and liquor. He felt the glass rend his flesh, he felt the hot sticky blood pucker up and spill over, and he felt the burn of the alcohol mixing it all together. He recoiled and his eyes snapped open. The droid hung lifelessly like a mannequin on a string. Kartan looked down at the screwdriver still in his hand and lunged for the droid.

A quick turn of the wrist and the flip of a switch and the droid was back to life.

"Thank you for choosing— OH MY MAKER! AHHHHH!" The droid's limbs flew into the air as it began flailing around. Kartan stayed low, trusty screwdriver still in hand. He inched to the back exit of the bar. He heard the scuffle of boots on tile, and knew either another patron was around the corner or one of the assailants.

"No, my droiiiiiid," wailed the Duro. As the server droid whipped toward it's owners voice it was filled full of bolts. Its lifeless husk fell at his feet and a pang of guilt sprang up in his throat. He'd lost sight of the hunter, and the pair of thugs, but based on the blaster holes in the droid it was clear that the bar was still enthralled in chaos.

@Feng Mian

 

[Song Wren]

Beskar was a beautiful thing. The opening shot hit her square in the shoulder but ricocheted, shattered into a hundred brilliant sparks, and melted into nothing in the air. She barely registered the blow as she rocked back in her seat and kicked it into the nearby wall. She didn’t bother unholstering her blaster, not when the fireworks were just beginning.

Already, she could hear the voice of her father in her head. Do you have a death wish?

No, thought Song. I just like to stay on my toes.

It had been sometime since she last engaged in a firefight, but she wasn’t out of practice. For every ten shots the men lobbed her way, she answered with one that actually landed. Her first met the shorter man’s arm, and he wailed, clutching the burned limb, and ducked behind a flipped over table. His friend continued unloading his clip into every little thing around her, including the bar and the poor mechanic cowering below.

Song searched for cover, but it found her first in the form of a shrieking droid. With some sharp maneuvering, she lunged behind it. The droid didn’t last long before it was riddled with bolts and collapsed into a smoking heap of parts. “Thanks for the hand,” she said, both to the mechanic and what was left of the droid. She ignored the wailing Duro.

But with the last of the man’s clip emptied, she raised her whipcord launcher and fired at his lifted arm. Like reining in the wild boars back on Krownest, she yanked him forward and, at the same time, catapulted toward him with her jump boots. She rather wished for a jetpack, but her padded knee met his gut all the same, soundly crushing him to the floor. Too easy.

Song was wrong to think it, though. By the time she turned around, the other man had seized the mechanic with his wounded arm, turning him into his personal human shield, and pressed a loaded blaster to his side. Great, she grumbled. A hostage.

“Move and I’ll blow this kid’s brains out,” said the man. He was sweating profusely, and he carried the stink of burned flesh, obviously no thanks to her.

“Do it and I’ll blow out yours.”

She settled a hand on her holstered blaster. Even if she proclaimed not to care as a bounty hunter, she was still a Mandalorian. Her honor wouldn’t allow it. Besides, while she wouldn’t admit it, this was kind of her fault.

 

[Zay Kartan]

Sweat plastered Zaylos' unkept hair to his brow as he stared into the faceless void that was the hunter's T-visor. The muzzle of the spacer's gun pressed into his side hard as he barked his demands at the Mandalorian. Kartan's chest heaved as his life teetered on a razor's edge.

Everything had happened so fast, after the droid got fried Zaylos thought he'd be able to sneak away, but as he rounded the bar he came face to face with the ugly mug of the human who'd been explaining the plan to his partner earlier. Instinctively, Kartan slipped the screwdriver into his sleeve before the man could take it. The thug was faster than he'd seemed and managed to get an arm around Kartan's throat as he'd attempted to roll back around the bar. Now, he was pinned between a rock and hard place.

Zaylos let his breathing calm and he slowly let the screwdriver slip through his fingers until he firmly grasped the handle. His eyes bore into the ink-black void of the hunter's visor. His eyes flicked from the hunter to the screwdriver and back again. He prayed the Mandalorian had noticed. Zaylos lifted and then drove the screwdriver as deep into his captor as he could.

"You really gonna gamble this innocent bystanders li— ARGHHHH," BLAMBLAMBLAM!

Kartan felt a searing pain bite into his side. He cried out in pain as he felt himself listing then felt the weightless embrace of gravity as he crumpled to the floor. He could hear voices, see the flash of lights which he assumed was blaster fire, but as his body hit the ground he lost consciousness.

"I'm sorry... Rin," he murmured as his eyes grew heavy and began to sag...

@Feng Mian

 

[Song Wren]

The Mandalorian watched the mechanic shoot a look between her and his rusted screwdriver, and she realized a moment too late what he was planning to do. “Don’t do it,” she said. Don’t be a hero. With a weapon like that, at best he would give the man an infection, and in retaliation, he’d pay with his life. However, her words seemed directed more to the thug than the mechanic, and so fell on closed ears.

The kid’s actually going to do it, she thought, and he did.

Impulsively, the man fired into the mechanic’s side, burning fabric and flesh in the process. As the assailant cried out and clung to the screwdriver lodged in his gut, Song made sure to finish the job, tearing out her blaster and planting two shots into his chest. His shouting seized and, without a second thought, she rushed toward the young man now sprawled on the floor.

She caught an apology, a name, and then he was gone. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” she said and pressed a finger to his neck. Relief surged through her. “Thank Mandalore.”

The boy was alive, but his pulse was faint and growing dimmer by the moment. Although a poor medic, she pulled out what little bacta she had left and smothered his wound in it. Hopefully, it would be enough to dull the pain, maybe put him back in good enough shape to walk once he woke, but if he ever did, she doubted he’d be in any mood to.

“Goddammit,” she mumbled. Song was tempted to leave him on the floor and wait for local enforcers to arrive, because she was not much for company. She especially was not the type to babysit, either.

She rose from the floor and holstered her blaster. It was better to leave.

But before she could turn and go, a muzzle was pressed against the back of her helmet. She grimaced. Around her, men in cheap plastoid armor circled the bar, weapons drawn. More friends, she realized, before the man at her back hit her with a stun bolt.

The final thought that went through her head? Never again.

 

[Zay Kartan]

The shifting images of a fever dream accosted Zaylos' psyche in his unconscious state. The junk heaps of Lotho minor stretched out before him as he rushed toward an old Vaya-class shuttle. The harried clammer of panicked footfalls behind him pulled his attention away from the ship before him. His eyes fell on to Rin.

Her impish grin was laced with fear, but her eyes shown with grim determination. Amalgamated attack droids seemed to crop up from everywhere. Blaster fire engulfed them like the stars as they stretched into lines just before they broke into the mottled blues of hyperspace. Two meters. That's how close they'd been. Jacen's scarred face was split with a victorious grin as he crowed a victory call. Even Zay allowed a small smirk to cross his worried face at least until Jacen's expression changed.

A small grunt from just behind him froze time. Kartan whipped around to see Rin clutching her gut. Tears filled her eyes as she looked from the fatal wound to Zaylos.

"Promise, you'll live for me?"

Another blaster bolts slammed into the back of her shoulder. Zay was close enough to be sprayed by the viscera, but it didn't register. Rin collapsed, and try as he might, he couldn't get to her. Jacen was pushing him, shoving, screaming. Firey agony lanced up his left shoulder where a blaster bolt nearly found it's mark.

Tears, anger, and indignance played across Jacen's face as he shoved Zaylos once more, and then they were running for the ship together. In an instant, they were in the air and breaking atmosphere.

Bile rose up in Kartan's throat and he wretched.

His eyes snapped open.

Zaylos was lying prone on the ground. He was disoriented and fighting back tears from the nightmare that still felt so real. His eyes focused and he realized he'd... actually thrown up...

"At least I still have my dignity," he muttered to himself sarcastically before attempting to roll over. As he did he side screamed with pain immediately causing another bout of nausea. He wasn't in a good place, and he was in an even worse state.

With more than a little effort, Kartan, managed to roll over and sit up. The pain in his side was immense and he was terrified to inspect it. A small movement to his left stopped him cold as he realized he wasn't the only person in this cell. In the dim lighting, Zay could just make out the glint of armor. Realization hit him like he'd just walked through a bantha fart with his mouth open.

They left your armor on?!"
@Feng Mian

 

[Song Wren]

“I could be a corpse and they still wouldn’t be able to peel this armor off me.” She cracked her neck, never once looking away from the mechanic. She spoke no lies. After inheriting her brother’s armor, she’d made a few modifications to fit her size, build, and most importantly, her secret. Any hand not her own that tried removing her helmet, or her beskar, would have been met with an electrical shock that could roast a porg alive. A single touch, and she could render a man’s arm limp for a day.

She just wished she’d seen it happen.

Song had woken not long before the young man, her head throbbing and racked with pain, but she was more sick with anger than nausea. Like an idiot, she’d been captured, imprisoned, and all thanks to letting her guard down for someone she hardly knew.

Careful to avoid the vomit he’d left on the floor, she said, “You talk in your sleep, you know.”

She flexed her knuckles, impatient. An hour she’d been awake, staring at their cell and trying to figure out how she would escape this time around. She was tempted to start throttling the mechanic, see if that would garner the attention of a guard, but she wasn’t that far gone. Patience, she remembered, was the first step to an escape.

“Your name,” she said, a shallow attempt at breaking the silence. “What is it?”

 

[Zay Kartan]

Kartan felt like a steaming pile of poodoo. His body ached, and waves of nausea continued to wash over him as he struggled to share a little small talk with the Mandalorian.

"Ah, well, that's neat."

He was well aware of the lackluster response, but he didn't care. After images of his nightmares still swam around in his mind and his limbs felt cold. Well, they did until The Mandalorian revealed that he spoke in his sleep. His face burned crimson.

Can't I Kriffing have anything? I can't even have my own trauma without it being stolen from me... he thought.

"It's rude to eavesdrop." he grumbled crossing his arms over his chest and attempting to ignore the sneer he was sure leered out at him from behind the hunter's visor. An awkward silence stretched out between them. Zay took this opportunity to sulk. His dower thoughts were interrupted by The Mandalorian's question.

"What? --er, My name's Zay. Uh, what's... yours?"

Kartan couldn't remember the last time someone had asked his name.

Zay struggled to his feet, leaning heavily on the durasteel wall. Unfortunately, as he reached his apex, the cell ebbed throwing him off balance. His right foot found the vomit he'd forgotten about and just like that his feet and head traded spaces. Zay felt the wind burst from his lungs.

"Heads up, we're in a ship..."

The sharp PSSS of a door directly in front of their cell's door caught his attention. A pair of goons sauntered in. One, a twi-lek, wore clothing that was singed on the right side and his arm was notably inactive. Zay frowned, but kept his mouth shut. The other was a grizzled human. They didn't seem to care about Zay and that was fine with him. They kept their attention on The Mandalorian.

"We're gonna give you one shot at this. Who sent you?"

@Feng Mian

 

[Song Wren]

“The name is River,” she answered, “of Clan Wren.”

Song despised pleasantries, and she had no idea if the mechanic was even sure what Clan Wren was, but she figured she might as well get introductions over with. Given the situation, the two were bound to be close, and knowing what she had planned, soon to be closer. If either of them had any chance at escaping, it would require some mutual understanding. Even if Zay was as hopelessly worthless as he looked, if he learned to stay out of her way, they might very well make it out alive.

Or just her. It made no difference.

When the cell rocked and Zay plunged into the floor, Song found it hard not to stare. It was like watching a trainwreck or a burning building, one she couldn’t turn away from no matter how much she tried to. Embarrassing.

“Thanks for the warning,” she said blankly.

Standing to her feet, Song moved to help him up but the rush of the cell door froze her to the spot. She tilted her head into the direction of two men, blasters at their hips, cold stares plastered across their faces. She met them with an inscrutable grin.

“Perfect timing. I was wondering when you’d show up.”

Both men turned to one another. The twi’lek settled his only working hand on his holstered blaster. Whatever threat he was implying, it sailed harmlessly past her. He could have been carrying a lightsaber and she wouldn’t have blinked twice. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way. Your choice, Mandalorian.”

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll go easy.”

But not in the way you hoped.

Without thinking, she charged. However, the twi’lek was prepared, yanking out his blaster and firing two shots into her. Stun bolts. She grit her teeth as the second shot sank through her armor, numbing the skin beneath. A good hit, but it wouldn’t be enough to save them. It was going to take a lot more to stop a Mandalorian.

With an outstretched hand, she seized the blaster and stepped into the twi’lek’s inner guard. A merciless upper cut, and she rammed her fist into his jaw. Bone cracked as his head snapped back. He practically flew. As for the grizzled human, he had his blaster out by then, but Song simply spun around with a kick and knocked it out of his hand. Another spin and her boot sent him straight for the floor and into the smattering of vomit Zay had left behind.

Finished, she rolled her shoulders like she’d only been warming up.

She plucked up the fallen blasters and tossed one to Zay. “Here,” she said. “If you don’t know how it works, just aim and press the trigger.” To her left, the twi’lek grumbled to a rise. “Like so.” Not even turning to look at her target, she fired into their chest. “See? That easy.”

 

[Zay Kartan]

As the "negotiations" took place Kartan managed to stand and "bravely" put himself into a corner. Hopefully, from this vantage, he'd be able to avoid death, but with his current luck, he seriously doubted it.

Revelation rarely chooses an appropriate time to reveal itself. As River went on the warpath Zay was struck with sudden clarity. If he wanted to fulfill his promise he'd have to learn to accept that the price of freedom was violence. However, this understanding would require practice because unlike the Mandalorian, Zay was still a slave. He was still broken and scared.

Kartan set his jaw as the fighting came to a close. He was determined to fulfill his promise. River tossed a blaster to him. He'd had basic training with one and understood it was a point and click kinda thing, but he wasn't as pragmatic as the hunter. To his chagrin as the Mandalorian pulled the trigger, killing the Twi'lek, Kartan flinched. He tried to cover his discomfort with a tight smile repeating the Mandalorian's words.

"Just that easy," but he couldn't tear his gaze from the smoking wound in the back of the Twi'lek's head.

Blaster fire has a way of attracting unwanted attention. As Kartan wrestled with his inner turmoil the battle continued. Chaos consumed the moment as the Mandalorian and the Mechanic were forced into the fray.

Two more thugs entered. Without thought, Kartan raised the weapon and fired. His first shot was wide on the left target but the surprise of his attack caused enough confusion for him to correct and kill the first of the two thugs. The being's body collapsed in a heap. His partner raised their weapon but it was too late. A blue bolt bore a hole into his face rendering him unrecognizable.

Zaylos felt sick.

"We gotta go," he muttered moving to the two bodies. He slipped the chest gear off his first victim and put it on. From the second he pilfered an extra battery pack. He looked back to River, uncertainty colored his expression, as the adrenalin began to abate leaving his limbs to quiver under the weight of his actions.

"Can we get out of here, please?"

There was more desperation in his voice than he'd meant to show but between his blaster wound and his conscientious he was ready to crawl into a bottle and just... stay there...

@Feng Mian

 

[Song Wren]

Song pretended not to see the fear and sickness written across his face. She understood what he was going through, because she’d been in the same position before. A little girl in snow up to her knees, hunched over a dying animal, an arrow lodged in the creature's neck and a keening sound rising out of its throat. She didn’t understand what she had to do then, or why.

Not until she slid the knife deep into its heart.

“It gets easier after the first couple of times,” she said to him, casually stepping over the bodies sprawled on the floor. Song had to admit, Zay was full of surprises. She’d half-expected him to collapse at the fact that he’d just killed two men, but instead he kept his cool, surgically stripping them of gear and battery packs. This wasn’t his first time.

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” she said at his demand. “Let’s go.”

Not wasting another second, Song crossed the threshold into the hall, drowsy in the low light, full of the noise of panic and alarm. Sounds she’d grown very used to in her career as a bounty hunter.

Judging by the poor conditions and the cheap wiring that snaked the walls, she was in something of an old Republic-era transport ship. The group must have been using it to trick vulnerable settlements into lowering their guard, but now that she was onboard, it was about time to break that streak.

She just hoped Zay wouldn’t expect a cut of the pay.

Cutting a path to the cockpit, she mowed through what guards stood in her way like a scythe through stalks of wheat. Every shot they made either sailed harmlessly over her shoulder, or reflected off her beskar in golden sparks. Nothing could stop her. Nothing except for, at least, the blast doors into the cockpit itself.

She turned to Zay, both uneasy at the idea of having to rely on him and embarrassed that she had to ask. “The doors. Think you can open them up?” She swiped a hand to the closed panel nearby, expecting the mechanic to work his magic.

She might be a killing machine, but machines themselves were out of her range of specialty.

 

[Zay Kartan]

Kartan's gaze met the emotionless ink-black T-visor of the Mandalorian's helmet and he found himself staring back. He hated what he saw. Fear and weakness permeated from his entire being and as he stared into the depths of his miserable reflection he knew he needed to change. The galaxy wasn't what people claimed it was. It wasn't adventure and excitement, it was pain and suffering. Sure there were those who experienced happiness and joy, but they were few and far in between.

Deep within he could feel the dark passenger stirring in his gut as his emotions roiled. It whispered hate and despair into his mind and Kartan accepted it...

“It gets easier after the first couple of times,” Zay blinked and shook his head, feeling stupid for forgetting there was a person behind that mask.

"I hope it never does..." he muttered before holstering his newly pilfered battery packs.

Zaylos followed the hunter like a shadow. As the Mandalorian wrought chaos on the remaining occupants of the ship, so too did Kartan. The Mandalorian was the nail, and he was the hammer. Beings that were wounded by Song were finished by Kartan's hand and all the while in the back of his mind his dark passenger relished the gluttonous violence.

Kartan put a bolt into a dying ugnaught before pulling up beside Song. His chest heaved and his emotions churned like a whirlpool, he didn't know it but his eyes had begun to glow with a dim golden hue. The klaxon call of the alarms pulsed over and over, but it sounded muffled in his emotional distress. Song asked if he could take care of the door and he bobbed his head in response stepping up to the panel and popping off the faceplate with his fingers.

Inside the panel, a chaotic mixture of wires glared out at him, but it wasn't anything out of his scope. He immediately began grouping specific wires and pulling out ones that weren't needed. After about a minute of meticulous rummaging, he found what he was looking for. He reached in and pulled out a red wire, he cut it, and with a sharp sigh, the door opened.

BLAMBLAMBLAM!

Pain lanced up Kartan's arm as a scream was ripped from his lips. Fury took over, and Kartan's vision went black.

Images of a Weequay frozen in fear clutching at his throat as if being throttled, but nothing was there.

A muscular Twi'lek's arm is bent in an unnatural direction, his expression terror incarnate.

The Weequay and Twi'lek's bodies collide like ragdolls cast aside by a child in the throws of a tantrum.

Kartan drops to his knees.

The last image he would be able to recall was the floor of the cockpit racing up to embrace him.

@Feng Mian

 

[Song Wren]

Once Zay had finished surgically combing through the tangle of wires in the door panel, it swung open and a flash of light and noise poured out from the other side. Song already had her blaster at her hip, but it was too late. The mechanic let out an unholy shout as a bolt sank into his shoulder, burning clean through fabric and flesh, destroying her hopes of a smooth escape. She’d been too slow, and now it had cost the boy his life.

Song lifted her weapon to lash out, to fight back, but there wasn’t any need. Death herself had come to deal the killing blow.

A windpipe was crushed, an elbow popped, a leg twisted at an unnatural angle. Song had seen miracles happen and nightmares come to life, she’d seen the worst of battle and brushed it off like falling snow, but this was something else, an evil unlike anything she’d encountered before. The Force.

Zay had collapsed onto the floor, convulsing. She hesitated going to him, half-afraid he might do the same to her, but she was a Mandalorian and he was just a shy mechanic caught at the wrong place at the wrong time. So, willing to flirt with death, she joined his side and checked to make sure he was still breathing.

His pulse felt distant, and although the wound in his shoulder was cauterized, the blaster bolt had bit deep. An inch lower and it would have been final.

Song pulled out her bacta spray, but again, she hesitated. He’s a Force user, a Jedi, whispered a voice from the back of her head. Kill him now before he grows into something worse.

Song had heard plenty of stories about the Sith. Men who could crush throats with a fist, or shoot lightning from their fingertips, or wield swords that could cut through durasteel like hot butter. They’d frightened her as a child more than the wild beasts that lurked in the forests and mountains of Krownest. But seeing one for herself, clammy and pale and dying, they looked nothing like what she’d imagined. Actually human.

“Sorry kid,” she sighed, and pulled out her blaster.

Song stared into the vast oblivion of space laid out before her. The galaxy felt infinite, and she was just a tiny, insignificant speck among the stars. At least she could take some comfort in knowing she was helping people: catching bounties nobody dared to pursue, saving settlements no one else would, ending killers and would-be murderers. Her brother would be proud to know she’d put his armor to good use.

Her fingers glided over the cockpit dashboard, snapping levers and buttons, preparing for the jump to hyperspace. She let out a ragged breath. The journey ahead would be long, and she wasn’t much for company.

The mechanic was set out on a cot on the floor. He was weak, but stabilizing thanks to the bacta spray. She had no idea when he might wake, if it’d be for an hour or another day, but she’d make sure he would wake alive and free. Maybe she would drop him off at the next outpost, a random spaceport. Maybe she’d find him a job to lay low in, a place to live and die a normal person. It was his choice to make.

Just like saving him was hers, and hers alone.