Sleeping pills had been unnecessary. Allie woke with a start as she started to slide off the counter top. She caught herself, and waited for her mind to join her body in the present. The other occupants in the room had turned to look at her, save the unconcious Bothan on the floor. It only took a few seconds for recognition to dawn on Allie, but, "Where...? Where are we?"

"Tantor," the imperial smuggler replied.

"Right. More...." Allie waved her hand, "More... specifically?"

"A rebel hide-out," the medic helpfully answered.

Allie slowly examined the room. It had a lot more bright lights and makeup and considerably less arms and technology than Allie would have expected of a respectable military hideout, but what the frell. At least they had style. Having lost the attention of the others, Allie ventured over to a door in the back corner that she failed to see when they first came in, and cautiously reached for its old-fashioned handle. The medic, unnoticed to Allie, was looking intently at the other door, which opened just as Allie's fingers had reached the knob. Allie drew her hand back as if it had been burned, and whirled around. The smuggler was already on his feet with his hand at his blaster. The slim young man standing in the doorway shifted uncomfortably, eyeing the Imperial. Clearing his throat he said, "I was sent about an injured member of your group?" His eyes lighted on the Bothan, still out cold.

Allie heard their Medic sigh. "Yes, thank you..." she said. Then Allie stopped listening, and resolutely opened the mysterious door.

"Hey!" She exclaimed. "There's a shower in here!" And without waiting for any sort of response, she walked in and closed the door. Just moments later, running water could be heard from outside.

When Allie reappeared in the dressing room, only Ta-what's-his-name remained. He was no longer sitting, but prowling about the room.

"Where'd they go?" Allie asked, wringing out her hat on the floor.

Tack stared at Allie, whose dripping clothes were currently forming a puddle around the base of her soaked shoes.

"You took a shower with your clothes on?" He said, bewildered.

Allie bit her lip, squinted at him uncertainly, wandered aimlessly about the room. "Um. Is this a trick question?"

"No. Nevermind," he soundlessly shook his head. "They came with a stretcher for the Bothan. Jola went with them to help."

"Oh. When will Jola be back?" Allie asked, taking a seat on a bit of floor she hadn't yet dripped on.

"I don't know."

"Oh." There was a protracted silence. Then, "I did take shower with my clothes on."

Allie sat silenty hunched over on the vanity counter-top with her back to the mirror. Too weary to bother moving her head, her eyes darted from Jola, sorting through the small medical supplies Allie had lifted from the shop, to Tack and his clicking gray armor as they spoke.

What have I done? What have I gotten myself into? Allie's whole reason behind leaving home was to avoid the rebellion, to not get involved with the Empire in any way, and to not have to use a blaster or operate a gun turret. But now, the self-proclaimed smuggler- in Imperial armor. The medic- with the Empire after her. A painful awareness of how little she actually knew about the pair was creeping into Allie's mind. And here I am with them, in the middle of a Rebel hide-out. And I've-. Shavvit.

Allie fought down another wave of nausea. She felt dirty, and all she wanted at the moment was: a shower, a couple sleeping pills, a place to crash. Sighing, Allie leaned back against the mirror and closed her eyes. If someone needed her, they'd let her know.

"Yeh," Allie muttered, twisting a corner of her jacket. She looked up, "Yeh, I'm fine."

She glanced at the newcomers and an idea crept into Allie's mind. She wasn't sure if it was a good one or a bad one, so she just went with it. "One sec," she said, and vanished back into the shack. Quickly, she grabbed a few packages of bacta patches and painkillers for what's-her-name's supplies, a handful of candybars, and last, she snatched up the handblaster from behind the counter out of a new found paranoia. Her baggy, multi-pocketed garments looked no different for the new aquisitions. Allie straightened her jacket and walked back out.

The whole process hadn't taken long at all, no longer than... "Had to use the 'fresher," she shrugged.

Jerin Puck

Allie’s senses returned to her by the time she reached the fueling station. Shivering, she had tried a few times to spit the sour taste out of her mouth, but to no avail. (Attempting to wring water out of her hat also proved fruitless.)

A shack of a building in the center of the small station grounds bore some generic home-world name, half the letters flickering, the other half out entirely. Scrounging her pockets for loose credits, Allie entered the place, causing a muffled bell to sound from somewhere inside. A proprietor appeared from behind an aisle, and looked at Allie a little more than she was comfortable with. She shrugged her jacket further up on to her shoulders, and was forced to notice how sore she was getting. Hastily grabbing a bottle from the coolers- anything would do- Allie half dropped the merchandise on the counter to be scanned and threw down the few credits to cover it. Frell, could he move any slower? “Just keep the change,” she blurted, ran out the door, and nearly into a wookie. No. Hairy man. Get out, Allie!

Allie got out.

She plopped herself down with her back against a dysfunctional pump, and downed the contents of the bottle. The taste was disconcertingly similar to the one in her mouth before, so Allie cast the bottle aside. For a few moments, all was silent. Then, the shack erupted, and fell silent once again. Allie leaned around the pump to take a look, only to be graced with wookie-man’s presence again. “Hi!” he said, in a disturbingly happy voice, before vanishing into the darkness. Allie blinked twice, convinced herself that she had imagined him, sniffed, and kept waiting.

JolaEdana
Jola looked up just in time from her struggle with the limp bothan to see Tack's body hurtling towards her, a blinking red light arching away from him. She was glad now of all her Rebellion training, and twisted away from Tack as she threw herself and the bothan back towards the ground.

She tried to cushion the alien's fall with some of her own body, but didn't have time to process his yell as she felt Tack's heavily armored body slam into her own.

The breath wooshed out of her lungs like someone had opened a hatch to vaccume, and the bright flash of the explosion combined with the noise and the impact blurred her vision to near blackness. For a long moment, she just attempted to breath again and clear her sight. When she finally did, she found Tack looking down at her.

"Are you frelling CRAZY?" Jola knew she was probably shouting, as her ears were still ringing from the explosion.

Tack grunted and ignored her, rolling off her and getting to his feet to look around.

Jola turned and saw that the Bothan next to her was unconcious now, or close. "Frel," she muttered, quickly checking his eyes by shading them with her hand. Definitely out. There was no way he was walking out of here now, help or no. She did another quick body check- he didn't appear to have any further damage, aside from a few more bruises she was starting to feel herself.

The medic rolled away from Kral and pushed to her feet, scanning for Tack and the strange man who had caused events in the alleyway to- literally- explode. She'd had a feeling in her gut about him from the minute he showed up. He wasn't ... right. At least, not what he said. But he wasn't wrong either.

And his offer of help.... well, if Tack had killed him with that explosive, he was going to be in even more trouble than he already was as far as she was concerned.

Jola came up behind Tack, and was annoyed to find she had a slight limp. "The bothan's out cold. Where is he?" The redhead made an effort to keep her voice low, but it sounded loud to her in the sudden unnatural stillness in the alleyway.

RelFexive
Joak tumbled into the nearest cover, a mass of boxes and junk that clattered loudly. The pain in his shoulder was almost as bad as that in his ankle, but even through both of them he could feel warmth in his cheek.

I swear he almost hit me! he complained silently, reaching up for his face. There was no time to complete the manoeuvre, however, as suddenly the air beside him was filled with flame and fragments. The explosion deafened the man completely and threw him back against the wall, filling his vision with little sparkly spots.

He sat in a daze for... how long? The alley was wreathed in smoke and Joak's ears were ringing. Flashes of light might have been blaster bolts, or swinging lights. The explosion would attract even more attention than the blasters alone would.

He pulled his right leg up, knee to his chest, and manipulated his foot carefully with both hands. The usual clicking occured, made even worse by the fact that he could only really hear it as a vibration through his bones. It was only a matter of moments to set his foot straight again, and the pain in his ankle began to ebb.

Who knew dislocating an ankle could be so useful? he mused. At least I'll be able to actually run now...

Figures moved in the dissipating smoke.

Where to run to, that's the question...

Darth_Kuangduk
"Help me," Jola demanded. Tack hesitated. "Tack," She insisted, voice taking on an edge that would have been unpleasantly threatening had he not gotten used to it by now.

With a sigh at the futility of the universe, Tack removed his helmet. As he did so, he heard a noise nearby - a loud scraping as if somebody was dragging a trashcan lid across the ground. Tack looked, but saw nobody. Ignoring Jola's struggles in favor of this new development, he pointed his weapon in the general direction of the noise. He saw only shadows.

"Come out," Tack ordered. Just because he couldn't see anybody didn't mean there was nobody there. Slowly, cautiously, what appeared to be a vagrant stepped into view. He had his face hidden behind his hands and peered through partially spread fingers as if looking through cracks in a protective shield. The man was, Tack reflected, remarkably filthy. Yet even so, there was something about him that didn't seem to fit. Something wholly unvagrant like. He listened impassively to the vagrant as the man all but whined about how harmless he was, and tried to figure out the inconsistency.

He didn't have much time to wait. After a few more moments of professing his harmlessness, the vagrant gave Tack all the clues he needed. Standing straight, the man shed his vagrant persona as if it were an old coat, revealing himself as someone decidedly more professional. "I suspect," The man was saying, "we should all be on our way." He straightened up a little. "You need somewhere to lay low for a time, and I can provide just that."

The end of the monologue was accompanied by a particularly theatrical gesture, the likes of which Tack would have expected from a famed actor. The decision to shoot the man came barely a second before somebody else had the exact same idea. The menacingly subtle sound of a blaster charging up echoed down the ally, and Tack caught sight of a dark blue shadow behind the vagrant-turned-something-else. Light from a streetlamp illuminated a blaster pistol, aimed at the small of the former vagrant's back.

Not allied with the enemy, then. Tack reversed his decision to shoot the alleyway actor as quickly as he'd made it. For one thing, he might not have to. The newly arrived Imperial Commando would do it for him. For a second thing, Tack had always liked the saying "the enemy of my enemy is my friend"...

With the flick of his wrist Tack sent a blaster bold sizzling through the air beside the vagrant's head. It missed the commando behind him, but it made both men jump for cover. Tack himself was diving for Jola, aiming to cover her with himself. Before he landed a small, palm sized device with a red band was arcing through the air...

JerinPuck
Minutes passed. Ages passed.
Allie stared at nothing- didn't really see it.

Then, without warning, Allie's brain told her legs to move. Across the roof, on to the fire escape, down the stairs, running through streets and alleyways, distancing herself from the appartment building as fast as she could. When her lungs and muscles burned, Allie stopped and looked around. Her mental functioning was about on the same level it was right after being awakened.

Fuel station. She said to herself. Yes. Fuel station. Allie looked around. Where?

"Where" in both the sense, "Where am I?" and "Where is it?"

Allie was unquestionably lost, alone and half-lucid, at night in some force-forsaken alley on a crime ridden rim planet.

So?

Allie wandered for ages. minutes.

A loud crashing noise brought her to her senses; Allie became aware of her surroudings. She recognized where she was.

She could get to the fuel station from here. Without chaning pace, it became her destination.



Imperial Commando at the edge of an alley near the hotel.

Same destination.... new route.

RelFexive
The crash around the corner of the building had alerted him that whatever was going on, it was happening somewhere other than where he was. How typical Joak grumbled always missing out on the big scene. It took him a moment to get himself to his wonky feet, and then he got moving. It was hard to move urgently while keeping to the role of the filthy vagrant, but the human just managed to maintain his cover. It was not easy, there was a great deal of refuse to get by.

When he got to the corner he slowed, wincing as his foot caught on something and dragged whatever it was noisily along the ground. The conversation in the next alley stopped suddenly, and he could imagine heads turning at light speed in his direction. He waited.

"Come out," a voice ordered. Ah well...

Joak dragged himself out into view, hunched over and dragging his feet. His hands covered his face as he peeked out through his fingers at the group in the alley. Card 2 was in commando armour, which was a surprise. To Joak's eye it seemed to fit him too well... this wasn't a costume he had dragged off the peg, this was fitted to him. And he seemed comfortable in it as well. Interesting. Card 1, the trump, was trying to lift a battered Bothan, frell knew why. The still form of an actual commando lay on the floor at her feet.

The targets had blasters pointed at him, of course. Naturally.

"Please, man, don' hurt me," Joak whined, looking and sounding as ineffectual as possible. "I'm jus' here, y'know, don' mean no harm..."

The look in the woman's eye as she sighted down her blaster at him was disconcerting, but it was not as bad as the baleful gaze of her companion. It did not improve as Joak shambled a little closer, prompting the man to raise his weapon further, which somehow made him look even more threatening.

"I don' mean to cause no trouble, man," Joak continued in the same tone of voice. "I'll be on my way..." He coughed noisily, which sounded appropriately bad, and had the added bonus of clearing his throat so he could speak more clearly. "In fact," he continued in his normal, even baritone, "I suspect we should all be on our way." He straightened up a little. "You need somewhere to lay low for a time, and I-" Joak gestured to himself theatrically "-can provide just that."

There was the sound of a blaster charging behind him.

Oh, blast Joak complained silently. Just not my day.

JolaEdana
Jola's eyes locked on the bothan's, and something inside her shifted. "Wait!" she shouted, violet eyes wide. Time seemed to slow, and with a lurch she grabbed Tack's blaster arm and pulled him aside. The shot ricocheted against the wall.

Tack regained his balance and turned on Jola. "What the frell! This guy is one of your kidnappers, isn't he?"

The bothan sagged towards the ground, a growl that was more a groan escaping him. The smell of ozone filled the air. Suddenly the smell of blood and charred flesh filled Jola's senses, and she almost gagged. She could see the pain in the bothan's eyes, and it filled her with a nameless sense of urgency.

Jola swallowed hard, and moved forward to kneel by Kral. "Com'on," she threw over her shoulder. "What's he going to do to me like this? He's no more dangerous to me than you are at the moment. He might manage to kill you, but he couldn't kidnap me afterwards, that's for sure."

Kral remained silent, conserving strength. Jola approved. "I'm a medic," she murmured to the bothan. He nodded slightly. She was surveying the damage to the alien's body. The other man who had fallen under him was unconsious or dead, and Jola wasn't spending the time to find out which. The bothan's eyes went out of focus again. Probably going into shock. She shook her head, angry she had lost her medkit somewhere in the chaos since her kidnapping.

"You got a medpack hiding somewhere in that fancy suit of yours?" she asked as Tack came up beside her, blaster still in hand.

"We don't have time to play medic," Tack muttered, looking up and down the alley. "More of them are going to come any second."

Jola fixed Tack with a hard look. "If we leave him here," she hissed, "he'll die. He wanted to save me."

"So do I!" Tack snarled. "But that's getting less and less likely the longer we stay here."

Jola controlled her tone with an effort. "I understand the situation. I'm a combat medic, this is what I do." As she spoke, her fingers gently explored the bothan's prone form. Kral had broken his lower arm and a couple of ribs, and probably his collar bone in the fall- though none were bad breaks. His ankle was fractured rather badly, and he had a few blaster wounds. "It'll hurt like hell, but I think we can get him out of here."

She leaned over Kral, and lightly pinched the tips of his ears, hoping to bring him back to awareness. She tapped his cheeks sharply. He struggled for a minute before his eyes focused on her face. "I need you to help me get you out of here," she said.

Glancing over the more than likely dead trooper, she saw his blaster sticking out from underneath his body. She shoved him aside and stuffed it into her belt. Then she got into a crouch and got her shoulders under the tall Bothan's good arm. She wasn't going to be able to support him herself. She looked up at Tack. "Help me," she demanded.

Darth_Kuangduk
I saw your ID's, I know who you are.

The words echoed through Tack's mind as he pushed Jola into the stairway. After spending so long running from who he was, trying to forget and hope nobody ever found out... It was a shock to the spacer's system to know that somebody finally knew. Even so, shocked or not, Tack had a job to do.

Blaster pistol in one hand, helmit in the other, he looked down the stairwell. Footsteps echoed up at him... somebody was down there, either waiting for him or getting ready to come up after him. Tack refused to risk a firefight on the way out. He'd come in to make sure Jola stayed alive and kicking, he was damn well going to make sure she stayed that way. He swiveled his head until he was looking up the stairwell. It was crazy, but if Allie had taken out the sniper it just might work.

"Trust me," He repeated to Jola, making certain he looked her in the eyes as he said it. She accepted his words with a simple lack of resistance, moving unenthusiastically but purposefully up to the top floor of the hotel. As Tack followed he repositioned his helmet. The entire reason for wearing it was to give himself a few extra moments when he finally ran into enemy commandos. With any luck they would hesitate, believing him to be one of their own. That hesitation would cost them their life....

*************************************************************

Kral rolled onto his back, placed his blaster between his raised knees, and prepared to die. But the commando he faced at the end of the hall had been too quick on the trigger, and his shot thudded into the floor right where the Bothan had been before rolling over. Kral siezed his opportunity and opened fire, peppering the doorframe with energy blasts. The commando, despite the protection of his armor, stayed behind cover. Using this to his advantage, Kral levered himself unsteadily onto his feet. His broken ankle shrieked painfully in protest, and he shifted his weight onto the other foot. Still firing as fast as his finger could flex, Kral struggled backwards towards the intersection. If he could somehow catch up to Jola, maybe the two of them could-

A hail of energy peppered the hallway around Kral, striking his knee and grazing one hip. With a leap of surprising alacrity for one with a broken ankle, Kral tossed himself into the intersection and pulled himself around the corner. His new wounds burned, and the stink of burnt hair and seared flesh permeated the air. Chancing a look back into the hallway, Kral found that the commando was advancing, using his deluge of fire to make sure no return fire came his way. Kral wasn't inclined to let that go and, sticking his pistol blindly around the corner, began firing off random shots. The incoming fire ceased, then stopped.

Kral looked around the corner again. The commando saw him, and raised his blaster as if to fire. But nothing happened. Kral ducked anyway, then realized what had happened. Rolling out into the hallway he leveled his blaster at the commando. Time seemed to freeze as the two faced each other. Kral pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened.

There was a moment of stunned inaction as Kral and his adversary realized the ramifications of this. With incredible speed the commando recovered, drawing a wickedly serrated blade from his belt and charging forward. Kral, no stranger to hand to hand fighting, hauled himself up onto his broken ankle and drew his own blade. He planted his good foot behind him for support, and prepared to meet the charge.

*************************************************************

The door to the roof was, quite predictably, locked. This presented no challenge to somebody with a decent blaster, of course, and the lock was soon a smoking ruin of melted metal. Tack kicked the door open and swept out onto the roof, blaster searching back and forth for targets. None presented themselves. "Ok, this is where things get tricky." Tack said.

He crossed to the edge of the roof, examining the area. The next rooftop over was too far to jump, and the fire escape didn't reach as far up as the roof. It could be jumped to, certainly, through it was a small target and so rickety that Tack didn't particularly want to trust it. That left only one option.

Grabbing the grappling hook and rope from his utility belt, Tack anchored it to a sturdy looking air conditioning unit. "Ooookay," Tack muttered. "This oughta be fun. Ever been rapelling?" He asked Jola. She looked at him aghast, as if he'd just told her that Emperor Palpatine had personally invited her to a tea party with Vader. "Right..." He said after a moment. "Definately gonna be fun."

"You're frelling crazy," Jola declared. Tack wished she could have seen the look he gave her from under his helmet. Moments later, with Jola clinging to his back, the former Imperial was fast roping down the side of the hotel. It took only moments for them to make the descent, at which point Tack swept the alley for any threats. As on the rooftop, none presented themselves.

"Allright," Tack said, abandoning the rope he'd used to make the descent in favor of a quick getaway, "Let's get out of-" He was interrupted by a crashing noise from above. Looking up, he saw what looked for all the world like a flying Bothan.

*************************************************************

Kral and the commando he was grappling with passed through the previously borken window, knives flashing furiously. Close quarters knife fights were something you generally didn't do - especially when your oppnent was wearing ceramic armor which neutrilized knife strikes. Even so, Kral pressed in on his adversary with all his might. He'd already scored several hits - one where the armor plates joined at the elbow and one where the helmet joined the chestplate. Thus aware that Kral did in fact know what the hell he was doing, the commando was giving ground.

His foot caught on the edge of the broken window, and he pitched backwards onto the fire escape. His arms flaied about, trying in vain to restore his balance. Kral fell on him, eager to take advantage of his adversary's momentary lack of active defense. But the commando's back hit the edge of the fire escape, clanging heavily onto an old and rusted guard rail. Then Kral's weight added to that of the commando, and the guardrail broke free of the fire escape with a metallic crashing noise.

The commando pitched backwards off of the platform, summersaulting through the air. This would have made Kral very happy save for one small detail... the commando grabbed a fistfull of the Bothan's shirt before pitching backwards. The two combatants fell through the air, bound for a very painfull landing.

Tack watched in amazement as the two of them slammed into the floor of the alley with a sickening crunch. The commando landed first, Kral falling on top of him. Both bounced several inches. Kral sailed several inches further into the air before gravity took hold once more and forced him back onto the uncompromising ground.

Amazingly, Kral - who had landed face down on the ground - groaned and rolled over onto his back, knife still clutched in one hand. Blood ran from his nose, his mouth, and a number of different wounds about his person. His unfocussed violet eyes fixated on Jola, then seemed to snap back into focus. His gaze shifted to Tack. He raised his knife menacingly and lurched up onto one knee. "Let her go," he growled at Tack, a spasm racking his chest. "And I won't have to kill you."

"You have got to be kidding me," Tack said incredulously. Reflexively, he brought his blaster up to bear on the Bothan. For a moment, though, he wasn't sure if he would be shooting the guy because he was a threat, or because he needed to be put out of his misery...

RelFexive
Joak sniffed, a noisy snort that spoke of too much mucus. He had caught a cold anyway, and adding to it had only made it worse. He was surprised the noise had not drawn attention to him; he had been a few metres from the two of them when they had made their quiet plans, but they had been too intent on talking and thinking to notice him. Or smell him, for that matter.

The human cleared his throat loudly a few times before shifting under the filthy blanket to get a better view from his doorway. Those six commandos looked pretty spiffy in that armour of theirs. He hoped Ardal was well out of the way; the old geezer was in the thick of it, by the sound of the blasterfire. He had called in long enough to confirm he had seen the woman with her captors, who were on the move. Then the first interdict team had made it's entrance.

Judging by the assessments given in his briefing file, Card 2 would be able to handle that first team well enough. Card 3 was the skifter; with no data on the woman, she was a wild play of the highest order. She seemed to be doing well enough, though. Obviously a good bet. Them together against the new players... hard to say. The woman codenamed Card 1 was the trump card. She was the mission.

Joak did not need names. Or histories. Just the assessments of their competance. What he did not know he could not tell.

Reis had been sent on ahead to the rendezvous: the refueling station. It was time for Joak to situate himself where, hopefully, he would be in place to help or hinder as appropriate. So he pushed himself to his feet, the pain in his right leg making it harder than it might have been normally. His foot was really twisted, painfully so. The rough trousers and hooded top were itchy from more than the cheap material; he was not the only living thing resident in them. The blanket stank, but then, so did he.

He needed to clear his throat, so, unfortunately, a drink was in order. This was unfortunate because the drink in question was an alcoholic drink of the worse quality available on the whole damn planet. Tasting it was bad enough, but swishing it around his mouth risked the loss of teeth. He chanced it anyway, and spat the vile fluid out before returning the bottle to his plastic carrybag, an ancient relic of some long-bankrupt supermarket. Under the other bottles was the highly sensitive listening gear which he had not, in the end, actually needed. Fortunately, it was none too heavy.

Staggering across the street, mumbling to himself, Joak looked like just another homeless freak chewed up and spat out by a cruel galaxy. Or at least, that was the idea. No, Joak told himself, the disguise is perfect. I lived among the down-and-outs for two weeks to get the role down perfectly. The method is the only way to ensure total accuracy.

Trying not to look as smug as he felt, Joak shambled into place in the alley it seemed most likely the hand would try to exit through. Not being any kind of tactician, though, he just had to hope he had guessed right.

He settled down to wait.

JerinPuck
"Good work kid," Tack spoke softly into his commlink as he opened his bag again, "I'm in. Now see what you can do about that sniper."

Following Tack's direction, Allie wandered into a back alley behind the building she'd spotted the sniper on. It was an apartment building, run down, half vacant- like the hotel. The back of the building had nothing helpful. The sides, rusty fire escapes that went only to the top floor. She could use those in a pinch, but first...


"Got a delivery for room 207," Allie bluffed, standing slouched before what served as the building's front desk.

What served as the building's attendant surveyed Allie, who adjusted her goggles on her forehead and looked bored. "What company are you with?"

"Independent," Allie said with a bit of an edge to her voice. On Arelia, "independent" was the way of communicating that the business being done was private, not above board, and don't ask questions. She hoped that would cut it here. Mostly because she didn't want to use the fire escapes.

The attendant nodded slowly, pushed a log book at Allie and went back to ignoring her. After filling in the appropriate blanks, Allie disappeared into the stairwell.

She made her way to the top floor, where the stairs stopped. Frell. Must be a service ladder somewhere. Allie walked quickly through the hallways, and was in the process of forcing the door to a maintence closet when someone came around the corner and grabbed her shoulder. She spun around and found herself face to face with a very unanticipated security gaurd.

"Sam told me to keep an eye on you. What do you think you're doing?"

"Trying to get to the roof."

He was momentarily taken aback by her bluntness, but recovered quickly. "Why?"

"I think I'd like the view."

"It's night time."

"I have good vision. Actually, there's a sniper on your roof I'd rather not be there, but you're not going to believe that, either."

"Whatever, kid. You're leaving now." He pulled her roughly around the corner from where he had come, but stopped abruptly as a blaster bolt hit him square in the head. Wide-eyed, Allie rushed back behind the protection of the wall.

"Come out, girl," a voice from down the hall commanded. "I'm not going to shoot you. We've got questions to ask you."

Allie stared at the dead security gaurd.

"Come out!" The voice barked. "Don't make this difficult."

Eyes still fixed on the gaurd, Allie's mind started going a mile a minute. Smoke bomb? No, he's probably got themal sensors. Can't out shoot him. Are there more? I could run to the other stairwell... Sniper's still on the roof. Wait. The flashwhatever. Yellow band.

Allie fumbled the flashbang grenade out of her pocket, clicked the button into place, and lobbed it down the hallway. Even with her eyes squeezed shut and her ears well covered, she felt the blast. She charged around the corner blasting at her opponent as she went. He fell to the floor.

Allie stopped and stared. Two dead, now. She blinked, and realized that the blast inevitably attracted a lot of attention. Leaving the scorched black heap behind, she sprinted out on to the fire escape, setting off the alarm in the process.


Still surging with adrenaline, Allie found herself on the roof, crouched behind a warm generator. First all she could hear was her heart pounding, then her heart, and the whirring of the generator. Then commotion below. Shouts, scared and angry.

Allie took a deep breath. Sniper. She peeked over the top of the generator to see him with his rifle at the ready, and ducked back down. Using the generator as a heat mask, she tossed a smoke bomb- one of her own- at the sniper. He started shooting blindly in her direction; Allie pulled out the see-what-you-had-for-breakfast binoculars as she waited until when she knew the smoke would be the most dense, then peeked over the generator again and blasted at his body heat. The sniper went down. Stopped shooting. Is he faking? Allie continued to watch through the binoculars as the smoke dissapated. Gradually, his thermal reading got lower... and lower...



Allie threw up.

JolaEdana
"FRELL!" The shout of surprise rang down the hall.

Still acting on adreneline and fear, Jola lashed out again. She shoved Tack so hard he reeled back, his armor making a satisfying thud. Jola scrambled away from him, using the wall for support.

Cursing, Tack regained his balance. He snatched up his helmet and followed her.
"Jola!" He called raggedly.

Jola had not had time to take stock of her injuries before now, and she realized as she made her way down the hall that she wasn't in the best shape. Somewhere along the line, she'd gotten a black eye. Her body ached from being restrained so long. Her ribs were bruised at best, and breathing sent a sharp pain through her. Her breathing was jagged. It echoed in the corridor.

She couldn't outrun Tack. She couldn't outrun them.

Jola turned to face him. "Stay back," she demanded, hearing the tremor in her own voice.

"We don't have time for this," Tack began tiredly-

"You don't want to rescue me," she spat.

Tack paused, at a loss for words.

"You just want the credit, right?" Jola sneered, all the time backing away slowly.

Tack kept pace. "Credit for what? What are you talking about?"

Jola squared her jaw, her eyes narrowing. "I know you didn't kill anyone to get that suit," she rasped.

Tack's eyes widened for a moment. "What-? Look-" footsteps were pounding up the stairs somewhere nearby. "Jola-"

"I saw your ID's," Jola cried. "I know who you are. You might as well just stun me now and get it over with." Her voice sank, and she reached out to steady herself on the wall, feeling sick inside.

Understanding flooded Tack's face, and he let out a string of curses. Moving forward quickly, he grabbed Jola's arm and shoved her toward the nearest stairwell door. She hardly struggled, but she didn't hurry either. He guessed she didn't see much point.

"Move!" he commanded sharply. He didn't want to threaten her with his blaster, but if she didn't move they were both going to end up dead. He ducked into the stairwell, checking quickly to make sure it was clear. For a brief second, it was.

"You have no choice but to trust me right now," Tack said, hauling her up roughly. "Do as I say, and we'll get out of here."

Jola gathered herself and struggled to keep up. At this point, lying or not, he was her only hope.

Darth_Kuangduk
Tack watched from the entrance to the alley as his new partner in crime approached the lookout. She captured his attention for several heartbeats, during which Tack began walking casually down the street. But the lookout wasn't lazy, and his eyes were soon sweeping the street again for anything suspicious. Tack frowned inwardly and tried to look inconspicuous. He was headed for an alleyway that ran alongside the hotel, set on gaining entrance through one of the side doors. That, coupled with the fact that Tack still had his bag of stuff slung over his shoulder, would certainly look suspicious to the lookout.

The high pitched whine of blasterfire immediately drew Tack's attention. For a moment he feared the worst... but then he saw the lookout's unconscious body lying face down on the pavement, and he saw his chance. Everybody was paying attention to Allie now... nobody was watching Tack. He broke into a sprint and gained the shadows of the alley within seconds. It took seconds more for him to force the lock on the side door, and then he was in.

The door had obviously been an emergency exit, and a little used one at that. The perfect place to set up...

"Good work kid," Tack spoke softly into his commlink as he opened his bag again, "I'm in. Now see what you can do about that sniper."

*************************************************************

In a building across the street from the hotel, an Imperial Commando watched the street through a window. "He's in... and it looks like he's got help. A female subject took out the decoy lookout with a stun blast to the head. Two male subjects then threw him in a dumpster..."

"He's earlier than I expected," Another man in the room replied. "Do we have Edana yet?"

"Negative, but Lieutenant Drexel's team should have her secured momentarily."

"Then we're still a go. Maintain comm silence and prepare to execute." The clicking of a half dozen power packs being slapped home into blaster rifles answered the order.

*************************************************************

Kral stomped heavily down the hotel stairs, Jola's weight amplifying his footfalls twofold. It sounded, the bothan reflected, as if he were deliberately broadcasting his presence to any would be ambushers. Having reached the second floor of the hotel, Kral decided it was time to get a little more stealthy. "You get to walk," he grunted and set Jola down on her feet.

As he knelt to undo the restraints around her ankles, several things happened. Neyova rounded the corner and started down the stairway towards the first floor. As she did so, the shriek of blasterfire echoed up the stairwell. There was a flash of emerald and Neyova thudded heavily against the wall, a shout of pain wrenching itself from her throat even as she returned fire.

Heavy footsteps echoed down the stairwell from the floor above. Gaznik turned to face them, finger convulsively flexing on his blaster's trigger before he even saw who it was or where they were. Red darts of energy splashed across the walls and stairs, and were answered by several green energy blasts. Kral's blaster twitched between a panicking Gaznik and a violently cursing Neyova, his free hand clenched tightly around Jola's upper arm.

Thinking fast, Kral made up his mind. Whirling, he kicked in the door to the second floor proper. Briefly glancing into the hallway beyond, he decided it was safer than the stairwell. Without a word he shoved Jola through the door ahead of him. Before he could close the door behind him, Gaznik burst through, flattening himself against the wall next to the door.

Kral kicked the stairwell door closed, leveled his blaster, and fried the lock. "What-" Gaznik gaped. "What about Nova?"

"She got us into this mess," Kral grunted. "She deserves whatever she gets. Now move it!" If Jola struggled at all when Kral once again threw her over his shoulder, he didn't notice. Despite the burden of her weight he sprinted down the hallway, intent on making it to a fire escape, lift, another stairwell... anything to get him out of the building.

*************************************************************

Tack heard the sound of blaster fire as he got into position near the first floor stairwell. Cursing, he burst into the stairwell and looked up. The blasterfire had ceased, but he could see a black armored figure affixing something to the second floor doorway, and a female human sprawled on the stairs, just within view.

"Too slow Tack," He growled, "Too slow..."

Before he could do much more than that, the commando at the door backed up. A second later, the door exploded into the hallway with a thunderous roar. Tack recognized a breaching charge when he saw one, and watched as the commando followed up by launching himself through the still smoking opening into the corridor beyond. Taking a deep breath, Tack ran up the stairs taking them two at a time.

*************************************************************

They'd just made it to an intersection in the hallway when the stairwell door exploded inward with a thunderous roar. A figure clad in distinctive black armor rolled into view, blaster rifle ready. Kral and Gaznik fired at virtually the same instant as the commando, turning the hallway into a deadly crossfire. Kral didn't stick around to see the results of the exchange. Barreling into the intersection he chose a direction at random, and turned right. Putting everything he had into it the bothan ran like there was no tomorrow, blasterfire from the intersection ringing in his ears. There was a window at the end of the hallway... there would be a fire escape just beyond it...

Kral's hope for escape ceased to exist at the same moment as the window did. Another black armored figure swung in feet first, detached a cable from his belt, and rolled into a kneeling position in one fluid motion. Kral backpedaled in surprised, planted his foot firmly on the carpeted floor, and executed a perfect 180 degree turn to the sound of a snapping ankle. Pitching forward, he virtually threw Jola from his shoulders and onto the floor in front of him. “Take off!” He shouted at her before rolling onto his back to trade fire with the commando. The black armored figure ducked into a nearby doorway, returning fire. Dimly, Kral realized that the sound of blaster fire from the intersection had stopped. Either Gaznik was dead, or...

Jola rose to her feet only a few strides from the intersection. Before she could get very far, however, a commando rounded the corner. Blaster leveled at a target down the hallway, he reached out and grabbed the redhead around the waist, pinning her to his side with one arm. Sidestepping, he continued off down the corridor in another direction, forcing Jola along with him. Struggling against the commando's grip, the redhead managed to swing her hands - fingers interlaced - into the side of the Imperial's helmet. He staggered sideways, and his grip on her loosened. With a wrenching motion, Jola threw her weight and broke free. The commando shifted his weight as well, driving forward to pin her against the wall with one arm. Hands still clasped together, Jola drove her fists upward into the commando's chin, eliciting a sharp crack. The man's head snapped backwards, and his helmet popped off...

Tack, thus bereft of his headgear, glared hotly at Jola. "Do you mind?" He demanded, "I'm trying to rescue you here."

Elsewhere, six more commandos in full armor had sprinted across the street and gained entrance to the hotel...

JerinPuck
"Yeh, I can do it," Allie said. "You get what's-her-name and we'll meet at the place."

"Refueling station."

"Yeh, the place," Allie repeated, and walked out into the street that fronted the hotel.

Okay... lookin' for a guy not used to civvies, too clean, too close to the light, too interested in the hotel. She casually surveyed the streets' clientele; it didn't take her long to spot him. He didn't even have the decency to have a smoke as an excuse for loitering where he was. Still, though. Better make sure it's him.

"Hey, Mister. Mister!" Allie walked to within two meters of him, "Ya' got the local time?"

He looked her in the face briefly, then "Get lost, kid."

"Come on, I know ya' got a chronometer-"

"Beat it!" He wasn't even looking at Allie any longer.

"Fine, fine..." Allie walked away grumbling. It had to be him- the hesistation as he analyzed whether or not Allie was a threat, then remembering the role he had to play. It was only a split second, but a split second longer than it should have been. As soon as Allie was out of his peripheral vision and into the shadows, she turned on her heel, pulled her blaster out of its holster, and sent a stun bolt right to his head. A few people stirred, or turned their heads, but quickly lost intsrest in the situation.

Allie walked over to the scout and nudged his torso with her foot. Armor, like Tack had said. She leaned over and removed a mic- like the one she was wearing- from his neck and discarded it in the street, then relieved him of his blaster as well.

Now what? You can't just leave him here. He'll wake up and alert his team. Allie glanced around, found what she was looking for. "Hey. You two. Ten credits each for chucking this guy in a dumpster."

"Twenty each," a voice responded.

"Fifteen. And whatever's on this guy."

Some whispered conference, then "Deal."

**************

Allie pulled the lid of the dumpster down, then twisted the latch shut. Wiping her hands, she turned around "Right, so..." Allie pulled a pouch out of her pocket "twenty-five each, then." She flipped them each their cash, and walked away while they were still confused.

Darth_Kuangduk
"Fair enough," Tack said. He reached back into his back of proverbial and literal tricks, rummaged around for a few moments, then brought out a slim data chip. The chip was a special, military issue piece of equipment. It was given to special forces units who needed to listen in on the more clandestine transmissions of their adversaries. Having had no luck scanning for comm traffic, Tack had decided to take the next step - however unlikely it was that Sheelzo's people were using military grade comm masking equipment.

Almost at once the earpiece buzzed to life. Several conversations were going on at once, an organized chaos of logistical preparation.

"Speaking of breakfast," Allie said loud enough for Tack to hear through his earpiece, "Someone has armor, and he, she or it is on the hotel roof."

Unit two in position, ready to enter from above...

"There’s a sniper on one of the buildings across from the hotel,”

They've moved away from the window, but I've got them on thermals...

"And someone who might be with them on the ground."

Lookout reporting, streets look clear...

"Could be more..."

Unit one is in position, ready and waiting...

"Commandos?" Tack said, voice uncertain, as if he were asking the night for answers. Commandos didn't make any sense. They couldn't have traced him... couldn't have. But they were here... If they'd come for him, why were they hitting the thugs who had Jola? Why... unless it wasn't him they were after. Unless, somehow, for some reason, the Imperials had been at Aralia for her...

Then why lure him here? The simple answer was that they hadn't.

Pieces rapidly clicked together in Tack's mind, a picture taking shape from thousands of pieces that could all go together in different ways. The Imperials had gotten here ahead of the Broken Dream, that thanks to the ship's engine troubles. But they hadn't left alltogether. A special ops team must have been left behind, in case the ship showed up after all. Sheelzo's men, the Rodian blaming Tack for his turn of bad luck, had nabbed Jola as a way to get Tack. The commandos had found out and, not knowing or caring who Tack really was, had moved in to swipe the redhead from the clutches of what ammounted to gifted amateurs.

"Bloody hell." Tack growled, mostly to himself. He made a mental note to find out why there was such interest in Jola, then put aside those thoughts. He'd come here to rescue the pain in the rear. She'd been nabbed because of him, he owed her a rescue. "Ok kid," He addressed Allie with an edge of plassteel in his voice. "There's at least six of them. One is playing lookout, one is sniping and tracking movements through a thermal scope. At least one is on the roof, but there's probably two up there. I'm counting on two inside. That's six... but there might be more. Stay sharp. Here's the plan."

As Tack spoke, he rummaged through his sack again. Most of the nifty toys it contained he had already used, but there were still a few more left to play with. He handed Allie a throat mic and an earpiece like those he wore. He also produced two small metal orbs.

"See if you can distract the lookout long enough for me to get into the building. He'll be the one on street level, and he'll be dressed for the part in civillian clothes. He'll have light flexible body armor on underneath, though, so if you have to shoot then shoot for the head. I'm hoping it doesn't come to that. The sniper is busy looking through walls," he added, "So he's not a worry. Yet."

"Once I'm in the building, I'll comm you. When I do, get out of sight. Double back around and see if you can get to the rooftop where the sniper is." Tack tossed first one of the metal orbs to Allie, then the other. "These are explosives. The one with the yellow band is what we call a flashbang... it'll blind, deafen, and momentarily stun but not kill. The one with the red band is the real deal. Push the button and you've got five seconds to make sure it gets where it needs to be. Use them on the sniper when I give the call... I don't want you to have to try and take him out with a blaster pistol. Once he's down, it's your call what you do next."

In the second of silence it took for Tack to draw in a breath, he went over his own part of the plan. When inside the building he would have to make his way to a position where he could intercept the commandos. They would be moving soon, and he had no illusions that he could intercept them before they killed Jola's kidnappers and took her for themselves. The fight would have to be quick and dirty, with no time for mistakes. The two inside would have to die fast. He and Jola would have to move downstairs, maybe find a back exit, before the two on the roof made themselves a nuisance...

Tack exhaled and nodded to Allie. "We'll meet a few blocks from here, near that refueling station we passed on the way in. Think you can make it happen?" He made sure to give his companion a last chance to duck out. "If you can't, it's ok... I can handle this."

It would be harder than starting a fire on Hoth with a pair of twigs, Tack thought, but he might be able to do it without her. Either way he was going in. His earpiece crackled to life again, giving the order to go, to move in... Tack held his eyes on Allie, waiting for her response.

*************************************************************

Kral tensed as the lift doors opened. The arm he had around Jola's waist involuntaritly tightened it's hold on her, the hand that held his blaster swung the weapon up and to the ready. Neyova dodged to the opposite wall, knelt in a doorway and prepared to open fire. Gaznik fell back into a shooting stance and also leveled his weapon at the doors.

But as the doors opened, the revealed only a surprised looking old man, his weight leaning heavily on a sturdy white cane. Kral blew out a breath, eased his grip on Jola. The old man hobbled out of the lift, cane leaving the floor to wave threateningly in the mercenary's direction. "Hoodlums!" He shouted with a fiery passion. "This used to be a good neighborhood! You think you can just wave a weapon around at everybody who gets in your way? Eh? Well? Eh?" As if to emphasize his point, the old man waved his own weapon about - the end of the cane wove intricate patterns in the air before him.

Kral snorted in response, and turned to move the other direction. "We take the stairs," He ordered authoritatively. "That way they can't trap us in a lift. Neyova... you go first." He tossed a look over his shoulder at Gaznik. "You bring up the rear."

"But why-" Gaznik started to protest.

"Because I've got the girl, and because I say so." The bothan snarled viciously. "Now move!"

In single file, the trio of mercenaries headed down the stairs...

JerinPuck
"Mmm. Yours is better," Allie replied.

Tack didn't look up from the scanner in his hands. "What makes you say that? I never even said I had one."

"I'm a courier. Delivering packages doesn't include sneaking around. Smuggling, on the other hand... B'sides. You're the guy with the I-can-see-what-you-had-for-breakfast binoculars." Allie continued to scan the area without missing a beat.

"Fair enough," Tack said. Allie heard the rustling of the bag again as she walked to the end of the alleyway to scout some more.

Hotel roof.... someone. An armored someone. She could tell by the light of a security lamp gleaming off of it. Another person around a blind corner- Allie saw a thermal reading. Across the street looked clear at ground level. Someone with sniper rifle on a rooftop, though. Slightly disturbed, Allie made another sweep with the binoculars before retreating.

"Speaking of breakfast," Allie said, quickly returning to Tacks position, "someone had armor, and he, she, or it is on the hotel roof. There's a sniper on one of the buildings across from the hotel, and someone who might be with them on the ground. Um... around the south-west corner. Could be more, but that's all I saw."

JolaEdana
The red headed Doctor realized she should have trusted her gut. She had suspected Imperial ties from the beginning. Her insides churned. She let out a breath, and could feel her lips quiver. She pressed them into a firm line to keep the low moan building in her from escaping.

How did they know? And what do they want?

She looked up at her captors and saw all three looking at her. Jola knew her violet eyes were wide with fear.

She spoke in a low voice, tinged with tension but solid as steel: "What did you tell them?" Her eyes were fixed on the woman who had sold out her team.

The woman stared for a moment, then shook her head and drew herself up. "I don't ha-"

Jola forced herself to her feet, even though they were bound, her hands clenched into fists behind her. "WHAT," she inturrupted, "did you tell them??" Jola had to find out if the woman had sold out her- or Tack- or both. But how could she have known?

The man with the broken wrist backed up slightly in spite of himself.

The woman still didn't answer.

"Did they come to you? Who do they want?" She could hear the slight hysteria rising in her own voice. Jola managed a small step forward, the binders didn't make it impossible, just difficult. She knew she probably looked like a crazy woman, and at this point, she didn't care. She couldn't end up in Imperial hands.

"Answer me!" she demanded desperately. The trio of kidnappers were gathering the little gear they had and pulling out blasters, moving towards the door.

The man with the broken arm opened the door slightly, peeking out, muttering "Frel, oh frel..." over and over again.

They could hear footsteps, now. Running lightly.

The large bothan grabbed and lifted the short medic easily, slinging her across his shoulders.

"Leave her," spat the woman, moving out into the hallway.
"We might be able to use her," he replied cooly, quickly taking the lead.

Jola felt a deep despair settle on her like a transparasteel blanket, and she sagged in his grip. It didn't matter anymore. She was as good as dead.

The lift door at the end of the hall hissed open.

Darth_Kuangduk
"Definately a sharp cookie," Tack thought. He nodded in agreement with Allie's assessment. "Ok then," he said aloud, "Tonight it is. But if this is going to be a night op, there are a few things I'll be needing..."

One visit to the ship and about twenty minutes later, Tack and Allie stood within sight of the hotel where Jola was reportedly being held. Tack carried on his shoulder a generic looking duffle bag... it could have come from almost any navy or army in the known galaxy, and was big enough to hold all manner of equipment. Tack had been careful not to show Allie what was going into that sack back on the ship - he wasn't even sure he'd use most of it. But it paid to be prepared.

He surveyed the surrounding area slowly, eyes darting from rooftop to rooftop and alleyway to alleyway in search of anything suspicious, anything sloppy. He didn't see anything, but that could just mean whoever was in charge of ground operations was no amateur. If that was true, if Tack was dealing with a pro, then the entire operation would be a lot more difficult.

"Here," Tack said as he dropped the sack to the ground and rummaged around inside of it for a moment. "Use these." From the sack came a pair of sleek, compact macrobinoculars. They were the expensive kind, the ones that could see in the dark by either light gathering or thermal imaging. The kind that civillians weren't supposed to have, though that didn't stop a lot of people from having them anyway. "Scan the rooftops and alleys. Get out of sight if you see anybody, suspicious or otherwise."

From the sack Tack also produced a small headset. It fit neatly over one ear, almost invisible in the darkness. There was an accompanying mic, created of some flexible material which adhered via some sticky yet skin friendly substance to one's throat. Tack put it in his pocket for the time being and concentrated on the next item out of the sack. It was a small box, easily held within the palm of one's hand. A long, thin cord that ended in an electronic jack wound it's way from the front end of the box to Tack's other hand. He plugged the jack into an open port on his earpiece, and went about fiddling with the device in his hand.

"This device scans for active comm frequencies within a certain radius," Tack explained after several seconds of silence. "If they've got lookouts somewhere and they report in via commlink, I'll be able to hear them."

As he continued fiddling with his device, Tack watched Allie from the corner of his eye. She was bound to recognize this stuff for the expensive and advanced equipment that it was. Equipment that a smuggler like Tack would have had a hard time getting his hands on. He wondered what her reaction to it would be.

"Got any plans of attack in mind," He asked instead. Tack himself had a fair notion of how to rescue Jola, the first part of which involved listening in for any comm traffic that would give away her location. Vexingly, the note had said which hotel she was in... but not which room.

*************************************************************

Gazrik lay sprawled on a cot that had been set up along one wall, snoring gently. A small trickle of drool wound it's way from the corner of his mouth to the pillow. The room's bed had been claimed by Neyova, though the female mercenary wasn't currently in the hotel room.

Nearby, the bothan Kral had taken to leaning his chair back against the wall, and appeared to be dozing that way. In truth, it was a light sleep, enough to rest body and mind while still remaining attuned to his environment. When the room's only door opened, his head turned to the side and his eyelids opened to slits. Neyova walked in, closing the door behind her. She looked restless, frustrated, and a little apprehensive.

"What happened," Kral's deep voice startled Neyova visibly. She jerked in his direction. Kral shifted his weight and brought the chair back down only all four legs. "What happened," He said more forcefully, eyes opening fully.

"Locho's dead," Neyova said, deceptively calm. "Facedown in an alley. They knifed him... real professional like."

"I see," was Kral's only reply. "And who are 'they'?"

"They'll come for us next." Neyova ignored the bothan's question. "We've gotta move. Now." She moved as if to wake Graznik, but Kral was on his feet and in her way before she could get more than a few steps towards the cot.

"Did you sell out, Nova?" Kral asked dangerously. "Is that who 'they' are? Did you make a deal with somebody and get double crossed?"

"I..." Neyova hesitated. "No," She said forcefully, loudly enough that Graznik stirred and sat up in his cot.

"Wha?" The wounded mercenary asked sleepily, one hand rubbing at his eyes. "What's goin on?" Neyova and Kral both ignored him, each intent on the other.

"I didn't," Neyova repeated. "It must've been one of the crime syndicates. They must be wiping out Sheelzo, and that means all his assets... and that means us. We've gotta get out of here."

"They've let him squeek by with small stuff for a long time now," Kral grabbed Neyova's arm as she turned away from him, pulled her back to face him. "They could've stamped him out any time. They haven't. That or they couldn't and stopped trying. What'd you do?"

A small shadow broke the uniformity of the moonlight as it came through the window and pooled on the room's floor. Kral noticed it, turned to look. Neyova looked as well, caught sight of it and looked up towards the roof where the figure who was casting the shadow should have been. But by the time she looked up the cause of the shadow was gone. "They're already here," She said. "Great... just great..."

Standing now, Graznik moved to the edge of the window and glanced out. Seeing nothing, he looked back at his partners. "So, uh... what's goin on guys? We in trouble?"

"She sold us out," Kral said without looking at Graznik. "Only they're not holding up their end of the bargain, are they Nova?"

"No," Neyova said finally. "Now shut up and get moving, damnit. You want to live, you've gotta move. The Imps don't wait around for-"

At the mention of Imperials, a creaking noise drew everybody's attention to Jola. She sat upright in her chair, wide awake, and Kral got that familiar feeling at the back of his neck. "I've got a baaaad feeling about this," the Bothan muttered.

JerinPuck
Dear family,
Sorry this letter won't be longer, but one of the people who I just stole a ship with got nabbed by bounty hunters and we have to go get her back now. Oh, and that "legal job, warm, safe appartment" thing? Yeah.... it's gone. I won't be home in time for dinner, please feed the fish. Til next time.
Your daughter, and sibling (if any of them are left,)
Allie.

It took only a fraction of a second for Allie to discard the mentally composed letter as a bad idea. Besides, right now she had to focus; reflecting on irony wasn't going to help solve the situation.

Tonight or tomorrow?

"Tonight," Allie said. "Waiting just gives them more time to get ready. More time to get impatient. They'll probably put people out on watch duty once it gets late enough. If we get there before that, it'd be to our advantage."

Allie made a face. The whole thing was dirty. It was a rule, you don't gamble with anything you care about. Anyone on Ord Mantell with half a brain could tell you that. And you definitely didn't gamble with people. Yet they'd been forced in to it, 'cause someone wanted Tack. Wanted him dead, apparently. Why? Tack seemed like a decent guy. Allie couldn't imagine him doing anything that would warrant what was happening.

Darth_Kuangduk
Tack sat mulling over two things. The first thing on his mind was the analysis that Allie had just made. It was, he reflected, something he himself should have thought of to begin with. Either he was getting old, or the kid was just that much sharper than he was. Or both.

The second thing on Tack's mind - not that he had an easy time thinking over the clamoring racket the band was making - was the contents of the note. It stated, rather simply and plainly, that the people who had Jola were holed up in a run down hotel at the edge of town. They person who'd written the note explained that he didn't know what they planned on doing with the redhead, but that she was still alive. For how long was another question, though she'd apparently been holding her own. She had, the note said, given one of her abductors a broken wrist.

That was certainly Jola, Tack thought.

"Well?" Allie prompted expectantly.

"You're right," Tack said. "They want us to come to them." He waved the note about, "This tells us where she is. It's conveniently anonymous. I don't see that we've got much choice, though. If they're really after me, and I don't come to get her, they might decide she's not of any use and kill her..."

Tack sighed. The universe kept getting more and more annoying... just like the band. "Oddly enough, though," Tack commented after a moment’s thought, "The note doesn’t set up any sort of meeting. No time, no terms, just a location. Makes me wonder just what these guys are up to...”

*************************************************************

Somewhere in a bad part of town, a body dropped heavily to the floor of a trash filled alley. Two men stood over it, glancing about furtively as a third rummaged through the victim's pockets. After a moment, the third stood and held up a blood-spattered piece of flimsiplast. Quickly he unfolded it and read over it's contents.

"Is that it?" One of the other two figures inquired.

"Yup. This is it... they're trying to bait him into an ambush. Both of our targets should be there."

"Nothing like ambushing the ambush, eh?"

"I don't think we'll take that route," The leader of the small group interjected. "Where did this scum come from?"

The second figure paused, then remembered. "We trailed him from a hotel at the edge of the city. They might be holding her there."

"Tack will probably find out. He won't wait for the meeting, he'll hit them there - before the meeting, while they're unprepared. So will we... with any luck we'll get both of them."

"I'll let the rest of the team know."

"Just have them stake the place out for now... we'll move into position tonight, and then wait for Tack to show up."

*************************************************************

"The way I see it," Tack was telling Allie, "They've probably got the place stuffed with gunmen. The moment we show up they either try to nab us by force or they use Jola as a bargaining chip. Either way, we lose. So we've got to take them off guard, before they're ready. That means one of two options," the smuggler thought aloud, "Either we hit them now, tonight, and hope they're not read yet, or we sneak in on them early tomorrow morning and hope to catch them sleeping and unaware."

Tack gave Allie a steady look over the table. She was going to be in this with him, so he figured he'd better give her an opportunity to give input. "What do you think?"

Besides, the smuggler thought, she'd already proven she was a sharp thinker...

JerinPuck
"Um... No."

"No?"

"Not really, no. Obviously they want you, right? They've already grabbed her, expecting you'll try to rescue her, which means they don't want to make an effort to take you when you might have the advantage. But they don't want to spend a lot of time just sittin' around waiting for you to come to them, either. They're gonna want to make it real easy for you to walk into whatever trap they've got set up, so first, they are coming to you. Trying to make arrangements, cut a deal, whatever. The real question is, do they really want Jwhatever, or just you? If they want both of you, they're gonna bluff a lot more... It's sort of a weird version of a playing strategy in some card games." Allie paused for a moment. She hadn't said that much at once in a long time. "Either that, or this is not about her at all. The music here is awful," she added.

"...Yeah," was all Tack said in response as he gave Allie an odd look. He picked the flimsiplast up off the grimy tabletop, unfolded it and began to read.

Tack muttered something under his breath, and Allie wondered idly if the band was visiting from Arelia. The quality seemed about right.

"Well?" Allie asked, when she noticed that Tack had finished reading.

Darth_Kuangduk
"I shoulda known," Tack muttered as Allie opened her coat to reveal a holstered blaster. "Well kid," He said, "It doesn't have to be fancy so long as it works. And it saves us a trip back to the ship..." Briefly, Tack contemplated all of the equipment he had stashed in a smuggling hold. They were remnants of a darker time in his life, but they still might come in handy, no matter how distasteful it was for him. He weighed the options mentally, and decided that it would be best to leave well enough alone for the moment.

"So where do we start?" Allie inquired. Tack glanced around the bar again before answering, just in case.

"There's a rather shady establishment a little way from here. A cantina called The Barrel. I think I can get some more information from somebody I met there earlier today." Sliding off of his stool, Tack motioned for Allie to follow. She tossed the last bite of sandwhich into her mouth and headed after him, weaving her way through the tables and patrons like an expert. Tack was a little less adept, and bumped into a few people... all of them serving girls.

Eventually, though, the duo made it out onto the street. Lightposts cast bright, warm puddles of light across the streets. Pedestrians trudged through those circles of light, clinging to the safety of visibility as if monsters lurked in the shadows. In some shadows, they did. Dark figures lurked in shadowed alleyways and near broken streetlights, places where the light didn't venture.

For his part Tack kept to the decently lit sidewalks, eyes always watching for possible threats. As he got deeper into the area of town where The Barrel resided, more and more of the streetlights became broken. Slowly, Tack became aware of somebody following him. He glanced over his shoulder, saw a tan skinned Twi'Lek in the crowd, turned his attention forward again. "So," Tack said conversationally, "I think we're being followed."

"Ah," Allie commented, "So that's why we're walking in circles."

"We're not walking in circles," Tack argued, "I was just..." he paused, not wanting to admit that he hadn't exactly remembered how to get to The Barrel. Unfortunately, he couldn't think of any better reason for it than the one Allie had just provided. "Yeah," He said, sparing a moment to glare in her direction. "That's why we're walking in circles."

"Ok," She said pleasantly. Tack couldn't tell if she was any other hidden meaning behind the word. Knowing women, there probably was one... even if he didn't pick up on it. "So," Allie prompted after a few seconds of silence. "We're being followed?"

"Ah... yeah." Tack glanced at the reflection on the windshield of a speeder parked alongside the road. The Twi'Lek was still back there, weaving his way through the pedestrians that still had things to do, even during the dangerous hours of the night. "Let's find out for sure." Picking a side street that still had a decent ammount of pedestrian traffic on it, Tack made a course change. It would take him away from The Barrel... but getting lost again was worth the price of losing a shadow.

A few minutes later, Tack turned his head to the side. It was just enough for him to see the Twi'Lek out of the corner of his eye, but it would look to anybody else as if he was focussed on something he saw off to the side. "Yeah, he's still back there." Tack confirmed. He was about to say more when he caught sight of The Barrel's worn out neon sign... straight ahead down the street. "Oh for Sith's sake," Tack muttered under his breath. Well, if there was a good place to lose a tail, it was in a crowded cantina.

"There it is," Tack told Allie with a nod towards the establishment in question. "It's not exactly the nicest place in town, so keep your hand near your blaster. And stick close to me... the barflies shouldn't bother you too much if you're tagging along behind somebody else."

The inside of The Barrel was as bad as the last time Tack had been in it. Smoke floated across the entire place like a foul smelling fog, bad music blared from the stage, and a general sense of unclenliness permeated everything... including the patrons. An improvement from last time, however, was the fact that there were no possible corpses sprawled across the floor.

As he had before, Tack wove his way through the patrons towards an unoccupied booth. He kept glancing over his shoulder at Allie, but she didn't seem to need any watching. The two seated themselves in an empty booth, and once again Tack took note of any and all anomolous pools of liquid before starting to scan the crowd for either the Twi'Lek follower or Kaimen. For a moment, neither seemed present in the establishment... until the Twi'Lek came walking in through the front doors. He looked around for a moment, spotted Tack and Allie, and headed their way.

"I'd get my blaster ready," Tack said softly to Allie. "Just in case..."

The 'just in case' proved not to be necessary. The Twi'Lek just approached the table, pulled a piece of folded flimsiplast from his pants pocket, and deposited it on the table between Tack and Allie. Then he turned and walked away. Perplexed, Tack looked down at the folded flimsiplast, then up at Allie. "Was it just me," He asked, "Or was that kind of... unexpected?"


JerinPuck
While taking another drink, Allie surreptitiously pulled her jacket to the side just enough to reveal a shoulder holster, then let the jacket fall back into place.

"Nothin' fancy," she explained, "but it works. And I know how to shoot it," she added, with a slight smirk. Her father- crazy man- had insisted that all his kids learn how to use a blaster at a rather young age. Allie had never liked the things, and still didn't, but kept one out of necessity. (Not that it had always helped.)

Darth_Kuangduk
Tack smiled slightly. The coin toss was a nice touch. It reminded Tack of how he made some of his own decisions, though he did it without the aide of a physical coin. In the line of work he'd been in before becoming a smuggler, making snap decisions had been essential to one's survival. Heck, even being a smuggler required it.

"Great," Tack said. "I'd love to say let's get started right here and now, but we need to make a few preparations first." The smuggler glanced around the bar, watching to see if anybody was watching back. He'd been making a lot of inquiries... word was bound to get around of just how inquisitive he was and what he was being inquisitive about. Thus far, however, nobody seemed to be taking too much of an interest in him. A few patrons were taking an interest in Allie, but that was nothing out of the ordinary. Every bar had it's flies, so to speak.

When his gaze finally landed back on Allie, Tack found her giving him a somewhat expectant look. Tack looked back at her, raising both eyebrows. She chewed on her food for a few seconds, then swallowed. "Preparations," She prompted.

"Eh? Oh." Tack blinked and shook his head. "Right. You need a blaster. Can't have you getting into this mess without a weapon. You know how to shoot one, don't you?" Suddenly, Tack remembered one of his own barfly moments. He'd been a little inebreated and a lot annoying, setting his sights on one scantily clad woman in particular. She'd finally gotten tired and pulled a holdout blaster on him... which, considering the outfit she'd been wearing, had been quite a surprise. Tack still wondered where she'd kept it hidden...

The incident had tought him one valuable lesson. Never underestimate the firepower of a woman, even when she looks harmless. Allie looked relatively harmless... but Tack didn't put it past her to have a holdout blaster of her own hidden somewhere. If she did, he was about to look somewhat foolish. Not that that was unusual, of course.

JerinPuck
"Um..." Allie said. It was clear that in her eagerness to get off Arelia, she had forgotten to ask some important questions. So she traveled across the galaxy with hot cargo. With one- maybe two- people who were more valuable as corpses than as living beings to someone. With the Empire on their tail. With some dead plants and some good beer. What the frell?

No one had Allie's number. She and the universe were- or at least, had been- mutually apathetic about each other. Maybe she could walk away now without any of her companion's trouble rubbing off on her.

But maybe not. T-whatever didn't seem to think so, and it wasn't exactly something Allie wanted to test.

Leave, stay, hide, fight.... too many decisions. "Hang on a sec," Allie said, and dug into her hip pocket. She pulled out a small, gold-colored disc with an engraving of a planet on one side and a building on the other. Balancing it on her thumb and forefinger, she flipped it once and examined the result. So, I'm a smuggler now...

Now it was hide in the ship, or go with him. That decision was easier. "Yeh. I'll go with you," she answered. Allie was already in over her head, so why not dive deeper? Besides, Allie liked what's-her-name.

Darth_Kuangduk
"They," Tack replied, "Are apparently bounty hunters. I've got something of a price on my head, see..." Tack took a second to look around the cantina. He didn't think he'd spoken very loudly, but you never could be sure. "And I think they nabbed Jola to get to me. Either that or Red's got a bounty on her own head, which wouldn't really surprise me."

Finding that he was lapsing into a dry voiced tirade about Jola, Tack made a concious effort to focus on the task at hand. "Anyway, I've been thinking. If they grabbed Jola they might want to grab you, too. If that's the case you've got two choices... you can lock yourself in the ship until I get the redhead back and we leave, or you can help me go after her." Tack spared a few seconds to look over Allie. He didn't want to get her mixed up in too much trouble, but as he'd said it was entirely possible that she was on somebody's target list as well. "What'll it be?"

JerinPuck
After a brief good-bye, the red-headed medic (to no one's surprise) left the Broken Dream and quickly vanished into the crowded space port. Allie took stock of what money she had and decided that, while she had more than enough credits at the moment, she did not want to spend them. However, her personal candy stock was zero. This meant she needed to find an alternate source of income.

Not a problem.

Allie arranged to meet Tack back at the ship later that night, and set off on her own.

She spent the next several hours barhopping for low-stakes card games. Allie picked up 12 credits here, 3 there, 7 back at that one place... by the end of her rounds she had made a decent amount of money without attracting attention to herself. Since that had been Allie's goal, she decided to reward herself with a drink and a sandwhich. (To her disappointment she had failed to find any establishment that sold candy in bar form.)

Vaguely remembering- and blatantly ignoring- the smuggler's warnings about Tantor's night clientele, Allie returned to a nicer place she played at earlier that night. While she was sitting in a booth enjoying her supper, Tack slid in the seat across from her.

"They've got Jola," he said quietly.

For Allie, there were two problems with that sentence, and they were on either side of the word "got." She swallowed the bite of sandwhich she'd been chewing, washed it down, and wiped her mouth with her hand.

"What?"

Tack repeated what he had said, and Allie looked at him blankly. What was a Jola? Who were they?

Tack was incredulous. "You know? Short? Red hair? Annoying?"

"Yeh," Allie said, "who are they?"

Darth_Kuangduk
Kral nodded. "Oh, he'll know." he told Jola. The Bothan looked down at the strip of cloth that he still grasped in his hand. Briefly, he contemplated putting back on his captive. But it really wouldn't serve much purpose now, anyway. He dropped the blindfold on the floor and went back to his chair. "I hope you two got to know each other real well during that trip," He told Jola as he sat. His purple eyes bored into her, measuring her response. There was a flicker of something, a response to what he'd said. But it was too brief to be evaluated. Kral hoped it was something that bode well for him and his cohorts.

*************************************************************

Tack sat at a table, glass of alcohol in hand. He'd taken up residence at a much cleaner cantina to think about the situation with Jola. Or, as he was now fond of calling it, the Red Paradox. One the one hand, he told himself as he sipped his drink, he'd gotten her into this mess... in a roundabout sort of way. Though, really, he didn't know why the hell the Imps were after him. And she'd come with him willingly, even helped him get his ship out of impound on Arellia. That was another reason Tack was feeling obligated to do something... the woman had helped him get his ship back.

Of course, the other side of the problem was that Red had been one big pain in the arse the entire trip to Tantor. She certainly didn't like him, that much was obvious. Except... except for that one time, in the cocpit. She'd been kinda nice, then. It had only made Tack suspicious at the time, but what if...?

"Aw, frell it," Tack put his glass down. He knew what he had to do... if not because it was partially his fault (and he still wasn't convinced of that), then because he knew what happened to people when the Imps got their claws on them. They never came out the same, if they ever came out at all. And while he wouldn't particularly mind a change in Jola's personality, he didn't want it to be that kind of a change.

"Time to atone," The smuggler muttered as he rose from his chair. Mentally, he ran down a checklist of things to do. First, start asking around. Jola wasn't the sort who got overlooked easily... if anybody had been around to see her get nabbed, they'd remember it. And with any luck, they'd feel like talking about it. If they didn't, Tack had ways of persuading them. Second... well, he'd get to that after he was done with number one.

Unfortunately, it was getting on towards nightfall. Not that Cartogen closed down when the lights went out. On the contrary, the nightlife was quite lively... and quite deadly, more often than not. What worried Tack was the fact that if somebody had nabbed Jola because of an Imperial bounty they'd be after him as well, and if they were going to try something nighttime would be the perfect time for them to try it.

Then again, you didn't live life without risks.

*************************************************************

"That's not a risk I'm willing to take, Nova." Kral spoke to his female compatriot outside the hotel, in the light of the setting sun. They'd left Jola alone with Gazrik, who's wrist had indeed been broken. Neither of them were worried about their captive... she'd proven she could handle herself against Gazrik, even while bound. And now she could see when he was coming.

"Risks are what this game is all about, Kral," Neyova countered. "You don't take risks, you don't get the big creds."

"And you don't stay alive very long, either." the Bothan looked stonily back at his associate. "I'm a professional, Nova. When I sign a contract I stick with it. You don't gain a reputation by switching sides. Or should I say, you don't get the right kind of reputation."

"Sheelzo's nothing anymore," Neyova pressed. "He'll probably be dead in a month or so. We take his credits, we take their credits, nobody remembers or even cares."

"I'd care," Kral snarled. "There's a thing called professionalism... I signed on to do this job at an agreed upon price. So I'm going to do this job, for the employer who hired me, for the agreed upon price. End of discussion." Kral turned and took no more than two steps away before turning back towards Neyova. "And if you try anything, Nova, anything to cross me... I'll burry you."

"Mmk," Was all Neyova said in response. "Your paycheck, right?" She fished a thin deathstick from one of her vest pockects and lit it. "I'll be inside soon. Locho's gonna make contact with Tack sometime tomorrow," She took a drag from her deathstick and blew the smoke back out. "Then we'll set up a meet, do the job, get our money, and never have to deal with each other again."

Kral nodded and left Neyova to her smoking. Inside the hotel room, he found Jola still where he'd last seen her. Gazrik was sitting in a chair on the other side of the room, cradling his bandaged wrist and glaring evily in the redhead's direction. "Get out of my chair," The Bothan growled. Gazrik jumped slightly, but quickly vacated the chair. He moved cautiously to a chair closer to Jola.

"What's got you so bent, man?" He asked. "I'm the one who got my wrist broke, you've got nothin' to complain-"

"Shut up," Was all Kral had to say. "Your wrist wouldn't be broken if you hadn't been messing with the woman. Amateurs," He muttered the last under his breath. His purple eyes wound their way from Gazrik to Jola, and stayed on the redhead for a moment. Once again, there was the feeling at the back of his neck. "You want something to eat?" He inquired. The prisoner hadn't eaten since they'd nabbed her... which meant she'd missed about two meals.

"Now you're gonna feed," Gazrik started. Kral glared at him. "Shutting up," The other thug finished meekly, and suited action to words.

From outside the hotel room, Neyova's muffled voice yelled "You're a wimp, Gaz!"

Gazrik fumed silently at the comment, but said nothing.

"So," Kral addressed Jola again, "How about that food?"

JolaEdana
By the maw. They weren't after her, they were after Tack. It honestly hadn't occurred to her before that he might be a rogue Imperial. Or maybe this was about something else.

Jola felt her stomach lurch as she made eye contact with the Bothan. She feinted confusion, squinting at the sudden light to give herself a few more seconds to think. If she wasn't useful, they might let her go.Yeah, right. Then again, they also might shoot her and be done with her. Or do a hundred other things.

She was fairly certain Tack would never come for her. But they didn't need to know that. And maybe, by making herself useful....

Jola swallowed hard, not having to try hard to seem scared by her captor's threat. "If he knew where I was," she conceded. She glanced to one side for a moment before flickering her gaze back to the bothan's face. "We did..." she hesitated. "...get to know each other on the trip."

There. Let him take that how he would.

Darth_Kuangduk
Kral once again regarded Jola silently. But though he said nothing, the wheels were turning within his mind. The redhead was claiming not to know Tack. That could just be self preservation... but what if it wasn't? It wasn't possible that they'd nabbed the wrong woman. It was hard to miss a five foot tall ball of fire, even in the streets of Cartogen. And Kral had followed her himself.

Another gear ticked around with Kral's mind. She said she'd just hitched a ride from Tack. For the moment, Kral was going to assume that was the truth. If this woman had no connection to Tack, then Tack likely didn't care about her, the entire plan was about to go down the 'fresher. Bait was no good if the fish didn't want to bite at it.

"Is that so," Kral said slowly. "Well then, keep this in mind. If you have no value to Tack, you have no value to my employer," Kral didn't mention Sheelzo by name, even if Gazrik already had, "and therefore you have no value to me. Or to Gazrik. So I'm going to ask you this just once, and hope you give me the right answer."

On a whim, the Bothan stepped forward into Jola's reach. Reaching out with one furred hand, he pulled the blindfold from her face and looked into her squinted eyes. "Will he come for you?" he asked.

JolaEdana
Jola barked out a laugh. My partner? She considered her answer for a split second. She didn't like Tack. But she did like Allie, and she figured that if these guys were working for the Imperials, the last thing she wanted was to get them tangled up with her.

"He's not my partner," she said wryly. "Frell, I don't even know the guy's full name. I just hitched a ride from him." she smirked beneath the blindfold.

She considered the being in front of her, though she couldn't see him. He didn't fidgit like the other. He seemed strong. Sensible. She'd bet money he'd fired the shot that took her down in the street.

Jola decided to be very careful with this conversation...

Darth_Kuangduk
Kral regarded Jola silently, as he had for the majority of the time she'd been captive. His fur rippled as a slight shiver went down his back. There was something... odd... about the redhead. Something he couldn't quite place. He shook his head, trying to clear the feeling from his mind. She wasn't anything special. Sure she'd been kicking around Gazrik since square one, despite being tied up, but that wasn't spectacular. Annoying, but not spectacular.

Kral sighed. Sheelzo was paying him to do this, but he wasn't paying him that much. The rodian was pretty near bankrupt at this point, what with all of his clandestine operations having been siezed by the crime syndicates or the authorities (as controlled by the crime syndicates). He had to have scraped up everything he had left to pay for this job. Which made Kral curious... what was so important about the redhead's partner?

The Imperials wanted the man and his ship and his crew... alive. That was an oddity for the Empire. Sheelzo wanted him dead. Nothing new there. And then there was the crime syndicates. Kral had a few connections, like anybody in his business did. And those connections said that there was somebody up there who wanted this guy... this Tack... to remain alive and kicking.

All that, for one guy.

Grunting, Kral pushed himself up from where he sat and crossed the room. The redhead straightened a bit, tensed as if she knew he was headed her way. Kral chalked it up to a damn good set of ears. "Your partner," the Bothan said as neutrally as possible, stopping just outside of Jola's reach. "His name's Tack, right?"

JolaEdana
Jola studiously kept her face straight as she listened to two of her captors leave the room, the one moaning about his wrist the entire time. She hoped she had broken it. If he was that stupid he deserved what he got.

Meanwhile though, her mind worked furiously. Sheelzo. Sure as frell didn't sound like an Imp. Which must mean they had a bounty out on her, and these nerf heads had just gotten lucky.

She shook her head slightly. For some reason, the name was niggling in the back of her mind.... like she'd heard it before. She chewed on her lower lip, furious that she couldn't remember where.

Her remaining captor stayed silent, and he had been very silent for the majority of their time in the room. Jola figured she probably couldn't change that.

She slumped back against the wall, gently letting her hands massage each opposite wrist. She didn't figure she was going to get out of this. But she could at least be ready to kick a few more on her way out.


Darth_Kuangduk
Neyova shook her head. It wasn't that she thought her captive could benifit any by knowing what was going on. It was just that she was disinclined to reveal anything. What would she gain by telling her captive why she was being held? Nothing, really. It was only cliche badguys in bad holodramas that got some sort of smug satisfaction out of spilling the entire plan when they thought they had the upper hand. "You'll find out soon enough," was all she ended up saying.

Gazrik wimpered again from his edge of the bed. Neyova raised both eyebrows. The redhead must've really clocked him this time, though to be fair it wasn't as if Gazrik didn't deserve it. In fact, he definately deserved it. Neyova was all for women defending themselves, especially against the likes of her partner in crime. "I need painkillers," Gazrik all but whined, rolling onto his back.

"Oh, suck it up." Neyova snapped. "Go walk it off or something."

"Hey, I think she might've actually hurt him," The Bothan said, narrowing his eyes at Gazrik.

"No, ya think?" Gazrik growled. "owie... oh the pain... Oh man, I hope she's in one piece when Sheelzo's done with her. 'Cause she won't be when I get through."

"Hey Nova," the Bothan spoke again, "why don't you take the wounded party here to the clinic or somethin'. He might have a broken wrist, the way he's holdin' it."

"Fine, fine." Neyova gave in. "But if she broke your wrist, you'll never hear the end of this. Think you can handle her, Kral?"

"Hey," The Bothan answered, "She's blindfolded and tied up. Unless she's a Jedi, I'll just stay on the other side of the room and I'll be fine."

JolaEdana
Jola let out a snort of her own. "He's the one stupid enough to poke the rancor," she shot back. "Doesn't he have something better to do?" She spat. She had determined early on that she wasn't in the hands of Imperials yet- this group seemed more like babysitters. A stopover.

"We could gag you, if you don't stay silent," the first speaker said, her voice a deadly calm.

Jola grunted, but decided against saying anything further for the moment. If she could keep them talking, they might let something useful slip.

Her general barrage of insults didn't serve any purpose anyway, aside from taking her mind off of her aching body. It still tingled a bit from the last stun bolt, and the binders on her ankles and wrists had cut off most feeling in her extremities.

She still had enough mobility to swing out occasionally with arms or legs whenever the moron of the trio who was keeping her captive decided to annoy her. Jola honestly wasn't sure why they allowed her to do it. Her guess was boredom. They had been in this room for five hours already, no contact.

Satisfied that her tormentor had retired to a seat on the bed a ways off to tend his bruises, she let herself relax. Her pulse beat in her aching skull, and she was starving. She'd almost rather be in Imperial hands and get it over with.

Jola sighed.

"What do you want with me?" There was no answer from her captives, but she could feel them glance in her direction. She shrugged painfully and tried to sound nonchalant. "Call me curious."

Darth_Kuangduk
Tack warily entered the Golden Gorak Cantina. The sign outside had been in pretty good shape, which had suggested that the inside would also be in fair condition... though you never really knew on Tantor. Luckily, though, the inside seemed to be as advertised. The tables were clean, even the people sitting at them weren't, the booths were nice and private, and the bar was in decent shape. It even had a small relief of a Gorak mounted on the back wall behind the bar. "Why anybody would want to name a cantina after a bird," the smuggler muttered as he wove his way towards the bar, "Is beyond me."

But despite the dubious naming of the establishment, it was exactly what Tack was looking for. "I'll have a Geillian Ale," He told the bartender as he plopped down on his barstool. The patrons sitting to either side of Tack looked him over for a moment, then went back to their drinks. He started scanning the cantina, looking for familiar faces. It hadn't been too long since he'd been on Tantor, a few of his usual contacts would still be lurking around.

Tack's drink arrived, delivered by a harried looking Ithorian bartender. "Hey friend," Tack addressed the alien with aplomb, "I'm looking for Gazrik. Seen him around?" The Ithorian gestured negatively.

"Hasn't been around for days," he told Tack.

"Ah. Well, how about Neyova?" Tack inquired hopefully. He didn't want to have to go so far as to ask about Sheelzo directly. The rodian didn't particulary like having his name flashed around. Not too safe on a world like Tantor. Instead, he preferred to work through middlemen... contacts like Gazrik or Neyova.

"Neyova, yeah." The bartender answered a bit grumpily. "She was in here yesterday. Made a mess of the place..." The Ithorian eyed Tack suspiciously. "You her boyfriend? 'Cause somebody's gotta pay for-"

Tack's laugh cut off the Ithorian mid sentance. "Boyfriend? Frell pal, the last girl I hooked up with sold all the furniture in my apartment and took all the credits she could get her hands on. Which, granted, I wouldn't put past Neyova... but still." Still smiling, Tack lifted his mug of ale and took a sip. He set it down again with a sigh of contentment. Arellia hadn't had anything close to this.

"Well, if you see her..." The Ithorian pressed.

"Sure, sure. No problem." Tack assured the Ithorian and turned away from the bar. So Gazrik wasn't around and Neyova probably wouldn't be coming back to this particluar establishment anytime soon. "Still plenty of cantinas," Tack told himself as he sipped more of his ale.

*************************************************************

"Last cantina," Tack grumbled as he stood before a place which called itself The Barrel. It looked bad on the outside, and as the smuggler entered the establisment he realized the owners had taken great pains to make the outside look good. The place was filthy, horribly lit, horribly entertained by a very loud and very bad band, and inhabited by the dregs of the galaxy. There was even, Tack thought, a few dead bodies lying here and there on the floor.

"Talk about scraping the bottom of..." Tack paused, contemplated the joke he was about to make, then shrugged. Without anybody around to appreciate the bad humor, there really wasn't anything worth saying.

The bar was full up, so Tack took a booth. The seat was clean enough... the constant passage of countless alien behinds was probably responsible for that. A thought which in and of itself made the booth seem very unclean. Even so, Tack sat. He made a mental note of the small pool of something near his elbow, and resolved not to touch it. He was just about to order a drink when a cloaked figure invited himself into the booth. Tack's hand immediately went to the holstered blaser he wore on his thigh.

"Hello there," Tack greeted the stranger amenably, finger on the trigger.

"Hello back," The stranger answered, pulling back the cowel that had covered his head. The man was human, and youngish. Tack kept his finger on the trigger. "Can I buy you a drink?" The stranger inquired, already gesturing for one of the scantily clad serving girls.

"I never turn down free booze," was Tack's reply. "But then, nothing's ever free around here."

"Too true," The stranger responded. He regarded Tack for a moment, smile fading. "Tell you what, then. How about you buy me the drink."

"And you give me... what?" Tack inquired. It was an old game, and he was used to playing it. The man was obviously a middleman for somebody. Probably not Sheelzo... the damn Rodian had gone and made himself scarce for some reason. And if he wasn't letting Tack dig him up, he doubted the guy would just up and send somebody to make contact. So it had to be somebody else. One of the local crime lords, maybe?

"Information," The stranger responded.

"Ah," was Tack's only response. The two men sat in silence... well, in what passed for silence in The Barrel, and regarded each other. "What kind of information?" Tack asked at last. The guy across from him was a cool customer, that was sure. He never even changed his expression.

"I think I'll wait for my drink before I go into details," The stranger responded, smiling slightly. Tack nodded in agreement. It wasn't long until the serving girl brought over a large tankard of something. Tack noted this with interest. The man hadn't even had to give her his order, she'd already known. That either meant he'd ordered before he'd sat down, or he was a regular and the staff knew his usual.

"Here you go," Tack told the serving girl as he set a few credchits on the edge of the table. With his free hand, of course. The serving girl took the credits, smiled when she realized there were a few extra, then walked off. Tack watched her go for a few seconds. "So..." He forced his attention back towards his new companion, "About that information."

The stranger took a long drink of his beverage before answering. "You've been trying to get into contact with Sheelzo."

"What are you," Tack asked sarcastically, "A Jedi mind reader? Tell me something I don't know."

"Heh, ok. You haven't been able to get in touch with him." The stranger held up a hand to forestall another snappy remark, "What you don't know is why." The man lowered his hand and took another pull at his drink.

"Go on," Tack invited.

"He's gone into hiding... somebody leaked some very unpleasant information about him to one of the local crime lords. They pretty much ruined him overnight, but either couldn't or didn't feel like killing him."

"Oh..." Well, that would certainly change things. Tack still needed to find somebody who could offload his hot cargo for him, and if it wasn't Sheelzo... well, Tack guessed the real question was who could he trust?

"Yeah." The man answered with a shrug. "He's pretty paranoid now. Not to mention angry as can be. Word is he's out for revenge on the one who leaked the info, whoever that might be, but all he's done so far is hide from the syndicates."

"And you went out of your way to tell me this because...?" Tack prompted. The man grinned and hefted his mug.

"It got me a free drink, didn't it?"

"Uh-huh," Tack made it clear with his tone that he didn't believe that one.

"Ok then," The man continued, "How's this. The Imperials showed up a little while back. They were pretty hot to get their hands on you and your ship... which means you might have something they want. Anything the Empire wants as bad as that is worth having. Your usual guy is so far underground he's on the other side of the planet, and I'm willing to help you get whatever it is off your hands, and the Empire off your back."

"It's about time we got to the point," Tack replied. "Sure, I've got a hold full of hot cargo. If you want it, you're welcome to take it. Just make sure you pay me in cash."

"Perfect," The stranger downed the last of his drink and set the mug loudly back onto the table. "Then we've got a deal."

"No, not yet we don't," Tack shook his head.

"No?" The stranger asked quizically, visibly thrown for the first time.

"Nope." Tack repeated, "Before we have a deal, I want to know you're name and who you work for."

The man across the table chuckled. "You can call me Kaimen. As for who I work for... well, do you really need to know?"

"Not really," Tack admitted. "But it was worth a try."

"So it was," Kaimen agreed. He stood from the booth, and shrugged his cowel back on. "Oh, there's something else," He said. "As a sort of bonus to the deal. One of your crew got nabbed downtown earlier today, probably bounty hunters who want to cash in on the reward."

"Crew?" Tack asked curiously. "I don't have a crew." And then it dawned on him.

"She came from your ship," Kaimen said. "Short stature, red hair..."

"Jola," Tack muttered. "Great."

"So she is part of your crew," Kaimen prompted.

"Well... yes and no." Tack replied. "Either way, thanks for the info." Kaimen nodded and walked off into the crowd. He stepped gingerly over an inert twi'lek, dodged a puddle of something, and was gone. Tack sat in his booth a little while longer, wondering whether he should feel guilty for pushing Jola off on her own to get captured by bounty hunters, or just feel sorry for her kidnappers.

In the end, it was a mix of both.

*************************************************************

Four people occupied one room of a very shady hotel in Cartogen's downtown area. The paint was peeling off of the walls, the air conditioning didn't work, there were bugs everywehre, and the neighbors were noisy. But it was as good a place as any to keep a hostage until you got orders about what to do with 'em.

"eep"

There was a heavy thud as a body hit the floor, then soft wimpering.

"Oh for sith's sake, Gazrik. She's blindfolded and tied up. What the frell do you need us to do, stun her again?" Neyova shook her head at her pain racked companion. She then looked over at the cause of Gazrik's pain... a fiesty little redhead who had been nothing but trouble since the moment she'd woken up. "You try that again, sweetheart," Neyova warned, "And we'll have to start letting Gazrik hit back."

The only noise made by the third abductor, a grey furred, purple eyed Bothan was a soft snort.

JolaEdana
"...get the frell off my ship..."

Jola stuffed the last of her things into a small haversack she'd found in the small storage cabinet beneath her bunk. She was beginning to have misgivings about going. It all seemed too simple. The still holo of Tack's face on that badge kept flashing in her mind's eye.

There was no help for it. This might be her only chance to escape.

Jola tucked a still damp strand of coppery hair up into the elaborate twist of braids her waist length hair formed around her head. She tugged the zipper on her clean black jumpsuit to her chin, and double checked that her utility belt and blaster rested on her hips.

Then she made her way towards the boarding ramp. She stopped at the common room, where Allie sat in the booth occupied with something. Jola cleared her throat somewhat akwardly. "Just so you know," she said, "I'm taking off. Tack and I don't get along, and I know I haven't been the greatest. Good luck with everything, okay? It was good traveling with you."

The younger woman gazed at her a moment, then gave her a nod. Jola didn't pause any longer, but continued towards the entrance. Tack came around the opposite corner at the same time as she did. For a moment they both paused, eyeing each other.

Jola finally gave him a nod. "Thanks for getting me here." She forced herself to say it. Her stomach flipped and churned inside her, and if she hadn't had years of practice keeping her face straight in tough situations, Jola was sure she would have looked as terrified as she felt.

She couldn't bring herself to let him study her though. She had to walk down the ramp and get far away before she lost her nerve and her chance.

So the redheaded doctor got the frell off of Tack's ship.

He followed her for a moment, but soon turned the opposite way out of the docking bay.

Jola walked a little faster. She had no idea where she was going. Tantor didn't seem to have a nice section of town. Jola finally forced herself to admit that while she had been trained to fight, and knew how to take care of herself, she had always lived in the nicer parts of Corellia. She'd spent plenty of time around rough and tumbles in the military, but it had always been in the nice, controlled enviroment of her medical ward.

So when she found herself on the streets of Tantor's largest space port, possibly being followed, or walking into an ambush, she realized how very alone and clueless she really was. And without credits. She was almost flat broke.

A motel there, a string of bars and clubs there. Booths selling wares there, a junk shop over there. Jola wove through the streets, hoping that by getting deeper into the city, and going somewhere she wouldn't be expected to go, that she could avoid being found. She could find a ride off the planet. Or fix someone up for some spare creds. There had to be a lot of fighting on a planet like this... she'd duck into a bar. Talk to a few people....

So preoccupied was she with her sudden shortcomings, Jola never realized that she really was walking into an ambush.

And by the time she'd walked under the arch that led to a side street, it was too late. The first stun bolt came late, and missed her by a hair- but by the time she pulled her blaster and brought it to bear, the second was on its way. In that short nanosecond, she realized that if the Imperials wanted her, there was no way she could have escaped on her own.

The blue energy beam hit her fully in the chest and she slumped into the dirt without so much as a cry.

Darth_Kuangduk
Tack watched Allie as she hurridly left the cocpit, and wondered why it seemed like she was offended. Maybe it was the way she left, or maybe it had been the tone of her voice when she'd spoken.

"Just my luck with women," Tack told himself, alone in the cocpit, only his droid for company. "No matter what I do, I always end up on their bad sides." He leaned back in the pilot's chair and put his feet up on the control panel. He closed his eyes, and listened to the hum of the now operational hyperdrive engines. Only a little longer, and he'd be free of both women. Free to go... somewhere. And do... something. He hadn't exactly figured out where or what, but it would all come in good time.

"Wheezer," Tack addressed the astromech as it trundled across the metal floor, "Grab me some boozeahol from the galley, will ya?"

*************************************************************

The Broken Dream seamlessly entered realspace, decelerating rapidly to normal cruisng speeds. Still sitting with alcoholic beverage in hand, Tack began a sensor sweep of the system. Imperials were usually hard to miss, and didn't generally bother hiding. But the sensor scans showed no Star Destroyer silouettes, no TIE squadrons on patrol, no Imperial IFFs. As far as he could tell, the system was clean.

"Finally," Tack muttered, "Something's going my way." He cleared his throat and pushed the ship's intercomm button. "Good evening ladies and droids," He intoned in a purposefully bland voice, "This is your captain speaking. We've just arrived in the Tantor star system, and will be entering orbit of Tantor Prime in just a few minutes. Landing will commense as soon as possible, at which time you can get the frell off my ship." The last part of the announcement had been squarely aimed at Jola, and Tack was pretty sure she'd know it. Smugly satisfied, he released the intercomm button and concentrated on bringing the ship in for a landing.

Being a rimworld, Tantor wasn't as technologically advanced or as populated as most core worlds. It wasn't quite as lawful, either, which was one reason Tack liked it so much. Of the dozen or so major cities on the planet only two had starports, and both were hotly contested by local crime organizations. Again, not nessicarily a bad thing. Landing procedures for "known" ships was usually fairly quick and efficient, and Tack was certainly known. Whether or not that was a bad thing was another question.

"Wonder how many bounty hunters are lookin' around for me," Tack said mostly to himself. The bounty his former employer had placed on his head was quite substantial. Tack hadn't allowed himself to think much about it since leaving Arellia, but the prospect of actually having to deal with a price on his head was starting to sink in.

Eventually, and with little hassle, Tack set the ship down in one of the open air docking bays that dotted the city of Cartogen. As the engines wound down, he contemplated what his next move should be... and what the girls would be doing. Jola would likely jump ship as soon as humanly possible. Allie, on the other hand... who knew?

As for Tack himself, he needed to get in touch with Sheelzo. Having a bounty on your head was one thing, having a hold full of hot cargo was something else entirely. Custom's hadn't been a problem on the way in, thanks to Tack's "known" status, but that was just here on Tantor. Any number of other planets would likely be a little less gracious... and Tack didn't exactly plan on sticking around all that long.

"Wheezer," Tack addressed his droid, "Prep the cargo bay for unloading, and keep an eye on the ship... I'm gonna go find somebody to take this stuff off our hands for us." He headed for the boarding ramp.

JerinPuck
It would have been impossible for Allie to miss Jola and Tack's conversation. She knew they were angry at each other- had been almost from the start- but the motivation behind the animosity was beyond her. The kid comment, though, that she had caught. Causes were difficult, but signs were easy. This smuggler guy genuinely thought of her as a kid. Allie recalled his offer of a job and was even more confused. Playing cards was infinitely easier.

Allie watched Tack as he came back in, tipping her head so far to the right that her ear nearly touched her shoulder. She closed one eye in a strange appraising look, and he muttered about needing a drink.

"That shouldn't be a problem. Ya' have enough on board," Allie answered, then hightailed it out of the cockpit because the view of hyperspace was making her feel sick again.

JolaEdana
Jola stopped dead in the corridor and stared at the wall, her fists clenched.

"Dryok* it," she swore softly.

What a flaming mess. Had he meant any of that? Or was he just letting her think she could leave any time she wanted? Either she was wrong, or he was so fraking good she was doomed for sure.

Jola mentally continued down her list of curses. Being native Corellian, it was a long one.

She slowly flexed her fingers, forcing herself to let her body relax. Well, if nothing else, she could get in the 'fresher and try to look human again. And in the meantime, she could decide wether or not to apologize and try to get back on his good side.

One thing was for sure- if she took his offer, it wouldn't be at face value. She'd watch her back and cover her tracks.

Darth_Kuangduk
That was more like it, Tack thought. For some reason, a confrontation with Jola just seemed more comfortable than her being nice. What an odd, odd way to look at things. "Hey, I've been plenty civilized!" Tack shot back, putting up a fist. He raised an index finger from it. "First, I got you off that mudball of a planet back there. Second," he raised another finger, "I gave you a room to sleep in. I even offered to sleep on the floor so the kid could have my bunk!" Another finger came up, "Third, I haven't spaced you yet, and believe me, Red, I've been tempted."

"But hey," Tack shrugged and shoved his hands in his pockets, "You wanna leave, that's your business. As soon as we hit the pad on Tantor you're perfectly welcome to get off my ship."

Turning around, Tack stalked back towards the cocpit. A thought occured to him as he was partway there. The whirled around, but Jola was nowhere in sight. "And I'm not even charging you for the trip!" He bellowed, not feeling like going after her to make his final point. He was somewhat relieved that Jola seemed dead set on leaving once they reached the planet. The woman had been a constant pain in his ass ever since he'd met her... and somehow, the fact that she looked as good as she did failed to make up for it.

"I need a drink," Tack muttered, mostly to himself.

JolaEdana
Jola chewed on her lip. Frell.

She turned to face him, hands on her hips. She pulled up her chin, hoping posture would make up for her disheveled look, and fixed him with a level look.

"The point is," she said, back to her usual dry tone, "You don't really have an option. Everyone on this ship is more civilized than you've managed to be the entire time I've known you."

"I'm stuck on this ship until we get to land, and I'd like to hit dirtside without murder charges. I was trying to be nice for once. But since you make that impossible, I'll go freshen up and pack."

She swallowed hard. Now, she'd done it. If she couldn't lull him into a false sense of security, she'd just have to try to leave and take her chances. She'd let it be known she intended to leave, now to see wether or not he'd try to stop her....

Darth_Kuangduk
Tack opened his mouth, a snappy comeback already half formed, when he realized what exactly it was that Jola had said. The smuggler paused for a second, mental processes thrown slightly off kilter. She wasn't arguing. Why wasn't she arguing? Tack's immediate reaction was to become highly suspicious, something that had been ingrained in him from years of life in the underworld and the Empire. But there was something in Jola's voice that disarmed even that deep rooted reaction. It was almost like she was trying to be nice for a change.

That, of course, just scared the Force out of Tack. Women who were unexpectedly nice had something up their sleeves. And Jola was a devious one, he could tell. Tack closed his mouth, a slightly confused frown on his face. Jola, perhaps knowing that she'd managed to win this particular verbal battle with a single salvo, walked towards the cocpit exit. Well, Tack thought, that wouldn't do. "Hey," He tossed over his shoulder at her, "What makes you think I even want to interact with the civilized?"

It wasn't much, granted... but it would do for the moment. At the very least it was probably enough to draw the redhead back into conversation, giving Tack an opportunity to figure out what she was up to.

JolaEdana
Jola pursed her own lips before deciding to relent. She had a half formed, somewhat hazy idea in the back of her head, and decided to follow her gut.

"That is good," she offered, no trace of sarcasam in her voice. She even threw in a wry smile before leaning against the wall. "I'll give you that. A little more polish here and there, and you may be fit for interaction with the civilized."

The last barb was thrown in lightly, and meant to make him feel better. She knew if she suddenly switched to total respect, he'd pick up on it in five seconds. Nothing wrong with lacing medicine with honey.

Meanwhile, she was extremely concious of how awful she must look. She'd stormed up here, furious for getting a beating in her own bunk, and now she was aware that her jumpsuit was wrinkled, her hair unruly and tangled, and that she was still barefoot.

Fine then, time to make a semi graceful retreat before he opened his mouth....

Darth_Kuangduk
Caught up in his excitement over getting the hyperdrive working again, Tack had honestly forgotten to warn the two women on board. Actually, he hadn't completely forgotten... he just hadn't really expected the repairs to work. Not that he was about to admit that little fact, of course.

Allie's cry of indignation from the hallway beyond the cocpit reminded Tack that he probably should've given some heads up. "Sorry!" He called back into the corridor. "Sorry! The uh... the intercom must've cut out!" Approaching footsteps told Tack that Allie wasn't waiting around in the rear of the ship. Turning to look over his shoulder the smuggler was rewarded with the sight of the young woman entering the cocpit, hat in hand.

"How long 'til Tantor?" Allie inquired, gazing out of the windows at hyperspace. Tack quickly glanced down at his instrument panel. He was a decent navigator, but travel times always were problematic.

"I'd say an hour or two, no more than that." The smuggler was about to strike up further conversation when boot steps once again sounded from the hallway. Tack sighed slightly and rolled his eyes up towards the ceiling. He'd been hoping Jola wouldn't bother coming up to the cocpit to complain, but apparently those hopes had been in vain.

"There are other people on this ship, y'know," were the first cold words from the redhead's mouth. Tack pursed his lips and gave her a frank look.

"Hey," He shot back, "I got us into hyperspace, didn't I? I thought you'd be happy about it." It was going to be a long couple of hours.

JolaEdana
Jola's eyes snapped open and she sat up with a sharp gasp. She reached out in the dark of the cubby to find a wall to steady herself against. She rubbed a hand across her eyes, not wanting to open them yet.

The dream- well, more like a nightmare- had been about her fiancee. Well, ex fiancee now. She was pretty sure he was dead. His apartment that morning she had gone to see him. Turned upside down and empty, only a week after her parents. She remembered again the cold devastation. The knowledge that her life as she knew it was completely gone. That she had to leave everything, before they came for her too.

She still didn't know what had happened to him.

The feeling of that moment came back all too easily now, though. She was in the same corner on this ship.

Jola cried out in pain as the ship gave a sudden jerk beneath her and her head hit the plating behind the bunk. Swearing softly, she sat up and ordered the lights on dimly. Lost in her thoughts and still half asleep, she hadn't noted the tell a tale hum of the ship prepping for hyperspace.

She sighed. She couldn't stay in this little room forever. They were probably already wondering where she was. Best to go out. And pretend everything was fine.

Which meant yelling at Tack for being such a frelling nerfhead and not warning them before making a jump.

She made her way quietly to the cockpit where the so called smuggler lounged in his pilot's chair, looking immensely relieved. "There are other people on this ship, y'know," she said, her violet eyes cold, one thin red eyebrow arching.

JerinPuck
Allie wandered through the ship, retracing her steps so many times that she lost count. She was bored, having nothing to do, and she sorely missed her bike. A poem of sorts that had been scrawled graffiti style up on one of the main offices walls was stuck in her head.

Zero first wrote:
If it's not raining,
it's not a work day.
A courier that Allie didn't know later added:
We're in for the biking,
not for the pay.
Allie made her own contriubtion of:
If that's not to your liking,
then go away.
High Five, (courier number 5, who spent most of his time strung out on one thing or another) concluded it with:
And don't let the door hit your butt on the way out.

Allie did not for one instant miss Arelia, but she berated herself mentally for not bringing her bike along. There was enough room on the ship for it, Allie just lacked the foresight to realize that. Not that she could have used it on board, but a bike would have given her a means of planetside transportation, and something to tinker with while they were dead in space.

Dead was, perhaps, not the best adjective. Tack and his droid were making noise from under consoles, behind wires, and what seemed to be from inside the walls. Then silence, followed by jolt into hyperspace.

"Excellent warning!" Allie called happily from her newfound location- flat on her back on the deck plates. "Really. Very nice. Way to fix the ship!" She stood up and wrung out her hat on her way to find T-whatever. "How long til Tantor?"

Darth_Kuangduk
"Wheezer!"

Tack's shout for his droid assistant echoed down the hallways of the Broken Dream. It wasn't exactly nessecary to shout so loudly, of course, as the droid wasn't more than three feet away from the maintenance crawlspace in which Tack lay. Still, it made Tack feel better to yell. "Bring me the spanner!" He added, still yelling.

The smugger was fairly certain that Jola and Allie could both hear him. That was fine... it paid to let the guests know that he was actually working on getting them out of this jam. He got the distinct impression, mostly from Jola, that the women thought of him as particularly inept when it came to running a ship. Proving them wrong was a matter of honor and male pride... honor because he thought of himself as quite capable of running a starship, had been at it for years. As for male pride... well, they were women, after all, and they were questioning his capabilities... and therefore his manliness. "Wheezer!"

A hydrospanner plopped down onto the deck next to Tack's hand. He blinked, and noted that a pair of droid rollers were now next to his leg. Igoring the fact that he'd been shouting for no reason, Tack took the spanner and applied it to the part... only to find that it was the wrong kind of spanner. "No no no!" Tack shouted, tossing the tool back out at Wheezer, "The hydrospanner!"

With a flabbergasted sounding blatt, Wheezer trundled off. Despite the fact that he sounded irritated, Tack was actually quite pleased. All he had to do was tighten one little bit, and the ship would be ready to jump into hyperspace again.

After a moment, Wheezer returned and plopped the correct tool down into Tack's lap. Had the tool been any heavier, the smuggler would have been sqeaking mad... and in lots of pain. But it wasn't, so he wasn't. Moments later, he slid out from the crawlspace covered in all manner of engine grunge. The cocpit was calling, and Tack could hear it's sweet, sweet voice.

"Allright small fry," Tack said to Wheezer as he plopped down into the pilot's seat. "Let's get this show into hyperspace." He wiggled his fingers for a moment to prepare them for the coming rigors, then began flipping switches, pushing buttons, and turning knobs. Green lights lit up all across the board with the exception of a few places... but those lights never worked, so Tack ignored them.

The satisfying hum of operation engines began to issue forth from the deckplates, which vibrated ever so slightly. A small bug skittered into view on those deckplates, but quickly retreated when Wheezer spotted it and extended his electrical zapper. The little critters were learning. "Scary thought," Tack muttered.

Not about to let that ruin the moment, though, the smuggler reached forth one grime covered hand and set it on the hyperspace activation lever. "One," he intoned, "Two... three!"

More slowly than he wanted to, Tack pulled back the hyperspace lever. The hum of the decplates increased, the reverberation went up just the slightest bit, and the stars began to move faster and faster. With astonishing quickness the universe began to swirl, and the ship was once again in hyperspace.

"Yeeeeehaaaaw!" Tack shouted, "Tantor here we come!"

Darth_Kuangduk
"Uh, no... that's ok," Tack responded. "Just forget I ever asked." Shoving the last of his breakfast item into his mouth, the smuggler hefted his replacement part off of the counter. "Gonna go work," He said around his food. With that, he headed for the door. He didn't have any particular qualms about leaving Allie alone in the galley... not until he realized that all of his alcoholic beverages were in there.

Tack turned on one heel, giving the younger woman an appraising look. She looked back, seemingly innocent. Certainly not the picture of a booze thief. "Uh..." Tack fumbled for a moment, realizing he should probably come up with a reason for having turned around. Still chewing, but now more slowly, the smuggler thought hard. Finally, he had it. "Watch out for the bugs," He said, and swallowed. "Nasty critters." With that out of the way, Tack turned around once more and headed for the hallway.

JerinPuck
Allie shook her head. "Nope, you're asking the wrong person. Bikes? Sure." (She'd had to fix her own enough times.) "Droids? Well, I've seen them taken apart a couple of times... but I never really paid attention," she confessed. Allie had, in fact, watched her neighbor trying to fix his ever-failing droid on a few occasions, but had been more focused on stealing his tools when his back was turned than on how the driod worked. In part, to tinker with her big brother's bike, but mostly just to watch her neighbor get increasingly frustrated while questioning his own sanity. "I'd give it a try, but really I think you'd probably kill me or something if you had to rename the 'droid 'Mute.'"

Darth_Kuangduk
"Yes," Tack responded between bites of breakfast. He regarded the part in silence for a moment, then shrugged. "Well, maybe. Hey, at this point I'm willing to give it a shot."

Due to Tack's dream, he hadn't been able to sleep very long during the night. Instead of sleeping, then, he'd decided to get up early and go over the engine problems one more time. With the diagnostic station once again up and running, it had only been a matter of patience to track the trouble to it's source... a part like the one that now sat on the counter.

That had been the easy part of Tack's morning. The hard part, he'd soon discovered, was finding something to eat for breakfast. There was plenty of alcohol to be found, of course, as no self respecting smuggler would let himself be found without it. There was also bread... or at least, Tack thought it was bread. He didn't want to gamble on it, though, and so had moved on in search of something more appetizing. What he'd found was... well... edible. It hadn't killed him yet, at least. And it didn't taste half bad, either. The fact that it had been sealed in a plastic bag and tagged with an expiration date several decades away was also a plus.

So far as Tack could tell it was meat, vegitables, and several unidentifiable somethings wrapped in a thin round piece of flatbread. Tack waved this odd food item first at Alllie, then at the part on the counter. "We're lucky there was one of these in our spare parts," the smuggler commented. "I might've been able to jurry rig a way to get the engines working without it, but having it will speed things up greatly. An hour, maybe two, and we'll be back on course!"

Tack grinned, and tore off another bite of his mysterious food. "Oh, and there's something I've been meaning to ask you," Tack added with his mouth still full of food. He chewed hastily and swallowed with an audible gulp, then leaned across the counter. "You know much about droids? Wheezer's had this problem with his noise maker whatchamacallit for years... you know, the thing that he's supposed to whistle trough. It's broken, see, that's why he only wheezes instead of whistles..."

JerinPuck
Allie woke up several hours later still mostly on the couch. Yawning, she tried to focus her eyes on her wrist chronometer before giving up on trying to see the small display so soon after being asleep. Having no idea of how long she had slept in the middle of space, Allie decided that- since she was awake- it had been long enough. She made her way through the dimly lit corridor to the 'fresher.

Inside, Allie regarded the shower with apprehension. She had nothing against being clean, of course, but for the first time Allie could remember in three years, she was dry. Taking solace in the fact that in space there is no rain, Allie got cleaned up and dressed again- punctuating the affair by defiantly pulling on her now very dry hat over her wet hair. After, of course, first trying to wring it out.

Completely out of candy bars- something that rarely happened- Allie was forced to resort to foraging around in the ex-galley for breakfast. After eating something which advertised itself as bread (and magnificently failed to live up to that name) and starting on a bottle of beer that definitely was beer, it occured to Allie that there were other people on the ship, that they too might be up, and might need help fixing the crippled boat.

With that in mind, Allie began to wander around the Broken Dream with her bottle, looking for signs of life. In the primary cargo hold, she got distracted watching the astromech scuttle across the floor and zap at bugs. After all, bugs were life, right? After a while Allie realized that her breakfast beverage was almost gone, so she returned to the primary cargo hold to put the bottle with some other empties she had noticed. Tack popped up from behind the counter with food in one hand, and what appeared to be an engine piece part in the other.

Allie blinked. "Good morning."

Tack swallowed the food in his mouth. "Is it?"

"I don't know about either one. I'll try again. Good beer."

"Cheers," Tack said, as Allie raised the bottle before placing it in the box of empties, then he took another bite of his food.

"Is that what's going to get us back in hyperspace?" Allie asked nodding at the part which was now on the countertop.

JolaEdana
Jola watched the little droid roll away. He had sounded almost... indifferent. She shook her head, and double checked that the room looked as close as she could get it to the way it had been. She then got up quietly and went as quickly as she could back into the corridor, and back to her room.

After the door slid shut behind her, and the darkness in the room was complete, Jola realized how heavily she was breathing. She had no idea what the morning would bring.
If that little droid would tell Tack what she had seen.
If it was even really an astromech.
If Tack had a different sort of rendevous in mind.
If she was going to end up in Imperial interrogation after all.

She curled up on her mattress and stared at the door. Jola had made up her mind- the first time they hit ground, she was going to find a new ride....

Darth_Kuangduk
Wheezer watched as Jola slowly moved forward to replace the cover of the smuggling compartment. He'd decided that for some reason, she thought he was dangerous. While that was an amusing thought to an R2 armed only with an electronic zapper, it wasn't exactly what he'd been going for. With a resolute series of beeps and wheezes he communicated that he was definately not the ship's security droid, and had no intention of harming her.

Before she got the lid to the compartment replaced, Wheezer leaned forward and took a good look around the inside of it. Having the scene comitted to memory he trundled off in search of more bugs, electronic zapper extended and ready for action. He caught one running across the floor of the bay, and began stalking it, all thoughts of Jola and the smuggling compartment's contents forgotten. They would be reviewed and thought upon when boredom once again set in, or there were no more bugs in sight, or both.

JolaEdana
Jola dropped the ID tags and put her hands up, backing away from the small droid. She couldn't believe she hadn't heard him rolling in, and now she had no idea what she was going to do. He was beeping at her, and she had no idea what he was saying.

She was sure he was going to wake Tack up- and even if he didn't, he would probably tell him she had been in here. She realized it was probably over. She was a sitting duck, on a ship with at least one person who wanted her dead, stalled in space and no way to escape.

This just kept getting worse. Jola closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "Okay," she whispered to the R2 droid, "I'm going to put the cover back on, and I'm going to leave, and you never saw me here. Okay?"

She took a tentative step forward and waited to see what the droid would do.