First Reply Jedi + Nar Shaddaa = Trouble

[Gatz Derrevar]

Ship: The Red Night
Weapons: Lightsaber
Tag: Open to a Jedi

As Gatz threw himself from the railing, dark cloak trailing behind him, he wondered if any of his friends would care enough to arrange his funeral procession.

His boots hit the metal catwalk below with a thud, and he tucked into a roll to prevent his ankles from fracturing. Blaster fire pinged off of metal flooring behind him, and Gatz threw himself into a frenzied sprint to get himself out of its path. It would have been child's play to spin around and ignite his lightsaber, but the two thugs firing at him were only the precursor of the several dozen gunmen still in the old abandoned steel factory. And as talented as Gatz was with a lightsaber, fighting several dozen gunmen at range was still a bit of an ask.

He never should have come back to Nar Shaddaa. But a little girl had been kidnapped, right out of her house in his hometown of Theed. What kind of man would he have been if he'd just ignored that?

Not the kind he was trying to be.

Gatz tucked around a corner, and squeezed himself behind some old, rotten piping in Nar Shaddaa's industrial district. He didn't have time for a breather, but he'd been running nonstop, and if he didn't take a break now he might just pass out in the street. As he stood there, doubled over and panting, he checked his commlink again. He'd radioed for help several times—but both Naboo and Nar Shaddaa were independent worlds, and thus technically outside the jurisdiction of both the Galactic Alliance and Jedi Order.

He'd called for help anyways, to both the temple itself and his friends. So far, he hadn't heard anything back. But then, he had landed on his commlink after a particularly bad fall to avoid gunfire, so it might be a little more broken than it looked.

Either way, for the moment, he was on his own. And probably fucked.

 

[Jasper Kai'el]

Nar Shaddaa
Tags: Gatz Derrevar

​

Nar Shaddaa was a terrible place.

A terrible place that Jasper was very familiar with. He had a death wish as a padawan, and in his early days of trying to prove his worth as a Jedi the now councilmember chased down all sorts of criminals to this place. To that end the Sentinel of Harmony had his network of information, one that made it rather easy to pick up on radio chatter.

Gatz Derrevar, a newly returned Jedi who was completing their training. A call of distress was a call of distress regardless, and he happened to be in the same part of space. It didn't take long for Jasper to be on the trail of his call. All he had to do was pinpoint the location of the broadcast and skulk about the shadows until he found trouble. He was typically pretty good at that. Of course, he would find trouble in the form of a patrol of armed criminals in the depths of the industrial district. Perhaps ten? It wasn't too wild to assume that these were the ones who had Gatz pinned down. It only took the Sentinel of Harmony a moment to take in his options from the perch above the squad...

Jasper made use of his environment. His mechanical arm tore open an old pipe, releasing the gas within. It would billow out and cloud the corridor below, sending the men into a panic. The knight lept down in the chaos. Fortunately, as weak as he was in it, the force served as his eyes, and a blow from his mechanical arm was sure to knock out any organic cold. People weren't often resistant to durasteel. One by one, with haphazard blasterfire and alarmed shouting, the thugs would drop. After a moment, Jasper emerged from the gas.

"Still alive?"

He called out, perhaps in vain, to see if Gatz was still in one piece lurking around a corner somewhere. The hope was that he was, but you could never be sure in a place like this.

 

[Gatz Derrevar]

Ship: The Red Night
Weapons: Lightsaber
Tag: Jasper Kai'el

Rushed footsteps—many of them—told Gatz that the men were fast approaching him. They seemed to have split up into groups, though, probably trying to canvas the whole area for him as fast as they could. That was a blessing in disguise: several dozen men at range, he had no chance against. Ten men at close quarters? Gatz could handle that, easy, even if he wasn't looking forward to killing more.

But, as it turned out, he didn't have to.

One moment, his hand was on his lightsaber, waiting for the right moment to leap out and strike. The next, there was gas spraying everywhere, random blaster fire, and then a full-fledged Jedi Council member was walking out of the cloud as casually as if he'd just been on a stroll.

"Still alive?"

"Thanks to you. It's not every day the Sentinel himself comes to save your ass," Gatz extricated himself from behind the piping, and gave a deferential nod of his head, "thank you, Knight Kai'el. I'm sorry to pull you away from Coruscant—I know how important your work with the Shield Core is, especially during times of war."

Gatz really only knew Jasper Kai'el in passing, having been in the same room as the man a handful of times, but having never had personal interaction with him. Honestly Gatz knew his little brother better than him, and he'd really only met Jalen a handful of times as well. When Gatz thought about it, Braze was really the only person close to the Sentinel that he could say he "knew," having fed and helped the kid back to The Vonnuvi enclave after he'd gotten lost on the herdship.

Gatz heard more rushed footsteps, a level above them. Right. He didn't exactly have the time to reminisce.

"I'll fill you in on what's going on in a moment," Gatz promised, "but we need to get somewhere safe first. Or, well, safeish."

 

[Jasper Kai'el]

Nar Shaddaa
Tags: Gatz Derrevar

​

"I made the Shield Core to operate at full capacity, even in my absence," Jasper remarked. "This isn't beneath my attention."

He had a vested responsibility when it came to Coruscant, but that was not the only place in the galaxy. When the time came, Jasper would stand and fight for his home, but he would go where he was needed in the meantime. One life, a thousand lives... There was no depreciation in value of the work. There was value in protecting, and Jasper would be present to stand between life and death.

"I'll fill you in on what's going on in a moment," Gatz promised, "but we need to get somewhere safe first. Or, well, safeish."

"Right..." the knight muttered, tapping his foot to the ground. "Just... one moment..."

It had to be around here somewhere. The old industrial district had an old access tunnel beneath the roads. It was argued to be for maintaining the electrical grid, but in truth it was more for smuggling than anything else. The Hutts had their priorities when they constructed a city that covered an entire moon. Shallow tapping against the metal floor suddenly gave way to a hollow thunk. Jasper let out a soft exhale, steam beginning to spill out of his mechanical arm as the piston within flared to life.

"There you are."

Jasper threw his hand at the ground, puncturing the plate that seperated them from the access tunnel below. Slowly, like the lid of a food tin, the Sentinel of harmony peeled back the metal, warping it enough for them to slip through.

"Hop in," Jasper instructed. "I'll close it behind us."

 

[Gatz Derrevar]

Ship: The Red Night
Weapons: Lightsaber
Tag: Jasper Kai'el

Gatz felt some relief in knowing that he hadn't disrupted the Shield Core's workflow. He wouldn't have regretted it, of course, not when a little girl's life was on the line. But it was nice to know that Jasper's attention didn't come at a cost to someone else. Too often Gatz had distracted Jedi Council Members from their duties. Valery in particular, but Kahlil and Master Serys-Organa had diverted their attention to him too.

One of these days, he promised himself, he would be self-sufficient enough not to need their help. But today wasn't that day, and he wasn't going to turn away help when there was a life at stake.

Then, the Sentinel of Harmony started tapping at the ground, and suddenly Gatz wondered if he'd gotten stuck with the most insane of Council Members. Frankly, he had been certain that was Valery. Now though, he was starting to question—why was the man punching into the—

Oh. He was ripping open the top of an old smuggling tunnel. Gatz hadn't known about this specific one, but he was very familiar with Nar Shaddaa's "maintenance tunnels." At the senior Jedi's behest, Gatz hopped in, boots thumping against durasteel plating. He took a few steps forward to give Jasper some room to jump down behind him.

"Thank you," Gatz breathed out in relief, "not just for saving my skin, but for not killing those men. I know that's... probably a weird thing to thank you for, but I've worked with far too many Jedi who resort to lethal force far too quickly."

He finally hooked his lightsaber back onto his belt, almost joyful that he didn't have to use it.

"But I promised you an explanation. So, what would you prefer: the short version, or the long version?"

 

[Jasper Kai'el]

Nar Shaddaa
Tags: Gatz Derrevar

​

"Thank you," Gatz breathed out in relief, "not just for saving my skin, but for not killing those men. I know that's... probably a weird thing to thank you for, but I've worked with far too many Jedi who resort to lethal force far too quickly."

Jasper gave a faint frown.

"We all have a choice," the knight remarked. "I... had to make those decisions before. The war was not kind. I'd much rather leave lethal force as a last resort."

Taking his first life had changed the path of his entire life. It was ultimately a necessary action that had saved the lives of countless others, but as the war progressed Jasper had come to resent the role he had to play in conflict. The worst part, of course, was that Jasper was great at combat. It was the one skill that came naturally to him, even as he struggled with force abilities. It was for that reason that Jasper turned his focus to the Shield Core. He wanted to build up before he inevitably had to be drawn back in...

It was time for him to be drawn back in too soon.

The knight drew a vile from his pocket, handing it to Gatz. A Stimpack. Without relyable force healing abilities, Jasper never left home without a couple in the giant mechanic pockets of his flight suit.

"This should get you some extra miles," Jasper told him. "Give me all the details."

 

[Gatz Derrevar]

Ship: The Red Night
Weapons: Lightsaber
Tag: Jasper Kai'el

"I've made that choice more times than I care to admit," Gatz nodded solemnly, "but now, when I'm given the choice between doing what's right and what's easy, I try to make the choice that ends in the least amount of bloodshed. Life isn't something to just take. I just wish some of the members of our Order felt the same way."

Yet, here he was: a man who had taken more lives as a Jedi than he ever had as a criminal. The war with the Dark Empire was an abominable thing, and Gatz was beginning to feel like every assignment he went on took one more little piece of his soul from him. Maybe that was why he was so determined to rescue this little girl: because he'd finally be saving someone instead of killing soldiers or cultists.

His fellow Jedi passed him a stimpack, and Gatz took it from him wordlessly, nodding in thanks. He tucked it away in a pouch for now, anticipating that he'd need it later. But then it was time to give Jasper the explanation he'd promised.

"A little girl was abducted right out of her home back on Naboo," Gatz started, "turns out her white collar worker of a father needed a loan to purchase their house. He borrowed that money from some shady loan shark here on Nar Shaddaa. Well, that loan shark borrowed that money from a spice dealer, didn't pay it back and was swiftly murdered, and so now that spice dealer is trying to collect what he's owed from our friendly Nubian native."

Gatz leaned back against a wall, and sighed. He really hadn't missed this world, or this life.

"They broke into the house trying to abduct the father. He wasn't home, but his daughter and her nanny were. So they shot the nanny, and abducted the girl, and now she's stuck in that factory above us, which is full of armed thugs."

Gatz paused for a moment to catch a fresh breath, and then added softly:

"I know Naboo and Nar Shaddaa are independent worlds, and that we have no jurisdiction on them... but I can't ignore a little girl being kidnapped."

 

[Jasper Kai'el]

Nar Shaddaa
Tags: Gatz Derrevar

​

"Juristiction?" Jasper remarked with a frown. "We're Jedi, not government attack dogs. I appreciate that you're trying to keep the law in mind, but it doesn't work like that. Jedi are ultimately independent. The NJO has an alliance with the GA, but we are not bound to her."

They went where they had to and worked with the hands they were given. Jedi were not a centralized group, nor were they a subsect of any governing body. They were simply Jedi, and there was little more to it then that. With worlds like Naboo it was good to work within their planetary laws, but ultimately nothing prohibited them from providing aid. And Nar Shaddaa?

Jasper wouldn't be caught dead abiding by any of its laws.

"The factory is a trap," he noted, pulling up a datapad. "Well, not for us. I imagine that the gang that's decided to take up residence within hasn't thought much about what keeps the lights on. They're happy to tap into the grid of the moon and think little more of it. If we can find the main trunk line and sever the connection to the grid we can sweep them up while they're scrambling to turn the lights back on. As far as they'll know the problem is as simple as a power surge or old infastructure. We move in, pick off their ranks, secure the captive, and leave in the confusion."

 

[Gatz Derrevar]

Ship: The Red Night
Equipment: Outfit | Lightsaber
Tag: Jasper Kai'el

"That's not quite what I—" Gatz shook his head with a sigh, "nevermind. It's not important."

Jasper completely missed his point about jurisdiction, but Gatz didn't care enough to counterargue. He was trying to respect the laws of individual worlds, especially ones where they weren't considered peacekeepers, and at best were considered vigilantes. As someone who'd grown up on Naboo, and had spent over half a decade on Nar Shaddaa, he was very familiar with how both of those worlds perceived Jedi.

Naboo might welcome their help, but Nar Shaddaa "law enforcement" would hinder them if they pissed them off. He would prefer not to piss them off, and save them the trouble of dealing with thugs with badges.

"Yeah, I figured out the factory was a trap when I sprung it," Gatz snorted, "not my finest moment, admittedly. But your plan seems sound. Seeing as I botched this already, I'll follow your lead."

Truth was that following this Jedi Council member was the most efficient way to save that girl. Gatz felt some sort of friction between him and Jasper already—given that the man had rebuked every word he'd said to him thus far, Jasper either didn't seem to approve of him, or thought he was dumb. Both of which were very fair opinions to hold of a former smuggler.

Gatz chose not to take offence. There was a little girl's life at stake, and that was more important than his mounting frustration at how the Order's members tended to treat him.

 

[Jasper Kai'el]

Nar Shaddaa
Tags: Gatz Derrevar

​

"That's not quite what I—" Gatz shook his head with a sigh, "nevermind. It's not important."

"Huh? Oh," Jasper reacted. "Sorry. I may have misheard you. I'm... known to get tunnel vision. You don't mean GA juristiction, rather working within the laws of planets, yeah?"

Jasper locked onto their route and began walking.

"No need to be tight lipped," the knight remarked. "I'm human. I can't guarentee I won't say something stupid. It helps me a lot more to know I'm not hearing something right then to be left in the dark."

Was that too blunt? Jasper wasn't really sure. He was only a person, after all, one who was prone to not picking up on every little detail from time to time. It probably didn't help that he typically did these kinds of opperations alone. He didn't exactly have to have conversations with himself about logistics.

"Oh, right," he frowned. "I'm on the same page, I mean. It's best to opperate within the law where you can."

He wasn't going to here, of course. Partly because Nar Shaddaa had no laws in truth. Money and power ruled the streets. So long as you could weasel your way out of it, murder was just another passtime.

Not that he'd ever cater to the laws of a world that allowed slavery anyways.

Jasper pryed a pannel off of the wall, digging through the mess of wires in hopes of locating the one that connected the old factory to the city grid. There were a lot. He could cut his losses and take them all out, but more likely than not a larger blackout was sure to draw more eyes.

"You should take that stim pack," Jasper insisted. "I have more on me. Internal damage is hard to notice when your adrenaline is high."

 

[Gatz Derrevar]

Ship: The Red Night
Equipment: Outfit | Lightsaber
Tag: Jasper Kai'el

Jasper started speaking... and Gatz realized he had misread the situation. Dammit. He had to stop doing that—expecting Jedi to think little of him, just because he thought little of himself. Knight Kai'el didn't even know him, and yet had flown all the way out here to bail his ass out. And yeah, that was both of their jobs, but it still said something that the man had done it with grace.

"Sorry."

"Nah, don't worry about it," Gatz chuckled, mostly at his own expense, "it was I who misunderstood. Some Jedi think little of what I have to say, and my perspective on things. I've gotten so used to being misunderstood that I've started expecting it, and I've stopped trying to explain myself... And that's my failing."

Gatz shook his head. Would he ever be able to dig himself out of the hole that was his own mind? He hoped so.

"What I really meant was: if a world doesn't recognize me as a peacekeeper—as Nar Shaddaa surely doesn't—that's fine, and I'll respect that. But if a little girl has been kidnapped, and the local laws stop me from saving her... I'm sorry, but I can't abide by those laws, even if it causes a diplomatic hiccup. I care more about one life than I do about playing nice."

Gatz pulled the the stimpack out, as the Sentinel bid, and with a shrug pressed the needle into his arm. The relief was instant. He hadn't been shot or stabbed, but he'd taken a few good tumbles on his way out the door, and the stimpack definitely took the edge off of the pain.

"I guess... I was trying to apologize for making trouble, in an odd way. I don't regret trying to save a child, but a proper Knight would have handled this mess better than I have."

 

[Jasper Kai'el]

Nar Shaddaa
Tags: Gatz Derrevar

​

"Sometimes for the greater good, laws need to be subverted," Jasper stated with a shrug. "Lives come first. We suffer the consequences of our actions later."

He gave a shrug, continuing to skim through the wires for the right one. It was a hard decision to make for many. Local laws existed for a reason, and it was better to work with a planet when you respected their customs. But sometimes these things were downright cruel. Zygerria, Nar Shaddaa, Kessel... How was one supposed to work within the scope of rules that existed only to exploit their people? There was no way around it. To save lives, laws had to be disregarded sometimes.

"I wouldn't stress for Nar Shaddaa," he insisted. "The only law that runs this place is money. They'd sooner sell people into slavery then keep the peace. For other planets... that's a balance we all have to figure out for ourselves. It's just a matter of the hand we're dealt... Oh."

Jasper ripped a wire out of the wall. In an instant the lights went dark. The knight drew a flashlight, illuminating the tunnel and giving a faint grin.

"Only took ten minutes. Power grid was designed by a spice addict."

 

[Gatz Derrevar]

Ship: The Red Night
Equipment: Outfit | Lightsaber
Tag: Jasper Kai'el

"The only law that runs this place is money. "

"Yeah, I couldn't care less if I'm obeying the Hutts' rules or not," Gatz agreed, "I just don't want to catch their attention. Then we'd have to deal with thugs, and thugs with badges."

Knight Kai'el ripped a wire out of the wall, and they were plunged into darkness. Gatz blinked, but he really wasn't all that surprised. Nar Shaddaa was one city built on top of another city, built on top of another city, and so on. It wasn't exactly designed by masterwork city architects. He was impressed that Jasper had known to look here to find the junction box, and that he'd known the tunnel was here at all, but the shoddy electrician work was par for the course.

"This whole damn world was built off of—and runs off of—spice, Also slaves." Gatz agreed with a sigh, "I wish there was a way to level it to the ground, without hurting people and robbing them of their homes. The galaxy would be better off without this cesspool."

Gatz followed Jasper, not just because he'd settled into following a more experienced Knight, but because the man had a flashlight. He supposed his lightsaber could also work as a light source, but this tunnel was just a little cramped for that to be a comfortable option.

"You seem pretty knowledgeable about Nar Shaddaa," Gatz mentioned, just for some small talk, "you even know where its maintenance tunnels are. If you don't mind me asking... how is that?"

 

[Jasper Kai'el]

Nar Shaddaa
Tags: Gatz Derrevar

​

"You seem pretty knowledgeable about Nar Shaddaa," Gatz mentioned, just for some small talk, "you even know where its maintenance tunnels are. If you don't mind me asking... how is that?"

"Questionable life choices," Jasper stated rather bluntly. "A younger me thought he could take on the galaxy. That included the cartels. You learn a thing or two when you get in over your head."

Jasper pulled up the map of the factory above.

"Right... assumption can be made that prisoner holding is centralized... entrances are bottom and top levels..." he muttered to himself. "Middle floor has a storage room towards the center... That could be a potential holding location..."

The knight tilted his head, glancing back to Gatz. He had been on this case for a while, perhaps it was best to see what he knew about their opperation. After all, Jasper only knew what he did from existing city data. There was likely a great deal of scouting that he had done previously to prepare for an infiltration.

"How close have you been watching these guys?" the knight asked. "Anything you could gleen? Patrol patterns, guard postings..."

 

[Gatz Derrevar]

Ship: The Red Night
Equipment: Outfit | Lightsaber
Tag: Jasper Kai'el

"Questionable life choices,"

"Same," Gatz admitted, "but yours sound much more altruistic than mine."

There was a reason Gatz hated being on this world. He felt like he was being ripped apart at all times—his past crashing into his present, confusing him and riling up a mix of emotions. Was he the smuggler, selfish with only one goal in mind? Or was he the Jedi, putting his very life on the line for the sake of one little girl?

Gatz would much rather be the latter, but when he was here, he couldn't help but remember all the times he'd been the former.

Jasper then asked if he'd observed anything about these thugs, and Gatz had a reason to distract his brain from the phantoms of his past.

"I counted two dozen guards total, but that was from peering through windows," Gatz started. "So I wouldn't expect that number to be perfectly accurate. Bottom level is where they seemed to congregate the most—which makes sense because that's where the bulk of their product is. Middle floor is a lot of corridors and medium sized room. I didn't get a good look inside of them, but I believe they keep munitions there. I only saw a handful of guards, always in pairs of two."

Gatz furrowed his brow, trying to think harder. He'd gotten a good look at things, but the adrenaline of running away and getting shot at had obscured a few of those memories.

"Now that I think about it, I'm sure that I saw two guards posted in front of a specific door on the middle floor. Probably your storage room. Maybe she's in there?" Gatz summed up, "but I never made it to the top floor, unfortunately. I got caught trying to sneak in through a window up there."