Break the Chains

[Adder]

Their return to the blonde's ship was a brisk one, as neither of them wanted to waste any more time. With every minute that passed, those slaves were closer to death — or worse — and having seen her fair share of how slavers treated their 'goods', the very thought made Adder shudder. There had been a number of criminal cartels and syndicates vying for power and territory down in the underbelly of Coruscant while the Republic still had control over the planet-city, and nothing pretty had ever come out of those.

Despite all the things that the One Sith did wrong, she suspected that the one thing that had improved since their take over was the crime rate. She couldn't imagine the totalitarian regime would allow for something as unpredictable as criminals running free under its very nose. Silver lining, right?

Those thoughts were all banished as she climbed onto the small freighter that the blonde had apparently arrived in, nearly throwing herself into the pilot's seat as she scrambled to familiarize herself with the controls. Most ships of a similar class didn't differ much, and this time proved no different; Adder was quick to get the vessel's engines up and running while she checked the rest of the equipment she was going to be flying with.

"Do you have any idea what we're going up against?" she called out to the non-Jedi, wherever she was, hoping to better prepare herself for the situation. If there was one thing she hated, it was going in blind, and considering the rust can she was about to fly into the jaws of the enemy, Adder would do her damned best to be ready.

As ready as she could be, anyway.

She rubbed her eyes as she let out a few deep breaths, mentally conditioning herself for the fast-paced ordeal that would await her once they got there. Within moments, they were taking off, and the redhead did her best to ignore the unconvicing rattling of the ship.

Next stop; slaver HQ.


[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Adder"]

She frowned slightly, looking around at the consoles within the cockpit.

Aela was weary of touching anything, weary of even looking at certain screens too much. It was an interesting fear that had been instilled within her by her father, but one that was probably more than warranted. He had told her that piloting for her was an impossibility, and that trying would likely lead to an unpleasant ache in her bones. Micah had tried several times as a kid, and always his attempts had ended in one crash or another.

To their knowledge Kaili was the only one capable of piloting, something that Aeal was a tad jealous of.

Her frown disappeared as the woman spoke to her, orange eyes fixing on the strange redhead for a moment. There was a hint of reservation still. They had long since crossed the path of trust of course, but Aela was still weary. It was within her nature, though Adder had proven herself more than useful in their pursuit of the slaver gang. Perhaps that warranted some consideration.

"Not much." Aela admitted. "They operate out of a single station, usually hitting traditional slaver worlds. Ryloth, Wild Space, some core worlds that lost their governments during the Netherworld."

Chaos had been good for business apparently.

 

[Adder]

A brief glance to her right revealed an apprehensive blonde lingering a few steps back, but Adder had no time to analyze the oddly constipated expression on her face; every second meant a world of difference to the people the slavers had captured, and she'd be damned if she let them get away with it.

The elongated streaks of stars breezed past the viewport as they jumped to hyperspace, using the coordinates the rodian had given up under duress. With quick movements — almost too quick for a human — Adder made small adjustments to their course through the navicomputer, carefully keeping an eye out for anything unusual.

Her fingers faltered above the screen for a moment as the non-Jedi replied. The redhead let out a small huff of frustration and straightened her posture as she returned her full attention to piloting.

"We have no idea what defenses they have, then," Adder spoke briskly after a few seconds of deliberation. She bit back a comment that might come across as rude at the last moment, frowning before she leveled the other woman with a serious gaze.

"Go man the turret, and be ready to provide cover fire in…" she shot a sideways look at the display, "three minutes."

You better aim as well as you fight, or we're both dead.


[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Adder"]

For a moment she eyed the woman, then she quickly hopped out of her chair and pulled herself back through the tunnels of the ship.

Gun Turrets weren't effected by the curse, she wouldn't be crashing this ship by shooting down a few others, that was for sure. Quickly she moved through the vessel, cutting to the right and slipping herself down one of the ladders to reach the control seat of one of the turrets. A few switches were flipped, a headset would be pulled over her bright blonde hair, and Aela pressed her fingers around the turret controls.

"Ready." Her voice echoed slightly through the rickety comm system.

A few moments went by of nothing, and then suddenly blips began to appear on her radar.

At first it was one, then two, then three, the numbers began to increase again and again until six bright red dots appeared on her screen. Aela's teeth sunk into her lip, her head shaking slightly as her fingers tightened around the controls. She hopped that the woman in the cockpit was a good pilot, or they were going to be scrap metal.

 

[Adder]

Not a moment after the blonde confirmed her position over the comm, the freighter dropped out of hyperspace next to the station, and there was no time to talk anymore.

Her face became a mask of fixated concentration, her knuckles nearly white from the force with which she was gripping the controls of the rust bucket they were flying in. The fact that it was all that kept alive did nothing to assuage her nerves as she engaged in evasive maneuvers. Blaster fire breezed past the vessel with a jarring lack of sound, as if though death ought to carry some roar to it to make it legitimate.

There was no time to think on that, not now.

She pulled them to the side into a barrel roll, hoping beyond hope that the ship wouldn't fall apart halfway through. Another volley of shots sped towards her from the enemy ships, and Adder let out a string of colorful profanity as she dropped in altitude in an effort to avoid them, but she was a few seconds too late.

The craft shook as laser bolts found its mark, eating away at the cheap layer of shielding keeping them safe at the moment. It was doubtful it could withstand another hit like that, but they were still in the open, and as far as eye could see — and Adder had some damn good eyes — there was no cover to hide behind.

Something egged her to swivel the ship to the left, however, and sure enough, there it was; a small comm tower of some kind, jutting out of the main bulk of the space station just far enough that they could reach it in time.

The redhead cranked the engines to maximum and made a beeline for the beacon, relying on the blonde to keep their pursuers at bay with return fire.


[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Adder"]

She didn't pay much attention to how Adder flew the ship, what direction, where they were going, or what the redhead was doing with the vessel. None of that really mattered to her, none of it was relevant to the task that was set before her. She had to take down the fighters getting closer to them, the ones that would eek and edge towards their small vessel. The ones that would see them dead.

Aela shifted, her grip tightening.

It became a blur after she fired the first shot. She had never been the greatest at this sort of thing, her own strengths lay in areas of a direct fight, of one on one combat on the ground. Flying through space an all that came with it was foreign to her, something that she had little experience with or knowledge about.

It had always been Kaili's thing.

So instead of acting consciously, instead of moving with forethought and plot, she simply allowed the force to take her.

She heard the sounds of laser fire, felt the vibrations of the ship, heard the echoes of the force as a life winked out of existence. One by one the fighters would be destroyed, one by one they crashed or simply exploded as a dash of laser fire would erupt their vessel. Almost methodically they went, one by one.

 

[Adder]

Her breaths were short, her heart pounding against her ribs with a wild staccato, but somehow, they made it to the comm tower without going up in a ball of fire. Would've been a pretty sad end, to die in some unmarked corner of the Galaxy while trying to rescue innocents, but it was like it always went with their types. Doomed freedom fighters, the lot of them.

Not that Adder had time to think about how her life might end, if only because she was teetering that very line in that moment. The second she thought about dying, she was already dead.

No; the redhead was blasting those controls for all they had, swerving among the antennae sticking out of the tower at various angles as she tried to shake the enemy ships tailing them, risking everything each time she subjected the freighter to taxing maneuvers in order to dodge another spray of blaster bolts or a couple of missiles.

After a few minutes of the fast-paced flight drills around the metal structure, the frequency and force of the attacks began to fade significantly, however, and a few moments later, Adder realized that the fighters had all been reduced to scrap metal and smoke by the blonde at the turret.

A releived sigh tore from her lungs as she guided the vessel back into cover behind the tower for a moment of repreive, nearly collapsing against the backrest as she let go of the controls with slightly shaking hands.

"Good job back there," she spoke after a few seconds of deep, thankful breaths. While the immediate danger was gone, the two of them still had to figure out a point of entry and then fight to survive the whole damn station.

Story of my karking life.

"Any ideas?"


[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Adder"]

Her eyes closed for a moment, her body relaxed, she forced herself to be calm. Aela could feel the force ebb from her bones, the odd flow of her movements becoming more harsh and predictable, her hands aching from the grip that she had held on the controls.

She felt tired, but she knew things had just begun.

"Take us in." Aela said quietly as her eyes folded open again. "Those fighters came from somewhere."

Easier said than done, but that was Aela. They would have to find the hangar, and from there they would do the rest. Eventually the Rest of the Covenant would appear. They didn't need this vessel for the return flight, if they had to break a wing...or anything else, then it would be well worth the sacrifice to save those Twi'lek's. "Do what you have to do."

Her voice was stern, said as she pulled the headset from her ears and crawled up the turret ladder.

Aela ahd every confidence that Adder would take them into the Station, once they were inside it would be up to her to get them a foothold within the hangar bay. From there she hoped that they would be able to push further into the station itself.

 

[Adder]

She gave a curt nod and flicked a few switches to better help her navigate towards the hangar whence the fighters had emerged, realizing only after a few seconds that the blonde couldn't see her at all.

"Dumbass," Adder growled at herself and resisted the urge to smack her sweat-slicked forehead. "Yeah, sorry. I'm here… anyway, keep an eye out for mounted defenses or something. They could be regrouping," she spoke up as she hailed the lightsaber girl over the comm system.

After that, a tense silence set over the ship again, and it was all she could do to ignore the discouraging creaks and rattles sounding down the corridors of the rackety vessel every few seconds or so. The redhead clenched her teeth instead, her face setting into a mask of rapt attention as she brought them closer to the impassive gunmetal walls of the station.

It was all rather uncannily like one of those seemingly unending speeder chases in the underworld of Coruscant, where she'd had to hunt down many a thieving bastard through the narrow bridges and makeshift passages the underbelly was littered with. Except that this time, the likelihood of her demise was at least a few times higher, what with the chitty equipment she was flying. At least back then, she had her police speeder; it wasn't a podracer, sure, but at least it could handle a barrel roll or two without ominous noises that heralded a hull collapse in the near future.

If she had any say in it — provided they were even still alive then — Adder would grab one of those fighters instead.

Still, it was what it was at the moment, and if she'd managed to survive the first assault, she'd be damned if she didn't land them safely in that hangar. Sure enough, after a few minutes of careful searching, the entrance finally revealed itself, tucked away between two… turrets.

With a loud curse, Adder pulled them back to safety, but no fire ever came.

She spent a few breathless moments waiting, but when it became apparent that the defenses were either inactive or unmanned, the redhead took them in with a decisive turn, landing the craft between two grounded fighters in a single smooth maneuver.

Action time.


[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Adder"]

She didn't feel Adder's tension, she didn't realize the woman's nerves were at an edge.

To her this was simply another day, this was simply another thing that she had to do. Danger was her friend, it was her companion. Throughout her entire life, ever since Geonosis, Aela had known that this was what her life would be. A myriad of combat, tense moments, and life threatening decisions that could save hundreds of people, or doom them to chaos. It was what she had been preparing for since she was six years old, and now those moments passed her by like a regular morning.

So when she felt the ship finally land, when the creak of landing gear rang out and the hull let out its final rattle, Aela knew it was time to move.

She didn't go through the ramp, no, that would have been foolish.

As pirates, mercenaries, and slavers began to gather around the exit hatch of the shuttle, as they pointed their blasters and readied themselves for a fight, Aela did the unexpected. At the top of the shuttle a bright pink beam of plasma suddenly burst through the outer hull. A quick slice and a single flurry of the blade and a hole was cut into the top of the ship, a press of the force sending the newly forged disc into the air. From the newly carved exit came Aela.

She bounded onto the top of the ship, blurring as she moved and dashed onto the hangar floor and into the band of mercenaries.

 

[Adder]

Adder shot up from her seat the moment they touched down, grabbing her trusty Westar from its holster as she ran the length of the corridor that separated the cockpit from the main room. Even before she had to ask, the blonde was already busy climbing onto the exposed piping — the panels must have fallen off during one of the wilder maneuvers she'd pulled back there — and carving an emergency exit through the ceiling.

As the girl disappeared through the hole and announced her presence with a surprise attack to the mercs outside, the redhead followed in her tracks. Rahter than flinging herself into the thick of combat, however, the ex-cop dropped on her stomach instead, pressing herself nearly flat to the exterior of the banged up ship as she took careful aim.

As much as she enjoyed flying, this was something else entirely. Her face split into a thrilled smile as she rained shots on the confused thugs down below, destroying knee after knee with ease as the unfortunate souls were forced to divide their attention between a deadshot above and a lightsaber dervish in their midst.

She didn't envy them one bit, but that was karma for you. For every bad person who got away with their crimes, there were a few like these, who were dealt justice in full, meted out by the fair few in the Galaxy who had the guts for this kind of thing.


[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Adder"]

Aela didn't go for kills, she never did.

Uncle Cameron had always told her it was easier.

A lightsaber is a weapon meant for killing, don't ignite it unless someone is intended to die.

She remembered his words well, and she had remembered her aunts objection to those very words. Aela could see the logic in them, lightsabers were probably the deadliest weapon a person could wield. Yet she wasn't willing to kill, not on a whim, not without good reason. These men, though they likely deserved it, would not die. Instead they would lose the parts of themselves they needed the most.

Aela dashed to the first mercenary, her blade slicing through his arm and severing it at the elbow in one clean sweep. The next would lose his leg, and the third would receive a skull cracking blow from the hilt of her lightsaber into his face.

She moved through the crowd of wannabe soldiers as fast as she could. She became a blur, a haze. Her movements were liquid, each time she dashed it wasn't out of attack, but instead defense and counter. It was an odd assortment of reactionary moves that stemmed from the mercenaries own advancements. They would step forward, and she would step into them, they would step back, and Aela would flow to the side. She moved like a river, flowing through the mercenaries with ruthless efficiency.

 

[Adder]

She'd never actually had a good chance to observe how a Jedi fought — or whatever order the lightsaber lady belonged to — mostly because she'd been lucky enough to pack her bags and leave Coruscant before its new Sith overlords had taken over. She still remembered that dreadful day all those years ago, sitting in a dingy bar somewhere on Zeltros, watching with the rest of the patrons as grainy, scrambled footage of the battle was being transmitted to every screen in the Galaxy.

She remembered the hollow dread in the pit of her stomach, the abject horror reflected in the eyes of every each one of the citizens surrounding her. It was the only time she'd seen a Jedi fight, and it hadn't been pretty. The low quality of the video spared them the gory details, but she'd seen enough during her tenure as a cop in the seedy underbelly of that very planet that her mind jumped at the opportunity to fill in the blankts all too readily.

It had been a karking massacre.

What she was looking at now, however, was a far cry from the blurry memories called before her inner eye. The blonde fought with zeal and determination, but the carnage was kept to a minimum, unlike with the Sith, who seemed to one-up each other in the scales of their bloodbaths.

No, Adder and Aela weren't maniacs with a penchant for murder, and so the thugs ended up merely incapacitated and knocked out, but not dead. Never dead.

Once the last slaver hit the floor groaning and clutching his wasted knee, the redhead climbed down the hull with a few quick motions, relying on the superior strength of her right arm as she kept her Westar ready in the grasp of her left. With a soft thud, her feet hit the metal floor of the hangar, and she approached the taller woman, carefully stepping over the mostly immobile bodies of the criminals they'd just felled.

"Which way?" she inquired simply, hoping that her space magic skills would come handy in locating the slaves in the intimidating expanse of the space station.


[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Adder"]

She breathed.

Her chest rose and fell, and the tension slowly drained out of her body. The drone of her lightsaber seemed to ring in her ear, carrying over and over again in a steady song. It was calming almost, a constant white noise that she could focus on when everything was done. It was reliable, sticking to her as the force slowly drained from her muscles, only broken when Adder spoke to her.

Aela's eyes snapped towards the redhead, not registering what the woman had said for a moment. She frowned slightly, then shifted. Her gaze moved towards the hangar bay door, then back towards the men on the floor. Her eyes closed and the force began to stretch out from her. It probed and poked, trailing through the station. Aela wasn't the best sensory Jedi, yet the fear, the anger, the indignation and pure horror produced by the slaves held aboard the station was almost palpable.

It was a beacon, one that Aela could follow. "This way."

The young woman broke off into a sprint.

 

[Adder]

This way.

Good enough for her.

Adder followed without objection, Westar still in hand as she tried and failed to keep up with the Force-augmented speed of her companion. What she could do, however, was keep a closer eye on her surroundings as she sped past them, mechanical vision registering various entrances and side corridors as they passed them by.

She hoped to whatever or whoever was up there that nobody sprang out in their wake, or they were going to become a pair of smoldering corpses in very short order. What little armor Adder wore these days offered only a modicum of protection, and even than mostly to center mass. Granted, that's where most of the shots hit when your opponent was a run-of-the-mill slaver, but once in a while, you'd encounter a thug that was far more skilled with a blaster. It was then when you wished you'd packed your CSO riot armor when you were leaving.

And then the redhead was abruptly pulled from her thoughts when she rounded a corner, fully expecting another long corridor and meeting the blonde's back instead, head on. Great job, Adder, she managed to think even as she caught herself against the wall right before they'd both tumble to the floor.

Brilliant. "Sorry!" she rushed to apologize and quickly turned to see what had caused the lightsaber girl to stop in the first place, eager to hide her embarrassment.

"Right, blast doors. The lock looks simple enough," she muttered, more to herself than the other woman, as if she could drown out the heat in her cheeks with talking. She approached the panel in question and cranked her neck, then promptly got to work before the situation could get any worse.


[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Adder"]

She didn't say anything.

Her lips simply thinned and the blade of her lightsaber almost immediately winked out of life to stop from stabbing the woman in the chest. Annoyance carried through her, though with a shake of her head she immediately dispelled the emotion and began to focus again, there was no time for distractions. She frowned slightly, eyes following Adder as the woman moved towards the blast door control.

Half of her was focused on the idea of simply cutting through the doors, the other still tried to feel the focus of misery two decks below them,

She could feel the slaves, sense them, their loss of hope, their ragged conditions. It was almost palpable to her, painful. All other focus of life seemed blotted out, burned. even Adder's emotions, the embarrassment the woman felt, was completely blurred to Aela. She could sense nothing but the misery of the half dead twi'leks.

It made her skin crawl.

"Hurry." Aela said quietly, eager to save them.

 

[Adder]

As always, her instincts proved reliable just as the lock proved to be easy enough, and after a few moments of careful fiddling, the pad switched from red to green with a soft click. The doors slid open soon after, and Adder was on the unprepared guard within the blink of an eye.

She laid him down on the floor once she'd choked the consciousness out of him, and then they were off again. Adder was content to follow the blonde — partially so she wouldn't have to look at her face — still watching their six as they drew closer and closer to where they were holding the twi'leks. No longer did she need the lightsaber girl to lead her, for the weeping, screams, and crack of the whip soon became loud enough that even the mortal ear could detect them.

The sounds ran an unpleasant shiver down her spine, and her finger inched dangerously close to the trigger as the two of them rounded the last corner. The urge to smear the slavers' brains across the hold was a strong one, a sudden one, and the redhead was mortified to catch herself gnashing her teeth like some kind of animal.

Kill them, and you are no better, she reminded herself as she set her jaw and dropped down into a near-crouch, her steps growing quiet.

The thugs ahead were drunk already, if the empty bottles at their feet were any indication, and had sought to amuse themselves with a few of the abducted twi'leks that were still in good enough shape to stand. Their raucuous laughter easily drowned out whatever sound they might make upon their approach, and Adder was dead-set on exploiting the advantage of stealth granted them.

Green eyes darted about the room, glinting victoriously when she spied a bared panel to her right with a few shredded wires hanging out. Combined with the spilled liquor at the slavers' feet, the current could easily put them to sleep. The plan was a sound one, if it weren't for the fact that one of the men had just pulled a twi'lek into his lap.

Adder bit back a curse and turned to face the blonde, willing her to somehow warn the girl as she worked on the exposed circuitry.


[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Adder"]

There was no warning that passed from Aela's lips, nor was there one of thought. Instead she did something drastic, slightly violent, and from anyone elses perspective, foolish.

"Do it." Aela simply said to Adder before she took three steps forward.

Her arm shot up, her grasp suddenly pulling at the girl. Invisible chains of the force would wrap around the twi'lek, linking about her in a gentle embrace, then Aela wrenched her arm back as hard as she could. The full effect of the force suddenly pulled on the girl, her face changing from a look of fear, into one of pure and utter panic. She soared through the air, the slaver had had held her letting out a startling cry as she was wrenched from his grasp.

At the same time Aela dashed forward, bounding another step before jumping into the air and catching the girl mid flight.

The two of them slammed into the ground, Aela taking the brunt of the fall before suddenly turning her back to the slavers and focusing on the force. Half an opaque bubble suddenly formed before the two women, reaching over Aela and the slave girl in near an instant, a protective shield.

 

[Adder]

Her heart skipped a beat as she saw the blonde lunge at the thugs out of the corner of her eye, but she knew that every fraction of a second was important now. So she forced her gaze back to the wiring in her grasp, hoping that something didn't go horribly wrong, or worse; that it wasn't her who karked up, missed that window of opportunity, and ended up being responsible for the Jedi's death.

Well, on the bright side, if the lightsaber girl died, Adder wouldn't live to regret her mistake very long.

No time to think about any of that, though. Her fingers fumbled with the circuitry even as shouts and the sound of metal against metal resonated ahead, but with determination straight from hell, the woman kept her gaze glued to the panel, resolved to do her part of go out trying. At least she'd know she'd done her karking best.

Finally, the damn thing came lose, and the redhead all but threw herself forward and to the side, hoping beyond hope that she'd timed it well enough.

A bright flash followed on her heels, and Adder watched from her spot on the floor — in an almost comically upturned view — how the thugs jerked uncontrollably as the current wrought havoc with their bodies, muscles spasming even as they collapsed.

Adder let out a shuddering breath and rolled onto her back, nearly crying from relief. They were alive.

They were karking alive.


[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Adder"]

She had expected an explosion, a shockwave, something that would have killed them. Yet a pleasant surprise drifted over her as she slowly stood from her place, the Twi'lek girl shaking and sputtering about something as Aela slowly let her go. The woman looked terrified, her eyes wide and her lekku curled. The Jedi Master placed a cold hand on her shoulder, catching her attention. For a moment she simply stared at Aels, her eyes wandering over the Jedi Master before they finally came into focus.

"It's alright." Aela said to the girl as her hand gently squeezed the woman's shoulder. "We're friends, here to help you and your people. Please don't worry, we came here for you."

The horror in the girls eyes denoted the fact that she didn't quite believe her, but that didn't matter. "Go to your people, talk to them and make sure that they're alright. We'll be along shortly."

The woman nodded to Aela, clearly still not quite sure about this whole thing, but wanting to trust the strange Jedi woman with an air of good about her. She slowly began to wander away, her head turning back a few times before she took off in a half run towards the slave cages that were located nearby. Aela simply turned, rushing over towards Adder almost as fast as she had moved to catch the girl in mid air. She stopped above the former officer, her braid swiveling town to tickled Adder's nose.

"Are you alright?" The question came with genuine concern.