Fistful of Swoon

[Naomi Carolina]

[member="Aela Talith"]

The teen couldn't help give one last glance over her shoulder and linger a second longer outside the basement entrance. Hazels swept back to the jedi master and she could see there was no arguing with this one. Didn't want to get a negative report back to command, either.

"Alright, alright. Yes ma'am," ducking her red-head, she crouched and entered the dark staircase that lead down and down. Hand held her comm-screen up high for light. It cast a small-radius. She saw the bottom and hopped off the stairs. Casting the light around, she saw that the room was stacked with crates of various droid parts and gizmos. There was also a door on the other side of the room.

Freckled-face turned anxiously toward the still-open doorway above.

Grits should be here by now.

"Aela," she whispered.

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Naomi Carolina"]

The droid was pushed through the opening first, and then Aela popped through a second later.

Her hand jutted backwards for just a moment and the force gripped the heavy durasteel door. It swung shut behind her, slamming closed. She turned in an instant and slashed her lighstsaber across the handle and lock mechanism. The metal was instantly heated and warped, burning and then fusing with the doorframe itself.

They didn't have a key, so that would at least keep them from being found for now. "There's a tunnel back there."

She pointed behind some of the crates and boxes.

"There's a light." Aela squinted slightly. "Come on, we can't wait."

This was a race.

 

[Naomi Carolina]

[member="Aela Talith"]

"Beep-beep whhhrrrrrrrist," Grits hollered. Naomi shook her head and began shoving and moving the boxes out of the way until the tunnel was cleared. "Looks like it'll take us deeper into the city. We might run into any rebels if there are any still alive - or others hiding out like us."

Grits rolled ahead, light shining from its dome as it lead the way. Naomi ducked in next, trusting the jedi woman to bring up the rear.

"We'll have to find a ship. Maybe get back to ours but we'll have to lay low for a day or so I'm guessing. Unless...you think you can take on that man by yourself?" In the dark, her skin tingled where that invisible force had pinned her to the wall. It made the redhead angry and sick.

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Naomi Carolina"]

She glanced at Naomi.

The idea had already crossed her mind in all honesty, but truth be told Aela had no idea whether or not that would actually work. Strength was always difficult with force users, mostly because sometimes even the weakest Padawan could overpower a master in the right circumstances. "No."

She shook her head.

"That's not the right play." Neither was a ship. "We need to get to a comm-relay."

Aela told the girl. "Contact the Alliance and then stay put. There's no telling what we'll find in orbit if we take a ship."

 

[Naomi Carolina]

[member="Aela Talith"]

"I bet I could fly us past anything," the redhead said rather boldly. The dark tunnels curved and twisted until they came to another door. She teen reached out over grits and yanked it open. It opened into a circular chamber that was clearly meant to be the underground sewer and water system for the city. Multiple chambers and tunnels split off in several directions, most filled with a few inches of running water.

Naomi squares down next to Grits, hazels scanning over the different routes. "See if you can pull up a map, Grits. Otherwise, we'll just have to guess."

Freckled-nose crinkled.

"Might be safe to spend the night down here if you can get over the smell?" She peered over her shoulder at the Jedi master.

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Naomi Carolina"]

She frowned.

The young woman had a point of course. In this city they weren't exactly on their home turf. There was no telling what or where anything was, and in truth...it might do them some good to wait out the time.

The Galactic Alliance would eventually grow suspicious and send a search party of sorts, that or they would try and at least find out what happened. Aela knew from experience however that the SIth was unlikely to give them any leeway, and that meant taking things a bit...by the horns.

"Not here." She told the girl. "You're right though."

Aela looked at Naomi. "It's a good idea to hide."

They would wait until sundown, then try to find a better place.

 

[Naomi Carolina]

[member="Aela Talith"]

Grits tooted and warbled. A 3D blue-tinted image filled up the darkened, underground space. An underground map of the passageways. It was in the archived files from the droid's research before they came to the planet.

Naomi gnawed on her lower lip and stood, index-finger jabbing into the image.

"Looks like getting into the middle of the city is our best chance. That's the business district. Should have access to comms from there. Not sure how easily we'll be able to sneak around. I bet they have our faces already plastered on screens and monitors."

It's what she would've done and seemed standard procedure for tracking down fugitives. Get all the eyes you can on-board.

"Sun's almost down. We'll need to go through that middle waterway. Might as well start trekking."

Hazels traveled to the tunnel jutting off the ledge just below them. Hopefully it wasn't too deep. The teen wasn't the best swimmer.

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Naomi Carolina"]

She frowned for a few moments. "Wait."

Aela still wasn't entirely sure that going anywhere was the best decision. She knew that they couldn't hide here, and she knew that waiting too long would just increase the chance of being found, but Naomi had a point in what she had said earlier.

They were in enemy territory. They simply had to be more careful, and that meant they had to scout ahead a bit before they could actually move anywhere. With a frown Aela slowly looked down and began to dig through her backpack. She thanked the force that she had the mental fortitude to have grabbed it before going out the window. After a few seconds of rummaging around Aela dug out a small glow-stick, cracking it within her palm. "Here."

She said as she tossed it into the ravine.

"We need to be careful." The glow-stick tumbled for a few minutes, then struck the ground. "Alright, go."

She spotted no movement, that was a good sign at least.

 

[Naomi Carolina]

[member="Aela Talith"]

Toes hung over the edge of the precipice, eyes following the glowstick as it traveled down the ravine, taken by a slow and lazy moving current. Looked like the water was about a foot or so deep. "Go on Grits," the teen whispered. The droid was water-protected and shouldn't have a problem. With a beep of protest it rolled over the edge.

There was a moment of silence quickly followed by a plopping splash.

It sent up a sassy warble.

"Yeah, yeah I know," the teen's lips twitched slightly into a smile. Looking over her shoulder at Aela, she nodded. "Here goes nothing." Crouching, she jumped lightly down, tipping her weight so she'd land in a crouch and not break anything. So she hoped. The drop wasn't too bad. Still, she felt a twinge in her muscles as she landed.

Water soaked up her pants and boots.

The glow-stick from early was still just a few feet in front of her BB8 unit, floating lazily further into the tunnel.

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Naomi Carolina"]

Aela followed after quickly, though she was far more graceful than the young woman.

Her landing caused a slight splash, but the odd waves of the force that proceeded her muffled her landing so that there was almost no noise even as the water went crashing against her clothes. A sigh escaped her as she took a whiff of the air, disgust floating on her lips. "Sewer."

Ugh.

"Lets head towards the South." She told the girl. "It's towards the city center."

That idea might have seemed foolish, perhaps even counter-productive, but ordinary logic stated that she and Naomi would try to get out of the city. That likely meant the Sith would be concentrating most of his guards out towards the perimeter of the city itself. If she and Naomi could get into the city center and stay there for a day or two they'd be able to eek out a living and hopefully buy enough time for the Galactic Alliance to figure out something was wrong.

It wasn't the best plan, but the only one they had.

 

[Naomi Carolina]

[member="Aela Talith"]

"Yeah," she agreed. Grits already warbled and splashed in that direction. The redhead had to suppress a gag in the back of her throat. Things weren't exactly high-tech where she'd grown up in that small mining town of Barkesh and she'd certainly been exposed to some rough living conditions but this was....gross.

"Should get access to a comms center too," nose dipped down into the fabric of her sleeved jacket. It helped a little. Boots sloshed ahead. "Ma'am. If you don't mind my asking. How'd you get with the Alliance anyway? How'd you find out you were a jedi. Did you just....always know?"

Again, the underage soldier didn't know much about forcers, so Aela's presence was an anomaly.

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Naomi Carolina"]

"Me?" She echoed as they waded through the sewer. "Not really, my parents knew though."

That was a long story and a half. "My parents are bother force users, so are my grandparents. It was kind of inevitable that I would be one too."

She had no idea if genetics played a part in deciding whether or not the force was given to someone, though Aela suspected that it did. There was of course no real way of telling, but her father had told her he never had any doubts once he'd seen the color of her eyes. What exactly that had meant Aela had never really figured out.

"I joined the New Jedi Order when it was founded though, Grand Marshall Rhen spoke to me." She explained, glancing back at Naomi.

"I ran a small..." She trailed off. "Group before that. helping slaves and such."

 

[Naomi Carolina]

[member="Aela Talith"]

She plodded forward in the semi-darkness, finding her mind wandering about her time in the darkened tunnels and mines. At least they hadn't smelled as bad as this. Hazels brightened. She'd heard of Omai Rhen from her father, when he'd served with the Alliance. Definitely more of a legend.

"Wow. You actually spoke to Omai Rhen! That's...amazing. My dad talked about him before he...died. He served with the Alliance his whole life. An engineer and a darned good one."

Freckled-face frowned as she became quiet. She really missed him.

"What was it like growing up in a family that used the force?"

She couldn't really imagine it.

"Like, for chores and stuff, did you just use the force to get things done?"

HA! That would've been the life.

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Naomi Carolina"]

"Sometimes." She said with a smile.

Aela saw this as an opportunity. Their situation was honestly pretty dismal, but if she could keep Naomi focused on a few more happy things rather than talking about the rather downturned situation they had stumbled into it would be a good thing. Usually someone like her would be prone to panicking, pushing herself to be scared.

This was something Aela could now stop.

"My mother didn't like it." Aela explained. "Said it created a bad work ethic."

The Jedi Master grinned slightly. "My father would encourage it though, thought of it as 'auxiliary' training to enhance our abilities."

Generally Aela had used the force sparingly in her childhood, at least around her parents. She had always been far more prone to practicing in secret when no one could watch.

 

[Naomi Carolina]

[member="Aela Talith"]

There was a shaft of light ahead. Looked like a maintenance ladder up to the street. They'd pass a few of these. The one they wanted, according to the map on the teen's astromech droid, way further ahead. Boots continued to slosh forward in the ankle-deep sewer.

Naomi peeked a glance at Aela, a twitch of a smile on her own lips. "Your parents sound alright. You're the first forcer I ever met. Grew up in a small canyon town in Barkesh. Didn't get much travelers."

She quieted, thinking of home and how much she missed it. Missed it before the First Order took over.

"Your folks still alive?"

Voice was quiet bit seemed loud in the empty tunnels.

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Naomi Carolina"]

"Yes." She answered quietly. "They're exploring the Rishi Maze."

That was the easiest way of putting it.

Her father and Mother had left simply because...well they could. All of the children were grown up and out of the house and it had been time for them to go and do something else with their lives. Aela of course didn't blame them, though she did miss them at times. "I'm sure you'll meet more now that you're a part of the Alliance."

She told the young woman.

"The New Jedi Order is everywhere." Aela glanced back. "Plus there's dozens of them in the SIS and the fighter corps."

 

[Naomi Carolina]

[member="Aela Talith"]

"Sounds pretty wild," she murmured, thinking of the maze she didn't know much about. SIS? So she knew about the secret organization. But did the jedi woman know about Wraith Squadron? The redhead was sworn to secrecy, even with other Alliance members, so she kept her trap shut. Or, she tried to.

"I reckon so. Still, don't think any of my squad members are. Specially not Asmus."

Wait, had she said too much? She was still fuzzy on all the rules. She definitely didn't want to be hanged or shot- or whatever they did.

Coming up to another ladder, Grits warbled. The teen paused and squinted up into the murky shaft of light beaming down on them. "Looks like this is our exit." Heat tilted back, coppery hair dripping over her shoulders and smoothing away from her freckled-face.

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Naomi Carolina"]

"Oh you know Asmus?" Aela had met the boy a few times, though one in particular stuck out.

The meeting hadn't really gone as planned. They had been sent towards an outpost in the reaches of Alliance space, Asmus had been her and Jamie's pilot. The outpost had been infected with some sort of Sith beasts, mutants that had scratched and clawed and...well all around tried their best to murder the three operatives. She frowned for a few moments, recalling the memory before finally glancing up at the Ladder they had just arrived at.

"So you're SIS." She wasn't an idiot. "Wraith Squadron?"

That was Asmus' squadron as far as she could recall.

Aela had been one of the founding members of the Strategic Intelligence Service, one of the few Jedi to join and one of the first agents to actually retire too. She had plenty of insider knowledge into the place, and plenty of stories to tell.

 

[Naomi Carolina]

[member="Aela Talith"]

"Yeah," she gulped, hoping she wasn't about to be court marshaled or anything. "Bossman-I mean Asmus is my XO and I typically fly on his wing. Sorry, I um, wasn't sure how much I could say about SIS. I've only been with the Alliance a few weeks. SIS recruited me my first day, actually."

Thoughts drifted to the terrifying escape from First Order and Barkesh to the Alliance ice-planet outpost. How she and her brothers were shot down and almost good ol' fashioned barbecued. And about all she'd lost - like her home and her other brother and their mother.

Grits bumped lightly into her leg, bringing the teen out of her heavy thoughts.

"It's funny how a squad can start to feel like your family so quickly," she mused quietly and then quarter-turned, putting one hand on the ladder to start the climb up.

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Naomi Carolina"]

"I was one of the founding members of the SIS." She explained to Naomi.

That would hopefully but the girls mind at ease a bit. Aela highly doubted that she would get into any trouble for telling Aela anything. The Jedi Master still had security clearance, mostly because her padawan was part of the SIS and the Alliance didn't really 'read you out'.

She was retired technically, but according to the SIS there was no such thing.

"You'll be fine." Aela said as she crawled after Naomi. "They probably sent you with me because you're SIS."

It made sense really.