Private Learning to wind one's neck in

[Makko Vyres]

"Not really. I've...well...I know a little about troubled kids and what they do. Good chance he might be hiding out at a friend's house or worst case a local gang might be working him."

He sighed. That last prospect struck a personal nerve.

He knew the promises that could tempt someone who had very little else in their life, very little love.

"Hey!" came a sharp hiss from behind them.

"Don't look at me," it added as Makko started to turn. "For you own good, just leave. Just leave. It's not safe."

A young girl, barely twelve then pushed past them and hurried towards the market.

 

[Colette]

Makko Vyres

Yeah, no, that wasn't how Colette rolled. Makko might have turned back when told to, but that was to play into this stranger's hand. If the idea was that it wasn't safe for them, then they were already in a situation where their mere presence seemed to intimidate or even scare people.

She turned around to look at the figure who seemed almost scared at how brazenly she absolutely refused to follow his instruction. She gave him a once-over. He had red hair and surprisingly pale skin for a native. Not so much that he stood out, but it was most certainly noticeable. His clothing spoke of someone trying to fit in, but who was an outsider still.

"No." Colette said quite simply and gently put her hand on his shoulder. "Tell us why we should leave, why you decided to speak to us."

 

[Makko Vyres]

The boys eyes widened in fear.

"Look, we won't..." Makko started to say. A wave of that fear rippled through the Force. Particularly sensitive to feelings, Makko picked up on the character of that fear.

"...he's not afraid of us. Are you?"

A shake of his head. The boy was looking around them for something. He pulled gently against Colette's hand.

"Pharl, is it?" Makko asked. "We can keep you safe."

"No. You can't."

He believed those words, Makko realised.

 

[Colette]

Makko Vyres

That hand slipped off the kid's shoulder as Makko pulled at her arm. Everything about this mission had been straightforward, and it was one of the reasons that Colette had chosen to go along with it given recent events. She wasn't a diplomat, she was a fighter, and to put her in this role of seeming subterfuge and finesse was just not playing to her strengths.

Intel dropped the ball, perhaps. Deep breath in, long sigh out. She let Makko handle the softer part of the op. It was better that way. No sense crying over what should have been, all she could do was focus on what was going to be.

She looked at Makko and struggled to find the words before she turned back to Pharl.

"If we can't, then no-one can. So either you can let help us try to help you, or you can give up." She tried to make that seem less like a threat. "We want to help you, but you need to accept our help for that to happen."

"Tell us what is going on, right now, please."

 

[Makko Vyres]

The child considered this for just a fraction of a second. Whatever promises Colette or Makko could make, they paled in comparison to whatever frightened him.

"Leave me alone," the boy hissed.

"Hee-eelp!" he then cried out drawing the attention of those nearby.

Makko felt a flash of panic for the eyes on them. He gave a slight shake of his head towards Colette.

This was familiar. He had a sense of what was going on.

 

[Colette]

Makko Vyres

"Great." Colette mumbled as she began to look around her at the crowd that all seemed to look at her and Makko, not so much phased by the fact that they were looking but that the kid had seen it fit to run away afterward. She let in a deep breath and let it out with a long sigh. She patted Makko on the shoulder to get him to move when someone called out from the crowd.

"Hey!" A big burly man called out as he stepped into view. "Whatcha goin' 'round touchin' kids for?"

Colette stopped in her tracks to turn around and face him.

"We did no such thing!" She cried out in genuine shock and dismay at even hearing such an accusation. "The kid started talking to us, and when we offered to help he decided to just—"

The man cut Colette off with yet another accusation…

 

[Makko Vyres]

Makko felt a flutter of panic. He'd never been in this kind of situation before.

Except that he had.

Makko had been on the other side of it. Running spice on Denon, caught by a local busybody in the street. He should have seen this coming. He'd used exactly the same play.

"Just a misunderstanding," Makko said. "I thought someone had gone for my wallet."

He held up his own pouch of credit chits as he stretched out with the Force. Makko had played it better than the kid, because - without knowing - from a very young age he had been able to do this.

"Oh, right. Just...just be careful who you accuse, yeah? Outsiders."

The big man looked dazed as Makko brushed up against his thoughts and diverted them.

"Come on," Makko said to Colette. "Back to the ship. We need to talk."

 

[Colette]

Makko Vyres

"What? But-" Colette whispered and looked between Makko and the stranger. "O-kay…"

The duo walked through the streets. The market had been a dud, no doubt about that. Colette had no idea what the hell had just happened, but she figured Makko would be able to shed some light on that.

They went back to the ship. The ramp closed to give them space,

"What the hell?" Colette burst. "We could have just moved on and continued the search, we didn't have to lie to him."

"What are you doing?"

 

[Makko Vyres]

"The kids not hiding out in a quarry. He's joined a gang or some kark," Makko explained.

"Came back here so we can talk without being overheard."

A ship designed to be completely sealed against a vacuum also happened to offer excellent acoustic protection.

"But I think we can handle it," Makko said firmly. It would be his first significant mistake.

"But we don't want them to know we're coming."

 

[Colette]

Makko Vyres

Well, the gang thing made things difficult but Colette wasn't quite sure why they would have to find somewhere quiet for it. The intricacies of these urban tribes was quite lost on her after all. Rarely did it ever have to do with survival as much as it was entirely about greed even when it was hidden under a thin layer of doing 'the right thing'.

"But why?" Colette offered in response. "We want to find someone, so why shouldn't they be aware that we are looking for them?"

The dots connected.

"Oh." She mouthed and sighed. "Because they don't want us to find him for some reason."

"Or will try to leverage it against us."

 

[Makko Vyres]

"Or ship the kid to another town for long enough that we'll never find him," Makko said. "We shouldn't tell the parents this. Not at all."

Makko sat back in one of the chairs. He looked at the ceiling as if he would provide the answers.

"Small place like this, a gang might be the law enforcement," he reasoned.

"How about...we contact the local sector Rangers and see if they've got any info on the local criminal problems?" Makko suggested.

 

[Colette]

Makko Vyres

A very long, very tired sigh blew through Colette's nose as Makko listed their obstacles and why they might be keeping this kid from them. It would have been so easy to just turn back now while they were still on the ship. If the kid wanted to throw his life away to greed and fear then what right did they have to demand he turned away?

They had been sent to ensure that he was safe or at least alive and they had done that. There was not a single part of Colette's being that wanted to head out there just for the sake of righting a wrong they had only indirectly caused, but that was also the world weary cynicism of the galaxy taking yet another bite into her soul. Had this been on her own homeworld she would have laid down everything if it meant ensuring someone else's survival, and with that particular thought in mind she opened her eyes and looked down from the ceiling to focus on Makko.

"What's the plan?" She asked and placed her hands on her hips. "Locate the kid and his family, move them off-world?"

"Does the temple have room for them? Would it be right of us to even do that?"

 

[Makko Vyres]

"I don't know," Makko admitted.

"You think I should call back and check? No, no, we can sort this out."

It didn't take very long for his stubborn streak to emerge. He was a Jedi Knight now and should have been able to handle this.

"Maybe we find out what the kid is mixed up in?" he suggested. "I've...look this isn't for other people to know. I know what it's like when you get mixed up in a gang and they know you can do this kind of stuff. They'll take advantage."

"We watch the streets at night, see if we can find a lead?"

He wanted to do something. Going home without making a dent in the problem would have felt like failure and that was another mistake from the young Jedi.

 

[Colette]

Makko Vyres

In a repetition of what was overall a very emergent pattern, Colette merely nodded as Makko explained that he was in a gang once. She supposed she could see why he kept it to himself at times, but for Colette what mattered the most was the here and now. Her understanding of "the past" was, after all, built upon oral history told by a handful of elders in a single desert. As far as she was concerned, Makko was a knight, and anything before that was the build up to it.

There really was no need to dive into the atrocities of the galaxy, at least not while still somewhat 'culture shocked' from how different it was to her own home.

"We could also talk to- uh…" She blinked and extended her hand as if it would make the name appear. It did not. "The old man who knew the kid."

"If he knows the area, we could maybe avoid sneaking around in the night. As long as he knows who to look out for."

 

[Makko Vyres]

"Brennon, yeah that's a good idea Colette," Makko said.

It was a better idea than his. He knew what to look out for if there were kids being used to move spice around. Makko had been there.

They didn't need to find a spice runner, they needed to find out where someone like Tarn would be staying.

"Brennon seemed to get real riled up at the idea thaf Tarn would get mixed up in a bad crowd. But I've seen how well kids can hide that stuff.

"If we go back we're gonna have to be careful about it. Give another angle. The old man knows how to test kids to see if they can use the Force and convince em to join the Jedi. How do we come at this?"

 

[Colette]

Makko Vyres

The compliment made her shine for a bit before she went back to stone-faced focused mode again. Brennon was a very valuable person in this case. Knowledgeable of the area, and more than anything someone that they already knew shared the same ideals as them. At least as far as Tarn was concerned.

"You talk to him, I'll be quiet." Colette said and rubbed at her neck. "I don't think my approach worked last time."

 

[Makko Vyres]

"You talk to him, I'll be quiet." Colette said and rubbed at her neck. "I don't think my approach worked last time."

"Yeah, not sure mine did either," Rayth replied.



They returned to his house to talk to the minder. As it happened Brennon saw the line of questioning in short order.

"I told you that Tarn is a good kid," Brennon said gruffly, interrupting Makko's next question.

"No, look, I mean we had someone threaten us in the street and..."

"Boy..."

Makko twitched in annoyance.

"... I can see what you're thinking and I am telling you that he wouldn't have fallen in with that kind of crowd."

"Fine! Fine!" Makko replied. He was clearly agitated now. "We'll go looking for him. But this is my call so if you're not telling us..."

"What do you expect me to know? The place has a drug problem. It's an isolated series of communities without much going on. I don't know who is behind it, but I know they hire kids to move the spice around. Happy now?"

Makko took a deep breath. He was locked into a starring match with the old man. He suddenly felt a tickle at the back of his mind. He frowned and he dropped his gaze. He closed his eyes and stretched out with the Force.

"We've been followed," he said to Colette. "Back door, across the street. Top window. If I go out the front can you wait and the follow them?"

 

[Colette]

Makko Vyres

People were always changing, it was a part of what made them human. Or, well, whatever word one would use to describe the act of being alive when there were more races than Colette had fingers and toes for. Either way, if Brennon was too blind to see that even good kids did bad things, there was no point in spending much more time arguing with him about it.

Especially not if they were being watched. Colette nodded to Makko and got herself into position. As Makko left, and as Brennon was able to grumble his back into his seat by the desk, Colette pushed into the back alley and kept an eye out for whoever it was that Makko warned her about. For a moment she swore he must have imagined it, but sure enough there was a hooded figure that pushed into the alley at a pace.

Colette went straight into the hunt. Her focus on the man was completely set on trying to figure out where he was going. He began shifting left, but something told her that it was a deception. She saw him hug the wall before suddenly shifting over towards the right.

By the time she reached the door he had come out of she took a moment to take in his footprint. They went a bit deeper than one would expect, meaning he was either shuffling for speed, or was heavyset.

She rounded the corner to try and see wherever it was that he had gone now…

 

[Makko Vyres]

The hooded figure remained on a parallel track to Makko. At each junction he would stop and glance down the gap between houses to spot Makko before moving on to the next position.

Makko allowed this to carry on for a hundred meters before moving to the next step of his embryonic plan. He wished he'd had the time to explain it properly to Colette, but it was still forming in his mind.

At the next turning Makko turned and faced the young man.

"Hey!" Makko called out, pointing.

He didn't give chase as the figure turned and fled.

They ran, weaving down several alleys and then going back on themselves through a crowd. Eventually they would take a turn towards the warehouse district near the docks.

Makko carried on with his walk, hoping they didn't notice Colette tailing them.

 

[Colette]

Makko Vyres

The figure saw nothing but a Jedi Knight and fell unwittingly for the trick like a sickly doe to a pit trap. Colette rose from her kneeling position around the corner to radio in her companion. Three blocks down. The chase had gone right, straight ahead, left, right, forward, first warehouse on the left. Their friend had entered but never left, and he wasn't alone. The force would tell Colette that much if she focused on it.

She positioned herself by the door and listened in.

"What the hell happened?" A woman's voice called out angrily.

"Two j-" A man's voice gasped as he grabbed onto a nearby table for stability. "Two jedi."

"Chit." A third voice hissed. "Were you followed?"

"N- no. I think I lost him." The man who Colette assumed to be the hooded figure gasped. "Lost him three-"

"And his friend?" The woman asked, anger evident in her voice. A deafening silence fell in the room. Footsteps could be heard, but where they went was hard to tell.

"Wh- what?" The chased man seemed confused.

"We're not safe here." The third voice grumbled. "Cut ties. We move."

"H- hey man, no, please-"

"No hard feelings, Norman." The woman spoke before she exhaled a frustrated sigh. A charging sound whined out from the door. Colette's eyes went wide, she recognized that sound all too well, it was a blaster.

No time to think. Makko was just in view from around the corner. Colette withdrew her saber and kicked the door in. The blonde, blue-eyed woman flinched and twitched her hand so that the blaster bolt meant for Norman was fired off in Colette's direction instead where it was meant by the bright blue blade of her lightsaber and bounced off into a nearby wall.

"Stop!" The kid exclaimed and raised her hand towards the blonde and the Weequay that pointed his carbine at her. "We just want answers."

"The answer is no." The blonde woman muttered through gritted teeth before she set off a second shot. It froze mid-air and Colette stepped aside to let it fly out through the door of the warehouse and into the empty street beyond.

The weequay raised his carbine and began to fire off a volley of rounds to force Colette into cover behind a set of metal crates. Now would be a good time for Makko to save the day.