One More Troubled Soul

[Shalimar]

"It is. But for the same reasons it's a chithole, it makes it a good place to hide. Honest folks don't go to Nar Shadaa and it's eaiser to pick out the people after me here. The law isn't as tight and the gangs run everything. So, causing a scene and killing someone, it's easier enough to escape that without ending up in jail. Something you can't do on the major core worlds." She shuddered slightly, "Coruscant, there was a not so fun incident there but I won't get into that."

She nodded, "Well, I've only been alone. Kinda used to it, and having to deal with all that comes with it by now. It was just the way it had to be."
Before the growl was even heard, Shalimar had tensed as she caught a scent in the air. The scent of another feline creature, familiar hormones in the air. Her nose twitched as she finally saw the creature walk in. Shal seemed ready to leap from the bed at a moment's notice. She took a deep breath as the feline approached, shifting her posture to make herself appear a little bigger than she actually was. Much like a cat would.

"Leo?" It was somewhere between a question and statement. Shalimar wasn't sure of the cylix at all, and certainly wasn't sure of his intentions. All she knew was that he was another feline, and dominance would have to be settled if there was to be any peace between them. Still she hoped he'd play nice. She just wasn't sure at all how it would turn out between the two of them. Shalimar might at the surface appear human but cat like hormones and instincts still played a large role in how she reacted, especially to other feline species.

[member="Elpsis Elaris"]

 

[Elpsis Kerrigan]

[member="Shalimar"]


Elpsis looked rather perplexed by the situation. "Uh, yeah, Leo. He's real cute, isn't he?" She was getting all sorts of weird vibes from both Shalimar and Leo. She saw how Shali shifted her posture, puffing herself up to appear bigger than she was. The redhead had plenty to do with animals, so it reminded her of a cat's behaviour. It was not the way you expected a human to react when a big lion walked into their room.


For his part, the Cylix built himself up and seemed ready to leap onto the bed, displaying his black mane in its full glory. "Hey, down boy," Elpsis ordered. The lion growled, but seemed to backpedal slightly. As it turned out, he'd been chewing on a bone that still contained a good portion of flesh. Being the social, friendly lion he was, he presented it to Shali. After all, she looked hungry to him! Elpsis crinkled her nose at the scent. "Does he, like, think you're a cat or something?" she asked when Leo stood to his full height and rubbed his head against the blonde. That was a form of greeting as far as Cylixes were concerned. It sounded absurd to her, but those were the vibes she was getting.

 

[Shalimar]

Shalimar's eyes were locked on Leo, so untrusting of the feline for the moment. "Cute... I suppose in a 'I'm going to eat your face off' kind of way." The blonde was absolutely unsure about the creature and the sanity of anyone that would own such a beast.

Tension grew in Shalimar as Leo moved, so close to leaping up on the bed with her.Her shoulders rose and fell with relief as Elpsis interrupted, keeping the Cylix on the ground. The woman then seemed a bit baffled as he left the room, only to return seconds later.

When the feline returned, bone in between his teeth to offer it to Shalimar... All she could do was blink once, before she shook her head and with a sigh relaxed a small bit. The scent in the air was familar, meaty bone goodness, and a smile crossed her lips as she reached down to pet him gently on the head before taking the bone and setting it down beside her. "Thanks Leo." She said calmly.

As quickly as the smile had appeared, it was gone as she looked to Elpsis. "Yes, he does. It's the Pheromones. It's ... rather complicated." How she was going to explain her creation to a stranger, she wasn't sure just yet. "And a long story." Shal had hoped that would keep the redhead from asking questions, but it wasn't like Shalimar had any manner of luck with things like this.

[member="Elpsis Elaris"]

 

[Elpsis Kerrigan]

[member="Shalimar"]


Elpsis raised an eyebrow at that. "Pheromones, huh? Are they gonna make be all in heat for you?" she blurted out. Hey, for all she knew, Shalimar could be part-Zeltron. However, she seemed to realise this was not an appropriate line of questioning and coughed.


"Uh, right. Well, as long as you two aren't gonna be having human/cat babies, cool." Leo might have just given her the most adorable look ever when she said that. The Cylix looked just a bit indignant, as much as a big lion could. He wasn't a fan of catgirls and murdered Croa on sight. Their flesh was too vile for him to eat. He simply ripped them apart and left them to rot.


Alas, it seemed Nar Shaddaa had a way of reminding them that it was the dangerous Smuggler's Moon. The redhead winced slightly, as if in pain. It was like a sixth sense had been activated. "We got company. I'm gettin' us outta here. Leo, guard her." Just a second later, the freighter rocked, as if struck be explosions. Thugs poured into the hangar bay.

 

[Shalimar]

Shalimar sighed and twisted her lips into a frown. Another cat species certainly made it hard not to explain the hybrid that she was. "Yeah, pheromones. It's strange, I know." Another sigh, "I'm not a Zeltron, not even in part. In case you were wondering." She explained quietly.

Nervously she bit at her lip before moving on, "I was ... hmmm, how do I say this ..." The blonde ran a hand through her hair, thinking for a moment. "I was created, in a lab, as an experiment mixing human and feline DNA." Shalimar rubbed at her forehead, leaving any further explanation for another time.. "This isn't something I like to talk about, and right now, I don't want to explain further than that."

Then the almost amusing question. "No." Shalimar said firmly, almost snapping the reply without meaning to do so."We aren't compatible species. And, that certainly is not where my interest is."

Shalimar turned quickly, her instincts were sinking in as she sensed danger. As for what that danger was, the woman wasn't sure just yet but she was about to!

Shalimar yelped as the explosions. Her catlike hearing wasn't always an advantage, in some cases like now, it was a harsh painful weapon against her. And of course with such explosions, came smoke and undoubtedly there was fire somewhere. Her delicate senses picked up the acrid smell of smoke. That made her more than a touch fearful. Fire, hit on her natural instincts, instincts she found hard to resist. Worriedly she glanced from the feline and then to the door where Elpsis had just darted through to help deal with the problem at hand.

[member="Elpsis Elaris"]

 

[Elpsis Kerrigan]

[member="Shalimar"]


So you're like...Catwoman? Alas, Elpsis had no time to continue this interesting thought because ruffians were pounding on her ship. Suffice to say this pissed her off a lot. It might be a tramp freighter, but damn it, it was her ship and no one got to steal it from her or destroy it!


Hopefully the hyperdrive had not malfunctioned again. So the young redhead raced out of the medbay and towards the cockpit. As another explosion rocked the vessel, she stumbled, but then pulled herself and ran. "Y'know, when you sent me that freaking vision of the hot blonde, you could've put this part in, too. Just a sodding second," she cursed accusingly, eyes darting upward as if she were speaking to the heavens.


Having reached the cockpit, she slipped into the pilot's seat. Fingers danced over the console, then anti-personnel repeating blasters roared to life outside and spat out red-hot kill bolts directed at the criminals arrayed against the ship. Gangsters who'd been trying to force their way into the ship sought cover behind crates, others were mowed down. Their cries were music to her ears. Deflector shields shimmered when she activated them. They would last for a while, at least until the pirates tossed in thermals. Alas, the hangar bay door was sealed shut.

 

[Shalimar]

Shamilar would have said no, if she had heard Elpsis' thoughts. To her, she didn't believe that. She still liked to think of herself as human, entirely human, just altered to be better. At least this is what she told herself to get through the day. To know there had been more to her creation than than just simple scientific interest.

Hearing the noise outside growing louder, Shalimar darted off the med bay table and headed to a corner to hide with the Cylix not far behind turning his back to her, keeping guard over the blonde in the room it seemed.

In this moment, Shalimar's instincts all told her to stay hidden. To stay out of sight and she'd be safe. She wasn't in any state to fight off anyone should they manage to actually breach the ship. Well, there was the force but she wasn't truly aware that she had it. Not yet, at least.

For her part, for now it seemed she was in the redhead's hands. She was going to have to rely on her to get them both out of the situation and soon. Every bang, and boom, cry made Shal more jumpy, more worried about what was happening around them. She desperately hoped they'd all survive today, somehow.

[member="Elpsis Elaris"]

 

[Elpsis Kerrigan]

[member="Shalimar"]


Elpsis was officially pissed off. A pathetic gang of two-bit bounty-hunters and ruffians had dared to attack her ship! They were also endangering her new buddy Shalimar and her friend Leo. The repeating banners did the trick of keeping the intruders at bay, but the ship shuddered when they lobbed explosives. Luckily the hull had not been breached yet, but the shields were not doing well. Feth, the scum had begun to deploy heavy ordinance.


The blasters rotated around, blasting away at thugs trying to set up a missile launcher. Her dancers danced over the console, preparing her own big guns. The freighter shuddered, then suddenly began to move and shoot forward with alarming speed. The entire freighter jerked, Elpsis was lucky she wore a seatbelt. Loose objects might have been tossed and hurled around.


The freighter was shooting full speed towards the sealed hangar doors. A few unfortunate thugs were unlucky enough to get in the way and just ended up being squished.
"Time for a big bang," Elpsis pressed a button and a torpedo shot out of the launcher, leaping gracefully through the air. There was a loud boom, and the doors were no more. Fires spread across the hangar bay and kissed the ship when it shot out into the darkness of the fathomless void.

 

[Shalimar]

Shalimar didn't move from her hiding place until she heard the last giant boom with the doors of the hangar doors disappearing. She was panting, nervous and slow to rise. With a bit of luck, they'd get out of the system in relative peace now. She stepped past Leo and walked towards the cockpit, cautiously checking each and every doorway as she moved, uncertain of how safe she was. She finally came into the room with Elpsis. "Safe now?" She asked. "At least a little, I hope." She sighed, "Sorry, probably my fault those guys showed up. My life isn't without it's ... complications."

[member="Elpsis Elaris"]

 

[Elpsis Kerrigan]

[member="Shalimar"]


"Don't sweat it. Happens to me every time I come here. Got a bounty on my head," Elpsis said somewhat flippantly. A red light kept beeping on her console, but she ignored it. The somewhat battered freighter had finally reached space and traversed the void.


"Now all we gotta do is...incoming fighters." The freighter lurched at an impossible angle as fighter craft pounced upon it like birds of prey. Their cannons spat out blue ion beams that lit up the blackness of space.


At least this meant they wanted them alive. That was a small comfort. A transmission was soon incoming. "This is the Cartel. Lower your shields and power down your weapons systems. This is your last warning."


"Feth off," Elpsis swore and accelerated. Precognition had its uses in this situation. Like avoiding getting shot. Then there was a bright explosion and the ship rocked. Even Leo seemed a bit unnerved by this and roared loudly. "Yeah, yeah, I know. Shields are down," Elpsis grunted, punching in the coordinates for the jump. "Getting ready to jump in 3...2..."


"Hyperdrive malfunction..."


"Geez, are you for real? I can't fly this thing and play mechanic. Go get the hyperdrive back online. Kicking it works sometimes."

 

[Shalimar]

"I suppose that begs the question of which one of us they want, or if it's both since they seem to want us alive for the moment. Two for one special or what." Shalimar wasn't sure she really wanted to know. "Not that we are sticking around to find out. Seems we both carry bounties and unexpected baggage. The past be damned." It was the past she'd like to certainly forget. Just, there were some things that were impossible to forget. "I never planned to end up here. It was just a good place to hide and blend in with the rest of the ruffians out here."

Then, of course, one more thing had to go wrong for our lovely ladies. "You've got to be kidding." She grumbled. It was the one thing they couldn't afford to go wrong. "Yeah, yeah on it." With a shake of her head, she bolted down the hallways to the engine room. There wasn't time to debate, or to tell Elpsis that she wasn't all that sure of most technologies and how to work with them. Still, she had to figure something out.

Leo wasn't that far behind her as she stepped into the engine room and looked to try and find what the problem was. She took in a slow deep breath to calm herself as she nervously looked around. She finally found what she thought was the hyperdrive and hoped, really hoped that it was something like a fuse being out of place. She was so hoping that it was something she could actually fix without help.

After a moment or two of seeing nothing obviously wrong, she decided to give it the good old tried and true method and kicked the hyperdrive in hopes that it might just need that to rattle it back to working. "Note to self: Tell the redhead I'm so not good with these things." She finally gave it a hard kick wincing as her toes slammed into the machine. If only she knew the real trick had to do with the kitty beside her, she might have laughed.

[member="Elpsis Elaris"]

 

[Elpsis Kerrigan]

[member="Shalimar"]


Leo glowered at the hyperdrive. Well, the lion probably did not understand what it was, but it seemed to be making his mistress angry and causing his prospective 'mate' a lot of discomfort. His fellow feline kicked it and the Cylix roared loudly.


Finally the damn thing started to work again and hummed to life. "About freakin' time," Elpsis swore. Ion blasts erupted in space and she punched in the coordinates. There was a bright flash when the blue tunnel to hyperspace opened and the freighter brazenly dove right in. Just in time to avoid a salvoe of ion that would have probably disabled its engines and left it adrift.


Elpsis slumped back into her chair, letting out the breath she'd been holding. She wiped some sweat from her forehead and brushed a stray lock of glorious red hair away. "Ok. We're safe. Hey, Shali, you ok?"

 

[Shalimar]

Shalimar breathed a sigh of relief when the hyperdrive finally kicked in and they found themselves on their way into a tunnel of stretched light and stars blurring by them. She sank into a nearby chair, panting a little bit. "I'm as okay as I'm going to get anytime soon. It'll be awhile before my body regains what it's lost through starvation, thirst and the like. It'll just take time." She said breathlessly. "But, yes I'm okay. Thank you." She repeated, just to make sure she hadn't left any room for misunderstanding there.

"Seems you and I both have a bit of a nasty past," Shalimar commented. "I'm just an 'experiment on the loose' that the researchers want back. What about you? What'd you do to get the bounty on you?" She had to ask. It paid to at least know exactly who she was on board with.

[member="Elpsis Elaris"]

 

[Elpsis Kerrigan]

[member="Shalimar"]


"Well, this bounty is because I pissed off a Hutt a year ago. There's another one because I told my evil daddy no when he tried to torture me into being his little Sith princess. Who'd have that would piss me off? Arsehole," Elpsis explained with deceptive flippancy.


"So you were, like, created in a lab and now the Evil Mad Scientist wants you back. That's the gist of it? Let me guess, that's why Leo over there thinks you're a pretty kitty and wants you to bear his cubs?" Tact, thy name was not Elpsis. Then she shrugged. "Welcome to the club of hot chicks with dysfunctional lives."

 

[Shalimar]

"Mm, I see." She said softly and sighed as she sank down into the chair staring at the ceiling lazily. "You're father sounds like a class act." Sarcasm, good old sarcasm. "Sith." She snorted, a little irritated. "Not a fan really of any kind of force user." Never mind that Shalimar was a force user herself, just entirely unaware of that freakish fun fact!

Created, Shalimar shuddered at the word. "Yeah, created. In a fething test tube and further manipulated from there through DNA experimentations. But yeah, pretty much." She gave a small shrug and looked away. It wasn't her favorite topic but it seemed prudent to get that out of the way now. "At least you were born in the usual way and didn't come from a vat of chemicals." If only she knew of Elpsis' experience and her adoption. In some ways, Shalimar was still rather naive to life in general and wasn't exactly thinking before she spoke.

[member="Elpsis Elaris"]

 

[Elpsis Kerrigan]

[member="Shalimar"]


Elpsis gave Shalimar a look. "No, I wasn't," she said flatly. She was a bit tetchy about the subject. "My dad infected my mum with Sith Poison chit and raped her. She couldn't care for me cause she was real messed up, so I was given up for adoption. Much later, I met Daddy. Long story cut short: I spent most of my childhood on the streets."


She turned her gaze away. The stars were blurring around them whilst the freighter traversed the realm of hyperspace. "Trip's gonna take a day, give or take. There's a spare bedroom on the ship."

 

[Shalimar]

Shalimar instantly dropped her head and gaze, shrinking down in a cat-like fashion, realizing she'd made an error by Elpsis' tone alone. "I'm, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to offend." She said quietly, feeling rather scolded without much having to be said. "I didn't mean to step on your toes... I wasn't thinking." She started, trying to apologize. "I'm not used to being around people, anything more than researchers without any care or stake in my life. I'm sorry, if I offended, I didn't mean to, honest."

The blonde nodded, "I'll just go. Give you some space. Sorry." Shalimar repeated. And with that spoken, the blonde rose slowly from her chair looking to escape the uncomfortable and unexpected conversation. Her apology just didn't feel like it covered what she'd stepped in the middle of.

[member="Elpsis Elaris"]

 

[Elpsis Kerrigan]

[member="Shalimar"]


Elpsis could not feel a little bad about lashing out like that. Shalimar had touched a nerve, but the blonde didn't know about her past and had been on the run for a long time. She could not help feel sorry for her. Empathy was a bit of a queen since it let you know how exactly the other person was feeling, such as when you scolded and upset them. "Hey, look, it's ok," Elpsis said a bit awkwardly. "Didn't wanna lash out at you, ok? Not like you could know. Your life's been crap, mine used to be crap. I'm sorry."

 

[Shalimar]

Shalimar nodded but still felt terrible about her choice of words. And a part of her still wanted to leave the room and give Elpsis space. She certainly would have wanted that if the roles had been reversed. "It was insensitive of me," Shalimar replied in a whisper. "I didn't think, before I ...." The girl stopped herself and sighed heavily, "I'm not used to this. I'm not used to other people having their own stories, their own circumstances that could be as bad if not worse than my own." A shrug followed. "So you've nothing to be sorry for."

She bit her own lip for a moment, "I'm sorry. I just , I just don't know how to handle these things. This galaxy out here is so different from what I grew up within. All I really know is a super sanitized and sterile environment where everything I touch, feel and breathe is controlled. Where I know how it's going to be. Out here, everything is a little strange. All I can do is try. And I don't blame you for lashing out. I probably would have too." Her urges to escape the situation were still a little hard to resist but so far she managed to force herself back down into her chair to sit and stay with Elpsis rather than run off. "This stuff is still new to me."

[member="Elpsis Elaris"]

 

[Elpsis Kerrigan]

[member="Shalimar"]


"Geez, your life's seriously fethed up." That was crude, but probably an accurate assessment. "Look, it's cool. You didn't mean it, so let it go. Next time you accidentally say somethin' that upsets, I'll try not to whip you, cool? Cool. Ain't saying things are gonna be sugar and roses from now on, but you're going to a way better place. You're not gonna be poked and prodded there. Or locked in a lab and experimented."


One wondered whether she could convert the catwoman to the faith of the Great White Wolf? Or would Shalimar be too much of a feline for that? She reached out to awkwardly pat Shalimar on the shoulder. Since they were still cruising through hyperspace, the ship was flying on autopilot.