Parties & Pleasantries

[Aela Talith]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

Aela moved as fast as she could.

The door that lead to the building was locked, her hand waved in front of the panel a few times only to be met with an alert message. She scowled at the small device, then slowly looked the building up and down. Her eyes fell towards a large gap at the top of the roof. It was likely some damage incurred during the Liberation of Coruscant. The repair drones hardly ever made it down here to the slums, half of the buildings were falling apart.

"You're lucky I'm a good Master." Aela whispered to an imaginary Jamie as she slowly backed up.

She took a breath, and then sprinted forward.

With a more than decent amount of agility Aela began to skip up the side of the building. She used her force to increase the distance she jumped, bounding from pillar to pillar and eventually reaching out her hand to grasp onto the open edge of the gap in the roof.

With a strained grunt she pulled herself up and into the building.

 

[Jamie Pyne]

As if in unison, each and every body in the room turned to face the direction of the sound. Eyes perked up, guns raised, the man with the shiny crimson sword lit up the room with the same snap-hiss as before. Jamie cursed herself for the sneeze. The jig was up. But perhaps she could stall them long enough for Aela to arrive. Perhaps that would be enough to save the senator.

"Before I have my men open fire, step out. Now."

And make it easier for you to kill me? From the darkness she gave an idiotic look, choosing instead not to move.

When the girl remained, blaster fire erupted all around her. She was safe where she sat, tucked behind a pillar, but everything around her was a smoldering heap of garbage within seconds.

"NOW." He repeated, this time significantly more angrily. A second snap-hiss echoed.

My lightsaber!

The girl stood up, poking her head around the side of the pillar to see the mercenaries, as well as Aiden and the crimson saber wielder all trained on her. "Put down your weapons now! You're all under arrest!" She shouted defiantly, which elicited a roar of laughter from just about everyone in the room. "Let the senator g-" A few bolts of energy streamed past her, hitting the door. She quickly withdrew behind the safety of the column once more.

"You're kidding right? Step out from behind the pillar or not only will I kill the senator, I will also kill you on screen, Jedi."

[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

Aela heard the ignition of a lightsaber, then a second, then felt a quick spike of fear followed by the resounding sound of blasters being fired.

She cringed slightly, looking down at the bracelet as though she were expecting something else to happen. When she didn't feel Jamie die Aela let out a sigh of relief, wiping a small bead of sweat away from her brow and continuing her path in the rafters of the warehouse. She moved as quietly as she possibly could, skulking across wooden beams and crossing half broken Durasteel bridges that appeared as though they'd been built centuries ago.

Eventually she crept into place just above the group of Mercenaries, spotting Jamie hiding behind a pillar.

"Oh god." Aela said quietly.

She really had to teach Jamie some sort of stealth technique, or perhaps ask her mother to do so. She shook her head slowly, adjusting her view and taking out the lightsaber that she had remaining. For the moment she would stay in place, sending a quick, but powerful impression through the bracelet. Here

 

[Jamie Pyne]

You're gonna try and kill me either way, idiot!

From behind the pillar a bright flash of light appeared, the familiar snap-hiss of Aela's lightsaber that Jamie had taken with her as she leaped from the window onto the ship earlier. The Padawan stepped out from behind the cover of the pillar, met with raised blasters and an awful cranky Sith wannabe. Aiden looked noticeably more distraught than before, knowing what might happen if she got through the others and to him. Rolling her wrist the weapon twirled about twice before she received Aela's very well timed arrival.

"Drop your weapons. You're all under arrest. I won't ask again."

There was a smirk, a raise of a hand, and then a quietly uttered phrase. "Just kill her." Jamie's fingers tightened around the hilt as a dozen fingers moved to to pull their triggers.

[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

Sometimes she really had to question whether her Padawans bravery bordered on insanity. It certainly seemed like it did, especially when she decided that it was the perfect time to confront a group of armed men. Aela let out a sigh as the men quickly raised their weapons.

Jamie didn't leave her much of a choice, mostly because if she didn't take action she was pretty sure her padawan would end up getting murdered right in front of her eyes. Thus she shifted, and then flipped forward. There was a lull as she dropped through the air, then a soft thud as she landed on the tips of her toes. The man around her looked up, bewildered, but it was too late. From Aela came a massive wave of the force, a press that threw everyone, including the Senator, from their feet.

It rushed through the room, tossing around debris, tarps, anything that wasn't nailed down.

"Get the Senator!" She told Jamie as her lightsaber ignited and she dashed towards the man with the crimson blade.

 

[Jamie Pyne]

Just as they moved to fire Aela interrupted them, sending just about everyone through the air or off their feet.

Jamie had luckily been out of the area, and thus was able to move quickly towards the senator, cutting him free of the restraints as Aela ran to attack the man with the lightsaber.

"I've got him!" She chirped back. "Get my lightsaber back from that creep!"

She wasn't letting him get away a second time with it. As quickly as possible she made towards the blast doors that she and the others had come in from, senator in tow. Her hand slapped the button for the release along the inner wall, and the doors began to slowly open before them. Several of the other mercenaries that had remained conscious after Aela's initial attack began to get back to their feet, to which Jamie provided them with another dose of Force energy to keep them down at least long enough for Jamie to get the man to safety.

[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

Aela moved fast.

She still had no idea exactly what, or who, this man was, but he'd claimed not to be a Sith. The Marshall decided that the best course of action was to do something out of character. Strike hard, fast, and hopefully take down the man before he had any chance of doing anything.

Aela rushed forward against the man, her lightsaber flicking forward. A look of panic crossed the mans expression, his lips turning into a sneer as he tried to hide his fear. Aela frowned slightly but kept up her assault, lightsaber battering against the man's defenses in quick successive strikes. The man flailed wildly back towards her, trying his best to strike her with Jamie's saber and his own. Eventually he overextended, slashing towards her legs and allowing her to move to the side of him.

Her palm came up, the force pressing out to throw him against the wall with a hard thud.

He dropped to the floor, lightsabers rolling away as his limp body crashed against the ground.

 

[Jamie Pyne]

Jamie rushed the senator outside to the landing pad and back into the gunship, much to his disappointment. "It's safe in here. Wait for us. We'll be back."

Before the man had a chance to argue otherwise Jamie ran back towards the warehouse and inside. She saw the man thrown across the room and fall limp to the ground, the lightsabers rolling away from him. Aiden had backed himself into a corner to try and hide from Aela and Jamie when the fighting broke out. Clearly he wasn't much of a fighter himself, and thus posed little threat to either Jedi at this point. He had long since dropped his blaster the moment Aela began fighting with the sorry excuse for a leader they had.

"Wow." She said, strolling back in and looking around. "That was fast."

Seeing her weapon on the ground the girl rushed over, picking it up along with the red one, before returning to Aela and handing her both his, and the one she had given to Jamie earlier. "This is yours."

Then she turned to Aiden, the man trying to hopelessly sneak his way out while Jamie spoke to Aela.

[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

"STOP!" Aela's voice boomed throughout the room, Aiden instantly coming to a stop just by the door.

He half turned, his face ghostly pale, his eyes wandering over towards the two Jedi. The boy looked as though he was about to wet himself.

"W-w-we...I-I-I"

Aiden stammered over and over again, looking through the room as if he were going to find something that would help him. Aela frowned and glanced towards Jamie, wondering if perhaps she had hit this boy over the head somehow over the last few minutes while she hadn't been looking. "Out with it."

"We just did what we were told! We got paid a lot of money and they gave us the weapons! H-h-he's not even a force user! The Sith Academy threw him out!"

Aela's eyebrows rose in shock. The Marshall had not been expecting the boy to just pour everything out on the table like that. She had expected some sort of excuse or maybe a plea for mercy but instead...well she got most of the story of just who these people were.

 

[Jamie Pyne]

Jamie almost laughed. The person she saw in the ballroom was not the person she was seeing now.

Clearly he was all show. A disgusting show, but a show nonetheless.

The blonde shook her head. "Prison is going to look good on you, Aiden." She said with a confident smile, hoping to elicit another batch of fear from him.

"The Sith Academy throws people out? You must be pretty terrible to get thrown out of a place that specializes in being terrible."

The real question though wasn't why he was thrown out, but who paid them to do this job and why? Why pay a bunch of random mercenaries to do something a professional could have done? And who had the credits to just throw a gunship their way? She scrunched her nose and thought about it for a few moments.

"Who is they?" She questioned, taking a few steps towards Aiden.

[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

The boy recoiled, looking as though he were about to make a sprint for it. Aela couldn't help but smirk slightly, the situation had turned somewhat...comical. The Jedi Marshall looked away, eyeing the man on the floor as though she were thinking something instead of preventing herself from breaking out into laughter. As Jamie took another step forward Aiden struck a wall behind him, pressing himself close against it as if trying to phase through it.

"I-I-I"

It was clear he was terrified.

"I don't know. They always used an intermediary. We were just supposed to kill the Senator on Holo-TV and broadcast it then meet with them!"

That was something. She frowned slightly and looked over at Jamie. "Where?"

"The Works!"

The slums and the Works had always gone hand in hand on Coruscant, with the latter being only slightly less horrible than the former. The Works was Coruscant's main Industrial center, where most construction took place and power was sources from. It was mostly controlled by gangs and other more shady associations, places that even Jedi usually didn't wander to unless they absolutely had to.

 

[Jamie Pyne]

Jamie got right into his face as he leaned as far back as he could into the wall. If he was any further into it, he would be part of the wall. The girl reached up and slapped him across the face hard enough to leave a welt and an imprint of her fingers on his cheek. The addition of a small yelp only served to satisfy her more, feeling vindication for the harassment he had given her earlier. The grabbing of her rear, the choking, and hostage taking, the threats and the insinuations. All of it led up to that one hard slap across the face.

"You're an idiot and a fool for joining them." She stated plainly, her finger pressing against his chest.

Her head turned to Aela, noticing the presence of what almost looked to be laughter. She grunted in frustration.

"We should get the senator someplace safe and then go there."

She motioned with a flick of her jaw. "What do you want to do with them?"

[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

Aela smirked at her Padawan. "CoreSec can have them."

Transporting these men all the way back to Sullust would have been a pain, not to mention the paperwork she would have to do if they decided to charge them under Alliance laws instead of Coruscanti ones. They had the information they needed, knew where they were going to go, that was all Aela had wanted.

"They committed numerous crimes." She shrugged. "We'll hand them off to whichever Lieutenant shows up first. Ian called for backup when I arrived and they should be here soon I think."

She shifted slightly, and almost as if on cue the doors that Aiden had tried to run through burst open. A stream of Security droids rattled in followed quickly by a large hulking behemoth of a man wearing a CoreSec uniform. The Jedi Master gave the man a bewildered look, then glanced towards Jamie. "You're right. Senator first. Then we head to the works."

Aela gave her padawan a nod then proceeded to explain the situation to the Behemoth, speaking curtly but kindly.

Eventually they managed to get the situation sorted out, Aela and Jamie making it back to the Senator and Ian where they decided to bring the Politician to the local SIS headquarters, a place they knew to be more than secure.

 

[Jamie Pyne]

"So what's in The Works?"

The Padawan looked over to Aela as the soldier piloting the speeder navigated the air of Coruscant towards their destination, having dropped off the senator.

Jamie unfortunately knew very little of Coruscant, outside of the obvious things she'd read about, seen, and been told of. The number of times she'd been to Coruscant at all she could count on one hand with half her fingers missing. About two. Including this one.

"I'm guessing it's not quite as nice as the shining gem that the upper levels of Coruscant are? Hopefully it's not too terrible?"

She turned back, watching speeder after speeder pass them by like some type of unannounced skyrace. For a moment her thoughts shifted back to Kurt. He had sent her a message apologizing, though she wasn't sure what the point of it was. Did he just want to elicit some kind of response out of her? Did he think maybe she would have calmed down enough to say 'it's alright, we'll figure it out?' That wasn't going to happen. She sighed, shaking her head. Now wasn't the time.

[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

Aela could sense Jamie's feelings through the bracelet. The flair of annoyance, the slight prickle of anger, even a hint of depression. It was...odd. She could feel the emotions coming from her Padawan quite well, almost as if they were her own but not quite. She wondered what her own appeared like to her apprentice. "The Works..."

She began just loud enough for Jamie to hear. Perhaps taking her mind off of Kurt would be the best thing.

"They're Coruscant's Industrial sector." That was the best way to put it. "I think the part of the planet that most of the politicians would like to hide. Factories, powerplants, slums, all of it doesn't look pretty and produces a lot of trash. Most of it is run by gangs, Black Vipers, Blazing Claws, half a dozen others that take over one sector or another. Even CoreSec is weary of going too far into The Works."

There had been talk of clearing it out before, but that was a pipe dream.

Since working with the SIS Aela had come to understand that Crime didn't just go away. It wasn't something you could force down or stamp out, not really anyway, the best you could do on a planet like this was control it and help the innocent get out of the way.

Something that bit at her to no end.

 

[Jamie Pyne]

"I see." So this was where the lowest class of citizens resided and worked. It was people like this, the most unfortunate of the galaxy, whether it be due to simple circumstance or poor decisions they had made in life, that ended up here. Some of the children from Naboo that she had worked with were foster children of parents on Coruscant that simply couldn't provide a life or home for their children. It was a bleak life, filled with harsh circumstances and tough choices. But this was the reality of the galaxy.

"This is what we try to prevent back home." The depths of poverty that these people were living under was oppressive at best.

She sighed, turning back to look out at the underworld of Coruscant with sorrow for those she didn't even know. Millions of people.

"So anarchy is law?" The question was rhetoric of course. If gangs ruled, it was anarchy. Even if it was organized anarchy. It made her stomach turn.

[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

"I wouldn't quite go that far." Aela explained. "You can't go around murdering people at will, that will draw CoreSec's eye. Coruscant still enforces it's laws here, but everything is a bit...less."

It was clear from the sound of her voice that Aela shared Jamie's opinion. The Works disgusted her, not because of the people living inside of it, but because of the failure it represented. The failure of the governments in regulating it, helping it, in doing anything at all. She frowned slightly and shook her head as Ian turned the small speeder towards where Aiden had told them the meeting point would be. They weren't far now. It had been decided that Ian would pose as one of the soldiers while Aela and Jamie watched from a distance.

They would wait for a signal and then capture whomever came to meet with Ian.

"The Alliance will make things better, but it will take time." Years probably, but even then she doubted things would ever truly improve within the Works. Not after centuries of it enduring crime as it had.

 

[Jamie Pyne]

Ian landed the speeder about a block away from where they were supposed to be meeting whatever middle-man was involved in this plot. It would be easier, and likely safer, if nobody potentially associated with this meetup saw Jamie and Aela near, or with the soldier. There was no way to tell whether or not they had been tipped off about a Jedi having interrupted the party where they abducted the senator, so it was better to play it safe.

"Do you think they'll show?"

Criminals weren't exactly the most trustworthy.

"Without the job being done?"

The senator was still very much alive, and no recording was made to fake his death, nor did the actual death occur.

[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

Ian headed off towards the actual meeting place with only a nod to Aela and Jamie. "I'm not sure."

Aela admitted as she motioned for Jamie to follow her. They had to get into a better position to observe the meeting place, the landing pad wouldn't do, and it was also a bit obvious. The two of them trotted off towards a nearby warehouse, a run down building that looked as though it had seen better decades. Aela climbed up the side ladder first, a rickety thing that was half covered in rust and half in muck.

"They'll be angry." They always were. "Ian will stick to the story of being the only survivor that wasn't captured."

Thus giving him an in. "Part of me thinks they never wanted to succeed in the first place."

Not with the men they had sent.

 

[Jamie Pyne]

The thought made her feel a small knot in her chest.

"Won't they kill him then?" It seemed the obvious route. "No loose ends, and all that?"

Criminals were all pretty similar when it came down to the most basic of behaviors. Even the elaborate ones shared basic similarities with common cantina bandits. They didn't want to be caught, they didn't want to leave a trail, and they didn't want to lose. By all accounts Ian, or rather, the mercenary was a loose end that would need to be accounted for.

That put the man in danger. Something she didn't like doing.

"We need to make sure we can reach him if we have to."

Her hands gripped the rather disgusting feeling ladder behind Aela, climbing up behind her.

[member="Aela Talith"]