Resignation [Kära]

[Fabula Caromed]

The Wheel, Docking Bay T-063

Years of slavery had somehow managed to leave Niysha without any experience on a ship. She had practical experience as a domestic servant, and career experience as a cantina dancer, but by some unfathomable stroke of ill luck, she'd never been on any starship that didn't keep her locked in a cage with the rest of the cargo. Her time on the Unfettered, a trashy cargo freighter that she was relatively certain was in the business of spice smuggling, hadn't been one where she'd been of particular use. Mostly, the crew kept her on-board for entertainment and menial drudgery.

If Niysha could have conceived dictating her terms of service earlier in her life, she would've been quite pleased to note that there were people in the galaxy who were willing to treat their underlings slightly better than dionaga excrement. She felt it was mutually beneficial, from her twisted point of view. No one was beating her and she didn't have to kill anyone, and in return she got a very light workload compared to what she'd known before she escaped. No public dancing. No private room "shows." All she had to do was cook, clean, and keep the crew's morale up.

The poor girl was too shattered to understand that her "benevolent" Captain Orion Charl was only not exploiting her naivete because he was utterly confused why someone would actively sell her life away. He was still attempting to find ways to use his surprising new asset...and ways to hide her when he got back into places were slavery was less than legal.

As the crew of the Unfettered unloaded their cargo onto one of The Wheel's bulkheads, Charl delegated the task of delegating tasks to his first mate and pulled Niysha aside. She wouldn't be of much use in the heavy lifting and had no idea how to conduct a "business transaction," so he needed her out of the way. "Girl. Come here."

Perking up from her quiet little kneel by the door of the cargo hold, the Twi'lek stood and padded her way over to her captain with a little bow. "Yes Master?" Her voice was just as toneless as always, utterly devoid of sentient expression. That probably didn't help how much she tended to creep out the crew, either...

"You won't be much help sitting around the ship," the man started as he reached into his pocket to produce a credit chit and a datapad. "Take these, pull up the list, and get as much as you can with what's on that chit. I'll get the rest after this deal checks out." He didn't seem too concerned that she would simply pocket the money and walk off. After all, she'd just given herself over in the first place. Charl could barely tell the difference between his new ward and a droid.

Niysha bowed her head silently and went off to work, strolling off the ship and into the station as relaxed as if she were simply going to work. It felt so good to have a purpose again.

 

[Lief]

The Vhailor had come into range of The Wheel three Coruscanti days prior, after Kara had left Bastion and her prodigé behind, the latter under the fond care of Thyrian, her man-on-fire. The young Human, known as Sin, took up much of her time, so much so that it felt odd for her to be away from him. It was not that she had become attached, nor had the pseudo-Motherly-care rubbed off on her, merely that she had devoted a lot of time to his training and understanding since picking him up on Coruscant. He had been such a scrawny little fellow, barely any fat, if any at all, and completely unclean and unkempt in appearance. Thankfully that had changed, but the visual image left behind in her mind reminded her of one thing: Herself. At least, herself as a child, before Depravious had found her.

Wandering through the Spacestation the Knight was disgusted at the sight of the Casinos which glared here and there, practically unavoidable. She despised gambling almost as much as she hated drinking - both were signs of men without control over themselves, their actions or their minds. No, if Kara had her way they would be obliterated. Maybe on Bastion... Or maybe that would prove one step too far in her governance. Men who have official duties to fulfil should be responsible. Drinking lowers ones ability to respond and do a decent job, gambling reveals ones inability to remain in control. It sickened her, all were signs of weakness. To buckle before an addiction, to be unable to say no to a drink or a bet.

Still, she was on The Wheel with a purpose, to meet with a certain individual in the Executive Tower. Their meetings thus far had been short lived, neither coming to any agreement over the transaction at hand - but part of the girl knew that today might prove otherwise. It felt as though something productive would be carried out, as though the Force itself were urging her on. And thus she was willing to live with the Spacestation as it stood, although she avoided the men-riddled areas as best she could, sticking instead to her beloved shadows. Kara had been spending her evenings onboard the Vhailor as opposed to renting a room upon the station itself, and thus her venture took her through the lower castes of the station, past various hangar bays and the shady beings who had set up shop there, so to speak.

As she passed one particular hangar she watches as an individual stepped forth, a Twi'lek to be more precise, and her attention in the Force spiked dramatically, urging her on. There was quite some time between now and when she was expected in the tower, so for whatever reason Kara gave in to the pull of the Force and instead began to trail the woman, sticking to the darkness which enveloped whole sections of the station, her footfall silent as ever, attempting to see what the Force had planned for this particular woman.

@[member="Niysha"]

 

[Fabula Caromed]

"I don't care what your pimp told you, honey. You just ain't got enough there to get a dozen fuel cells." The Besalisk behind the counter was giving Niysha no end of trouble. "Blast, y'ain't got enough for one fuel cell. I don't know what the hell your numbskull boyfriend was expecting to get with two hundred credits..."

Sighing, Niysha bowed her head and backed up a few steps. "My apologies or the interruption, Sir," she quietly muttered as she backed up in defeat. Ever the attendant little serving girl, the Twi'lek made her way out of the man's shop and disappeared back into the crowd outside. A hundred bodies flowed around her, and the surly Besalisk man would never see her again.

At least, that was the illusion. The moment she'd broken line of sight to the scrap shop's door, Niysha very subtly picked up her pace, swimming through the throngs of people on The Wheel until she found a back alley. Without any (visible) eyes directly on her, the girl moved quickly along the back entrances of the line of shops avoiding rubbish and sharp scrap along the way until she finally came to the service entrance to the pawn shop she'd been turned out of.

Niysha did a quick peek to either side, then reached into her belt to pull out something that looked very much like a credit chit until she pressed a disguised button on its surface and revealed one of her formerly-signature security spikes. She would've liked to enter above ground level, terrain-willing, but she didn't exactly have the option this time. Taking a knee, she slipped the actual credit chit she'd been given and her security spike into the side of the interface panel by the back door, fiddled with it for a few moments, then smiled when she heard the familiar 'click.'

'Now...how to get in without drawing attention?' Magnetic doors had a very unique hiss when they opened. It was hard to mistake for anything else, and very hard to miss. If she'd had time to plan a legitimate heist, she would've arranged for a distraction. A fight, a gas leak, an explo-

There was a huge explosion on the other side of the shop. Niysha shrugged to herself and keyed her way into the shop. "That works." The sound of the door opening was drowned out in the chaos of panicked yelling and rushing around. Chances were the scrap shop's owner was just as frantic and distracted as the rest of that level of the station, and Niysha wasn't one to overlook good fortune.

As her eyes adapted to the darkness of the storeroom in the back, she brought out her datpad and checked her list. Power cells, replacement coolant lines, something called a "friction inhibitor" (hell if Niysha knew what that was), and a few things she wouldn't be able to find in a scrap shop. A dozen power cells would be difficult to carry...she'd need to find a repulsorsled, too. She could probably pick up that with the actual money on her credit chit, and ask what the heck a friction inhibitor was when she did it.

With a minute or two of quiet work, the Twi'lek girl had a hot dozen fuel cells stacked outside and covered in a fresh set of coolant cords. She stood back and admired her work for only a moment before she looked into her hand and frowned. She hadn't realized it at the time, but she'd picked up a rather expensive-looking bauble that she couldn't quite identify while she was in there. Her first instinct was to hawk it, and when she realized that she couldn't do that, it occurred to Niysha that it would be difficult to explain to her new master why she had "spent his money" on something she couldn't even identify.

"Ugh. Why is this so much harder than it used to be?"

 

[Lief]

"It doesn't have to be difficult" a voice said, through the shadowed alleyway. Kara had watched the young Twi'lek throughout her endeavours and her struggles with collecting the items on her datapad. It was clear she was a servant of some sort, possibly even a slave - for some reason, people always used Twi'leks for such - but Kara saw past that. Whether this girl knew it or not, she had a hidden gift locked within her, that only a few in the Galaxy were able to grasp. And it was for such a reason that she had continued to follow the woman despite having the meeting to attend to very soon. He would understand, and if he didn't? Well tough luck to him. Kara worked hard to get what she wanted, nothing in life had simply been handed to her. She wouldn't let a small man stand in her way.

Not only did this Twi'lek have an affinity towards the Force, but already she had proven herself to have some small amount of skill, which would in turn prove useful for the Sith Knight who stood there before her, surveying her, a thoughtful look upon her face. With a gesture of her hand one of the fuel cells moved from where Niysha had placed them through towards her hand, turning just an inch from the skin of her palm. "You haven't the strength in you, nor the arms, to take these back to your Master, Niysha", she said - having plucked the information from the very front of her mind, in her brief moment of uncertainty. With a shake of her head the Knight slipped forth across the ground, looking as though she were gliding as opposed to walking.

"On the other hand, you needn't return at all. Your... Talents are wasted on such a man, he would hardly miss you nor the small sum of credits." It occurred to her that, given the fact she had been given the opportune way out of slavery through the credit chips, the size of this space station, how simple it would be for her to leave, that perhaps Niysha knew no better. Autonomy was evident in all sentient beings, it just had to be realised. Yet perhaps it could be used against this particular Twi'lek. One thing she was certain of was that she did want this girl for her own.

Allowing the power cell to float back to the ground with the others she tipped her head to one side, while extending one pale hand out towards the girl. "Come with me, and you needn't lower yourself to the levels they would subject you to." She figured that offering power would do little to her, nor freedom, so this was a completely different situation to her previous Apprentices. "Why serve men such as these, when you can serve someone with real power? You will never go hungry, nor cold. Better a servant to one with influence than a slave to petty little men, no?" Of course Kara was clutching at straws, this woman probably didn't even care about who she served. "You will be treated like a person, Niysha, not an object."

@[member="Niysha"]