Run Devil Run

[Joza Perl]

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpJAmlnBxoA[/youtube]​

As it turned out, Joza Perl wasn’t the only one who liked to work underground on Nar Shaddaa. Go figure.

The smuggler’s moon was rife with criminal activity, ranging from borderline illegal to some outright nasty chit. Joza could overlook the bootlegging and petty activity—she wasn’t some sort of paragon of justice—but her focus narrowed down to a pinpoint on what she considered to be a galactic blight. Slavery was a tricky thing to deal with given that it was a lucrative business, and if you did it right people were willing to protect their interests with blood and bullets. She’d been on the receiving end of the practice twice now, and wasn’t hankering for a third dip into the word of chains and collars. Consensually so was a different story.

Still, that didn’t stop the woman from doing what she could. Liberation was an idealistic word for it. Typically there was no light at the end of the tunnel, but rather things got gradually brighter as you went along. Sometimes the power went out, sometimes you had to improvise and change the bulb. The path to freedom wasn’t without risks, wasn’t without suffering some losses. But here she was, on the eve of yet another bust with a small team of trusted allies. Zeltrons mostly, obviously, trained in stealth tactics. They were all clad in HH Sniper Armor including Joza herself, giving them a sense of protection while allowing them to move about freely. She’d spent weeks trailing this particular group, finally pinning one of their locations down to a series of underground warehouses where slaves were processed and shipped out for sale. Some were purchased over the holonet, others were destined to make their way to an auction house of sorts. Just the thought made her stomach twist and turn with unpleasant memories, but she’d suppress the sensation for the moment. It would come back to her in the dead of sleep without fail.

The small group crept along a tunnel that would eventually lead to the open mouth of the first warehouse. There, they’d crawl along the ceiling beams, blending in with their gritty surroundings with their photo-optic armor.

Patience had been a big part of it. She’d had them under careful surveillance for weeks to the point where she’d gotten a pretty good feel for their routine. If she had things right, today was a processing day—there’d be a lot of henchmen to take out, and a lot of slaves to avoid hurting. That would be even more difficult, but it was the only decent time to strike. They couldn’t avoid complete civilian casualties, but the use of stunning weapons could reduce the number of deaths. Not that the slavers would be granted anything but after they were done being processed themselves.

A dead body or two wasn’t that out of place on the smuggler’s moon.

[member="Haytham Kaze"]

 

[Haytham Kaze]

Nar Shaddaa had been close to the Sith Triumvirate. That is, when it was actually a thing in that part of the galactic disk. Millions, if not hundreds of thousands served and wholeheartedly believed in the Triumvirate, believed that they would bring peace, unity, order to them and their families. Their influence had grown, Nar Shaddaa was the perfect opposition that the at the time Triumvirate could've faced. Lawless, Hutt Space, to name a few, the list went on.

And yet, with its close proximity, it also threatened the safety of the Triumvirate people.

That was where Haytham Kaze, or rather, Darth Athyssius stepped in.

Charged with the defense and protection of the Triumvirate, he had often sought out and purged pirates from the Sith Organization's Space. Often capturing and returning them to the Citadel on Ruusan, into his underground facility beneath the Citadel and torturing them. His only method was delivering pain, and prolonging their existence. Few survived, few interested him.

When the Triumvirate collapsed, the support fell away from the other planets.

The only place where the loyalty remained strong was on Ruusan, where, even after the Triumvirate fell apart and disappeared into the wind, Athyssius's loyal warriors and those civilians that trusted him with their lives remained.

But now, he was on Nar Shaddaa, in the guise of some dealer in slaves. The underground warehouse system connected to hardly used speder lanes that were more apt to be being described as sewer lines. Infiltrating the slave ring with an entire host of former Triumvirate soldiers would've been difficult, probably impossible. Out of the convoy of transport speeders that headed through those tunnels and stopped in the centre of the first warehouse, there was only the one that held the soldiers and the Sith Lord.

On this day, he didn't bring his lightsabre, it wouldn't do to be identified as a Force user, they may potentially bring out the weapons that could inhibit his abilities. Frowning as he looked out the window, he heard one of his sergeants say, "There's a lot of them," garbed as some low level thug with ridiculous goggles upon the top of his head. Shoving open the door, Haytham stepped out of the speeder, running a gloved hand through those dark locks of his and looking about the area. His men were armed, though not to the point to be suspicious. This was a seedy business after all, it was nothing his 'sellers' would be unused to.

And so, Haytham spoke...

"The boss wants me to inspect the shipment one final time."

[member="Joza Perl"]

 

[Joza Perl]

The small group were comfortable settled along the industrial beams near the high ceiling, fanned out around the perimeter of the room waiting for the signal. The door at the opposite end of the first warehouse opened, and Joza's attention snapped to the new arrivals, eyes narrows in immediate displeasure. This was unprecedented, but the Zeltron and her unit were flexible. If it looked like a fight that they couldn't win, they'd back out, unseen and unheard, to come back another day. She'd done this enough to know how to work her way around basic security systems at this point, but the additional gang members could prove to be troublesome. Sizing them up, her eyes landed on their leader first.

Her heart didn't just skip a beat, it stopped for several moments. Reluctantly, it started working again, and she worked on compressing her presence in the Force down to a pinpoint.

That son of a queen...!

It was a face she didn't want to see again, a face she hoped she'd never see again, but a face she was certain she was going to see again. Just not today. Or tomorrow. She’d never be prepared to see Haytham Kaze again, on the battlefield or here. Swallowing a mix of nostalgia, nerves and raw anger, the Zeltron steadied herself and concentrated on viewing him through a different lens. Was he here with the same goal in mind, or had the Sith taken up slaving? Somehow, she doubted that. As close as they had been, Joza and Haytham never shared much with each other about their work.

If they had, things wouldn’t have lasted nearly as long.

“Ehhh,” The thug gave Haytham a brazen once over before shrugging and waving over to one of his boys. “Oi, bring em out. Pretty boy wants to check out the merch.” He gave the Sith Lord a sideways glance. “Fer all this trouble, you’d better be buying. I swear, some of these clients…” His voice lowered into a grumble before about a dozen scantily clad women were forced into the cold warehouse from some side room, escorted by two burly men. They were an assortment of races, mostly Twi’lek, Zeltron and otherwise humanoid. Predictable, standard.

“You havin’ a party, boyo?” The goon’s mouth upturned as he took in a generous eyeful of the frightened, despondent women who did everything to avoid his lecherous gaze.

“Watch them.” Joza murmured into the comm embedded into her helmet.

[member="Haytham Kaze"]

 

[Haytham Kaze]

Haytham felt something nagging at the back of his head, but his senses were dimmed at this point due to him focusing on minimizing his presence. It felt as if he was being watched, or rather, there was something he should be paying attention to, but it was a mystery that he couldn't just let alone as he scanned the room. His grey orbs leapt from slaver to slaver, person to person while the dozen or so would-be slaves were brought out. He nodded his head appreciatively, but he was hardly paying attention to the girls at all. Instead, he was looking for that familiar sense, and he looked up, for all the holofilms he had watched he knew that people never did.

For a moment, he just looked up until one of the slavers who was watching him got curious and looked up to. Huffing, he looked back down. He saw nothing out of the ordinary, though when he saw the lineup of girls, his fists flexed, threatening to clench, but instead brushing against the blaster pistol on his hip.

"Party...?" He questioned, almost as if the word was foreign to him, alien, even, and then he'd come to a realization as it dawned on him and he nodded. "Yes, yes a party," he said. "I thought I'd start it early."

And that's when those from the first speeder truck raised weapons, crimson bolts already being fired into the main bulk of surprised gangsters, slavers, and all around bad guys as Haytham lunged forwards, his fist catching the lead man in the throat before the former Triumvirate soldiers went about eliminating the slavers efficiently. Trained warriors, most of them having been present for the taking of Ruusan, fighting the Silver Jedi Order, and even when their apparent Jedi Kill Squad came, they were present.

They had fought with him since the beginning.

If it were possible, some of them even hated slavery more than he did, having been freed from their bonds by Haytham himself.

They only had two orders on this night.

Kill the slavers.

Preserve the slaves.

[member="Joza Perl"]

 

[Joza Perl]

Blaster bolts were flying, the girls were screaming, the thugs were simultaneously ducking for cover behind whatever they could find and drawing their own weapons. Joza could only mutter into her com.

“Guess that’s a go.”

The snipers who’d positioned themselves to fan out above the room took aim at the mooks hiding behind shipping containers and the like around the perimeter of the area. Those who were in a more open space unfortunately didn’t have much luck against the wave of warriors and their surprise assault. While they were shredded by the crimson bolts, the snipers picked off the stragglers with a few precision shots, streaks of white and red lancing from the ceiling. Give then sudden chaos, bolts were flying in all directions and it would be difficult to discern the handful of shots that came from up in the rafters.

Regardless, it had been over quickly. The slavers in the warehouse were thoroughly dispatched, and the slave girls had shuffled to one corner of the room, unharmed but terrified. They were huddling, clinging to eachother, figuring that Kaze and his men were just another rival gang looking to shore up territory.

“I’m going down there.”

Before any of the snipers could tell her what a stupid idea that was, Joza let herself fall from the ceiling, cushioning her landing with the Force. Shifting back upwards, she’d be in the middle of the warehouse.

“Not bad.” Her voice was a bit distorted from her helmet, and she did well to control the incendiary anger pumping through her veins. “I’ll handle things from here on out, Haytham.”

[member="Haytham Kaze"]

 

[Haytham Kaze]

The fight was quick, surprised gangsters falling one after the other as the former Triumvirate Stormtroopers had their way with them, gunning them down left right and centre. Haytham however, didn't fail to notice the shots fired from the ceiling, though he didn't stop to see what would happen when the firing suddenly stopped.

Someone said in a comm, Eyes up.

And the troopers aimed blasters up at the ceiling, searching for the camouflaged snipers, some had even traced the form of [member="Joza Perl"] as she dropped to the ground in the centre of the room. The closest one to Haytham almost fired, but the Sith Lord's hand came up to push the muzzle away, to which the bolt ricocheted off of something and dissipated into the duracrete.

"Joza," he'd say drily. Even with his presence reduced in the Force, he could sense that it was her. In such close proximity? And the fact that she sought to use his name. Who in the Galaxy was left to even know his true name? His Jedi Master? She was gone, never to be seen again. Orcus? He killed him, plunging a glass dagger under his shoulder. Nikias and Akhilleus? One was dead, having given themselves to the Force, and the other had disappeared before the attempted uprooting of the Sith Citadel on Ruusan. "I should've known," he'd say with a nod of his head. She would be against slavery. She had told him once, a long time ago, in a different life almost. He had done the same as well.

"Yes... You may handle your own escape from here on out." he said as he waved at the other stormtroopers. "Load the girls into the trucks. They'll have more men coming." They were after all in the centre of some Crime Lord's infrastructure. Though, Haytham's mission didn't stop with some slave ring bust. No, he meant to go to the head of the snake. Turning back to the Zeltron Master, he said, "I trust you know your way out?" Seeing as she had been in the rafters before he had even arrived.

And then he turned on his heel, crisply, expecting that anger to boil out from that dam she had hastily constructed.

"Rig the room," he'd order as he walked away, dark hair gently bouncing above his now broad shoulders as he issued his commands. Deep within, he sought to reach out to her, but he resisted that temptation. If she was going to handle him coldly, he could do the same.

 

[Joza Perl]

Somewhere deep down, she probably had words for him. But this was neither the time nor the place, and the Zeltron was wholly focused on the mission at hand and the current boisterous roadblock that was the Sith Lord and his men. She’d come with snipers on purpose—taking the henchmen in this room out quick and clean would provide them an estimated 40 minutes for a getaway, if her projections were accurate. They had been, up until this point.

What shook things up however, was the sudden appearance of Haytham and his soldiers. They were just that—soldiers trained for the battlefield, not for a delicate infiltration mission and it took surprisingly little for her to suppress a scoff and an eyeroll. The com in her helmet buzzed to life as a feminine voice spoke in Huttese. “A group of eight speeders have been deployed from the south wing. ETA 30 minutes.” Joza’s brow furrowed beneath the helmet. “Send squad C out to intercept them and buy us more time. We’ve hit a roadblock.” She responded back quickly in the Hutt tongue before shifting her focus back to Haytham. “Make sure Volek to is prepped.”

“I wouldn’t rig the room. Too close to the surface, you’ll cause the ground to collapse and then the local dirty cops along with angry slavers on your tail. Tunnels will be turned to chit, too.” Not good for the local smuggling rings which would also be angry, and if they checked the feeds before they’d been disabled they’d see his face. Joza had been feeling this place out for ages, getting to know the turns and twists along the way. Turning towards the girls, she called out to one of them—a pink Twi’lek, specifically. “Ursa, bring them to the rendezvous point.” She raised a hand, waving two fingers as a pair of snipers descended from the ceiling to help. A commandeered stealth ship would be waiting at the underground hangar not far from here. The Twi’lek—an plant of Joza’s—nodded once, sharply, ushering the confused and terrified girls through a side door. For all they knew, they were caught in a war between two rival gangs.

She wasn’t going to argue with him, not today. It wasn’t worth it with these women on the line, and he was a liability given his brash approach that had cost them time. The operation they’d just busted was one of many branches snaking out through the Hutt worlds, leading up to the Husk Lizard slavering ring. It was an intricate network of human trafficking, one that she’d made some headway into thanks to the support from Firemane and the dedication of her own people.

“Take the east tunnel and you’ll come up somewhere near the Corellian Sector.” She waved towards the direction she’d mentioned before turning to follow the girls out. “Provided you don’t blow it up first.”

[member="Haytham Kaze"]

 

[Haytham Kaze]

The Sith Lord twitched visibly as he saw [member="Joza Perl"]'s own people herding the would-be slaves out the warehouse. Before anyone of his soldiers could voice a complaint however, he had ordered the stand down. He didn't need another shootout, especially with all of his own forces out in the open, he didn't know where the Zeltron had her own forces. Best to stay above being petty, at least, for this one time in their relationship.

Sending a look over his shoulder, he shrugged.

"Dirty cops and slavers?" He questioned in a tone as if to say 'are you serious?' "Hardly anything of consequence." Evidently, the Sith Lord hadn't been taught a lesson in some time. With the death of Orcus, there was no one to tell Athyssius how things were. Chances were he was disillusioned with his own superiority over his soldiers and believed himself capable of bringing down an entire crime ring in a day. Perhaps he could, though the losses would be great, though his sources were excellent. They had been in place since the height of the Triumvirate, no matter how short they had been.

"The tunnels will blow when both our people are out." He said, "A bunch of vaporized criminals are hardly the stuff that haunt dreams." He picked up a blaster rifle from the ground, opening up the gas canister, he closed it before he slung the strap over his shoulder.

"Is the East Tunnel where you intend to finish me off, Joza Perl?" He would've said after her, presumably as she disappeared after her girls. Turning back to his men, they were finishing their placement of charges and hustling back to the speeder they had entered in on, "Get us down that Eastern Tunnel."

"My Lord, what if it is a trap?"

"Then we hope she allows us a quick death."

The speeder came to life, repulsors kicking up dust and dirt as it started through the tunnels.

 

[Joza Perl]

“It’s about leaving a trail and being followed. Criminals are more clever than you'd think” A brow arched behind her helmet as she watched the girls file out, admittedly a bit surprised that he’d ceded to her. Perhaps he had more respect for the situation at hand than she’d anticipated, but it didn’t mean that Joza would drop her guard.

She didn’t argue about the tunnels, but was relatively content with his decision in that regard. She didn’t care for the dead criminals either, and there were cleaner ways to clean things up, but that would take effort and time that neither of them had. Her comm chimed. “ETA 22 minutes.” They were cutting it close, but it wasn’t as if they hadn’t handled a bit of trouble before. Luckily, the head honcho—Adnan Sadiq—was away on business at Nal Hutta. He’d be none too pleased by the time he got back, but by then the slaves would have disappeared into the smuggler’s moon or beyond. But the Dark Jedi was a vengeful man, she’d come to learn over the years. He’d liquidate the cargo without a second thought if it meant getting rid of a thorn in his side. Provided the thorn was big and painful enough.

“Finish yourself for once.”

She quipped dryly, letting the vestiges of sarcasm leak through into her tone. At a time like this, she was focused more on the task at hand than petty revenge for a relationship gone sour. As she disappeared through the door, a piece of paper loosened from a pocket near her hip, drifting across the warehouse floor before settling onto the ground a few meters or so from the speeder. If one were to pick it up, they’d find a lovely little photo of Joza and her son, Alan. Joza had a grin on her face, and was looking down at the child she was holding. Alan Perl was facing the camera, happy as could be. Red hair like his mother, but where did the peachy skin and grey eyes come from?

[member="Haytham Kaze"]

 

[Haytham Kaze]

Criminals are more clever than you'd think.

He replayed her words in his mind, though he couldn't see the truth in it. He had yet to come into contact with a criminal whose final moments didn't involve his lightsabre cleaving some part of their body off before finishing the job. He'd huff as he rolled his shoulders back. Scavengers. That's what the Triumvirate had become when their government had collapsed. Outside of former Triumvirate Space they had nothing, relegated to the appearance of common scroungers and gangsters. In the beginning, it had been disheartening, many of their people had betrayed them, leaving the Triumvirate for those they had sought to destroy.

Darth Athyssius found himself destroying those traitors first.

Before he could enter the speeder truck himself, he heard the final quip by [member="Joza Perl"]. His face reddened, and from within the speeder truck he could hear someone, not a someone, he knew who, giggling. A young man, one who he had saved from poverty after the then Silver Sanctum had bombarded that city of civilians. He had been too young to fight then, but he had grown up since then, barely old enough to conscript with the Triumvirate forces, but here he was all the same.

She karking got me.

The speeder truck burned a path through the tunnels. As they did, Lord Kaze could feel the anticipation of his soldiers. Unlike Joza and her own people, the Sith didn't have a reference point to say when more of those gangsters would appear. So the piloting was reckless, not that Haytham himself was flying. Still, the Sith could only wonder if they would end up seeing each other again, though when he checked the blaster rifle again, past the barrel, on the floor between his legs he spotted a picture of Joza. He'd recognize her anywhere, any place, no matter the background. It didn't matter how cold they were with each other, he'd care for her. But in the picture there was someone who didn't recognize, but also seemed to know.

What?

His fingers brushed the picture gently, clenching his jaw before he slipped the picture into one of the inner pockets of his coat. He wasn't the smartest at problem solving, but he didn't need to go to the source to figure it out. Instead... She had just ran from him.

"My Lo-"

A repulsor was struck from underneath, sending the truck off track and descending towards the ground of the tunnel, exit opening less than a hundred yards away.