Smuggling Not Snuggling

[Alistair Fenn]

[member="Kinsey Starchaser"]

"Right." He said with a frown. Alistair didn't particularly care what happened to Kinsey aside from the fear of retribution from the Cartel, but in this case the more immediate threat was that of the Weequay down below.

Better her than him. "Act like an innocent girl, be dumb."

She might find that a little insulting, but it would probably keep her alive longer than being herself. The Weequay would likely have no idea who she was, and if she could distract them for a few moments then he'd be able to get a good angle on them and at least take out one of them.

That was all they needed.

"I'll be right behind you." He frowned for a moment. "Probably."

 

[Kinsey Starchaser]

[member="Alistair Fenn"]

"Wouldn't want you to go against your nature or anything," she muttered to the smuggler as she turned from him.

Honestly?

She figured she'd be on her own. But she hoped she wasn't. Fingers came up to tuck ribbons of dark hair behind her ears. "Hello?" She called uncertainly and began down the stairs. Hands were held up as she went lower and slowly entered the bar. There were two of them. Weequay. Blasters were pointed in her direction.

"Well, well. What have we got here?" Their accents were thick but she could understand them when they spoke basic.

"Just scaveging." Her shoulders shrugged as she hit the last step. "About to push out actually. But then heard you."

The one who had spoken first turned to his partner and switched to his native tongue, saying something she couldn't understand.

 

[Alistair Fenn]

[member="Kinsey Starchaser"]

Alistair didn't really understand a lot of Weequay, mostly because he'd never really bothered to learn. Over the years however he'd picked up a few words, mostly the insults and some things that helped him in dealing with the aliens, but not enough to know what the two were saying to each other in front of Kinsey.

The smuggler frowned for a moment as he listened, then quietly crept away from the stairs.

An impatient and biased observer might have thought that the Smuggler was abandoning Kinsey, but for once in his life Alistair was actually sticking around. It wasn't because he suddenly had a heart of gold, it wasn't because he liked Kinsey, it was because he needed her. He knew that she understood something about starships, and he might need that to fix his ship. That and searching this entire city on his own for what he needed would be a massive pain in the ass.

Thus he decided to keep his word.

Slowly, crawling on his stomach, he made his way over towards one of the holes that had rotted away in the floor.

He rolled himself into place, drawing his blaster and peering through the gap within the wooden boards to spot the two weequay right at the center of the bar. He frowned for a moment, leveling his weapon and waiting for the right time to squeeze the trigger.

 

[Kinsey Starchaser]

[member="Alistair Fenn"]

One of the Weequay nodded, eyes flashing down to his comm and the next thing she knew, he leveled his blaster in her direction and fired. It was a blue stun bolt. That didn't matter much because she'd felt the shot coming and it buried itself into the flickering white-blue energy of her wrist shield. She moved fast. Fast enough not to become an unresponsive vegetable at the feet of these pirates...whatever they were. She had a bad feeling about them checking their comm.

That stun shot still packed a mighty punch.

"Whoa!" She yelped, back-pedaling to the door as another shot came her way and buried into the very edge of the energy field. Her arm felt heavy and like it was about to fall off. Other hand finally managed to curl around her own sidearm.

 

[Alistair Fenn]

[member="Kinsey Starchaser"]

As soon as the Weequay took his shot Alistair followed in kind.

The heavy blaster that he carried packed more than a bit of a punch, in fact that was probably an understatement. The weapon was usually used by Naboo security, and in truth it was more akin to a blaster rifle than a one handed weapon. It was one of the reason that The Smuggler liked it so much.

He squeezed the trigger, a loud pang ringing out as his weapon kicked back.

Before either of the aliens had time to react, the bright green bolt struck the one on the left in the chest. There was a snarled cry half cut off by the sound of a breathless scream, and then the Weequay fell onto the floor with a heavy thud. The remaining man let out a howl of what Alistair assumed to be rage.

He fired a second time, then a third.

Both bolts missed.

 

[Kinsey Starchaser]

[member="Alistair Fenn"]

As the second Weequay was distracted by his partner going down and shots raining down on him from the ceiling, Kinsey capitalized. She leveled her gun, reaching around her own shield and fired. The stun beam buried itself into the alien's leg. He cursed and went slack as a second shot buried itself into his other thigh.

He went down with a thud, smacking the back of his head against the bartop with a sickening crunch.

Kinsey frowned and jammed the off switch to her shield and reholstered her weapon. Eyes flickered up to the hole in the ceiling, surprised he'd stuck around but not reading anything more into it.

"Clear," she called up and knelt down by the Weequay's comm, snatching it up and going to look at the last message they were so interested before they shot at her.

 

[Alistair Fenn]

[member="Kinsey Starchaser"]

Alistair dropped down from the ceiling, not bothering with the stairs. He crashed onto the first floor of the bar with a loud thud that seemed to resound slightly, his landing rather inelegant. A small curse left his lips, but he managed to pull himself back to his feet before anyone could really notice he had messed up in the first place.

Well, hopefully.

Unlike Kinsey though Alistair did not put away his weapon away, instead he held it loosely within his hand. He'd seen the Weequay go down, sure, but the suckers were tough and Alistair had absolutely no intention on getting bit by the damned thing. He frowned for a moment, glancing at the entrance of the bar before he stepped up beside Kinsey.

"Tie him up." He told her as he handed her the length of rope they had used to climb out of the pit earlier.

After he did that Alistair headed for the dead Weequay, quickly searching his corpse.

 

[Kinsey Starchaser]

[member="Alistair Fenn"]

Couldn't help the loft in brows at Fenn's landing. More like crash landing. Heh - funny. She worked hard to keep her face blank and nodded silently as she caught her own garrum grappling hook and rope. Nudging the Weequay over with her boot, she began tying him up.

The man's comm still held in one hand. Thumb scrolled through the message and she gulped. Stomach did a flip-flop.

That wasn't good.

Without waiting to show it to the smuggler, she wound up and threw it on the ground. Then brought her heel over the screen, smashing it again and again. Small sparks and broken glass flew off the device as she basically, destroyed it.

She stomped on it one more time for good measure, then picked up the Weequay's discarded blasters and shoved them into her bag. "We should go. Find the parts we need and go."

 

[Alistair Fenn]

[member="Kinsey Starchaser"]

"What the hell?" He asked as he finished digging through the Weequay corpse.

There wasn't much on him, no communicator and just a few credit chips. Aside from that he just had a piece of paper with some scribbles on it that Alistair couldn't really make out and an extra clip for his blaster pistol. None of it was any use to the Smuggler, unfortunately.

"What did the communicator say?" Alistair inquired. "Bad?"

He assumed so since she had smashed it, something that he found rather suspicious.

 

[Kinsey Starchaser]

[member="Alistair Fenn"]

The girl shrugged, ignoring his surprise and outrage. She offered no explanation besides a vague, "Bad enough." She didn't wait around for him to yell at her either, she'd already turned and squeezed through the small opening that he'd made in the bar door last night. The pale light hit her face with trace amounts of warmth. It was still early.

Apparently not too early for bounty hunters, though.

How had they known?

A sith had to be close by. She'd take those gangs and street clans over this any day. Forcers just scared the kark out of her. Especially those darkers. For a moment she felt lost in the street. No, frozen. Which would be their best bet to find a hypderdrive?

Most times ports were on the edges of the cities. Maybe they'd find something near the bridge they'd come in on - something they hadn't spotted int he dark last night. Slowly, she turned and headed in that direction.

 

[Alistair Fenn]

[member="Kinsey Starchaser"]

Before Kinsey could get too far Alistair grabbed her arm.

"No." His fingers tightened around the blaster that was still in his hand, his voice was stern, and his expression was dark as could be. He was sick of this. He was sick of the dodged questions, he was sick of being here, and he was sick of the karking mysteries that surrounded this girl. Alistair didn't care about her history, he didn't care who she was or what she was doing, but he most certainly did care about who in the feth was chasing her.

That was what mattered because it effected him.

"You know something." The Smuggler wasn't stupid, far from it. A lifetime of running meant that his survival instincts were about as good as they could get, and her smashing that communicator before he could look at it or inspect it sent alarm bells ringing throughout his entire system. "Either you tell me what the kark is going on or this ends here."

The blaster in his hand made what he was talking about explicit.

He didn't care if she had murdered a dozen people, he needed to know what he was dealing with. Vague throw away answers wouldn't cut it now.

 

[Kinsey Starchaser]

[member="Alistair Fenn"]

"Hey!" She yelped as she felt herself whipped back around to face the smuggler. Boots ground in the dirt and grass. With a twist and a yank, she freed herself. Hard to hang onto a Starchaser. Blues flitted from his smouldering and angry face like a building storm to that balster in his hand. Her own fingertips rested on the hilt of her weapon but she didn't draw it.

Would he ditch her if he knew?

She was so used to running from people. Running on her own. She ran from Kurt. She ran from Felix. She even kind of ran from Xin. Wasn't that she trusted Alistair more than who he was. The idea of knocking him out and fixing up his own ship crossed her mind.

She'd send a transport back to him eventually.

More than what he'd ever do for her.

Lips thinned.

Thing was? She probably needed his help to fix the ship. Extra muscle. She needed him to get to a more populated port.

Might as well stop running for a change.

"Sith." She said slowly. Muscles still tense along her shoulders and arms. "A sith has a bounty on me. Another force user must be near by who probably...sensed me when I was asleep." Jaw tensed, her own fingers tightened along the hilt of her weapon. "Just treat me like one of your firegems. Get me outta here and we're done."

 

[Alistair Fenn]

[member="Kinsey Starchaser"]

Kark.

For a brief second Alistair considered just raising his blaster and popping Kinsey in the head. In fact, the urge was so strong that his hand actively shook as the thought flashed through his mind. Ultimately however he knew that it was a stupid thing to do.

The Smuggler had no particular attachment to Kinsey, for him she was just another piece of cargo, but she was the quantity that he knew. These pirates...Bounty Hunters, Sith, whatever the kark they actually were, were something that he had no idea about. For all he knew they needed Kinsey alive, and finding her corpse would only enrage them further. That, and the Cartel was still hanging over him. That wasn't something he wanted to tempt either.

"Kark." He said it out loud.

He had no choice, he would have to deal with this.

Didn't matter who was chasing her, he just had to deal with it. His fingers unlaced from around her arm, and he waved her in front of himself. There was no need to argue, not right now. His adrenaline was spiking, his anger was clear, but screaming at her wouldn't do him any good. Not when he wanted to live.

"We find the parts." Alistair told her. "Get out of here."

Then they would head to the nearest shadowport.

 

[Kinsey Starchaser]

[member="Alistair Fenn"]

Her mouth went dryer than the Jakku desert. She didn't get Alistair but that was okay. She didn't need to. Course, made her feel mighty uncomfortable around him. Tension between the two was as thick as the Dagobah humidity.

The sooner they parted ways, the better. She had to mentally stop herself from rubbing at the spot on the arm from where he grabbed her.

Find the parts and get out of here.

"That's what I just said," she grumbled and walked on ahead, making sure there was a healthy distance between them. She was practically jogging. "Should be a starport on the outskirts. Best bet to find what we need."

The girl didn't turn back to the smuggler. She didn't want to see that stormy look on his face anymore. That piercing cybernetic. He'd been irritated since they first met. Angry. And she wanted no more part of it. She'd never chosen to be some sick and twisted thing to a sick and twisted Sith Lord. She'd never chosen to be a target due to her last name and relation to her uncle. She'd never chosen to involve anyone else. See anyone else hurt. Friend or foe or acquaintance, like Alistair was. It's why in the end, she'd pushed the others away. Like Kurt.

She was tired of Alistair's blame. Ever since they met, there'd been this underlying blame. In fact, she wondered if it'd be better to run off now. She could probably go back to that shuttle. There was a chance of starting it again. Or finding something else she could fix up.

Real thoughts of cutting out spun in her mind as they can across a massive hangar and platform.

 

[Alistair Fenn]

[member="Kinsey Starchaser"]

The hangar bay was populated with more broken down ships and ancient husks than Alistair had ever assumed actually existed.

There were a dozen fighters, two freighters, and even one transport that looked like it had been operational at one point. All of them were rotted out, most were missing engines or weapons, and the transport appeared as though the hull had all but fallen away. The Smuggler frowned slightly, watching the empty hangar bay for a second before he adjusted the strap on his backpack and motioned to Kinsey, stepping into her eyeline so that she would actually see her.

"Fighters first." He told her.

They seemed to be the most intact, and the damage on his ship was really only to the hyperdrive itself. Everything else could be fixed with the tools he had on board, the hyperdrive was what needed extra parts in order to function.

"Doubt that transport has anything." Alistair's voice sounded gruff, but resigned. As though he had already accepted their mutual fate. "Might be able to take some other stuff from it if we had the time but the hyperdrive is probably already gone from the looks of it."

He wasn't focused on the hunters now, he wasn't focused on the Sith chasing Kinsey, he was just focused on what was in front of them.

 

[Kinsey Starchaser]

[member="Alistair Fenn"]

She wouldn't look him in the eye - couldn't. Gaze was tilted down toward his scuffed up boots and the vegetation taking over the hangar floor they were standing on. Kinsey nodded quietly.

She was scared.

Wasn't all just Alistair. It was the situation. She figured the bounty had all been forgotten by now. Gone. And she just found out it wasn't. And yes, the smuggler scared the kark out of her too. There'd been murder in that one good eye of his.

Head lifted but her gaze was on the fighters. "I'll try that one," she pointed out the one furthest away from him. "Got the other half of our motivator, too. Found it in the shuttle in that cave. We just need the regulator." Reaching slowly into one of her satchels, she drew it out, to show Fenn the top before shoving it back in her bag and pivoting her feet to move toward the fighter her gaze was fixed on. Was an old x-wing. Maybe old Republic era.

 

[Alistair Fenn]

[member="Kinsey Starchaser"]

Well that was something at least. "Hm."

Alistair said in thought as she showed him the motivator. It was something that he hadn't quite expected, and another secret that she had decided to keep from him. He frowned, then slowly shook his head. It didn't matter now, what mattered was getting the hell out of here before anyone showed up.

"Alright." He told her as he slipped his blaster into his holster and jogged over towards another fighter. "Keep an eye out!"

The Smuggler shouted over to her. "Not sure if we'll have company."

Surprisingly there was no accusation in his tone.

Alistair was a bit of a bastard, but he'd thrown his lot in with Kinsey. For now he would stick by her, help her, and together they would get off this damned planet. He was a cornered animal, but that didn't mean he had to lash out and anything and everything around him. Better to have one ally with you than none at all.

 

[Kinsey Starchaser]

[member="Alistair Fenn"]

She just gave a silent, clenched teeth nod. Too weary and scared to do much else. Didn't want to get snapped at again. Or bit.

And he knew about her bounty now. How could she trust the man? A few seconds ago he'd been ready to wring her neck. It wasn't like she could go blabbing about that bounty to everyone, let alone a smuggler who'd shown her contempt since they first met.

Blues flitted to the hangar entrance as she scrambled up the x-wing. And those deep shadows in the corners of the massive room. Nothing around. Straddling the bird, she eased her way to where the astromech would've fit and dipped her head down, rummaging around for the part they were looking for. Knees scraped against the inside of the small space as she stretched further. Fingers squeezed into small spaces meant for droids.

There was definitely something worth salvaging. Just didn't know if it'd be enough. A part of her wondered if Fenn was lining up a kill bolt in her back right about now.

 

[Alistair Fenn]

[member="Kinsey Starchaser"]

He was not.

In fact Alistair was digging around the back of another starfighter. He had already gone through two of them, one look had been enough to tell him that the damn thing was completely and utterly trashed. It was an unwelcome bit of news, but not entirely something to be surprised at. These ships had been sitting here for what must have been centuries, at least since the Gulag Plague and probably longer.

The third fighter was a bit more reward, though not by much.

"Huh." Alistair said to himself as he looked inside of the cockpit, some of the alusteel remaining in the canopy. Surprisingly most of the inside had survived, and he managed to push back the odd pleather on the chair to reach back towards the Hyperdrive. He frowned for a moment.

The drive wasn't intact, but there was an odd little disc laying in the compartment, almost as if someone had put it there.

Alistair inspected it, placing the datadisc into the light of the sun to check for damage and scratches.

 

[Kinsey Starchaser]

[member="Alistair Fenn"]

With a kick and a wiggle, she eased herself out of the astromech slot. Boots hit the duracreet with a soft thud, the salvaged hyperdrive part in one hand. Cautious eyes swept the area before settling on Alistair.

"Think I got what we need," she said quietly, holding up the part to him before slipping it into her satchel. "We should head back to the ship."

She tried to quiet down the part of her that just wanted to bolt.

Just a bit longer. Then he'd be rid of her and she'd be well on her way to, well. Looking into the Eye of the Beyonder. Finding more odd jobs and reconnecting with the Vagrant fleet. Maybe she'd head to Terminus. She'd always wanted to check that out