The Coming Tide

[Northwood Galaxy]

Planet: Coruscant

Location: Underworld


Jade slipped through the crowd, wincing at the commotion around her. She tapped her stick ahead of her as she made her way through the streets. It was early afternoon, and Jade was unsure what she was going to do. She could feel the credits she had on her, which was not a lot. She only had about 10 credits, which was barely enough to buy lunch, much less a ticket out of here.


She had no real home, but Jade hated being in the city, especially in a place of force energy that seemed to e arguing which was stronger. She swayed a bit and leaned against a wall to catch her breath.

She was hungry and tired, a very dangerous mixture.

 

[Reya]

In the streets before a scrapyard trader stood two Jedi. Both tall human women in long brown robes. Their hoods were thrown off so as to converse with the shop owner more easily. It appeared the Jedi were asking directions around the Undercity. Though they took no notice of [member="Jade The Rogue"] at first, the younger of the Jedi pair eventually turned.

This was Jedi Apprentice Reya. A desert warrior from the Outer Rim and recent recruit of the NJO on Sullust. Her Force senses were strong and, as such, was inclined to notice Jade quicker than most. Whether by premonition, magical talent, or mere curiosity alone was uncertain. Even to Reya.

Strange happenings aside, Reya motioned for Jade to approach. Perhaps she had questions for her.

 

[Northwood Galaxy]

Jade stiffened as the force notified her of two Jedi. Turning around, she sensed one of them motioning her over. Wary, she walked over, tapping the thin staff ahead of her. She stopped just near the Jedi, but did not speak.

Not at first. Once she had gotten their force signatures, she finally spoke.

"Yes?" Jade's voice was hard and wary.

 

[Dajara Boshtet]

[member="Reya"] [member="Jade The Rogue"]

This city was wonderful as the small padawan movd. Feet raised so she was movign silently on her toes easily enough and her skin was glowing in the under areas of the world. The white robes looked thicker on her small frame with her hair in a tight ponytail. This world was different in many ways, better then she had expected before she moved around to see some other groups and other people around the area with the force energies. Her senses expanding out when she coudl sense some others within the area so the little ghostling got a few looks but she weaved through a few more people and they didn't really seem to notice her around the areas.

 

[Reya]

Reya looked down at the poor [member="Jade The Rogue"] . Sensing her to be tired and hungry. A common trait among the undercity. It wasn't where you went to find a farmer's market or a gourmet anyway. Still, she must proceed.

"Hello there. Might I ask you a question?"

Nearby the other Jedi woman turned to mind the conversation. Jedi Knight Amanda Salis of Denon. Of similar height to Reya and with the same vibrant brown hair. Yet, the Knight did not bother them. She continued talking with the store clerk and asking directions.

Unsurprisingly, Reya did not notice [member="Dajara Boshtet"] nor her energy nearby. Perhaps the desert woman was merely preoccupied. Who could say.

 

[Northwood Galaxy]

Jade gave a nod, "Go ahead, you already did."

 

[Reya]

[member="Jade The Rogue"] had a clever tongue and spoke in perfect Basic. A sign worthy of merit and aloof from the usual poverty that grew down here. Yet it was but a word. Nothing more. Reya smiled and withdrew a protein bar,

"Might I trade you for some information? You see. We seek the place known as Kitomeer's. Perhaps you have heard of such a place?"

Will or nill, Kitomeer's was a cantina closer to the surface levels. Well hidden and secure, it was rumored that even a Sith Lord might respite there. Surly, a den of thieves and dark scoundrels. Exactly the type of location the New Jedi Order might wish to eradicate from Coruscant for good. A hiding place for deeper darkness.

 

[Northwood Galaxy]

Jade was silent, she could smell the protein bar. Her stomach growled, and Jade thought for a moment.

"Find Beggar's Alley, go in, and it is the last door on the left." Jade said.

 

[Reya]

[member="Jade The Rogue"] had indeed an answer. Though, was it an honest one? The Force could not perceive. ...Strange. The Force could always perceive a lie, and yet? This woman before her. Reya could not discern. Fascinating.

"Well said."

Reya gave the woman her fair trade. Life a tender meal of fish it would feed her for a day. Ah, but teach a man to fish? ...No. Reya could not teach anything down here. It was not the Jedi way to pick up strays. They had a mission to accomplish.

"Thank you. May the Force be with you."

Knight Salis beckoned Reya return to her side. Duty calls.

 

[Northwood Galaxy]

"Thank you, Miss." Jade barely whispered. She listened as the two women left. She then practically gobbled the bar down.

Wait... They might be dead meat if they went in there. Jedi or not, they might need help.

Jade set out to follow them, cloaking herself with the force so they might not detect her.

 

[Reya]

Reya and her partner quickly relayed the information back to the NJO command center. Then, with their recon complete, made a quick and stealthy exit from the Underworld. Perhaps to further adventures unknown.

What became of the mysterious [member="Jade The Rogue"] that Reya had so suddenly met unawares, remained unknown.

_

*exit

 

[Northwood Galaxy]

Jade watched as they left. Dropping her force shield, she walked down the street away from the ships. She didn't have enough for a ticket anyways.


what would happen now? Whom would she meet?

Only the force knew for sure.

 

[HK-36]

[member="Jade The Rogue"],


Suddenly in the darkness of a nearby ally a pair of glowing lights would flicker alight, emanating crimson glow of cybernetic eyes, much like a streetlight turning on with a flicker.

"You seem lost, child."

Monotone voice reached out to her from the darkness. Of course it would be lost on her that she would not be able to see the being talking to her, being blind and all that. Still, even as she heard the words and could tell where they were coming from, the being's presence would elude her Force Sigh and Sense.

For droids were difficult to be sensed in the first place, being machines rather than living beings they had little more presence in the Force than a rock. To make things worse the droid was covered in a fleshy layer of a Vong biot, rendering him resistant to a variety of Force abilities. So if Jade managed to teach herself how to see droids through the Force, the presence of this being would be unnaturally garbled and distorted, barely visible if it all, easy to elude her at moment's notice.

 

[Six-O]

It was an interesting place, the Underlevels. So much pain, such bitter suffering. Home of destitute beggars, thieves, murderers and all manner of monster. Case in point, Six-O. The Droid had fallen out of sight some time after the Roxuli terrorist attacks he'd performed with the Ubesian Mercenary, Grymm Jaegir, and his Death Squad, the Pra'kt'orai. In that time the One Sith had fallen, work had slowed and the Droid was left questioning his purpose in the Galaxy once more. It was the first time in thousands of years the machine had done so, but, let's not take it too far, Six-O still fancied himself a very skilled gun for hire. Extinguishing organic life, after all, was such a pleasant past time. It, or he, one should say, rather enjoyed it. Orgasmic? That's what the soft inferiors might call it.

Ah, such a discomposing excuse for a droid, IGa-60 thought. While he hefted through a rather mountainous pile of scrap waste that stood vigil in the glow of crackling fire barrels a broad number of paces away from [member="HK-36"] and the wandering blind flesh puppet, [member="Jade The Rogue"]. The tall, powerful build of his mechanical frame rest beneath a ragged, sullied cloak. It's ratty hood aloft the fear inspiring dome that this particular droid model was known for.

As the Outlaw AI pillaged and scavenged the fallen droid skeleton for any and all useful parts with terrifying, hooked, hands. A number of high-powered weapons clanked and rattled against the hard surface of his body from leather straps that hung down loose from his shoulders.

Now Six-O quite truly posed no threat to these dregs around him, he was an Artist, no matter the delight he took in acting through on his primary protocols. He required good pay to murder and maim. But. . . when you had committed as many atrocities and crimes as he, the machine could never be too careful.

It was somewhere therein a second after the unmistakably mechanic voice had uttered syllables that Six-O ceased what he was doing, releasing the grip of one hand from it's dismal duty to peel back, carefully, the corner of his sagging hood. Allowing that red globe of a viewing sensor to focus in on the source.

 

[Northwood Galaxy]

"I am not lost." Jade was wary as she gripped hernlightsabers. "Are you?, HK-36."

He had forgotten her ears.

 

[HK-36]

[member="Jade The Rogue"],

Of course he hadn't forgotten about her hearing, but when the machine was capable of moving silently, due to sound dampeners, noise would only get her so far with him, she would hear the direction his voice came from but that was about it,

"I am exactly where the Force meant for me to be."

From the shadows a six fingered hand covered in fleshy substance extended out, an open palm motioning for the hilt of her lightsabers,

"You do not need to worry child, I am not an enemy here, besides, those silly things can not harm me anymore."

Jade would feel a subtle tug on her lightsabers, as if something was clutching it. Of course, the machine remained where he was, too far from her to do so in person, instead he used the grav-gloves built into his Vong biot suit to create a gravitational anomaly and manipulate her lightsabers remotely. If Jade would not tighten her grip, or would allow him to do his thing, her lightsaber hilt would levitate in front of her, without turning on, as the droid scanned and inspected it, before returning to her belt. If she decided to keep her grip on it then nothing would happen outside of a tug on the cylindrical object, he was not planning on ripping it away from her.

"Tell me, are you where you are meant to be?"


[member="Six-O"],

Six's photoreceptors, i.e. sensors based on light and color like most organic eyes, would have a hard time picking up the source of the voice as HK was still mostly clad in shadows of the dark alley. Once he switched to heat sensors and power fluctuation scanners he would be able to pick up on the presence of what was clearly another droid, or at least a droid body. It would probably be too difficult to tell what was his model and series since all he had to go off of was power readings from the other droid's power cell and heat of its internal mechanisms.

Either way, the other droid did not seem to notice Six just yet, or it simply didn't care for the other machine's presence, and it seemed to be making some weird gesture towards the organic nearby it.

 

[Six-O]

This was where Six-O differed from most Droids. The instinct to filter in with a heat scan was perhaps the last choice he would make, too easy to baffle and mask the signature. Instead his course of action was quite simply to clean the obstructing darkness that clutched so tightly to [member="HK-36"] by lensing in a greater amount of ambient light that glittered the otherwise dreary corridor. Thereby melting that black shroud quite effectively--but not perfect.

Steam from a nearby ventilation shaft waft outwards, flooding the IG-model's end of the street in a cloud of smog that gave brief life to the sullen cloak the droid rest under. The flames, caged in rusted barrels that bore the dents of repeated beatings flickered wildly and once more Six-O shifted his spectrum, this time a short wave infrared to cleave clarity through the obstruction yet still.

To say that what he saw before him did not, in some way, agitate deep curiosity and shock would be a lie. His disbelief soon faltered though and he concluded the scene that stood before him was less intriguing than it seemed. With 90% probability, [member="HK-36"] was a Shard. But still, the machine did ponder. The Force, it was such a powerful weapon. One he could not grasp or make logic of. One that held him back from achieving his most desired goal. The perfection of self, the ultimate tool. The one thing that denied him utter domination over organics.

But still, what if he was not?

In his absence from Factional warfare had there been a breakthrough in Droid technology? Six-O dropped his grasp on the deactivated body, a victim of organic discrimination judging by the chassis trauma, and all of the most valuable parts had already been cannibalized. Lifeless, and loudly it clunked back to the pile from whence it came, disheaving a number of smaller, lighter objects in the process as Six-O stepped away with a strong thud of metal foot on duracrete.

Slowly his clawed hands came to bear on the rim-edge of one burn barrel, flames lapping at his baggy sleeves, singing a line of fabric to ember. From here he would examine further the situation between [member="Jade The Rogue"] and this mysterious oddity, [member="HK-36"]

 

[Northwood Galaxy]

Jade gripped her saber, wrapping it in the force. "I am, indeed. What do you want?"

 

[HK-36]

[member="Jade The Rogue"],

"To offer you a way out."

The voice droned back at Jade from the darkness as the six fingered hand pulled back into the shadows, only to appear a second after and flick out a couple of unmarked credits.

CLINK-CLINK

Jade would hear as the small golden credits danced at her feet from the toss, bouncing slightly on the pavement before settling down.

"Will you dare to seize your fate?"

The machine added as HK's hand retreated back into the shadows.


[member="Six-O"],

Once Six pulled back the curtain of shadows the other machine was using for its cover, slowly revealing its visage through the infrared spectrum, he could see that he was not the only being who utilized cloaks as HK was clad in one as well. Its heavy black material wrapped around him like a cocoon or wings of a bat, concealing him almost entirely underneath the cloth outside of the red glowing eyes and a hand seemingly covered in some sort of organic material, visible briefly as it moved in an out of the cloak's confines in quick movement.

The cloak HK wore and the distance between them interfered with Six's ability to confirm or deny whether the being was actually a Shard and housed a crystal within him, it also made it very difficult to discern what weapons the other droid had hidden underneath the outer layer. Six would be able to note, however, against the red glow of the other machine's photoreceptors, its faceplate, somewhat elongated and ending with a vocabulator grill and two spikes at its chin like tusks, silvery yet pale like polished bone. If Six knew anything about Kaleesh culture, the faceplate was similar to their bone masks but not quite right, they were more of an inspiration behind it rather than a complete imitation.

The other being still seemed to not notice Six or be too occupied with the girl to address the IG droid.

 

[Six-O]

Incidentally, he did have a record with the Kaleesh. He'd first arrived on the planet long before Old Republic Sanctions against their people brought them to the edge of starvation. The Mumuu, great beasts that stood broad and strong were his prize then. Hides of the powerful monstrosities fetched a deep return in profit those days. He'd returned again some centuries later under contract from the great Lig Tribe.

From the sweltering jungles of the Kunbal to the blood red beaches that skirted the Jenuwaa Sea, Six-O slaughtered many Yam'rii. It was a fond memory, such ruthless blood letting. The toll of death for both sides was so, so high. On seven separate occasions the Droid had worn the bolt out on his Czerka Outland Rifle.

Perhaps though, what was most intriguing, the Kaleesh themselves ended up turning more than a deci-cred or two. A former collaborator, a Yam'rii named Krrikk and himself returned again to Kalee many years later. Turns out the meat of the Kaleesh people was in fact a delicacy to a wide number of Insectoid species. The Dread Swarm, an Insectoid Slaver Organization, paid top credit for Kaleesh Scale Leather, even more for live Kaleesh. But the best pay came from little pitiful ones. Six-O had once watched Krrikk gorge himself on thirteen Kaleesh newborns--a bakers dozen!---an entire generation.

Six-O indeed did miss that savage bug.

As he spent microseconds engrossed with vivid imagery of his past exploits, he did ponder, in the Organic sense of time, how long could a Death Mark last? They had labeled him Troklo'yev, which translated, roughly, meant The Great Iron Defiler---or Eternal Coward Lacking of Honor, Sworn to Die--but that was a mouthful, incapable of being translated perfectly in to Galactic Basic, and Six-O just preferred the former.

"Move Droid!" A portly soft skin, layered in grease and grime demanded of Six-O, suddenly. As the human creature of sickening shape and weight extended his hands towards the warmth of flame.

But Six-O, he did not move. One clawed hand, blistering from the heat it had collected while holding the barrel, lunged accurately, grasping thick wrist with vice-like pressure. Smoke both from Six-O's singed sleeve, and now the reddening flesh of this inferior creature, rose slowly as sickly yellow blisters ballooned from below the edges of the IG-Model's claw.

"Yyyaaaaahh. . . ok! Ok!! OK!" The man squealed like a kicked porcine, bumbling off at speed with belly swaying and cries crooning the dim streets.

Leaving Six-O once more, so he could continue watching this exchange between [member="Jade The Rogue"] and [member="HK-36"] , clearly attempting to render and process if it was indeed a Shard. . . or, no, no.. . it could not be a Droid. His processors just could not fathom that possibility, they would not allow him to accept it.