Private The Taken

[Xin Boa]

Delila Castillon

"You will need to infiltrate several Sith strongholds. Temples. There are several valuable artifacts and crystals I have been after for many years. None have yet to succeed."

Xin was incensed. The first real lead and he offered up nothing and asked the world of them. His headtails coiled in annoyance, cracks of silver criss-crossed his inky black eyes.

"Ask too high a price and it seems easier to fetch the information ourselves," Xin growled.

"Put it this way," the broker replied. "I know enough that if you can't pull off just one of these jobs, then you have no chance of going after this Aldric. Free advice? Walk away from this all."

 

[Delila Castillon]

| Xin Boa |

Annoyance rolled off Xin in waves. They were being given little information with no guarantee of return. On a pure business level she could understand where the broker was coming from. They were a liability, a risk, and currently wanted by bounty hunters. However, on the transactional scale they were taking a huge risk. If she and Xin were able to risk time and resources there was nothing stopping the broker from taking the item and giving a bland piece of information such as 'Aldric is on Hoth' and leave it at that.

"A moment, if you will."

The broker made an annoyed gesture to the door. Dells stepped out, making sure the door was firmly shut. Still, privacy wasn't expected. She kept close to Xin, stretching up to talk in his ear.

"We should go with my original plan. Cost is minimal."

The original plan was to put herself into a position to be sold into the underground. Risky but it gave the most reward with quick turnaround.

 

[Xin Boa]

He didn't like the original plan. He didn't like it at all. Xin knew they were both prepared to fly close to a burning star to drag Aldric back from his fate, but it didn't make these risks sit comfortably.

Xin also knew that brokers were used to crimelords and law enforcement that wanted the knowledge they traded. They were not prone to surrendering their information to intimidation.

"Do it," he hissed with a sharp nod. Xin reached out to squeeze her shoulder gently. He turned back towards the back room.

"You are going to accept my terms or do you being me a new proposal?" the broker asked, feigning disinterest.

 

[Delila Castillon]

Xin Boa

"Yes.A much simpler proposal. I place myself in your organizations hands to be sold into the underground. You place me into the right area and I get to do the rest."

It was a giant risk. Delila would have to play the part and play it well. It meant turning a blind eye to many things she would find objectionable. Xin and Brak knew of a backup plan, a planet she would fall back to - if something went wrong, if she could escape. There was no guarantees of being able to leave if she felt the need.

"The lizard and the squid stay here as collateral. What else is in it for us?"

"I'm volunteering to be sold. Any profits would go straight into your coffers."

"Hmm...it may be hard to sell such an elderly specimen."

 

[Xin Boa]

"Hey..." Xin started to protest, but he was cut off.

"There are three things this organisation looks for in sentient trafficking. Well, four, but we need not be crass," the infobroker replied.

"First they want hard labourers. The bigger and younger the better. Then they wanted skilled indentured slaves. Professionals. Then they want people sensitive in the Force."

"No jedi here," Xin replied. He was still blissfully unaware that his luck in the midst of battle and danger sense were born of the Force and not his biological empathy.

"Then you might see why the risk to me isn't worth how many credits I'll make?"

 

[Delila Castillon]

"Its been awhile since we've spent date night in restraints." Shoulder bumped into his, not sure if Xin Boa could see her grin in the dark. Not due to lack of eyesight, Nautalons were typically sharp eyed in most conditions, more due to their cramped conditions. "Hell, its been awhile since we've been out together. Not ideal but I suppose we'll take it."

Cold and cramped, Delila wondered if these conditions were even ideal for transport. What good was buying a sentient being if they were weak and sick, or worse dead, before reaching their labor camp. Seemed like wasted credits in her opinion. Then again....most of these credits seemed to have been laundered well and gained through easy means. Easy come, easy go.

Between offering themselves to be sold, using Brak as collateral, and paying a bit of credits they finally gained enough favor with the infochant to be placed in the right area. According to all information Aldric was at one of the facilities on the planet they were being transported to. From what she could gather from those also with them their job was hard labor in extreme conditions expanding this facility. Obviously some sensitive nature of the facility meant contracted labor was out of the question.

"We should be there soon by my estimation."

 

[Xin Boa]

"If we get through this you can tie me up as long as you want," Xin replied. They had mostly been left to themselves, which was to say the workforce in the lowest deck had been left unfed for nearly eight hours since dawn.

"I have a feeling this isn't going to be a quick job."

They needed to find Adric and do so before they made their escape. They couldn't gamble on finding him and getting off world in one go. He had a tracker in his blood stream and perhaps some of Dells' old war buddies would show if they couldn't get out under the own steam. In the meantime they needed to plan and stay alive.

The telltale sound of atmosphere rocking the transport began. Xin shifted around as the lights rose. Looking around, he found some of the 'stock' in a sorry state.

Pushing his back to the wall, he lifted himself up high enough to peer through a porthole. A TIE fighter zipped past the window. As the ship banked he caught sight of the pyramid. It was in a state of decay and a make ship landing pad had been cleared in front of it.



The craft touched down and light streamed in as the boarding ramp opened. There was a man in black robes standing and waiting. He stepped up the ramp promptly, met by one of the slave traders.

"Master Grayd," said the slaver, his tongue translated by a voice box into common.

The sith was just a cultist, no master. This was barely a rabble of fanatics who had escaped the Jedi onslaught. They were few in number, low in skill, but they were trying to build something here. It was why they had funneled cash through the criminal underworld into finding potential recruits.

"I will test the potential candidates on the upper deck before inspecting these," the cultist replied.

"I have a schedule to keep and...".

"And half of the last lot had no potential and four of the slaves died on day one. They will be inspected before you leave."

He carried on through the row of arrivals towards the stairs. Xin watched carefully. There must have been more like Adric on the deck above.

The cultist stopped before them sharply.

Xin froze. They must have been recognised.

"This one," the sith muttered, looking down at Xin. "You know he can use the Force?"

"No, but I'll take him up to the next deck and you can pay..." started the slaver, looking for extra credits.

"No. He's too old to train." His hand fell to a lightsaber. There was a moment where he was deciding whether to execute Xin on the spot, but his hand came away from the weapon. "But he looks good to work. Put a tracker on him for me."

The two turned and walked away to inspect the potential recruits. Xin sighed.

"Kark, I've already ruined the job," he hissed to Dells.

 

[Delila Castillon]

Dells already knew they would be in their precarious position for awhile. They would need at least a solid month to understand the patterns here. Work schedules, shipment arrival times and departures, the amount of fortifications and the like. Being in their position as slaves, their freedom to look around and make their own schedule was impossible. Keeping their eyes and ears open and discretely asking those who had been on planet longer than themselves were going to be key.

Brow furrowed as the Sith - Master Gray or whomever - mentioned force sensitivity in Xin. Her Xin? There was no way. Jedi were insufferable and pretentious, everything the Nautalon wasn't. Xin seemed surprised by the comment, seemed he had been in the dark as well. The Sith moved down the line, apparently looking for more 'recruits'. She was passed over.

"Look who's too old now...." She whispered back at Xin, unable to get in more wordwise as someone else was coming down the line of slaves. Someone in charge if she was guessing by body language and they way he was sorting them. The 'recruits' had been removed. Several young men that barely appeared to be teenagers were picked out to be conscripted into some type of military service.

"Everyone else, kyber mines."

Delila was secretly relieved. It would keep herself and Xin close enough to share information in small bursts throughout the day. So long as they were careful.

Fitted with tracking devices, they were led out of the craft and out on the harsh planet.


Xin Boa

 

[Xin Boa]

"I guess lots of people might have potential," he muttered under his breath. He often wished he could roll his eyes. He felt it made their verbal battles terribly one sided when she could make the gesture.

He tried to shrug off the encounter with the cultist, but knew it was going to bother him later. He was too preoccupied with sheltering his face and eyes from the harsh wind.

They were flanked by droid guards. Old imperial security models that stood tall above them all. That was going to be a problem.

They were led to a sheltered bowl carved out of the rocks. An ominous entrance to the underground mines ahead of them.

A man in dark leathers emerged from the shadows flanked by a pair of security droids.

"I am the foreman," he announced. "I need to keep you working. That means you get plenty of protein broth twice a day and biscuits whilst you work. It means you get eight hours of sleep a day. It means that you work hard for the other sixteen with three breaks. I give you enough rest and food to work hard. Don't work hard, you clearly don't need food or rest."

 

[Delila Castillon]

As they worked longer in the mines, Delila easily saw how the operation easily stayed underground. The group was never allowed to leave the mine area, not even to sleep. The tunnels were massive with open caverns that had been already been mined. She couldn't tell how far underground they were, perhaps three hundred meters or more. Old carved out caverns, complete with lights and various fixtures had been set up as dormitories, some type of prison, and general areas filled to the brim with equipment. If someone was to scan from the skies weather and lack of activity outdoors would lead them to believe there was a potentially small mining operation - not a gargantuan maze of tunnels and caverns pulling out kyber daily.

Delila immediately made herself useful and volunteered for the blasting crew. She had the experience in dealing with explosives and it gave the opportunity to stay away from some of the harshest work. Not that playing around with their explosives was any better - safety wasn't quite a priority when one was dealing with free labor. Structural engineers weren't exactly lining up to work for an oppressive regime.

Working with the blasting crew meant she was constantly dusty. Red hair had turned to ashen gray and it wasn't as if showering and wasting water was high on the list for their captors. Plentiful protein broth and biscuits were a joke. Of course she knew the speech at the beginning was nothing more than a joke, probably one their foreman thought was funny, something to chuckle about with the fellow supervisors.

From her perspective, things seemed to run on a regular schedule. Shifts for the foremen and supervisors were predictable with littler variance. Mining operations ran in their own shifts, two so something was always running at any given time. Hauls were taken away on a regular schedule as well. Dells could tell they didn't expect any uprising amongst the ranks. From what limited information she could share with Xin, using the chaos of some processes would help them escape and grab Adric.

It had to be soon. Any longer and their physical condition would deteriorate far too much to have a decent chance.

Xin Boa

 

[Xin Boa]

Xin actually gained some weight during the mining. They were worked hard, but got fed some horrible tasting sludge infused with a supplement vial tailored for the species.

The reason for keeping them fed became clear: there wasn't a new shipment of slaves since they had arrived. Either they were keeping a lower profile by not taking too many deliveries or there was simply a shortage of honest slaves to snap up.

Xin didn't much care. He was just glad that he hadn't been worked to death in a week. He had never felt so constantly exhausted. He never adapted to the work schedule and he started to silently question if he could manage the escape at all, let alone with Adric.

He had been given some special treatment at first on account of the cultist's statement. Special treatment in the form of his own personal security droid following him around. Fortunately when he didn't start doing jedi stuff they stopped bothering and he was able to communicate with Dells from time to time.

"I'm worried about our blindspot," he muttered as he stepped last Dells. They had finished opening up a new face, which meant he came in with manual tools to look for crystals. They said these things were in every lightsaber, but there had been mutterings that these were of impure quality.

Xin leaned against the wall and opened his biscuit tin to eat nearby. The blindspot was the sith tower. They had very little sight of it. The foremen didn't go there. The cultists almost never came here.

"I can have a go with the code." Xin had stolen a datapad from a subforeman who hadn't reported it yet. He was hoping he could reprogram one of the droids to see if they went into the sith temple.

 

[Delila Castillon]

|| Xin Boa ||

Hand stole a biscuit from Xin's tin. She could stomach these better, they tasted like bland hard chips of nothing to her. Much better than the weird protein broth they had been given. Something about the smell alone made her want to avoid it all together but they had to remain in top shape to escape. Privately she started to worry about the little things - such as adjusting to daylight and how it could hamper their rescue.Not that there seemed to be much light on planet from what she could tell. Mindless pulling of rocks and crystals gave a bit of time for the mind to wander about the little things that could interfere with the big picture.

"You're smart. I know you can do it." Delila tapped his temple jokingly. She wasn't technically smart like Xin was. Xin was mechanically inclined and could hack his way into things with relative ease. Dells was more of the type to shoot first then ask any questions later - less stealthy and more action orientated. Thankfully they balanced one another out well.

"We have to do it soon"

She could express it now but her ideas floated around hiding on one of the transports that took waste rock out of the mine. With the chaos of a shift change and the right timing it could work.

 

[Xin Boa]

Xin tilted his head from side to side in indecision. Weighing up risk was always difficult. He had checked the tools and the protocol over and over, but it could always do with improvement.

"Think you can distract a K2 unit whilst I get the spike into the back of its head?" he asked. "I'm...fairly certain it will work. You're right, we can't leave it much longer."

There had been times when he had questioned their own determination. Aldric had come into their care and they had lost him to a sith cult. They had no idea how he would be treated or even if he would want to leave with them.

It had to be done. They weren't through the worst of it yet, but the longest slog was done.

 

[Delila Castillon]

|| Xin Boa ||

"Distract?Me? Of course."

Dells gave his arm a squeeze before walking away. For obvious reasons, the K2 droid was typically stationed around the explosives - perhaps for fear of uprising. Since she had been working on the blasting team she noticed herself and her fellow captives were observed more frequently than those working with picks or power tools. She suspected security and the foremen were concerned about collected material for a mass escape attempt.

She began fiddling with the explosives again, pulling out blasting caps and detonators and various chemicals needed for a reaction. The noise of her pouring caught the attention of the K2 unit. She continued to work for a moment before calling the droid over.

"Excuse me, K2 droid?"

If a droid could walk with annoyance that one had it down pat. Photoreceptors fixed on her and the tasks at work.

"Yes?"

"We're going into a tricky situation, can you help determine the amount of explosives needed?"

"I am not a structural droid. My parameters are security. I can be of no use."

"Yes but droid brains are superior. Could you run basic probabilities so we reduce our chances of collapsing and dying?"

"I can make no promises. I do not care about your life but I will make calculations for my own self preservation."

 

[Xin Boa]

Xin was trying to act as casually as possible as the droid passed him by. In he first few weeks here they had stayed close to him at all times.

Xin didn't know if that had been enough time for them to decide he had no training to use the Force to escape or because they had done a background check to confirm as much. Either way he had been anxious that he had almost ruined their attempt through some innate piece of himself he couldn't control.

Taking three quick steps Xin jumped and shoved the spike into the back of Xin's head. The K2 droid didn't stop. It reached back over its shoulder, grabbed Xin by the wrist and sent him flying.

He hit the smooth, bored out corridor hard. The impact knocking the wind from his lungs.

Fortunately, the spike clicked into place, twisted and deployed the programme. The K2 droid straightened and then wen about its business.

"Quick, grab the spike!" Xin called. They had been removed from its recognition algorithms. Essentially it wouldn't respond to their presence. However, any of them foremen would easily see the wireless spike still in its head.

 

[Delila Castillon]

| Xin Boa |


Lucky for her, the spike was fairly small. Small in terms that it could fit in the palm of her hand. Thinking quick, she shoved the spike between her breasts - where else was she going to hide it on short notice? Especially since out of the corner of her eye she could see a supervisor making the rounds. No doubt Xin's large frame crashing into everything didn't help.

"Whats going on here?Why is no work being done?"

"This idiot got too close to myself and the droid - we're trying to take down this wall of shale rock. Droid put him in his place."

The supervisor looked up and down at Dells then Xin on the ground. "Good. Back to work."

Back turned on Xin, moving to work with the modified K2 droid. Within days they would have enough information to attempt an escape.

 

[Xin Boa]

Stealing a datapad was even more difficult. It was only made possible because the small network of foremen and staff who directed the slaves were just as afraid of their masters as the slaves where of them. No one reported the stolen device.

For two days when Xin could sneak away he reviewed footage of the compromised K2 droid. Each time he saw Dells he shook his head. It helped map out some routes, but they had already done that work. It showed them outside the mines, but they had already seen the landing area on the way in.

On the third day he drew her attention and walked to a meeting place away from the staff. He turned he datapad towards Dells.

It was video footage from the crumbling walls of the abandoned sith temple. Half a dozen young figures in an open training ground in the middle.

"I am hoping one of those is the kid."

 

[Delila Castillon]

"I'm positive one is him. Second from the left, I think."

Delila had observed how even the foreman were fearful of those above them and had planned to use it accordingly. Herself and Xin would sneak out with the waste rock and overpower a few armored troops, using their armor to blend in. They had put in the legwork for routes, shift change schedule and general troop movements. Even once they disappeared Delila doubted their absence would be reported immediately, they would have an hour at the least.

The one hiccup was Xin and whatever ability he had - if it was sensed again it may give them away. In her mind, they would have to keep moving and blend in swiftly to avoid too many entanglements. Hopefully Aldric was in good enough shape to help them out once they all met back up again for an escape.

The time had come, rock was being loaded into the massive container. Some by hand, some by machinery. The cab contained a droid who kept the same path going from the mine to a dumping area past the temple. Dells helped load.She would walk along the side if the large vehicle and jump in as it started to leave the bay, squeezing under enough rock as possible.

 

[Xin Boa]

Xin was hoping that there weren't many cultists. Their plan was risky, there was a thin knife edge they would follow to get out of it alive. A group of sith knights would make a mockery of their attempt to escape.

He hoped, given their desperation to find new recruits, that they were not so powerful. A scattered ruin of what had been a sith empire.

As Xin slipped into the container from the opposite side to the workers he was struck by another fear: that Aldric had already been indoctrinated into their order.

The cart rumbled along through the tunnels, carrying them bother away from he darkness. Xin felt the kiss of fresh air, something he had breathed precious little of in the last few weeks. They were coming up on the guard station. Xin knelt up and started searching for a rock of a good size and weight to use as a weapon.

 

[Delila Castillon]

Xin Boa

While Xin was worried about Aldric and the Sith Cultist gorup, Delila was focused on what came next. It was important to have the foresight to be worried about what laid ahead but her main concern was taking down the guards. Fresh air was nice but after weeks underground she was worried about the lighting situation. If things were sunny and bright both were going to be at a disadvantage - more so then they already were.

Hands scrambled for a large enough rock to stun a guard. Light was coming quickly, leaving the tunnel behind. The transport lumbered into the fresh air, coming to a slow crawl. The tunnel guards were on either side, Delila immediately tossing her rock at the back of the neck of the one on her side. A grunt and a fall and she bailed overboard, landing on top of her guard.

A quick grab of the blaster but not to shoot - too much noise. Dells dispatched the guard in another manner and quickly started taking the armor off. They had to move quickly, the next transport up with waste rock would be soon. She could hear Xin rustling behind her as she pressed into a small rock alcove. There was no time to talk yet, just quickly move.

The plan was a long one - play as guards and use shift change to get close to the temple.