What do we have here?

[Ragos Terrek]

'This shuttle stinks' he thought to himself. Like livestock, it was the stench of dirt and of sweat, fear and piss. He hated riding refugee shuttles but there was no alternative now that his credits were gone. All of them, everything he tool from home and even the ones he had made selling the things he had earned in previous travels.

He sold everything he could and even more than he'd wanted. He was left only now with the one pair of clothes which he was wearing now, (a stained white tank top, pair of black sweatpants also stained and a dirty pair of black steel-toed combat boots) the light saber Dredge had provided for him and the small cracked crystal that hung around his neck. If appearance alone determined value then surely the crystal was trash but to him it was the most valuable thing he possessed. It was the key to everything, the reason that he sat here in blood and booze stained clothes surrounded by the meek and soft prey of the galaxy's innumerable conflicts.

"Ten minutes tI'll we arrive on Dantooine. Collect your items now and have them ready to depart." A Droid voice came over the loud speaker. All around him people began to round up their children and gather their belongings so they could begin to turn their lives around on a new world, not him. He only sat and wondered how long g he would stay before he was driven from the world either by his own actions or by the need to grow faster than this world could promise.

[member="Paige Argous"]

 

[Paige Argous]

[member="Ragos Terrek"]

Dantooine. For the hundredth time in her life, and certainly not the last, Paige was back out in the Outer Rim. She was hunting down a spy operative who had disguised herself as a refugee and had fled onboard some refugee shuttle. Paige had lost the sneaky spy mid-way, but had tracked her down to being onboard a particular vessel headed to Dantooine. And so using her borrowed TIE fighter, the Sith Knight had arrived ahead of time and was now waiting patiently for the arrival of the refugee ship. It should only be a few minutes, she thought.

Dressed in dark brown tunic, Paige blended in well with the rural crowd that had gathered at the landing platform awaiting the refugees' arrival. Most of those waiting in the crowd were not there for charity, exactly. They were here to try and coax incoming refugees into becoming field workers, who would be paid meager sums for hours of backbreaking labor. Her hair neatly tied, the Sith Knight had her lightsaber hilt hidden yet very much ready in her utility belt. She hoped she wouldn't need to use it, but her past run-ins with the operative told her otherwise.

She crossed her arms infront of her chest, waiting.

 

[Ragos Terrek]

[member="Paige Argous"]

Minutes later the shuttle finally landed and Ragos exited as fast as his legs would allow pushing past the other refugees queing up to start their new lives. Ragos recoiled as he crossed the threshold of the ship out into the burning light of Dantooine. Quickly his eyes adjusted and the once bright burning light of the new world revealed itself as nothing more than the mundane sun of an autum afternoon.

As Ragos got to the end of the ramp near one of the small crowds of locals he caught the words of a young man in tattered clothes talking to another teen about an academy on world, but before he could listen in further, his head snapped off to his left, his attention forcibly drawn toward another part oft he gathered crowd.

He scanned the people trying to find the source of his curiousity. There was a family of three dressed in plain clothes clearly looking for someone expected to disembark the shuttle, there was a man with dark black shoulder length hair done up in a bun with a thick salt and pepper beard dressed in expensive clothes calling out saying he had work for anyone who wanted it, and there was a woman- young pretty, plain clothes, with her hair tied up neatly, with a posture that suggested a forced calm- she caught his attention and it wasn't only that Ragos couldn't shake the feeling that she did not belong among this rabble but the fact that when his eyes settled upon her, the crystal that lay against his chest felt so hot he had to keep himself from crying out.

He had no idea what this meant. No idea what he should do, but he knew what he had to do and he pushed through the people and headed in the direction of his attention.

"I need credits and food and shelter." He told the man with the salt and pepper beard. The man smiled an altogher unreassuring smile.

"Right this way."

 

[Paige Argous]

[member="Ragos Terrek"]

The crowd of refugees that streamed out from the odorous flying metal they called a ship was an interesting one. There were families coming in, looking for new life away from war. There were also plenty of individuals, and it was amidst this category of people that Paige was looking for her target. One by one, she scanned carefully those coming out of the shuttle. Her eyes narrowed as one man pushed his way through the crowd towards a potential employer. From what her senses told her, he was no doubt a Force-User. This could get interesting, she thought.

But for now, her attention was not focused on the Force-Sensitive man. Instead, the Sith Knight looked towards one suspicious cloaked figure that was making its way through the crowd. Pretending not to really notice the cloaked figure, Paige momentarily allowed for the waves of refugees walking down the ramp to wash over her. As she got within a few feet of her suspected target, she flexed her hand slowly, calling upon the Force. As though a gentle gust of wind had blown through, the cloaked figure's hood fell back, revealing the person's identity. It was the spy.

Their eyes met at the same time, both instantaneously recognizing one another. Without hesitation, the spy operative (a female, pink-skinned Twi'lek) quickly drew a blaster out of her cloak and began firing away towards Paige's direction. The crowd scattered, some screaming and others hurriedly pushing down their loved ones to the ground. One bolt came dangerously close to Paige's left ear, missing it and finding its mark instead on the salt-and-pepper-beard man. A fatal shot, perhaps. The Sith Knight had no time to waste, however. A crimson red lightsaber blade snapped to life, and Paige began using her weapon to deflect away the incoming shots. Advancing quickly, the blonde sliced away the hand of the Twi'lek spy that had been holding onto the blaster. Perhaps it was at this stage that the spy knew that she would either be taken hostage or killed, and thus the operative chose her last resort option.

A moderate, well-timed suicidal explosion sent the landing perform up in flames. The operative had used her other hand to press a detonation that had been hidden under her cloak. Paige had attempted to Force Jump away, but the blast came too quickly and she found herself being flung by the blast in mid-air, resulting in a painful thud upon the ground some moments later. Disoriented, she attempted to get back up but ended up blacking out instead.

 

[Ragos Terrek]

What had started as a promising lead toward a shower, clean clothes, and a warm meal ended when the crowd around him burst out in screams of terror and began to panic and flee all around him. His new found employer hardly had the time to look confused before dropping dead to the dirt.

"Chit." Ragos said with faint disappointment. He hadn't even heard the blaster go off or the lightsaber ignite but he certainly saw as the Crimson blade advanced through the crowd being wielded by the woman that had caught his eye. He watched as she danced across the platform deflecting blaster bolts with ease finally reaching the being with the blaster and removing the weapon and the assailant's hand in one single stroke. Then it happened the woman with the saber leapt in the air just as her prey vanished in a gulf of flames wrought by their own hand.

If things had been loud before they were deafening now or he assumed they were, the explosion had caused him to go momentarily deaf. He looked around and saw the carnage of the place. Dozens of bodies lay strewn in awkward and terribly unsettling positions, tens of dozens more lay trapped or too wounded to move pleading for help as they lay maimed or worse. Then he saw her. The woman with the saber. She was not moving but he knew she was alive, he could not say why he did it but he moved over too her and scooped her and her light saber from the ground do and carried her off away from the destruction of the landing pad.

When or if she woke next she would find herself laid out on a very large very soft bed with her saber laying next to her. In a bed room ten times the size of the shuttle adorned with thick red curtains that covered the western facing windows and very expensive looking paintings on the walls many of which featured half naked women and if she awoke in the next few minutes she would hear the shower running in the next room over.

[member="Paige Argous"]

 

[Paige Argous]

[member="Ragos Terrek"]

Paige's ears were still ringing and her head still aching when she woke up, finding herself in a suspiciously luxurious looking room. The Sith Knight sprang into action, climbing out of what was a rather very comfy bed. How long had she been out? Where was she? Her lightsaber. The blonde looked at the hilt that was lying peacefully on the bed. Clearly, whoever had brought her here was aware of what that item was. Then why hadn't they taken it away from her? With a groggy feeling, Paige massaged the front of her head as she picked up her lightsaber and put it back on her belt.

Regaining her hearing, the blonde realized that there was the sound of someone showering coming from another room. Fingers gripping her lightsaber tightly, the Sith Knight decided to investigate. The last time she had ended up in such a suspiciously spacious luxury apartment, it had been a trap of a crime lord. She eyed the paintings that adorned the walls and realized perhaps this was another Hutt crime lord.

Without warning, she burst into the shower room, her lightsaber plunging through the doorway and cutting out an opening for her to step inside. "Who is there?" Paige called out with her lightsaber drawn, ready to stab if need be.

 

[Ragos Terrek]

"The door was unlocked." Ragos told her as he stood behind her in the doorway of the room she had just been sleeping in. "The shower was for you, I've already cleaned up."

Paige had been out for a long time, long enough for Ragos to have taken her from the blast site in salt and pepper man's speeder and brought her here to the man's home where stayed sleeping long enough for him to take a shower and throw away the rags he was using as clothes, he stood now wearing one of the many expensive suits owned by the salt and pepper man. They like the speeder and this house were Ragos' now, until someone came to challenge him for it.

"Wash up. Get dressed. Food will be done soon, we will talk after we eat." Giving demands was easy for him, he had been bred for it. He stood looking at the soot and blood covered young woman who stood before him gripping her saber tightly and a small flicker of a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth for just a barest moment. Something had meant for the two of them to come together, just as something had meant for him to find that crystal, to nearly die and soon he would find out why.

[member="Paige Argous"]

 

[Paige Argous]

[member="Ragos Terrek"]

The Sith Knight whirled around, turning to face someone she vaguely recognized. The Force-Sensitive refugee from the landing pad, she realized. It was obvious to her that he posed little threat to her. Plus, he was cooking her breakfast which was nice. Paige decided not to kill the young man, or at least not now.

Her eyes narrowed slightly, as she was not used to taking commands from strangers so easily. "Well you seem very demanding for someone wearing clothes that are not his own," the blonde said with a smirk as she deactivated her lightsaber, casually placing her hilt on the counter.

That said, Paige did want the shower. "You are lucky that it's me who you met. My, uh, colleagues are nowhere this patient," she said as she disrobed out of her tunics and got herself into the shower. After some minutes, she walked out, having wrapped a large towel around herself. "Any clothes for women around here?" she asked as she walked towards the smell of food.

 

[Ragos Terrek]

"You are lucky that it's me who you met. My, uh, colleagues are nowhere this patient." She told him as she began to undress. It would seem that she was not shy and if she held any trepidation about having been unconscious and at the mercy of a total stranger, she did not show it.

Any clothes for women around here?" She asked after leaving the shower a few moments later and started heading toward Ragos and the food. A small meal made of what Ragos found in the now dead man's fridge. A few eggs and couple pieces of bacon each and a rare delicacy, pancakes.

"In the closet." He told her. "It seemed he had a mistress." More like several judging by all the different sizes that were available.

Ragos would wait for her to sit.



[member="Paige Argous"]