Still lingering in the throne room of Teemo, the team is somewhat spread apart. Various conversations are overheard, some of value, some just speculative. Spanner seems to have had a bad reaction to the drink he was served and is feeling quite ill. He sits with his head down on the table.
Pron ends up accosted by a drunk Rodian who approaches and starts giving the Sullustan pilot trouble, saying things like he's never seen Pron here before: you trying to steal something; and you look like a troublemaker. He clearly is more than a little inebriated. "Yes, all of those things are true. You better watch yourself," the pilot replies, nodding towards Thule's men for emphasis.
"You think you're some kind of tough guy," the Rodian said, somewhat slurring his words. As the conversation got louder, Koraz noticed. But Pron seemed to have control of the situation, suggesting to his belligerent accuser that Thule's men had free drinks. The Rodian headed over there and was promptly pushed down the stairs for his trouble, resulting in a wave of laughter from the other inhabitants of the throne room.
The Iktochi gunslinger wasn't laughing, though. He'd just seen someone enter. Someone he knew. A Zabrak bounty hunter named Zarnok Drak. The guy wasn't wearing armor today—just a dark coat with sleeves rolled up to expose the tattoos winding around his forearms. Drak scanned the room like a predator, and his gaze locked onto Koraz with a slow, deliberate recognition. One yellow eye twitched—the one Koraz had grazed with a blaster bolt their last encounter. That had been over a failed bounty, an easy mark Koraz shot down right out from under Drak’s nose. The Zabrak hadn’t forgotten.
Koraz felt his fingers twitch toward his holster, but he forced them still. Drak wasn’t reaching either. Yet. The Hutt’s throne room wasn’t the place for old grudges—unless you were suicidal or had Teemo’s favor. Neither applied to Koraz.
Across the room, Kilian’s mind raced. That locked door he’d accessed earlier—shut down by security personnel—was itching at him. Worth the risk if they could sift through cargo manifests or encrypted ledgers before anyone noticed. He leaned toward FL-AR3, whose photoreceptors flickered in silent query. “Hey, Flare,” Kilian muttered under the din of drunken laughter, “remember that door by the warehouse? Think you can crack it quieter than last time?”
The droid’s servos whirred as its torso rotated fractionally toward him. “Query: Define ‘quieter.’” The modulated voice carried just enough sarcasm to make Kilian grin. “Fine. Just don’t blast the hinges off.” A nod, and FL-AR3 fell into step beside him, his heavy footfalls deliberately muffled. Kilian didn’t glance back, but Pron caught the movement—the sudden shift in the droid’s posture, the way Kilian’s shoulders tensed as they slipped toward the exit.
Pron’s large, liquid eyes narrowed. The smuggler and the dangerous tin-can were up to something, no question. But shifting his gaze to Spanner—pale, sweating, fingers gripping the edge of the table like it was the only thing keeping him upright—Pron decided priorities mattered more. He scooted closer, nudging a fresh glass of water toward the kid. “Drink. Slowly.” His voice was low, almost lost under the raucous shouts of Thule’s men now placing bets on how long the fallen Rodian would stay unconscious at the base of the stairs. Pron’s ear twitched. The idiot would wake up with worse than a headache if he didn’t stop drooling on Teemo’s favorite Gamorrean’s boot.
Meanwhile, FL-AR3’s digits clicked against the door’s access panel, his photoreceptors dimming to near-black as he rerouted power sequences. The lock emitted a faint, protesting whine—then a dull clunk. Kilian exhaled sharply as the door slid open. “Nice and—” The rest died as the barrel of a blaster pressed into FL-AR3’s cranial casing.
“Move and I slag your circuits.” The security guard—same scowling Weequay from earlier—glared at Kilian past the droid’s shoulder. His free hand flicked toward his comm. FL-AR3’s servos hissed. Kilian’s pulse spiked—too slow. The Weequay’s thumb hovered over the transmit button.
The shot came from two directions at once. FL-AR3 twisted, elbow-joint snapping forward to jam his blaster under the Weequay’s chin at the same moment Kilian fired center-mass. The guard jerked like a marionette with cut strings, his comm clattering to the floor unactivated. Kilian lunged, catching the body before it could thud against the doorframe. The stench of scorched fabric and burnt flesh curled in his nostrils.
Inside the dimly lit chamber, half a dozen data operators froze mid-keystroke. One Klatooinian jerked so hard his headset slipped off, revealing wide, panicked eyes. The flickering blue light from the holoscreens painted their stunned faces in jagged streaks. Kilian counted three exits—two standard doors, one ventilation shaft too narrow for human shoulders. He exhaled through his teeth. "Nobody scream," he said, voice coated in false calm. FL-AR3 stepped forward, his bulk blocking the doorway, the barrel of his blaster sweeping the room in a slow, silent arc. Someone whimpered.
Kilian gestured sharply at the dead Weequay slumped against the wall. Blood pooled around the body in a glossy black circle. "We're auditing Teemo's loyalties," he lied. The insignia on his stolen armor—a twisting Hutt-glyph scarred by blaster marks—caught the light as he moved. "This one was skimming credits. You lot?" He let the question hang, watching sweat bead on a Twi'lek operator's forehead. The scent of ozone and fear clogged the air.
FL-AR3 adjusted his stance, the servos in his knees hissing. "Comply: Submit all data access codes." His metallic voice bounced off the flickering holoscreens. A Sullustan operator fumbled with a datapad, fingers shaking—then froze as Kilian's boot crushed the Weequay's discarded comm. The plastic cracked like a bone.
The droid seized the datapad without ceremony and strode toward the far wall, where a cluster of outdated data ports jutted from the wall like exposed nerves. His free hand split open at the wrist, revealing a coiled interface cable that clicked into place with surgical precision. Static pulsed through the terminal's flickering display—then black. FL-AR3's photoreceptors dimmed to pinpricks as he tunneled into Teemo's network.
The silence stretched tighter than a garrote wire. Kilian could hear the Klatooinian's ragged breathing, the nervous tap of a Twi'lek's foot against the floor grating. Then—security holos bloomed across every screen in the room, bathing them all in cold blue light. Camera feeds from the throne room, the warehouse, even Teemo's throne room.
Kilian's pulse hammered against his ribs. He stood still but looked wide-eyed at his droid companion and held a finger up to his lips. FL-AR3 looked back. The droid would have had a sheepish look on his face had he the ability to physically emote.
FL-AR3 then activated his internal comm and connected to the communicators of each of his friends, sharing the found information. Teemo had been spying on Jabba through his Bith informant. The kloo horn player, “Smooth” Banjaxx Wab, often gives recitals at Jabba’s palace, and Teemo has hired him to gather and pass on any information he hears while he is there.
The group agreed that this is likely the last bit of incriminating news that they need to get Teemo to drop the bounty on their heads. They begin to head out separately, so as not to draw any undue attention.
Spanner groaned and wobbled his way towards the door with Pron assisting him while Koraz stayed where he was, keeping an eye on Drak, who was now sitting down across the room from him, drinking and grinning.
FL-AR3 and Kilian made their way out first, striding confidently towards the exit as though their abrupt departure was nothing out of the ordinary. The Gamorreans by the door barely spared them a glance, too busy picking over the unconscious Rodian’s pockets. Kilian’s hand twitched near his holster—just in case—but FL-AR3 subtly nudged him forward with an armored elbow.
A few moments after Pron and Spanner left the room, Koraz followed nonchalantly. His boots scuffed lazily against the polished floor, his posture loose, as if he had all the time in the galaxy. But the second he rounded the corner into the grand hallway—a cavernous space lined with Huttese tapestries—his demeanor sharpened. He ducked behind a pillar, pressing his back against the cold stone, and waited.
Zarnok came around the same corner seconds later, his Zabrak horns catching the dim light like blackened knives. He paused, nostrils flaring as he scanned the hallway. The scent of spiced meat lingered thick in the air, masking any trace of Koraz’s trail. Yellow eyes narrowed. He flexed his fingers before creeping forward, boots silent against the floor. If the Iktochi had a job, maybe he could steal it. Or better yet, steal the payout and leave Koraz’s corpse for the mynocks.
Koraz stepped out from behind the pillar, arms loose at his sides, his blaster still holstered. "Drak," he said, voice flat. The Zabrak spun, reflexively dropping into a fighter’s stance before recognizing him. A slow grin split his tattooed face. "Gent." His voice was a rasp, like gravel in a grinding wheel. "What ya doing?"
Zarnok’s left eye—the scarred one—twitched again. His fingers flexed near his belt where a vibroblade hung, but he didn’t draw. Instead, he swayed slightly, blinking too long. When he spoke next, the words slurred together. "Nothin’. Just—" He waved a hand toward the distant hum of noise filtering in from Mos Shuuta's streets. "Need some. Air." His nostrils flared as he inhaled sharply, then coughed.
Gent smiled slightly, having caught the Zabrak in trying to tail them. "Why don't we head out together. Are you sure you know the way?"
Hunter and Hunted (Episode 18)
Moderator: GM Fang
Re: Hunter and Hunted (Episode 18)
Once outside of the stifling presence of Teemo's palace, the group made their way down the steps and around the ramped path back to Mos Shuuta's bustling streets. The air was dry and dusty like most of Tatooine—hot enough to sear your lungs if you breathed too deep, and thick with the scent of roasting meat from street vendors and the underlying reek of engine grease from the spaceport nearby. Pron kept a firm grip on Spanner’s arm as the kid stumbled, his face still pale beneath the grime and sweat.
Not for the first time Pron notices the smallish Sullustan who's been following for some time. He seems to be watching, perhaps working up the gumption to approach, or maybe planning something more sinister. Pron decides to find out which.
Pron leans Spanner against the nearest cooling unit, its mechanical hum blending with the crowd's din, and signals the stranger with a subtle flick of his ear—the universal Sullustan gesture for _I see you, come talk_. The other Sullustan hesitates, then approaches cautiously, his large eyes darting to Spanner's slumped form before settling on Pron's face. "You are Proiah Pron," he says, barely above a whisper.
"My name is Imik Suum." He explains that recently the Imperials took his friend, a Human swoop jockey named Seng Windrunner, into custody. Seng was taken into custody by one Lieutenant Herkin. Herkin, in turn, had Seng brought up to the Star Destroyer Devastator in orbit. Since then, Imik has had no success in learning more about Windrunner's status. "It is as if the Empire has made him disappear."
Pron crossed his arms, studying Imik’s face. The desperation in the other Sullustan’s eyes was unmistakable—the same tightness around the lids Pron had seen in mirrors after bad jobs, worse bounties, and the occasional Imperial blockade. "And you want us to... what? Storm a Star Destroyer?" Pron’s voice dripped skepticism, but the flick of his ear-tip betrayed interest.
Imik makes his pitch. He'd like to hire the PC's to sneak into the docking bay that holds Herkin's shuttle and plant a homing beacon aboard it so that he can track the Lieutenant's movements, and thus, hopefully, learn where Seng has been taken. Pron tells him to wait and he will confer with his companions.
Meanwhile, Kilian has a visitor of his own, as he heads toward Landing Bay Besh. While closing in on the Besh Landing Pad, he is approached by a young Twilek girl. She points and says, "you're the ones who helped the doctor. She's missing!" She is maybe 10 years old.
Kilian froze mid-stride, his boots kicking up a puff of dust that settled between them like a veil. The Twi'lek girl, her tunic patched at the elbows, scrunched her face in determination. "Doctor El'Jaameer," she insisted, voice cracking. "You *have* to help."
"When? Who took her?"
The girl's lekku twitched, her fingers knotting in the fabric of her skirt. "Two nights ago. Men in black—not stormtroopers. They had no insignia." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Father tried to bribe the port authority for records. Nothing."
"Where is your father?"
The Twi'lek girl jerked her chin toward the Slagwerks district—a labyrinth of makeshift stalls and salvaged ship parts where the air reeked of scorched metal and ion burns. "Runs a stall," she said. "Third row." Kilian thanked the girl and said they would stop by soon.
The group reconvened outside Landing Bay Besh under the bruised purple sky of Tatooine’s dusk, the twin suns sinking behind the jagged rooftops of Mos Shuuta like embers drowning in sand. FL-AR3 stood sentinel at Kilian’s flank, his photoreceptors scanning the shifting crowd with methodical precision while Spanner leaned against a fuel drum, still green around the gills. Pron arrived last, having seen Imik Suum off for a later visit.
Kilian led them through the docking bay’s rusted archway, boots scuffing against permacrete worn smooth by decades of smuggler traffic. The bay yawned before them—a cavernous space choked with the stink of engine coolant and the metallic tang of overheated repulsorlifts. His stomach twisted before his brain caught up: the Lucky Guess’s berth gaped empty, the blast scars on the floor the only proof it had ever been there.
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.” Pron’s voice dripped acid. The Sullustan jabbed a finger toward the vacant spot where their ship should’ve been. Kilian didn’t answer—he was already striding toward the supervisor’s kiosk, where a Mon Calamari in grease-stained coveralls was arguing with a Nautolan freighter captain. Koraz cut in front of him, his long legs eating up the distance.
The dock supervisor, a human woman, turned. Her expression curdled the second she recognized Pron.
Pron shifted uncomfortably, ears flattening slightly as his broad mouth twitched into something resembling an apologetic grimace. The wound had healed—mostly—but the way her fingers twitched toward the small of her back told him she hadn’t forgotten the phantom ache where his stun bolt had dropped her like a sack of Jawa scrap.
Koraz stepped forward before Pron could dig himself deeper, one hand raised in an easy gesture that belied the razor-focus in his eyes. "We're not here for trouble," he lied smoothly, thumb hooking toward the empty berth. "Just need a word about the Lucky Guess." The supervisor folded her arms, her glare sliding from Pron to Koraz—taking in the Iktochi's relaxed stance, the faint scars along his jawline, the way his fingers drummed against his thigh not out of nerves, but like a predator counting seconds before a strike. He dropped a 25 credit chip into her hand.
She exhaled sharply through her nose. "Vio siblings took it," she muttered, jerking her chin toward a grease-smudged manifest on the counter. "Filed for planetary clearance two hours ago. No destination logged. Not necessary if not leaving atmosphere." Her fingers tapped the flimsiplast. The unspoken implication hung between them: It's not my problem anymore.
With that issue left unfinished, FL-AR3 sent the data they had accumulated to their contact, the Bothan Ota. Koraz once more asked the droid to piggy-back the data stream to his own droid contact. Surprisingly, the group questioned this request, apparently not fully trusting Koraz. As they discussed the situation, FL-AR3 sent the transmission of his own volition. No one had noticed the connection of droid to droid until long after it was completed.
Kilian's jaw tightened. He glanced at FL-AR3. The droid's optics pulsed once in grim understanding.
"Slagwerks," Kilian said, already moving toward the bay exit. The Twi'lek girl's father would have answers—or at least, scraps worth stitching together. Beyond the docking bay's flickering floodlights, Mos Shuuta sprawled in a haze of dim lights and dust. The Slagwerks district loomed ahead, its narrow alleys choked with the reek of burning circuits and the sharp tang of hydraulic fluid. The closer they got, the heavier the air felt—thick with desperation and the greasy pall of fried street food.
Spanner groaned, leaning against a corroded exhaust pipe. "We splitting up?" His voice sounded raw, like he'd swallowed broken glass. FL-AR3 pivoted toward him, photoreceptors assessing the kid’s pallor with clinical detachment. "Negative. Probability of collapse: eighty-seven percent." Spanner flipped him off weakly.
Kilian ignored them both, talking with the Twi'lek girl's father. "This man in black," he pressed, keeping his voice low enough that the surrounding crowd noise drowned him out. "Anything else you can tell me about him?"
The Twi'lek mechanic wiped his hands on an oil-streaked rag, lekku twitching in agitation. "He was human, blond. Some level of officer, but that's all I know." He gestured vaguely toward the Imperial garrison looming over the district like a durasteel fist. "No rank pins—just the black."
Kilian’s fingers tightened around the edge of the workbench. Black uniforms meant ISB. Or worse, Imperial Intelligence. Either way, Doctor El'Jaameer wasn’t just missing—she’d been *disappeared*. Kilian promised they would do what they could to rescue the doctor. The group had already helped the Bothan with fixing up her office after the swoop gang attack and having a doctor available in their line of work was more than helpful.
Pron tapped his commlink, flagging Imik Suum’s frequency. The Sullustan’s hologram flickered to life, his oversized eyes darting nervously between them. "Meet us at Baba Yaga’s," Pron said, keeping his voice casual for any eavesdroppers. "Bring credits. We’re hungry."
The diner’s neon sign buzzed fitfully in Tatooine’s twilight, casting the queue of bounty hunters, smugglers, and off-duty mechanics in a sickly green glow. Spanner slumped against the wall, his forehead pressed to the cool permacrete while FL-AR3 loomed behind him like a rusty guardian statue. Every few minutes, the kid dry-heaved into the alleyway’s stagnant puddles. Koraz watched the crowd with half-lidded disinterest, one hand resting on his holster whenever a drunk Devaronian staggered too close.
Inside, Baba Yaga’s was all sizzling grease and shouted orders—a symphony of clattering plates and drunken bravado. Kilian snagged a corner booth with a sightline to both exits, his boot nudging Pron’s shin when a man in Imperial-logoed fatigues lingered too long at the droid-jockey table. FL-AR3’s photoreceptors tracked the man’s movements long after he’d sat down.
Imik Suum slid into the booth last, his small hands clutching a datapad like a shield. The scent of seared bantha meat and stale synthale couldn’t mask the acrid tang of his sweat. "Herkin’s shuttle," he murmured, fingers tapping a grainy security feed onto the table’s holoprojector. The image wavered: a Lambda-class, its wings folded in landing position, guarded by two stormtroopers with lazy postures. "Docking Bay Auric."
Koraz leaned in, scanning the image of the shuttle’s hull. "Two thousand credits to slap a tracker on it?" His grin didn’t reach his eyes.
Imik’s fingers twitched. "If—if you can find Seng—" His voice cracked.
Pron leaned forward, his broad nostrils flaring as he inhaled the scent of desperation clinging to the Sullustan like engine grease. "Two thousand credits covers the beacon," he said flatly. "Not a prison break."
Imik's throat worked silently for a moment before he whispered, "The Empire took your friend the same way. And maybe there's others." His thick fingers traced identical routes on the holoprojector—shuttle trajectories from Mos Shuuta to the Star Destroyer's belly. "Same black uniforms, same silence afterward."
FL-AR3's photoreceptors flickered toward Kilian, interpreting the smuggler's minute headshake as negation. The droid's servos whined softly as he shifted his weight—not retreating, but recalculating.
Koraz mumbled something about trying to break into a Stormtrooper guarded landing bay and none of them were particularly stealthy either.
Not for the first time Pron notices the smallish Sullustan who's been following for some time. He seems to be watching, perhaps working up the gumption to approach, or maybe planning something more sinister. Pron decides to find out which.
Pron leans Spanner against the nearest cooling unit, its mechanical hum blending with the crowd's din, and signals the stranger with a subtle flick of his ear—the universal Sullustan gesture for _I see you, come talk_. The other Sullustan hesitates, then approaches cautiously, his large eyes darting to Spanner's slumped form before settling on Pron's face. "You are Proiah Pron," he says, barely above a whisper.
"My name is Imik Suum." He explains that recently the Imperials took his friend, a Human swoop jockey named Seng Windrunner, into custody. Seng was taken into custody by one Lieutenant Herkin. Herkin, in turn, had Seng brought up to the Star Destroyer Devastator in orbit. Since then, Imik has had no success in learning more about Windrunner's status. "It is as if the Empire has made him disappear."
Pron crossed his arms, studying Imik’s face. The desperation in the other Sullustan’s eyes was unmistakable—the same tightness around the lids Pron had seen in mirrors after bad jobs, worse bounties, and the occasional Imperial blockade. "And you want us to... what? Storm a Star Destroyer?" Pron’s voice dripped skepticism, but the flick of his ear-tip betrayed interest.
Imik makes his pitch. He'd like to hire the PC's to sneak into the docking bay that holds Herkin's shuttle and plant a homing beacon aboard it so that he can track the Lieutenant's movements, and thus, hopefully, learn where Seng has been taken. Pron tells him to wait and he will confer with his companions.
Meanwhile, Kilian has a visitor of his own, as he heads toward Landing Bay Besh. While closing in on the Besh Landing Pad, he is approached by a young Twilek girl. She points and says, "you're the ones who helped the doctor. She's missing!" She is maybe 10 years old.
Kilian froze mid-stride, his boots kicking up a puff of dust that settled between them like a veil. The Twi'lek girl, her tunic patched at the elbows, scrunched her face in determination. "Doctor El'Jaameer," she insisted, voice cracking. "You *have* to help."
"When? Who took her?"
The girl's lekku twitched, her fingers knotting in the fabric of her skirt. "Two nights ago. Men in black—not stormtroopers. They had no insignia." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Father tried to bribe the port authority for records. Nothing."
"Where is your father?"
The Twi'lek girl jerked her chin toward the Slagwerks district—a labyrinth of makeshift stalls and salvaged ship parts where the air reeked of scorched metal and ion burns. "Runs a stall," she said. "Third row." Kilian thanked the girl and said they would stop by soon.
The group reconvened outside Landing Bay Besh under the bruised purple sky of Tatooine’s dusk, the twin suns sinking behind the jagged rooftops of Mos Shuuta like embers drowning in sand. FL-AR3 stood sentinel at Kilian’s flank, his photoreceptors scanning the shifting crowd with methodical precision while Spanner leaned against a fuel drum, still green around the gills. Pron arrived last, having seen Imik Suum off for a later visit.
Kilian led them through the docking bay’s rusted archway, boots scuffing against permacrete worn smooth by decades of smuggler traffic. The bay yawned before them—a cavernous space choked with the stink of engine coolant and the metallic tang of overheated repulsorlifts. His stomach twisted before his brain caught up: the Lucky Guess’s berth gaped empty, the blast scars on the floor the only proof it had ever been there.
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.” Pron’s voice dripped acid. The Sullustan jabbed a finger toward the vacant spot where their ship should’ve been. Kilian didn’t answer—he was already striding toward the supervisor’s kiosk, where a Mon Calamari in grease-stained coveralls was arguing with a Nautolan freighter captain. Koraz cut in front of him, his long legs eating up the distance.
The dock supervisor, a human woman, turned. Her expression curdled the second she recognized Pron.
Pron shifted uncomfortably, ears flattening slightly as his broad mouth twitched into something resembling an apologetic grimace. The wound had healed—mostly—but the way her fingers twitched toward the small of her back told him she hadn’t forgotten the phantom ache where his stun bolt had dropped her like a sack of Jawa scrap.
Koraz stepped forward before Pron could dig himself deeper, one hand raised in an easy gesture that belied the razor-focus in his eyes. "We're not here for trouble," he lied smoothly, thumb hooking toward the empty berth. "Just need a word about the Lucky Guess." The supervisor folded her arms, her glare sliding from Pron to Koraz—taking in the Iktochi's relaxed stance, the faint scars along his jawline, the way his fingers drummed against his thigh not out of nerves, but like a predator counting seconds before a strike. He dropped a 25 credit chip into her hand.
She exhaled sharply through her nose. "Vio siblings took it," she muttered, jerking her chin toward a grease-smudged manifest on the counter. "Filed for planetary clearance two hours ago. No destination logged. Not necessary if not leaving atmosphere." Her fingers tapped the flimsiplast. The unspoken implication hung between them: It's not my problem anymore.
With that issue left unfinished, FL-AR3 sent the data they had accumulated to their contact, the Bothan Ota. Koraz once more asked the droid to piggy-back the data stream to his own droid contact. Surprisingly, the group questioned this request, apparently not fully trusting Koraz. As they discussed the situation, FL-AR3 sent the transmission of his own volition. No one had noticed the connection of droid to droid until long after it was completed.
Kilian's jaw tightened. He glanced at FL-AR3. The droid's optics pulsed once in grim understanding.
"Slagwerks," Kilian said, already moving toward the bay exit. The Twi'lek girl's father would have answers—or at least, scraps worth stitching together. Beyond the docking bay's flickering floodlights, Mos Shuuta sprawled in a haze of dim lights and dust. The Slagwerks district loomed ahead, its narrow alleys choked with the reek of burning circuits and the sharp tang of hydraulic fluid. The closer they got, the heavier the air felt—thick with desperation and the greasy pall of fried street food.
- mosshuuta.png (214.32 KiB) Viewed 2415 times
Kilian ignored them both, talking with the Twi'lek girl's father. "This man in black," he pressed, keeping his voice low enough that the surrounding crowd noise drowned him out. "Anything else you can tell me about him?"
The Twi'lek mechanic wiped his hands on an oil-streaked rag, lekku twitching in agitation. "He was human, blond. Some level of officer, but that's all I know." He gestured vaguely toward the Imperial garrison looming over the district like a durasteel fist. "No rank pins—just the black."
Kilian’s fingers tightened around the edge of the workbench. Black uniforms meant ISB. Or worse, Imperial Intelligence. Either way, Doctor El'Jaameer wasn’t just missing—she’d been *disappeared*. Kilian promised they would do what they could to rescue the doctor. The group had already helped the Bothan with fixing up her office after the swoop gang attack and having a doctor available in their line of work was more than helpful.
Pron tapped his commlink, flagging Imik Suum’s frequency. The Sullustan’s hologram flickered to life, his oversized eyes darting nervously between them. "Meet us at Baba Yaga’s," Pron said, keeping his voice casual for any eavesdroppers. "Bring credits. We’re hungry."
The diner’s neon sign buzzed fitfully in Tatooine’s twilight, casting the queue of bounty hunters, smugglers, and off-duty mechanics in a sickly green glow. Spanner slumped against the wall, his forehead pressed to the cool permacrete while FL-AR3 loomed behind him like a rusty guardian statue. Every few minutes, the kid dry-heaved into the alleyway’s stagnant puddles. Koraz watched the crowd with half-lidded disinterest, one hand resting on his holster whenever a drunk Devaronian staggered too close.
- babayagas.png (222.78 KiB) Viewed 2414 times
Imik Suum slid into the booth last, his small hands clutching a datapad like a shield. The scent of seared bantha meat and stale synthale couldn’t mask the acrid tang of his sweat. "Herkin’s shuttle," he murmured, fingers tapping a grainy security feed onto the table’s holoprojector. The image wavered: a Lambda-class, its wings folded in landing position, guarded by two stormtroopers with lazy postures. "Docking Bay Auric."
Koraz leaned in, scanning the image of the shuttle’s hull. "Two thousand credits to slap a tracker on it?" His grin didn’t reach his eyes.
Imik’s fingers twitched. "If—if you can find Seng—" His voice cracked.
Pron leaned forward, his broad nostrils flaring as he inhaled the scent of desperation clinging to the Sullustan like engine grease. "Two thousand credits covers the beacon," he said flatly. "Not a prison break."
Imik's throat worked silently for a moment before he whispered, "The Empire took your friend the same way. And maybe there's others." His thick fingers traced identical routes on the holoprojector—shuttle trajectories from Mos Shuuta to the Star Destroyer's belly. "Same black uniforms, same silence afterward."
FL-AR3's photoreceptors flickered toward Kilian, interpreting the smuggler's minute headshake as negation. The droid's servos whined softly as he shifted his weight—not retreating, but recalculating.
Koraz mumbled something about trying to break into a Stormtrooper guarded landing bay and none of them were particularly stealthy either.