Into Thin Air - Part Two [Greystone]

[Mara]

(((This is per the Ina’s father/Ina kidnapping plot discussion thread [here]... and takes place a week or two after Part One…
I was thinking we’d each do an ‘opening/setting the scene’ post, and then we can get down to nabbing Ina away from Ofi with our second posts and beyond.)))


[… from x]

“I don’t know, Ina. It looks… it doesn’t look edible. Are you sure you followed the recipe correctly?” The silvery birdlike droid hopped closer to the heating implement and cocked her head at the pan in which a strange substance was bubbling away quite happily. Her voice was feminine but still retained that somewhat monotone and inflection-less tone of a manmade, inorganic being. A voice that the deaf Ina couldn’t hear but that Ofi spoke out loud anyway sometimes out of habit or just on a whim. She turned her red optics on her friend standing beside her.

The woman glared at the droid, having read her friend’s words from the datapad sitting on the counter nearby as she had been stirring the ingredients. Checking to make sure nothing was going to explode in the next couple of minutes, she turned the heat down a bit and started moving her fingers and hands in the silent language she had learned as a girl which was her only means of communication. This time, they conveyed irritation. << How would you know? You’re a droid. You don’t even eat food like this, Ofi. >>

Careful not to let her hair swing into the flame or the pan of suspect edibles, she bent and sniffed it. She poked at it with her spoon. Forcing a pleasant and pleased smile on her face, she looked back at her friend and assistant. << Smells good to me. And looks good, too. I think it turned out great. Just like… >> Seeing the holo of the real dish popped up on her datapad, she quickly tapped it away, knowing that the droid had brought it up, using her wireless access, to gloat. << Recipes are only guidelines, anyway. Every being knows that. You need to learn to have a little more faith in me, Ofi. I put my own spin on it, is all. >>

Without needing to speak or having the ability for performing most iterations of humanoid body language, Ofi still managed to portray a look that screamed “I don’t believe you one second” on her metallic face and head. Rather an achievement for a construct that was molded and formed into one shape that never changed. The droid was very proud of her friend, the junior senator for her planet, a planet filled with racism against her subspecies, the Offshoots of Arkania. She believed Ina could do a lot and actually did have a lot of faith in her, as much as a droid could, anyway. But cooking? Not a chance.

<< Oh, hush >> Ina signed, though Ofi hadn’t actually said anything. But by now even the Offshoot was feeling a bit unsure of herself as she continued watching the stew-like substance simmer away. Though she would never voice such thoughts out loud, she was of the ever-increasing mind that this had been a bad idea. Various takeaway items had been her staple most of the time, but at the last charity event she had attended, seeing all the beautiful creations, she had decided to take it upon herself to learn to cook. It would just be like her artwork, paintings and sculptures, but with food. How hard could it really be? Obviously, much more than she had thought, even with detailed instructions.

With a burst of inspiration and a flourish of her fingers, she added in a last-ditch effort, << Here, I’ll show you… >> She picked up a spoon and scooped a generous portion out of the pan and brought it to her lips to taste it. To her credit, she held herself in order for a long ten seconds before her face eventually pinched in a grimace. Gulping it down and following it with a long sip of water, Ina look at Ofi, honesty and defeat in her features. << It’s definitely… an acquired taste. Just not for me >> Then she turned off the heat completely and dumped the whole pan in the sink. Ina shrugged at Ofi. << Corellian takeout? >>

[Agent of Greystone]

Darvek huffed and puffed as he made his way out of the elevator and onto the floor. Behind him he dragged a delivery boy, who he had beaten and stomped into a daze after learning his destination. Reaching into one of the many pockets of his red leather duster, the Weequay retrieved a pair of cuffs. He slapped them onto the semi-conscious teenager, then he reached into the delivery boy's bag and retrieved a handful of hot sauces that had come free with the meal. Drawing one of his Vibroblades, he sliced the tops off of all of them, and stuffed them all into his mouth. Then he taped the boy's mouth shut and pushed him into a broom closet. After the boy had been dealt with, Darvek entered the bathroom.

"Pig, you there?" Darvek was talking into his com link, his partner who he had been forced to take with him was listening at the other end. "I don't want to do this until I know you're actually ready." He heard grunting and shuffling from the other end. Either the Gamorrean had fallen asleep at the wheel, or he had let his com link fall out and he had sat on it by accident. Either way he was dumber than a paddy frog for it. <Wha-what, what is it? Is it time?> The man oinked in an alarmed tone. "No you idiot it's not time yet. And obviously you're NOT ready yet so get in position or it's your bacon on the line when you tell the employer why his target is sidewalk paste!"

If you couldn't tell already, Darvek hated working with others, especially on delicate assignments such as this one, but his unnamed, shadowy employer had felt the need to send a dumb pig to tag along with him and "help out." K'org Bhakkur wasn't actually as bad of a guy as Darvek made him out to be. He was Scarred and ugly, and a shade of green that made Darvek nauseous, and he had a bad temper, and he was a murderer, and Darvek suspected that he may be a rapist. Okay, so he was actually a worse guy than Darvek made him out to be, but Darvek could keep him in line, and he could tolerate his presence until they had finished the job and delivered the girl.

As he left the bathroom, he remembered back to the information he had read about the target from her dossier. Twenty-seven years old, Arkanian off-shoot, meaning that she had a little human blood in her. Average height, average weight, and deaf. That would make communication difficult, meaning he would have to be a little more direct in his approach with her. Also mentioned in the dossier was a droid. A droid, shaped like a bird which was meant to help the girl with her daily tasks. Unfortunately, the dossier didn't mention weapons, so he could only safely assume that it was armed to the teeth.

"Are you at the the destination yet?" Darvek asked impatiently as he strode down the hall. The pig oinked response, giving Darvek the green-light to go for the girl. He took one last second to make himself look a tiny bit less scummy before he approached the apartment door. Reaching out, he waited for a moment, then he knocked. Once. Twice. Three times. Oh yeah, deaf. Duh. He thought to himself dimly. With his left hand he held the bag of take-out in front of the eye-hole so that anyone looking through it wouldn't see a gross alien thug, and with the other he girpped the hilt of his short Vibro-blade under his coat, in case he needed to whack the bird-bot out of the air immediately.

[Mara]

A few minutes later, Ofi had been on the comm, using one of the many speed dial settings. Quickly, she put through the order to the closest Corellian takeaway to Ina’s apartment building. She could have just as easily hacked into the business’s network and inserted the order quite flawlessly with just a few flicks of her own neural wireless connection. But Ofi knew that her friend preferred as normal as life as possible. And if the senator couldn’t call for food herself, she would have to do it in her stead. Plus, if the droid had ever the chance to admit it, she preferred this method as well. Her voice freaked out some callers, which was enjoyable in her unusually human-like droid mind.

Call ended, she spoke to her friend, sending a message to her datapad. “He says it’ll be here in about 40 minutes, give or take.” Ofi then jumped off the desk where she had been on the comm and flew to the other side of the room to sit across from the holovid projector. Over the year or so since coming to Coruscant with Ina, the droid had developed a strange addiction to sappy holodramas. Since Ina had left the room, probably to her makeshift art studio to wait out the food delivery, all was clear. She switched the device on, locating the holo she had been in the middle of, and turned up the volume. The birdlike droid settled into the couch cushion to watch.

* * *

Ina had indeed gone into the spare bedroom into which she had turned into her art space. She really should have gathered up her briefcase and gone over her notes for the upcoming senate session. However, with her cooking experiment having gone horribly wrong, she still had some creativity buzzing around her mind that needed an outlet. After pulling on a paint-soiled smock to cover her clothes, she perched herself on a stool in front of her easel. Many thought she was strange for dabbling in such an old-fashioned art discipline, but the few who had received her works of art were always so appreciative of the homemade aspect. And for Ina, her amateur projects were a great stress relief as well as a hobby.

Picking up a paintbrush and dipping it in some paint, she poised it above the unfinished painting. Deep in thought, her tongue poked out of the corner of her mouth. Coming to a decision, she touched the brush to the canvas, swathing it in great arcs. Ina was still in a bit of an abstract phase, and so the art in front of her was of nothing discernible, even to the artist herself as of yet. She was focusing more on representing feelings and moods with various colors, letting her emotions and gut instinct guide her paintbrush, rather than having a clear idea in her head of what she wanted to do.

Her necklace hummed against her upper chest, its specific vibration indicating a message on her datapad. Deep in concentration on her painting, Ina barely glanced over at the device at Ofi’s message before returning her entire focus back on what she was doing. She felt she was at a breakthrough and dared not stop, even for a moment. The Offshoot worked furiously, changing paint colors, stabbing at her canvas. Slowly, something was coming together for her. Ina didn’t even stop to think; she just let her mind, or perhaps her heart, guide her strokes as she got lost in her art.

* * *

Hearing a knock at the door, Ofi turned away from her holodrama. Her internal chrono indicated that the delivery boy had made it to the apartment in record time. Odd but not alarmingly so. She took wing and flew closer to the door, landing on the back of a chair. The droid had been trying to get Ina to buy some sort of end table to place next to the door so she could sit there instead and use the peephole if necessary, but so far the senator hadn’t followed through on her promises to do so. For now, Ofi could only perch on the chair a couple meters directly in front of the door and hope her presence was enough security to whoever would be on the other side.

Before triggering the door release remotely, the droid did a cursory scan, as per her usual. Ofi’s thermal registered two sources, a large one representing a being of some kind and a smaller one that would almost certainly be the food. And the being out in the hallway was bigger than the one they were used to seeing from the Corellian takeout place. The boy was tall but scrawny and would hardly fill out the warm blur she was noticing on the other side. Perhaps their usual delivery boy was sick or busy or put on a different schedule. It was hardly something that would worry the droid, but she remained on alert anyway. Danger could be anywhere.

Seeing no concrete reason to keep their visitor waiting, the droid used her wireless to gain access to the door. There was a click and a small pneumatic whoosh, and then it slid open. When she saw the tall Weequay standing there with the bag of food, Ofi cocked her head. She took in his posture and his unkempt appearance. “What happened to Tas? He’s the one who usually brings us our delivery.” Her voice was at the same time a monotonous droid voice and discernibly female.

Alerted automatically to the knock at the door through her necklace with a separate vibrational code that simultaneously sent a text to her datapad as a redundant failsafe, Ina added a couple more splashes of paint to her canvas. Peering at it with first one eye, then the other, and then squinting, she was satisfied with the newest contribution. Then, with a sigh, she got up from her stool and removed her smock. She had gotten into a groove and hated to stop it cold. But she was also hungry and would forgive this interruption.

Picking up her datapad and shutting off the lights, she left the studio and headed into the hallway that led back into the lounge area. She stopped at the desk where her pocketbook was and dug out a few coins to tip the delivery boy with. But when she was halfway to the door, she stopped in her tracks right in front of the holovid projector. The boy Tas whom she was used to seeing had been apparently replaced with some ugly humanoid whose species she couldn’t place right away. Though she saw he held the bag of food, she looked at Ofi in confusion.

[Agent of Greystone]

At first it seemed to Darvek that he might have arrived at the wrong room, because when he knocked, there was no immediate response, and he heard no footsteps at the other end. But then, the door slid open without warning, revealing the target's bird-shaped helper droid. That would explain the lack of footsteps. Darvek thought to himself, as he took a step closer to peer inside. He let his eyes move around the room which these two called home. She seemed to be doing rather well for herself, considering her disability, though that must not be as apparent when you have help. Darvek studied the droid for a moment. It was smooth and shiny, as all things were on Corescant, and it's small size and innocent shape made it seem perfectly harmless. In fact, if Darvek hadn't been warned beforehand that it packed heat, he never would have guessed that the small character was armed at all.

“What happened to Tas? He’s the one who usually brings us our delivery.” It asked him with a mechanical female voice.

What do I tell it? He thought to himself, trying to think of some clever ruse which would keep their suspicions at a minimum. I might as well tell them the truth. Putting on a goofy grin, the Weequay pointed over his shoulder with his thumb. "I knocked him out and hid his unconscious body in a closet." Then he laughed as if he were joking. "Here's your food." He pushed the bag in front of the droid, blocking it's vision with hot food and taking it's mind off of his previous comment so that it couldn't check up on whether his story was true or not.

Then he noticed the girl. She stood nearby, staring at him confusedly, probably wondering about the delivery boy as well. It made him uneasy, both of these people wondering intently about who he was, probably what he was, what he was doing and what he was going to do. It gave him the heebiedabajeebies. He shuddered a little. All right, he thought flatly, I've had enough of this. In a flash he whipped off his coat, revealing every weapon you could imagine; spring-loaded pistol harnesses, a heavy blaster, vibroblades, grenade belts, trip-mine belts, remote-explosives belts, and the like. He threw the heavy leather coat over and around the droid like a bag, in an attempt to immobilize it.

"Now look what you've done, you've made this kidnapping awkward! Holding the coat with his left hand, he snapped out his right one, sending a hold-out blaster from it's harness and into his grip. Having been previously set to stun, he pointed it at her chest. Being a hold-out blaster, it didn't have the strength or power of a normal one, so it's stun setting wouldn't knock one out, it would only shock your nervous system enough to render it's victim motionless and, while still conscious, concussed.

Usually he was against shooting helpless girls, and as such would hesitate and have second thoughts. But this time he was able to go in with the knowledge that she would remain virtually unharmed besides the fall. So no sooner did the gun reach his palm than he found the trigger with his forefinger and squeezed.

[Mara]

(((Sorry for the delay...)))


Ofi waited for the Weequay to answer her question. At the same time, her efficient droid mind scanned through various probabilities, theories, and situations and how she might deal with each one of them. Though mainly acting as the senator’s friend and translator for outside appearances, Ofi was also her personal bodyguard. The appearance of this alien with their food instead of the boy Tas could have just been an innocent anomaly, but the birdlike droid was prepared for any possibility. She felt it was better to be overly cautious and paranoid instead of letting her guard down too soon.

When the large, grayish-blue being finally spoke, Ofi’s suspicions were realized. Despite the Weequay’s jocularity in explaining his presence at their apartment with their food, she immediately went on full alert. She quickly interpreted his inflection as false, his meaning as true. To her, there could be only one reason this being would take the place of their regular delivery boy and come to their door, and it was not at all good. Mere nanoseconds after this clicked into place in her head, Ofi’s focus switched from interrogation of the faux deliveryman to protection of Ina.

But before she could speak or move towards these means—other than sending a warning vibration to Ina’s pendant—the alien shoved the bag of food in front of her face, trying to distract her. In one fluid motion, Ofi jumped up and, using her wings to balance in the air, brought up her talons to knock the bag of food out of the way and out of the Weequay’s grip. It tumbled to the floor, spilling its contents all over. The droid didn’t pay any more attention to the ruined meal; there were much bigger things to worry about now than a few wasted credits on some dropped takeout.

Returning back to her perch on the back of the chair, she turned her red photoreceptors back to the intruder just in time to watch him strip off his heavy jacket. His gaze was no longer on her but farther into the apartment: Ina. Seeing all the weapons arrayed underneath, strapped to the Weequay’s body, and fearing for her friend, Ofi started to engage her own blaster. However, the big alien was fast as well, anticipating more trouble from the droid, and had tossed the piece of leather outerwear on top Ofi before she could even get the secret compartment unlocked.

Ina knew something was wrong when her friend failed to translate the words she could clearly see the humanoid at the door speak. Seconds later, her necklace hummed against her chest, a warning sent by Ofi. Without waiting for or needing an explanation, she looked around for something to hide behind or somewhere to go. But it was fruitless; the furniture in the common area wouldn’t give much cover, and the back rooms of the apartment would be dead ends. She was stuck where she was, scared, defenseless, and unsure what to do.

Mere moments later, the big alien was into the apartment and turning his eyes on her. Ina hadn’t noticed how he had gotten past Ofi or where her friend had gone. She only saw the grayish-blue humanoid bristling with weapons all over his body, and she reflexively took a couple steps backward. Her heart was pounding, her breath coming in gasps. The Offshoot was having flashbacks to the terrorist attack at the embassy on Rodia in which she had unfortunately been caught in the middle of. Except now there was no kind stranger to help her. This time, she could only rely on Ofi’s skills and her own shaky wits if she was to escape this mess unharmed.

Then suddenly the large humanoid had a weapon trained on her. Fearing the worst and not seeing the small size of the blaster, nor having any knowledge of various firearms, Ina panicked. She forgot about common sense and turned to run from the room, aiming to barricade herself in her room or her art studio, for what little good it might do. But no being could outrun a blaster, especially running in a straight line away from it, and the stun blast hit her square in the back. Her legs collapsed beneath her, and she went down, paralyzed, unable to use her arms to break her fall.

Temporarily out of commission and unable to see what was going on with Ina and the Weequay, Ofi’s servos went into overdrive. Perching carefully inside the makeshift sack, the droid delved into her own arsenal of weaponry. The tips of her wings shot back, revealing the exmantium-coated vibroblades underneath. She opened up to her full wingspan and engaged the vibrotechnology, shoving the whirring edges through the tough leather. Flapping up and down and spinning in a circle, she shredded through her prison. It took a few seconds, but she soon had made a sufficient opening for herself.

Dropping out of the bottom of the ‘bag’ and hovering in the air, the birdlike droid quickly assessed the situation. Ofi saw Ina lying prone on her front in the hallway, pointed towards the bedrooms. A scan told her that her friend was conscious and breathing, just stunned. She flipped her attention back to the Weequay intruder, content that Ina was safe for the time being. Now the droid had the time to unhinge the hidden compartment in her breast and slide out her holdout blaster. As soon as Ofi had it aimed at the big alien's ugly head, she fired three shots, remaining in the air to stay a moving target.

[Agent of Greystone]

Darvek let himself smirk for just a moment when he saw the stun shot hit the girl in the square of the back. He took no pride in attacking unarmed civilians, but he did take pride in his shooting ability. His attention was soon redirected though, by the sound of whirring from inside the makeshift bag in his other hand. Several small blades popped out of the sides at once, and little red bits of leather began flying as the blades resumed whirring, quickly tearing the coat apart.

"Aw!" The grey alien let out a noise that children make when they're denied candy. "That was my favorite coat!." Darvek felt legitimately distressed over the loss of his jacket when the little bird popped out from under, wielding a blaster which had previously been hidden from view. "Oh shi-"

A swift dodgeroll kept him safe from the first shot, which sailed harmlessly overhead. The second shot came a little closer, as in close enough that Darvek could feel the heat of the shot fly just past his head. The third shot came officially too close for comfort. Each shot had been fired in the space of a couple of seconds. As soon as he brought his head up from the roll, he felt a sudden jolt of pain. The third blaster shot skimmed him right over the top of the ear. Nowhere near serious, the pain still caused tears to well up in his eyes and he swore loudly. On all-fours he clambered across the floor, searching desperately for any sort of cover he could take. In the meantime he made sure that he was always between the bird and the girl, hoping that putting her in the line of fire might screw up it's targeting parameters.

He spun on his heel, blaster still in his other had, and fired half a dozen unaimed shots back at the droid as he ran. He didn't actually plan on any of them hitting as they were stun shots, and their low powere wouldn't do much harm the the droid besides jarble it's HUD a little, but he hoped the fire might be enough to suppress the droid so that he might put some distance between them.

In little time Darvek reached the kitchen area. His mind raced to think of something which he could possibly use to kill or subdue that droid. Then he saw it, a medium-sized pot, recently used, sat alone in the sink. He snatched it by it's handle, and then spun around to face his small shiny opponent, armed not with weapons, but with a brand new plan. With no time to spare, Darvek sprinted back over the length of the apartment towards the attacker, doing his best to throw off it's targeting by leaping from side-to-side with each step. At one point he tripped, tumbled to the floor, rolled through, and landed back on his feet in a dizzying display of panicked clumsiness. Then, as fast as he could, he attempted to bring the metal pot down ontop of the little droid and, once it was trapped underneath, shove it under the nearest piece of furniture.

[Mara]

(((Apologies for not getting to this until now…)))


Ina was helpless. She was lying prone on her stomach, her right cheek and ear pressed against the cool hardwood beneath her. Her line of vision was severely limited; unable to move voluntarily, she could only stare straight ahead at the floor and cabinetry bottoms of her kitchen. Random muscles would twitch like a tic from remnants of the electrical energy that had struck her, and once, a couple tears escaped, unbidden. Every few moments she would try to gather her strength, hoping to nudge her body into action, but she was stuck where she was, her imagination and emotions running wild and chaotic. 

With no way to see what was going on in the main area of the apartment, Ina could only hope that Ofi was fighting against the intruder and doing her best to save her. The senator would allow herself no other option and result but that. Though her body was paralyzed, her mind was still active, and she forced positive thoughts to overshadow the negative ones that threatened to frighten her. She had been in a similar situation before, and that one had eventually worked out. There was no logical reason for her to believe that Ofi wouldn’t succeed, and that this time, they would come out on top again. Ina had so much to live for, so much she wanted to yet accomplish.

After her initial salvo, the birdlike droid juked back and forth, waiting to see if any of her shots landed. Ofi didn’t expect them to, considering her quick evaluation of the Weequay and the situation in general, but there was always the possibility of an exception to her calculations, the alien acting below projections. In the brief time that she had been in his company, she had drawn some early conclusions about the intruder’s skill set. If she had had more time to spare, she could have actually gotten accurate information by using facial-recognition programming to I.D. the alien. However, she didn’t dare multitask, as easy as it would be for her, not with her friend in danger. 

Ofi watched the large grayish-blue being react to her blaster shots, her analytical droid mind somewhat impressed with his reflexes. He avoided all three, dropping to the ground, though one had come close to blasting off his ugly ear. The droid followed the Weequay, her wings flapping easily to keep her aloft, as he crawled away. She could have dispatched him then, despite his attempt to shield himself from the droid and keeping Ina behind him. But Ofi knew her blaster’s reserves were limited, and though she was confident in a clean shot, she wanted to make sure her friend was completely in the clear before taking it.

Just then, the Weequay got to his feet again and ran, spraying shots towards the droid. Still in the air, she could avoid them without much wasted energy. The birdlike droid ascended, dove, twisted this way and that, and the stun bolts landed harmlessly against the wall and chair behind her. Ofi assumed they hadn’t been meant to hit her anyway but were more of a covering fire for his sprint across the room and towards the kitchen area and the hallway where Ina still lay, unmoving. 

Concerned, she headed deeper into the apartment, following the intruder. Her holdout blaster was still unlocked and ready. The droid knew that this battle was far from over, and she wasn’t sure what the big alien would try next or even what his purpose was for being in their home in the first place. Ofi’s primary thought and purpose was to protect her friend from further attacks; secondary was neutralizing the threat. Only then could she pause to address the problem and contact the proper authorities so they could be rid of this whole mess.

Moving closer to where Ina lay where hitting the senator with friendly fire wouldn’t be an option, Ofi started lining up a kill shot on the Weequay. But before she could fire, the grayish-blue alien had grabbed the dirty pot out of the sink and was coming at her. He ran in the droid’s direction in a zigzag pattern. Ofi was forced to disregard the possibility of a shot; the way he was moving and waving around the makeshift metal weapon, she was afraid of a ricochet harming Ina. 

Instead, she had to flap her wings and turn her back to the Weequay, wishing she were able to fly backwards and having to twist her head around to keep tabs on his position. The alien kept after her and finally swung the pot at her, an action that briefly confused Ofi, knowing that the big thug had a variety of real weapons at his disposal. Ofi saw the angle of descent of the pot, deducing he meant to trap her, not disable her. She filed this information away and ducked to the side, evading being hit or captured.

Now that they were back on the door side of the lounge area, significantly away from Ina, the droid cycled back to her previous plan. Ofi fired off a shot aimed at the Weequay’s ankle, hoping to at least slow him down so she could get the situation under control. Afterwards, she arced back around the room so that she was in the middle, a small metal shield for her friend lying on the floor. She lined up another shot, meaning to shoot the second the big alien started back towards them.

[Agent of Greystone]

(Srry it's short, coming off of writer's block)

The cooking wear was slightly heavier than previously thought, and the little droid was quick on it's wings and constantly flitted out of the way as he approached, making it difficult for Darvek to catch it with the pan. After the initial assault, Darvek found it difficult to regain his footing, and had to hop on one foot to keep balanced. This was made even more difficult when the little bird fired another shot from it's defense pistol aimed directly at his ankle which he was currently balancing on.

Forced to take evasive maneuvers, the big alien threw himself backwards, landing on his back and rolling over his shoulders, pushing himself up until his feet once again touched the floor. He fell back, rolled, and came to his feet again all within brief moment, but it seemed the small droid had been one step ahead of him. When he spun around to look down the length of the room, it was waiting for him, fluttering just out of arm's reach. He took a step forward, intent on doing something, he didn't know what yet, but just as his heel hit the floor he was forced to fall back, literally. Another bolt rocketed just millimeters overhead, exactly where he would've been had he not let himself drop backwards.

No sooner had he caught himself with his hands in a crab-position, than he had kicked off with his left side, landed on his shoulder, and rolled as quickly as he could make himself go, hearing a shot crack into the ground exactly where his center mass had formerly resided.

He got to his feet and leapt towards the bird, at this point the bird had purposefully positioned itself between Darvek and his prey, and, from the sound of it, was readying it's blaster for another shot. Having discarded his pistol on the way, he now gripped the pot in both hands, and swung it at the machine like a club the instant before the droid let fly it's lethal attack, attempting to deflect the shot elsewhere before it even exited the barrel. He made sure to leap back afterwards in case of a counter-attack.

[Mara]

(((No worries… I tend to go a bit overboard, unnecessarily…
Also, apologies for not getting to this sooner… I know it’s a bit rough, but hopefully still makes sense.)))


The big alien had easily evaded Ofi’s attack on his ankle, having rolled himself out of the way. But it didn’t matter in the long run. Eventually she knew she would land a debilitating and wounding shot, slowing the big alien down. Odds were in her favor. She would keep aiming and shooting at him, keeping Ina out of the line of fire, the only thing stopping her being the emptying of her blaster’s power pack. And then she had other weapons and means of defense to turn to. Ofi would fight to protect her friend until she could no longer, her droid body failing her. Anything less would go against her programming and the strangely organic emotions she had developed for the senator over the years.

After moving deeper into the apartment, putting herself between her unmoving but still alive friend and the big alien, the birdlike droid had continued to hover in the air, keeping a moving target. When she had released another blaster bolt at the Weequay intruder after he had recovered and started after her and Ina again, thinking he was still trying to trap her, his next move caught her by surprise. Instead of coming forward to capture her inside it, he used the piece of cookware as a deflector against the incoming blast, swinging it at the incoming bolt, too late for her to take back the shot.

Without enough time to calculate potential ricochet points and whether Ina was in danger, she could only watch as her shot bounced off the pot at a strange side angle. Luckily, due to the shape of the cookware item and the defensive movement of the Weequay’s swing, the bolt came nowhere near to hitting the prone Offshoot or Ofi for that matter. It instead zoomed off to the side and slammed into the middle of the vidscreen with a crack and a hiss. The device immediately started smoking and tilted forward, falling face down onto the floor in a splatter of metal and glass debris.

In the midst of the crash, Ofi quickly checked to make sure none of the shards had made it as far as the entrance to the hallway where Ina was lying. Satisfied that her friend was still doing okay, she snapped her focus right back to the intruder. The pile of smashed vidscreen pieces would be no problem for her; she could easily avoid them by staying in the air. She knew the only way for the Weequay to come at her and Ina now would be to either brave the mess or to come around the other side, between the couch and small caf table. Unless he decided to just attack from where he was with something long-range.

Feeling confident that she had breathing room for a second or two before the intruder reacted to the turn of events, Ofi sprayed a couple shots of covering fire before she turned to fly closer to Ina. She lowered herself to only a foot or two above the ground, turning herself into a shield for anything the big alien might throw at her. Her blaster remained open and ready. Though it was running on half power now, and she would have to be frugal with the rest of her shots, Ofi was sure it wouldn’t be a problem. Red eyes glowed out of the metallic avian head, fixed on the Weequay, almost daring him to try something else.

[Agent of Greystone]

The moisture on the alien's brow had thickened over the course of their short struggle, and now the sweat was finally beginning to leak down the contours of his face. His mind was racing almost as fast as the droplets at this point. His eyes darted around the room in concentrated effort as if they were chasing a child's bouncing toy that had gone haywire. It was difficult to come up with on-the-spot strategies in this kind of environment, and he hadn't planned on the little droid giving him this much trouble in the short run.

As the droid turned it's weapon on his hiding spot, Darvek ducked back behind his probably-not-blasterproof cover. "Why couldn't she have bought an Astromech like everyone else?" Darvek thought out loud. "Different does not equal cool." It had stopped chasing him at least, placing itself in the dead-center of the apartment between Darvek and the girl, acting as a sort of shield on her behalf. He looked down at himself, taking a stalk of what non-lethal equipment he had brought to work with, minus the stuff that wouldn't do any thing to a droid. He felt something cold on his finger, and looked down to see a little bit of food had dripped from the pot and onto his finger. Being the grimy bum that he was, he licked it off without a second thought. Then his eyes shot open with surprise. This is...

"Hey-wow! Hey, what'd you make this stuff with? This is excellent!" The alien called out from where he was sitting. Now I HAVE to get my hands on that girl!

Now feeling a new sense of both motivation and urgency, it was time to pull out all of the stops. Two plans came to mind immediately, though one was going to be very expensive, so he put his first plan into motion. With the rounded (and newly dented) cooking pot held ready in his left hand, Darvek pulled a thermal detonator from his belt. He held the red button on the top until the countdown began to make that clicking sound. He didn't rightly remember what planet he had bought it on, so he was only sure that he had either 2, 7, or 11 seconds to throw it. Sure the grenade had actually just turned out to be a dud that would never go off, but the bird didn't know that.

"What?" He said into his communicator. "You wanted her dead?" He asked his imaginary commander incredulously. "Well okay...if you insist."

Without a second thought, he tossed the small dirty-metallic ball over his shoulder, and watched, using the distorted reflection of the pot, as it flew through the air bounced a bit, and stopped just next to the girl's head. He waited until the bird's attention had been directed away from himself, and then, as fast as his physical form would allow, he tore across the room, avoiding the mess of debris to one side, and attempted to scoop the droid out of the air and trap it under the pot for good.

[Mara]

(((Well, hopefully now we can start moving in the direction of concluding this in a few more posts, or less… And get on with the next threads…
Ofi’s all set up for you, though I have Ina beginning to slowly wake up, if that’s okay—I wasn’t sure how long the stun blast would have lasted…)))


Hearing a soft moan somewhere behind her, Ofi shifted her head sideways towards the sound. The birdlike droid kept one red eye trained towards the intruder and his movements but used the other to scan over her friend, knowing the noise had come from her. Ina was still motionless, but her vital signs were still in the normal range. Ina’s leg twitched slightly while the droid was looking her over, but Ofi knew that was more a result of the Weequay’s stun blast than any attempt of the senator in waking up. Still, the fact that she was being somewhat verbal was an encouraging sign that Ina would be coming out of her paralysis soon.

However, at the same time, the droid knew the possible danger that also came with this new information. If Ina woke up before Ofi had completely subdued the Weequay, the senator would be subject to attack again. At least while she was sleeping off her stun blast to the back, she was much easier for the droid to defend against. This realization forced Ofi to turn from her friend after one last check that she was okay for the time being and look back to her opponent with full focus, who was hiding behind the chair on the far side of the common area. He was yelling out something that she deemed unimportant.

The big alien had been rather quiet for the last few moments in which she had been studying her friend, and she was apprehensive about what he could be thinking or planning. She wasn’t worried—a droid would never worry—but she was cognizant of the high variety of possible future attacks that could becoming her and Ina’s way at any time. Though she could see all these and calculate probabilities in her brain, she would never be able to be 100% positive on what the Weequay would choose to do next. A task made more difficult by the fact that she couldn’t see him completely and analyze his body language, facial tics. Thermal imaging of the chair and what lay behind it could only help her so much.

What did come next was most assuredly the one possibility that Ofi had never considered. She had expected him to come charging at her, still intent on capturing her, perhaps also drawing on his various firearms. Never would she had imagined that he would bring out something as drastic as a thermal detonator, considering she had concluded long ago that this alien didn’t mean Ina permanent harm or damage, something that an exploding bomb would most certainly do.

Ofi immediately went into action the moment she saw the object thrown across the room towards Ina. There was no hesitation or second thoughts on which direction she would go first—after the Weequay intruder or after her friend. The big alien would keep for the few extra seconds it would take for the birdlike droid to deal with the thermal detonator, especially if he was going to keep his distance to avoid the destruction it was sure to cause. Unsure on the length of the timer, Ofi wasted no time and flew straight to the little metallic ball, diving down to grasp it with her mechanical talons, meaning to toss it out a window, not wanting to take any time to diffuse it.

But she had underestimated her Weequay opponent. Throughout this whole encounter, he hadn’t been acting in any predictable way, but she had continued to act and react as if he would, especially with the proximity of the impending explosion. Ofi had lifted back into the air after grabbing hold of the spherical weapon and hadn’t gotten more than a few feet away from Ina when the big alien was right there, the pot in his hand. Reflexively, she unleashed a few bolts from her blaster, but they mostly went wide, being more instinctive than aimed. And then the pot came at her, slamming on top of her and the small bomb, pinning her wings to her sides, as it came hard to the ground.

[Agent of Greystone]

With a resonating *Clunk*, the put shut tight around the little droid and the fake bomb, trapping it underneath and between. It had been so much trouble catching the damn thing, Darvek almost had the urge to peak inside to make sure he had actually caught it. He sighed with relief and sat down on top of the pot as he planned out what he was going to do next. He spaced out for a few seconds as the adrenaline slowly left his system. Combat had a way of forcing all of the other thoughts out of his head, something like tunnel-vision, and as such he had to take some down time after particularly stressful encounters such as this.

He realized he couldn't stay like that forever, so the alien got up after a few minutes, and pushed the pot along the floor until he reached the nearest piece of furniture. He had to force it a little, but after a little effort the pot and it's contents slid underneath, and out of Darvek's immediate thoughts. Then he turned back to look at the woman he was supposed to kidnap.

"Someone had to have heard that." Darvek thought out-loud. He brought his communicator up to mouth-level. "Pig, you read? The front entrance is a no-go, but I've got the girl. Bring the transport up. Don't let anyone see you either, we have a limited window of time here."

The pig grunted back, and (supposedly) began to drive their transport up to Darvek's position. Meanwhile, Darvek had mozied over to the young woman sprawled over the floor of the next room. It looked like she was just beginning to regain control of her senses. He reached down and hoisted her up onto his shoulder, then he made his way across the room and over to a window.

"Pig, you in position?" He called into his comm unit. <Yes yes I arrived. Hurry hurry! Police here!> K'org oinked in response.

Damn, I took too much time fighting that damn bird. We're gonna have to be as fast as we can without being noticed.

Reaching behind his back, Darvek pulled the heavy pistol from it's holster. He pointed it towards the window and rapidly fired until the majority of the window blew out, allowing the heavy wind of the city-planet to whistle in, as loud as it was quick. Papers and small objects flew around the room as the heavy wind rushed in, and Darvek was forced to shout over the noise.

"Pig, I don't see you! Are you sure you're in the right spot?!!" Unfortunately the response was muffled by the wind and Darvek couldn't hear what he said.

He heard someone bang on the door behind him, he was out of time. He quickly bent down and snatched up the remains of his leather coat, then he pulled the girl off of his shoulders so that he could get a better grip around her waist. Her eyes had begun to dart around now, the effects of the stun had worn off, and she seemed to be trying to figure out what was going on. He pulled a data pad from his coat pocket, and quickly typed in a message and showed it to her.

IF IT MAKES YOU FEEL BETTER THIS IS JUST AS SCARY FOR ME

He gave her about 2 seconds to read it before he leapt out into the open air, completely confident that K'org had pulled the speeder up under the window which he had just exited. His confidence ran it's course when a peek to his left revealed that the Pig had parked two windows down, and was just now watching the two figures seemingly about to plummet to their dooms.

"PIG YOU BASTARD!!"

Time seemed to slow down as the two of them fell. It felt like the drop was taking years, and it didn't help that the girl seemed to have regained control over her hands, and was now digging her fingernails into either side of his rib cage. Finally, Darvek's back met with hard floor, the impact of the two dragged the hovercar down a bit before it recovered and zoomed off away from the scene.

Darvek, winded from the impact, let his hands fall off of the girl and he groaned, waiting painfully for his breath to return to him.

[Mara]

((So, so sorry for the wait…
Anyway, I think after this post, we should be good to finish this up with one more from each of us—Darvek getting them to his ship/transport, me sending out Ofi for help—to wrap up, and then I’ll get the new one up on Boz Pity, and we’ll move over…)))


Trapped in the darkness of the cookware, Ofi’s little droid brain went into overtime in order to sort through her predicament and figure out the best course of action in response. The thermal detonator was still stuck in her talons, pressed against the soft carpet of the apartment. One test of her wings told her that the space wasn’t wide enough to spread them out. And considering her present company, unleashing the last remaining bolts from her blaster was out of the holo. She decided her top priority would be the bomb,not trying to escape, because if she released herself from her makeshift prison only for the device to still explode… well, that would almost send the droid into some very organic grief and a murderous rage.

To make matters worse, she had almost immediately felt the weight of something over top of her, cutting off any chance of escape she may have thought up. And then moments later, the heaviness had lifted, and she had been slid across the floor rapidly enough that she hadn’t even a chance to frame an escape plan, well alone attempt one. She bumped jerkily into the sides of the pot during the short trip, making little clanging sounds. Ofi desperately tried to keep the detonator as still as possible, unsure of the timer or the settings. Then there was a bit of a scratching, rubbing sound, and the movement stopped. It didn’t take her genius mechanical brain, and a few fruitless pushes, to tell her she was stuck somewhere.

Ofi shoved finding out where she had been put and how she would get out to secondary status. Once settled again, she quickly turned her attention to the spherical explosive device. Now that she had no choice but to study the thermal detonator, she took the time to scan it, slowly and carefully rolling it through her talons as her red optics ran over its surface and below it. Then the dreadful truth clicked into place; the bomb was a dud or maybe even a really good fake. The birdlike droid realized that the Weequay had had no intentions of blowing up her and Ina. And she had fallen for it, allowing herself to become separated from her incapacitated friend.

Any organic probably would have sighed or swore at this,feeling all sorts of blame and desperation and a mix of other emotions. But the droid didn’t have those problems. Ofi switched gears and started computing ways of escape. Perching a bit forward on the detonator to keep it out of the way of her metal breast, she unhinged her secret compartment and popped out her small blaster. It had only a few charges left, but she hoped it would be enough to melt a hole in the cheap pot. She fired rapidly in front of her, expelling her reserves, but they served only to make a dent in her prison. Her optics fixed on the bomb, and an idea started forming in her droid brain…


* * * * *


Ina’s eyes flickered, and large boots loomed in front of her. Before she could gain any control of her hazy memory or her senses or the situation itself, her perspective shifted. She was soaring into the air, insensibly feeling giddy at the brief sensation of weightlessness, and then she slammed into something solid, eliciting a groan. Her vision cleared a bit, and she saw an ugly gray ear pass by before she was staring past and into the destructive mess of her own apartment. Confusion muddled her mind. The Arkanian Offshoot woman couldn’t remember what had happened, where Ofi was, or who was carrying her. Or why she felt so tired.

With determination, she tried a shallow breath, wanting to force herself to wake back up and gain control of herself. Maybe then she could figure out what was going on and why she was feeling scared, as if she were in trouble. However, so far, she could only really move her eyes with any degree of quickness. The rest of her body was sluggish to respond to her mental tugs and signals. Something was holding her legs tight, and her arms were lying limp, only her fingers twitching as whatever had disabled her slowly wore off. At the moment, she wouldn’t be able to get out of this herself. Where was her friend? Where was Ofi?

At the edge of her awareness, she felt a change in pressure in her surroundings, and then cold air rushed in behind her, whipping her long white hair around her head. Ina blinked blue eyes in more confusion. But then she felt a vibration against her chest, almost muffled by the body she was being held against, and she focused in on this new set of information. Her pendant was warning her of something. She struggled to remember what this combination meant, and then it hit her. Someone was at the door! The senator managed to lift up one hand a few inches and open her mouth in what she thought was a scream, but only a soft croak came out. Tears streamed down her face, reacting to her helplessness and the whipping wind.

She was lowered down slightly then, and she had some brief hope at this, but then the grip re-strengthened around her in a new position. The gray warty features of a Weequay—something sparked in the back of her mind at this, but she couldn’t pin it down—swarmed in front of her face. Ina honed in on it, trying to remember anything that was familiar about it before she had been blacked out, wanting to jolt her memory. But a datapad with text on it replaced the alien in her view, and she had to shift her slowly awakening mind to it instead. Her blue eyes scanned the words displayed on the screen, trying to decipher meaning through the fog inside her head.

In the next instant it all became startlingly apparent to her, and her breath caught in her throat. The Weequay jumped out of the open window, a dangerous proposition, considering how high up her apartment was relative to the nearest pedestrian walkway and its proximity to lines of airspeeder traffic. Her lips parted widely in a wordless scream as they fell to what seemed to be certain death. She wanted to flag down a passing vehicle for help but found she couldn’t because she was spending all her energy on the instinctual but perhaps not-too-smart task of holding tight to her captor with all four limbs, so much was her fright.

During the drop, a small part of her brain that somehow wasn’t scared witless rather calmly ran through flashes of her past: her father back on Arkania, treasured moments spent together as she had grown up. Tutoring sessions with Mrs. Willox. The day she had first met the droid AER-05, now called Ofi. Attending university and meeting her best friend Riqi, starting a revolution against inequality that eventually had led to her senatorial run. Encounters with various other beings, other senators, politicians, diplomats. Running into the man called Shine who had stolen her heart, something that until this moment, she realized with regret that she had been lying to herself about.

Then as soon as it had started, it was over. They landed with a thud against something firm but also with some give. Luckily for Ina, the Weequay had taken the brunt of the impact, and she escaped with only minor bruises from the whole encounter, going back to the beginning of the incident in her apartment. Also lucky for her was that they had fallen into the back compartment of the hovercar, because when their descent stopped, the alien had let go of her. With her feeling only starting to fully return across her body, she could have quite possibly rolled right off any surface without a railing or wall. She didn’t bother moving off the top of her captor; Ina was still feeling a bit shaky from the remnants of the stun blasts and the waning adrenaline of their death-defying plummet and needed to catch her breath as well as her senses.

[Agent of Greystone]

(Srry about the long wait, I finished it, then a storm knocked my power out and I had to start from scratch xP)

It took a while for Darvek to recover enough from his impact to bring himself up to a sitting position. He was lucky, just before he made impact he had managed to cushion the back of his head with his hands, successfully preventing his skull from being slammed into the floor of the car. Unfortunately, that meant that there was nothing protecting him from the full force of the girl landing right onto his sternum. That, plus the impact itself, left Darvek not only completely winded, but unable to actually draw back a breath for several excruciating seconds. As the girl scuttled off of him, he took a heavy breath, then coughed several times.

Finally coming to, Darvek immediately recognized the sounds of the approaching Authorities. Panicking a little, the Weequay turned to his partner and yelled over the whipping winds for him to get them back to their ship as quickly as possible. The Gamorrean squealed back at him in acknowledgment, and without a second thought he hit the accelerator and began to weave in and out of the traffic in front of them.

K'org began to pick up speed. Darvek, who had managed to prop himself up on one of the back seats, had to cling onto the side of the vehicle as the Pig in the driver's seat made a sudden and violent swerve at terrifying speed, nearly throwing his partner from the back in the process. Unfortunately, the girl didn't or couldn't grab on in time, and slammed into Darvek, once again winding him and sending him to the floor.

"Pig what are you doing you're gonna kill me!" The Weequay groaned from the floor of the car."

Realizing that his partner wasn't about to slow down until they were safely back on his freighter, Darvek grabbed the girl and wrapped both of his arms around her, hoping to, if anything, keep her from flying out of the car to her doom.

Darvek had to fight his urge to begin kissing the pavement once the Gamorrean set their car down near the Spaceport where they had docked their old rusty freighter which K'org had 'rented' from a Sullustin on Nar Shadaa. Once they were out of the car, Darvek zapped the girl once again with the stun pistol, catching her before she fell, and then hoisting her up as if she was simply a colleague who had fallen asleep in his arms, and not a Senator whom they had kidnapped and were now stealing from her home.

It was hell trying to sneak an unconscious woman past spaceport security. Luckily, on duty that night was a man of questionable morals whom Darvek knew who, for the right price, helped them work their way to their ship unhindered. Darvek had been sure that there would've been some sort of chase or rescue attempt, or that someone would have noticed the civilian car on the flyway going faster than most starships, but his fears subsided once they made it to the ships's docking ramp. In but a minute they got their bird into the air and were exiting the atmosphere.

<Where are we bringing girl?> K'org asked, having forgot for the fourth time that day.

"Boz Pity. BOZ P-I-T-Y! Remember?" Darvek Grumbled, massaging his headache. K'org stared at him blankly, one of his eyes going out of focus in the process.

"The place with the big skeletons."

<Oh. Yeah. That place.> The pig grunted, still (figuratively) staring off into space. <I hate that place>

"For once we can agree." Darvek replied as he punched in the hyperspace coordinates. "Gives me the willies, that place does."

He pushed a rickety throttle forwards and hit a small red button beside it, and then watched as the stars began to meld into the silver-grey cloud-like wormhole of hyperspace. It was all very relaxing, but it also reminded the Weequay how tired and achy he was from his engagement with the little droid. He stood up and stretched, his joints and back popping in the process.

"Well, we have eight hours until we arrive at our destination, I'm gonna go get some shut-eye."

He made his way out, but stopped at the doorway. The pig was watching him intently, his body stiff, seemingly waiting for Darvek to leave him alone with the girl. Darvek narrowed his eyes at his partner, pondering what exactly he could be waiting for. Of course he knew K'org's reputation, it preceded him, so it wasn't hard to guess what he would want to do with a semi-conscious young woman.

"And by the way." He said, his voice cold and harsh."When I wake up I'm going to be doing a full-body examination of her before we hand her over. Our contract stated she was to be alive and unharmed. So if you do anything while I'm gone..."

He didn't need to say any more. The pig nodded silently, a cold sweat running down his forehead.

<Yes, of course, I understand, I won't do anything.>

Darvek eyed him one more time before leaving the cockpit and heading to his room. K'org turned back to the controls, brushing his hand across the girl's legs as he went.

<For now...>

[Mara]

(((Aw, that sucks… Maybe you need to do auto save. But no worries.
Anyway, this shall be the end… and I will see you on Boz Pity. )))


She had just regained almost full control of her muscles and had been breathing a lot easier when there was a sharp jolt. Still a bit unsure exactly where she was, she didn’t comprehend until almost too late that she was unsecured in a racing airspeeder. Ina slid hard into something solid but soft and then bounced against the back corner of the vehicle. A wordless scream parted her lips as she realized her dangerous predicament, and her pale fingers grabbed on tight. Again, she was much too distracted to even think about trying to flag down some help or rescue. Her life was on the line.

And then she felt something wrap around her and was tugged back into the relative safety of the speeding vehicle that kept weaving and out of the traffic lanes at a high rate. Ina was back in somewhat of a sitting position, and her blue eyes started running over her limited surroundings. They stopped over a stout being in the pilot’s seat of the airspeeder; she could only see its back and couldn’t be sure on the species. But then it turned its head briefly, and it was a Gamorrean’s ugly visage. She recoiled back and noticed she was pressed against something and looked down to see arms around her waist. Frightened, fragments of possibilities suddenly raged in her mind, and she pulled against the being holding her. But soon, she stopped struggling as the harsh reality hit her that she had nowhere to go.

With this resolute resignation, Ina tried to relax and calm herself enough so she could focus on where she was and where they were taking her. Soon enough their destination became apparent as the hovercar left the political district behind, and a somewhat less gentrified area expanded into view. The Gamorrean parked the airspeeder outside a spaceport that seemed to be sporting mostly freighters and other worn-looking ships. Knowing this could be her only chance to escape and run for help, as they were most likely going to transfer her to another transport, Ina readied herself.

But she didn’t even get the chance to put any of her thoughts into motion. As soon as she had stepped out, the Weequay pointed his blaster at her again, and the blue stun shot arced out and hit her. Once again, she slipped into paralysis and the big alien caught her. Still feeling tired from the last blast back in her apartment and her near-death experience of moments before, Ina thought to only rest a moment or two and then reevaluate her situation. Her eyes fell closed, and her last memory was of the Weequay carrying her through the spaceport before everything went dark, and she slipped into a dreamless sleep…

[to Inquisitions and Liberations…]


* * * * *


Back in the senator’s damaged apartment, there was a muffled boom and a thud. The droid Ofi had dismantled and rigged up the dud thermal detonator to create her own improvised explosive device. Her cookware prison had blasted upwards a couple of feet, taking the couch above with it and tipping it over. Thus freed from the pot, she was able to quickly survey her surroundings and her options. It became almost immediately obvious that Ina was nowhere in the connecting rooms, and she deduced that the Weequay intruder had left with her friend. Something only reinforced by the shattered window in the living area. Without a second glance or thought, Ofi jumped into flight and headed for the ragged opening, bursting into the Coruscant air to search for Ina.

[to A Call to Arms…]