Out of The Frying Pan

[Kella]

"First ring swept. Pushing to the next level of buildings." Sith crackled and bickered over the radio, trying to decide where the snipers were.

Grizzelda was good at picking inconspicuous perches, but that bought her time, not invulnerability.

Bosco would be fine. He had the camo cloak, and he was tougher than he looked, and he looked like he'd been chewed up by a rancor and run over by a speeder and survived.

Everyone else was pretty much frakked. Some would survive, some wouldn't. The op had gone to Hell. Grizzelda's new mission was making sure Dutch didn't die again. She'd watched him speed away into center city, Mo in toe.

She gave him a lot of crap, but that was 'cause the kid could take it. He was tough. He'd survive the chase, but after that... Grizz needed to find him before the Sith did.

She finished disassembling her rifle and slung it back over her shoulder, tightening the rag across her face that held back the bite of the smog. She pulled a thick, awkward pistol from her bag. Hooks unfolded from the grip to latch onto a support strut on the roof, barrel turned up over the corner. She lined up the shot. With a quiet hiss, the grappling pod fired, lodging itself a second later in one of the lower buildings, which the Sith had already checked off as clean.

The carbon fiber line was nearly invisible. Grizzelda secured her pack and scanned the space she left. Everything was as it had been two hours ago. They'd never know she'd been here.

She clipped a harness tether to the line and timed her jump carefully, gliding along the line. She stopped herself with her feet against the wall and twisted up onto the roof. At the press of a button the base of the pistol loosed from the higher roof and reeled the line in, and Grizzelda tucked it back in her bag.

Something in the radio chatter caught her attention.

"Excision Squad, it's time to take out their safe house. Make sure none of the rebels are hiding there. Sector 5, Building 3B, unit 4622. Leave no survivors."

Grizzelda quickly pulled up the address on her wrist computer. It wasn't more than a dozen blocks away. She could afford the detour, but not on foot.

~~~

The bike thrummed happily as Grizzelda weaved through traffic, unnoticed and unhindered. Bars were great places to find cheap bikes with cheap locks. The road block proved no problem, Grizz knew how to stay in the shadows.

She casually parked the bike in front of the building, and walked in like she owned the place. Her equipment may have looked conspicuous, but few would notice that she lacked the Sith insignia.

She leaned lazily agains the wall of the lift as it carried her to the forty sixth floor. The doors opened to greet her with a guard.

She stepped through. "Afternoon, officer."

"I'm sorry Ma'am, but this floor's cl--"

He noticed her holsters and went to raise his gun, but his next breath was hindered by the new blaster hole in his neck, and he collapsed.

Grizzelda dived behind a potted plant and waited for the response, but the hall was eerily empty. More blaster fire from in the room, and screams this time. The Sith were getting more than they'd bargained for.

One of the Excision squad said as much over the radio, and reinforcements were promised. No more time to dawdle.

The Hell is going on in there...

Pistol steady and raised, Grizzelda edged out from her hiding place and slowly nudged open the door.

[Jenno]

He could not remember being in a safe house before. Despite the time he had been in them lately, they very much just seemed like every other building and room. He didn’t understand what made them safe. He did feel different in this place though, perhaps that feeling, whatever it was, was what defined a safe house. But he couldn’t define the feeling, so he was still very much uncertain.

He had not seen the two who had led him to these safe houses for some time. Mo and Al, they were part of some sort of group that owned these places. According to members of their group that were with him in this current safe house, they were busy planning something, though they didn’t seem to want to say any more than that. Perhaps they didn’t know.

This day seemed different, he didn’t know why, but everyone else in the safe house seemed different. It was as if they were a computer that had suddenly started sending out a different signal. At one point they were all sat around watching the news, and then they simply sat there for hours. He had glimpsed at the screen a few times, there was an ongoing clash between the armed soldiers he had encountered when he arrived on this planet and the group that Al and Mo were part of. Perhaps they were caught up in all of these things. From the things these reporters were saying, it certainly sounded like the group of rebels were in trouble.

But this was a safe house. He was safe. As he lay down in one of the rooms to rest his eyes, the other inhabitants still focused on the reports that were coming in. He drifted off slowly.

Loud voices and blaster fire came from the main room. Alpha jolted upright, eyes alert, scanning the room. He was alone. Without much thought, he grabbed is weapons, he moved to the wall and crept along it. As he carefully came upon the door to the main room, a man, one of the group’s members, came bursting through “Alpha, the Sith, the Sith are-” and with a flash of light the man fell to the ground, his face screaming in pain, his mouth silent and a crisp stench rising from his blackened side.

“Go check that room.” Came a voice he didn’t recognise. He didn’t know what to do. He waited by the doorway, back against the wall. The black nozzle of a rifle edged its way into sight. As the weapon and its owner moved around the corner of the door, Alpha grabbed the weapon from underneath and smashed the top of it into the red man’s face. As soon as the weapon hit, Alpha let go and grabbed the bottom of the man’s jaw, his other hand grabbed the back of his head and without hesitation he twisted.

He grabbed the sagging body and held it in front of him. He could see four other red men in the room, and from what he could tell none of the people he’d been living with were moving anymore. Was this safe? He charged forward a few paces and threw the body at two of the red men that were standing next to one another. They fell to the ground, the body on top of them. This gave Alpha a few moments; he was close enough to the other two that his swords would reach. In one swift movement he unsheathed them and removed the hand of the nearest trooper who was about to fire his pistol. The second blade quickly sliced into his neck. He didn’t leave a moment’s pause before he closed the gap of a few paces between himself and the other trooper. Alpha plunged his blades into the man’s chest and as the body dropped he let go of the swords, pulled out his blasters, turned and shot the two men who had just about got back to their feet.

There was a painful gurgle, the static confirmation of reinforcements and then silence. Alpha looked around at the bodies. The ones he’d struck and the ones the red men had shot. He didn’t like what began to build up within him. He looked at his hands, the blasters that rested comfortably in them. Why had he done that? It was as if for a moment something else, some other force had controlled his body, had made him slice and shoot. He could remember learning how to do all these things, but why did his body carry them out like that. Why didn’t he stop himself?

These people. They weren’t coming back now. They were gone forever. A liquid began to form in his eyes; it made them blurry, not something he was accustomed to. It kept building and growing until it poured out and down his face. It entered his mouth. The taste was painful.

His hands were shaking. Why were they doing that?

Then he heard something, from the doorway. Were there more?

He instantly turned and raised one of his guns at the small target. His hand was still shaking. It didn’t look like another red soldier. He held his fire.

“W-” his voice was broken, “who are you?”

[Kella]

"A friend," Grizzelda replied, edging around the corner hands first. She'd slid her blaster back into the holster, but hadn't clipped it in. She could draw it quickly enough.

The man's face was spattered with blood except where the tears had washed it away. Though his gun had moved swiftly to her chest, his hand was shaking. Alpha.

So this is what they'd meant when they said he was a little... off. No frakking kidding.

But still an unfamiliar pang of sympathy cut past Grizzelda's guard. She slowly scanned the room, and a sourness settled in her stomach. Everything was still except for the blood creeping across the floor.

One of the blank, staring faces caught her eye. Daveed. They'd had a long conversation about sniper scopes, a week ago. She sighed.

Grizzelda had learned long ago that what-if-ing at the past didn't get you anywhere. She'd arrived when she'd arrived, and Alpha was alive, and that was something.

The woman straightened, hands still raised and empty, calmly watching Alpha past the barrel of his blaster.

"My name is Grizzelda," she said, "I'm with the DLA. I'm going to find Dutch and Mo. Would you like to help me?"

[Jenno]

This person he didn't know seemed careful around him, but she put away her weapon away. Unsure of what to do, Alpha gradually did the same.

She looked around. He did the same. His eyes couldn't take the sight and he looked back at her, as if trying to block out what was around him. She was one of the members of the group, that meant she wouldn't hurt him either.

Names were fed to him. "Grizzelda" he muttered, it wasn't one he recognised. The two that followed he knew, the people he had been staying with had mentioned the name Dutch before and Mo had been one of the ones to lead him to this place.

The woman said she wanted help finding them. Finding. He could do that. He knew how to do that, perhaps if he started searching he could stop feeling the things he was feeling now.

"I can help you. I can find people. But, my eyes are leaking, and I don't know why."

[Kella]

Grizzelda almost wished she were more bothered by the man's behavior. She'd worked with stranger in the past. Scary thought.

In any event, beggars couldn't be choosers.

"Good. That's very good. I need you to do that. The leaking is called crying. It's a... homeostatic response to a chemical imbalance in the brain. Don't worry about it."

That was probably true.

"Are you ready to go?"

She couldn't help but scan the corpses again. This time, the nameless Sith stood out. She glanced back at Alpha, and smiled. If she didn't play this right, she could just as easily end up a corpse. These were the times it paid to have a good poker face.

[Jenno]

Crying. A homeostatic response to a chemical imbalance in the brain, so that's all it was. Odd that he couldn't remember it happening before. But the knowledge of its function only seemed to fractionally combat the flow of the liquid.

Was he ready to go, the liquid was still trickling from his face, his arms felt weak, as if they would no longer have the strength to hold up his blasters.

He had to be ready. He had a mission to carry out. He had to find Dutch and Mo. That was his goal. That was his focus. He thought about that, only about that. He had a mission and it had to succeed. He closed his eyes, cutting himself off from the bodies around him, from the pain he absorbed from them. He took breaths slowly, he thought only about the mission. He was ready.

Alpha could hear the shuffling of identical boots filled with different feet getting closer.

"Grizzelda," he said, looking at her, the focus now clear in his eyes, "more red men are approaching." He drew his pistols. He would find Dutch and Mo in this city. No one would stop him.

[Kella]

The door was still open, and the footfalls were clear in the hall. Another forty five seconds and maybe they could have found a back way, but now there was nothing left but to fight their way out.

Grizzelda nodded at Alpha, falling back against the side of the door closer to the lift. Before drawing her pistol, she grabbed a grenade off of her belt and engaged it as casually as opening a beer, then slung it around the wall, back towards the lift.

[Jenno]

With their backs against the sides of the door, Alpha watched Grizzelda throw the grenade into the hallway. He heard the frantic shouts and clambering from the approaching red men, but these noises were quickly overshadowed by the loud and hot explosion from the grenade. The blast was soothing, he could feel strength returning to his arms and legs. Peculiar that the explosion seemed more familiar and calming to his body than the homeostatic response.

After the blast Alpha waited a few moments, pistols in hand. He crouched down, if there were any red men remaining and if they were expecting a follow up attack, their eyes would be looking up, not many expected a crouching target. It would give him only a second longer to shoot, but every millisecond counted in these situations.

With focus in his eyes and strength in his arms, he pushed his back from around the corner, guns thrust out in front, scanning the hallway, he fired three shots almost immediately, the bodies dropped. Apparently the grenade had done quite a bit of work on these red men. There were no more he could see, none that were moving at least. He stood, took a few steps forward, caught sight of some slow movement on the ground, and fired another shot.

He waited, they were all silent now. Alpha holstered his guns. Standing amongst the rising stench of burnt flesh and death, he turned to the doorway.

"Grizzelda, I would like to go and find Dutch and Mo now."

[Kella]

"Follow me. Don't say anything."

They simply walked out of the hotel. The hotel staff silently stared as they passed. Not a single patron nor a single staff called in to imperial forces. They each had their reasons.

Only when they had reached Grizzelda's stolen speeder bike did radio chatter begin, discussing a lack of check-in from the squad that still smoked slightly in the hallway.

Grizzelda climbed aboard the speeder and it whirred to life, then she turned back to Alpha. "Climb aboard. Last chatter was from the Doran block, there was a chase along Corin Skyway. We'll start there and see what else we can find."