Blades and Kurt: Back On the Blood Trail

[Revan Jast]

Kurt winced at the shouting in his ear, just before the comm went dead. Blades was no longer transmitting, but Kurt had a feeling the man was very much alive.

"Aw, fuck," he muttered. Should he risk the operation and go after Blades or stay on his own?

The bird in the air quickly made his decision for him. Kurt opened his door and peered over to side to judge the distance to the ground. Fifteen feet or so.

"Lower the vehicle a bit," he ordered. Tjer did so, till they were about six feet off the ground.

"Not going to shoot me?" the banker asked, sounding relieved.

"Would you rather I did?"

"No!"

Kurt had to chuckle. "I thought so. I don't hurt innocent people anyways. Get your ass home to your family. It's not safe in this district."

Kurt jumped out and landed on the ground, breaking his fall by going into a roll. Holstering his pistol, he leaned against the building wall and took a few breaths. "Sure you don't need a hand?" he said in the comm as he watched the speeder take off.

[RobbyL9]

"Nothing would really help at this point." Blades whispered "VAAT's coming back. Just get to the backup rendezvous- SHIT!" Blades was suddenly surprised again by the laser's rapid fire. It erupted across the roof, once again helped along by the tag he had on him. But the shock only lasted a second, as he bet they weren't expecting what was about to happen.

"Hold up. Hold up..." the leader cautioned, waiting for it to come in range. "NOW!" he barked, throwing his fist against the air duct as a signal. On his command, the ragtag militia sprung from their flanking position down a short of stairs some yards away from Blades. They pointed their weapons into the sky and fired rapidly to catch the VAAT's attention.

The diversion worked, almost immediately the direction of the laser fire had changed and Blades was able to breathe a momentary sigh of relief. Above him, the craft swerved and turned to keep the fire away from the vital components.

The pilots were clearly surprised by this sudden development, but Blades knew they were in no great danger, even if they thought they were. CDEF pistols, carbines and rifles were such cheap blasters that most guerrilla forces wouldn't be caught dead with them. Luckily, these particular guerrillas had managed to get their hands on a Plex missile launcher. Speaking of which...

"Any DAY NOW, squirt!" Blades called out toward the stairwell, aiming a couple of shots at the engine's intakes, but missing. The distraction team had been tagged up by now and the Gatling laser had shot into them, wounding and scattering them, killing two who weren't fast enough. They needed that missile, but it wasn't coming. Finally, Blades just got fed up and seized his chance.

He ran over to the stairwell and was surprised (well not really surprised, but disappointedly unsuspecting) to see this little guy they let have the launcher still struggling to open and arm it. Not wanting to waste anymore time, he elbowed the kid in the ribs and jerked the launcher from his hands.

"GIMME THAT, ya fuckin' newb!" he shouted, queuing it up "I swear if you want a rocket shot RIGHT-!" He aimed for the center of the rear fins and pressed the button like he had done countless times before. The rocket exited the chamber and flew a few feet before popping open on the front like a firework, splitting into three separate missiles.

Each of these three missiles arced out slightly in different directions before converging on the spot he had just aimed for. They made contact, erupting in a brilliant display of what good old Drill Sergeant Konarr used to call 'Holy Hell!' fire. The explosion shook the VAAT in an upward fishtail and sent it spiraling off to left field.

Blades pumped his fist and tossed the launcher down to the greenhorn, who caught it with shaky hands. Pressing his earpiece, a smile returned to Blades' face as he returned to the roof and walked towards the people who just helped him.

"Kurt." he said, dialing the buttons on his data device "That craft isn't going to be giving us any more trouble but I don't want to jeopardize things since the estimated size of the red zone has changed. I'm sending you new coordinates closer to the edge of the original zone. See if you can proceed there first and tell me whether things are cool enough that we can meet up at the rendezvous."

The leader extended his hand, grimacing slightly as he clutched a wound. Blades shook it eagerly "Captain. Honor to meet you." he said with a grin "I think you ought to work on your ordinances division, though. Kid looks kind of green to be using a launcher."

"Well we only had one rocket anyway. Those damn things don't come cheap."

"Explains the rifles." Blades laughed, patting him on the shoulder and offering to give back his. The leader just shook his head.

"Go on and take it." he said "It's obvious you aren't going to last long with just those pistols. Where you going, now?"

Blades shrugged and flipped his mask down "Mmm. Nowhere special. Good luck with revolution and such." he gave the leader one last tap on the shoulder and hurried over to a water tower that he noticed had a metal cord running from it. Slinging the carbine over his shoulder, he climbed the ladder to the top.

Following the cord with his eyes, Blades took out one of his pistols and held it above his head, making a makeshift zip line. His hands tightened for dear life as he prepared to go "Just don't look down and do it you gutless, nuna-hearted wimp!" he told himself out loud "Otherwise we'll be stuck here forever and you and I are THROUGH with one another. Do you hear?"

"Loud and clear." he responded to himself, pushing off the tower with his feet and zipping into the danger zone.

[Revan Jast]

Kurt nodded after he received his orders and took off down the alleyway, making sure to stick to the shadows. He darted from cover to cover, managing to avoid the hobos too. Eventually he'd reached the end of the road and the beginning of the plaza. Taking a few deep breaths, he looked left and right and then moved out into the crowd.

Security was bulked up towards the main south entrance, which made sense. South was where Blades and he had just came from.

"Get as far west as you can," he said through the comms. "There's an abandoned building over there you can hide at. I'll work my way over there and we can work on what to do next."

[RobbyL9]

Blades zipped down the line toward the building which lay on the other side of the large gap in rooftops. Despite his best efforts to force himself not to look down, his eyes wandered down during a moment of weakness, causing him to cringe. "It's okay. It's all good." he breathed nervously "It's not like you're dangling from a frayed rope several floors above the street with an unreliable mechanism as your means of travel. Nope, this is metal wire and damn solid Tarisian engineering at that. BY THE SPIRITS, CAN THIS THING GO ANY SLOWER?!!"

Blades was relieved when he finally reached the end. He pulled his legs in and stopped himself against the pole on the other end, then dropped and slid down it like a fireman's pole to the street below. The sound of his boots sounding against the street was music to his ears as he holstered his pistol "Terra firma, you ma' love." he chuckled, catching his breath.

He leaned up against the nearest building and suddenly felt the last half-dozen miles he had run that day catch up with him all at once. He briefly wondered what had ever become of the youthful spirit and stamina he once possessed. Those years of retirement and relaxation had been tough on his body, but flinging himself back into the merc game had been decidedly worse.

Thinking about why he had come out of retirement made Blades slump down against the wall and reached into the inside of his vest, searching a pocket he had sewn on himself. He pulled out the two pictures of Navit and Nirmala and just smiled. It didn't matter how bad things got, he could always be reminded of his purpose when he saw Navit's face.

Just then Kurt's message came crackling into his comm, catching him by surprise. It was accompanied by a location tag in his map display. Knowing that he had to get going, Blades just stared longingly at the two pictures for a while longer before he put them back, feeling the bittersweet memories and feelings tighten like ropes around his heart. After a while, he flipped his mask down and stood up straight, cracking his neck.

Blades set out west, jogging stealthily along the path set for him by his map. On his way there, he was reminded of just where he had retreated to by the sounds in the air. Every now and then he could hear the distant report of a blaster or something large and metallic crashing to the pavement.

Once at the building, he pressed his earpiece "Hey man, I'm here. Where you at?"

[Revan Jast]

"On my way. Don't be impatient and get your panties in a bunch," Kurt replied, pushing his way through the crowd. "You didn't suffer any injuries, right? Because I don't have any med-paks to save your ass."

Kurt checked his belt. "Actually, I do. For when it's desperately needed. Like, a life or death thing. Actually, I'm not sure if a med-pak would save your ass from death or not."

A trio of guards had gathered to the right of him, so he hooked a left past the fountain and then right again, leaving the crowd behind and entering the first floor of the building. It looked like it had once been an apartment complex, and this floor had clearly been the lobby. A small bar was hidden back against the wall, shrouded in shadow. Kurt darted up the stairs towards Blades' position.

"Well, well, you made it in once piece," Kurt remarked, lighting up a smoke.

[RobbyL9]

Blades eyed Kurt with ease and relief, leaning up against the wall behind him and crossing his arms. Being in the company of someone he thought he could consider his partner equaled stability right now, as strange as it was to consider his ex-assassin his partner. They'd done all right so far, so not much reason to question the free help.

Blades grinned, loosening his bracer up "You're lookin' pretty smug yourself there bud." he said, letting out a sigh "I used up two thermal detonators escaping a gunship and it still took a Plex to take that thing down. Oh and in regards to your earlier question, yeah I suffered a direct hit by the gunship's laser. It hurt like hell, but I think if I can just let my meds work their magic I'll be fine."

More blaster reports echoed in the distance. They sounded like they may be getting closer. Blades looked at the ground and pursed his lips, agitated. "So let's just drop the cheating wives, the bureaucracy, the psychotic sales pitches." he stood up straight and casually took a step forward with a look on his face "Why don't we just be honest with each other for a moment and talk about what to do next. I think it's pretty obvious neither of us is going to be back in public for a while."

[Revan Jast]

"Well," Kurt started, taking his rifle off and leaning it against the wall. "I'm obviously not going back into the ranks with Sora. Amad knows who I am, and I flashed my ID at the entrance before going in. He'll be hunting my ass down and I'd be lucky to survive 20 seconds in Coruscant air before getting shot down."

He took a deep drag on his cigarette. "My, uh... employer doesn't really care if I keep an eye on Sora anymore anyways. He's too damn busy doing whatever the fuck he does out there in his little playground to worry about small reports coming from me. On that front, I'm better off just biding my time. But what about you? You're dead set on this... mission of yours. Why don't you start talking?"

[RobbyL9]

Blades chuckled. "Well I didn't pry and poke into who your 'other' employer was, and you should?" he said, un-clipping his mask and taking it off. He rustled his hair, damp with sweat, and combed it back with his fingers.

After a minute of contemplation, he looked back up at Kurt. "Okay. You helped me out when you didn't have to and basically made yourself public enemy number one. I guess maybe it wouldn't hurt to tell you."

Blades reached into his vest and was about to pull out the pictures, when a thought came to him. A second later, he pulled out the pictures of Navit and Nirmala, showing them to Kurt.

"Take a look, bro. That's the reason I'm out here. Remember Sticks, my old partner? His wife was murdered, he nearly got killed a year later and he believes that that little girl, my god daughter, is the next target." Blades quickly lied "I've been out looking for the Lady in Blue. She's my prime suspect."

[Revan Jast]

Kurt took the pictures and looked closely at them. "She's pretty," he said, smiling. He tucked it under the other picture and looked at the little girl. "Heh, cute girl. Takes her looks from her mother. No Sticks here." As the picture shifted in the light, something seemed off, however. Frowning, Kurt shrugged it off and handed the pictures back to Blades.

"It's an honorable thing you're doing, helping your friend like that. Not many would do that. Then again, there's me and you, standing here right now."

He put out his cigarette and exhaled slowly. "Well then. Looks like we have a date with this chick. Let's get it on."

[RobbyL9]

Blades took the pictures back and tucked them in his vest pocket, giving it a pat. "Well first things first, we have to get outta here. Not much huntin' we can do from the inside of a military quarantine." Blades said, taking out his datapad and showing the map to Kurt. "Here, look. That dot there is a hideout for the Resistance. Those guys seem decent enough and mum's the word with them. Not to mention they hate Sora's rotten, decaying guts."

Blades combed back his hair again and scratched his stubble, panning the map a distance over to another dot. "Now this... that's our current position. We escaped into the red zone via this area here..." he pointed to two lines which represented his and Kurt's separate paths. "I'm sure you've noticed that there's fighting going on here. While that creates a good amount of chaos for us to escape into, it also creates a shitpot of trouble for us trying to get out. The quickest way out, without going back the way we came and gettin' arrested mind you, is to go towards that fightin'."

[Revan Jast]

Kurt smirked. "I like the way you think, Blades. Now, I know we have different tastes... you're more prone to jumping into the action, while I like to skirt around the sides and kill em from there. I think we want to get to this HQ asap, so I'd imagine we both want to avoid any big trouble. It won't take long for the word to get out about us, so within a few hours time it'd be pretty deadly for us to be walking these streets."

He walked over to the window and peered out. "Of course, so long as something doesn't hold us up... we'll be there by then. We shouldn't have that much trouble reaching it, really... but to be honest, trouble is both our middle names."

[RobbyL9]

Blades nodded and looked closer at the map, paying close attention to the paths the streets followed and the alignment of the buildings. There seemed to be several paths north through the city, but with all the fighting it wouldn't be as predictable as looking at an old map.

"By the spirits this is a shit datapad." he muttered quickly before raising his voice "Okay. Here. We'll head north along this street here." he pointed to a long street a couple blocks from where they were "It's the most straightforward path to where we're going, but the fighting will likely change all that. I suspect there'll be looters, rebels, youth in revolt, all those special things which make me proud to live in a free democratic society. And of course TSF, maybe worse."

Blades didn't need to remind himself that the TSF weren't the only authorities now that things had degenerated. The streets were sure to be filled with scores of mercenaries and bounty hunters like them, supplementing the increasingly stretched-thin security forces.

"From there, we need to get to this lift and follow this trail through the Lower City. Now to show I'm learning my lesson from last time, I'll just mark these other lifts within a few block's range to take in case of emergency."

Blades' fingers danced all over the datapad marking their new objectives and backup plans. He hit the 'transfer' button, sending it to the HUD in both their helmets. When the transfer finished and they seemed set in their course Blades sighed, looking down at the sub-standard carbine tethered across his front. Having his assault rifle and sniper rifle separate from him was like missing a limb, nevermind missing an important tool in the form of 'Rose'.

He kicked aside a pile of junk in frustration, hanging his head "Shit man. I shoulda brought my other weapons with me. They're still back at the hotel and now I can't get 'em back." He tucked the datapad back where it belonged and took out the CDEF carbine.

"Well. Whatever poor lady ends up being my housekeeper will come onto something pretty valuable and may just sell it and change her life." he joked, clipping his helmet back on "Either that or a droid will clean my room and promptly send 'em both to the incinerators. Ahhhhh shit, hehe!"

Blades motioned out the door with his head and walked outside.

[Revan Jast]

Kurt followed his friend and fellow merc outside, rifle in hands. The crowd hardly took notice of his weapons; this area was rife with well armed men and women who knew the dangers of the zone. Anyone who was anyone intelligent didn't walk of their house unarmed, even if it was a rusty spoon.

"A lot of tension in the air," Kurt said. It was true, too; everyone here was on edge, as if a firefight could break out at any moment. For their sakes, Kurt hoped the violence would stay low key. The last thing they needed was more problems. Every man or woman out there had his or her fair share of trouble, but it seemed like Kurt (and Blades as well, for that matter) got more than the deserved amount. Ever since he'd met the Killer crew... well actually, ever since he was forced to meet the Killer crew, things had been blowing up left and right.

"I think we might actually get out of this alive," he told Blades, the corners of his mouth twitching into an almost-smile.

[RobbyL9]

Blades tapped absent-minded on the carbine and nodded "You're optimistic given the circumstances. Gotta give you that." he said, looking around at the buildings and the "Well let's hoof it. C'mon!"

The two mercenaries doubled-timed it through the throng of people down the street. Blades pushed the people quickly aside as he followed the arrow on his HUD. As predicted, they ran into some fighting but it was distracting enough that all the focus was on the rioters and not them.

After taking a lengthy detour through the back alleys to get around the fighting, Blades and Kurt finally reached the lift to the Lower City. Blades pressed the button.

He leaned against the wall and caught his breath "Damn! I really need to stop eating the way I do. Need me some rabbit food!" he laughed and turned around "So once we get lower, things should actually improve. Not nearly as much law down here, just two-bits like us. And we're the better men at being two-bits if I do say so myself."

The arrow above the door lit up and the lift opened for them.

[Revan Jast]

Kurt stepped inside and held the door for Blades. "I fucking hope so," he said, his tone serious. "I don't plan on dying in the Lower fucking City of Taris, that's for sure. No no, when I go out, it's going to be with a bang. Maybe pulling a pin on a grenade and rushing into the crowd."

The doors shut and the lift descended. "Maybe while escaping on my ship. Maybe I'll crash a battle-cruiser into a gigantic capital ship. Yeeeah, that's more like it."

Ding.

The lift stopped and the doors opened. Kurt arched an eyebrow as he peered out the opening at all the filth and steam outside. "Actually, I might choke to death on a slimeball. Is it safe out there without a filter?"