Survival, Dark Times 3

[Junk Angel]

Smuggler landing pad

Sem waited patiently for Li to finish his call. His contacts, his game. It was probably just Mayko anyway.
Still there was no reason to waste the moment, so she lit herself a smoke. She might have stopped with deathsticks, but the woman still had cravings. It was still hard at times, but she felt she was getting better.

Still one never looses a deathstick addiction. One whiff and she'd be back. Not something she wanted to bring down on anyone.

Coruscanti lights glimmered on her gold tattoes as she waited.

"So where's the meet?" She asked once she saw that Li was finished.
"The nexu, but we've got an hour to kill."
"So a stakeout then, or do we try to sell some cargo? I think we still have some leftover Arnseli pleasure bands in pocket eight. Banned here, could sell well."

[Rain]

Li

I laughed. "I wish. We could do with some profit, but its too risky."

I mused at the fact that I was sounding like I used to. Being the voice of reason and whatnot. A lot had changed since then. I had loosened up, become a little more reckless. My unofficial apprentice, Zannah, or Rain as she was known, was by far more level headed than I. I wasn't as reckless as Sem of course, but nevertheless I had changed. For instance, I still carried my lightsaber, and I still admired the Jedi, but I no longer counted myself as one of them.

"We could stumble across the wrong person, and they could report us." I continued, "That could blow our mission out of the water and pretty much leave Winter done for. Besides, Sora rules with an iron fist. These people are probably too afraid to do anything close to illegal."

[Junk Angel]

Sem

"Well let's hope then, the interested people will make this worth our time. Cheap fuel is getting harder to come by lately. With the republic clamping down on all refineries and everything. I had to put the last ten percent from the last run just for reserves."

She looked around.

"And Come on Li, this is Coruscant, the second biggest hellhole in the galaxy after Nar Shadaa. If you wanted to, you could find more twi'leki glee girls than on Ryll here. But like I've said your call. So let's go make the stakeout."

[Rain]

Li

I laughed again. "Always persistent, ain't ya, Sem! We'll have plenty of time to flog our gear later. Don't worry, we'll be getting a pretty neat sum for completing this mission."

I closed the ships loading ramp and locked it up before walking towards the city, beckoning Sem to follow. "By the way, don't worry about these 'glee girls'. Who needs money when you have charm like me? And if that's not enough I also have the whole handsome smuggler thing going on!"

[Junk Angel]

Sem

"You mean the down on his luck, think of me as solo kind of look. Doubt you'll find a princess in this time and age. You haven't heard yet, Sora really hates monarchies."

[Rain]

Rain and Junk Angel Co-Post

Li frowned at the mention of Sora's name. Although he wasn't involved in the war, Li would still happily take out Trok if he had the chance.

"Well, theres a lot of things Sora doesn't like." He scoffed, "And if you ask me, anything that pisses that schutta off is a good deed in my book."

"What? Want me to go and buy a princess crown for Mayko in a thrift store? Make all into her again or something. And hey, don't tell me you can badmouth Sora that much. No Sora, no job for us. We don't move people and that's more or less the only thing that would illegal without his rule."

The ghostling shrugged, looking at the Coruscanti skyline, or at least that what was visible of it from down here.

"So how far from here is the nexu anyways, don't think I remember that well."

Li pulled out his datapad and examined it. "About a 20 minute walk, give or take. But we can do some sight seeing on the way." He replied, "You know, see how far this place has fallen. Or if you don't want to wait that long I can call up the 'Princess' and tell her and the clone to meet us there earlier?"

"I think a more apt question would be, by how many meters this place fell over the years. Doubt the trash goes anywhere but down. And don't you dare ever tell her I called her that. There's about three people willing to break my hands. She's one of them."

Mayko and Li had been an item for a few years. It was nothing serious, more of a casual thing really. They decided about a year ago to call it off, as it wasn't really going anywhere. It got a little weird too, as the two began seeing each other more as brother and sister than anything else. Sem still seemed adament that they should have stayed together, which baffled Li.

He chuckled. "I won't. So should I call them?"

"You just talked, they probably have their own things to do. Let's just take the scenic route."

"Fine by me."

**An hour later**

An hour later, the duo came towards the nexu. Coruscant was being it's old own dirty self, and their outer cloathing managed to take on a stench that would have sent any non coruscanti fleeing away in terror.

But Nar Shadaa was worse and both were used to it.

"So this your bar?" Asked Sem, spitting out her smoke. She didn't have to have Mayko and the clone see her smoking. They'd get all preachy again.

Li nodded. "This is the place! Whats the matter? Don't you like it? If theres one thing I've learned over the past thirteen years Sem, it's that you can't beat some chow from a greasy spoon cafe!"

The man walked up to the door and opened it, stopping to scan the place for Nines and Mayko. He found them sitting in the corner. Nines was wearing a disguise of course, so as not to cause a scene. Sora would have CoruSec down here in a nanosecond if he found out a criminal like Boba Fett was present.

"There they are." Li said to Sem as he pointed towards the pair. "Let's go."

"So Nines, why hide that pretty youthfull face of yours." Sem smiled at the clone. It was a long running joke between the two of them. Friendly jabs and jibs. The clone seemed to take them well.

"Hilarious, as always." Nines replied, "The beard doesn't suit me, and it itches like hell!"

"The two of you had some of the local cuisine yet? Poisonous or just made from ferroslugs?"

"Yeah we had some." Mayko responded, "Surprisingly good. Though I did find some suspisciously shaped hairs in my opee fish curry, which was pretty gross."

"Don't even want to think about how they got there..." Nines pitched in.

"As for the poisonous part..." Mayko continued, "Ask me if I'm still alive in half an hour. So, did Tharen send you the co-ordinates?"

"Mayko, take a glance around you. Can you imagine this place importing anything from Naboo, even less a bloody fish. Or have you seen a body of water around here big enough to support anything that isn't a sodding slug? Your fish was probably just one hell of an unlucky hawkbat. But it sounds good, think I'll have one as well. To the other thing, don't know much. Flyboy here keeps telling me you'll fill us in. Doubt it can be as easy as just walking in, picking the woman up and bailing out again. Karrde would just have some shipper here do it otherwise, no reason to get us or you involved. So what's the catch." Said Sem, just as she keyed in an Opee fish stew on the table menu.

"Want anything Li?"

"Already ordered, while you three were busy catching up!" He said smugly, "And yeah we go the co-ordinates. Winter's pretty smart as far as I know, so she should be hidden well. Hopefully it is as easy as it looks. Karrde probably didn't send a shipper here because he was afraid they would screw up."

"Kid, you ordered three things?!" Nines exclaimed.

Li shrugged. "What? I'm hungry..."

Mayko rolled her eyes and smirked. She decided that since Storm was busy thinking about his empty stomach, that buisness was best discussed with Sem. "So, the plan is to head to the location, grab the damsel in distress, leg it back to your ship and get her back to Bespin?"

"Followed with the rebels paying a nice stack of credits to Karrde who in turn reimburses us. Unless this is another one of his bloody pro-bonno schemes."

The ghostling shrugged, eagerly waiting for her own stew. Neither her, or Li were decent cooks. Storm was a bit better, but the difference between nothing and barely something was marginal.

"Damn, I keep thinking we should buy a few liters of this and freeze dry it. So that the kids get something decent to eat once in a while."

Li snorted. "Right now the kids are livin' it up in the clouds. Home cooked meals, central heating, warm comfy beds. They're living the high life!"

The kids were wise well beyond their years, but they were still kids at heart. Li and Sem felt bad on occasion that they had been dragged into this life, but the kids were content, and rarely complained.

"Lucky them." Nines said dryly. He took Li's datapad from him. "Well, you two better eat fast. This place is a fair bit away. We'll have to leave soon if we're gonna make it there by nightfall."

[hk47fan]

Caitlin

"I wouldn't think of doing anything else," I assured Uli. Both of us had a duty to help this man, whoever we may be; we lived to save lives.

It looked like this one would be a little tricky, though; our new patient was floating very close to death. It wouldn't be the first time that I encountered a problem such as this; Selas Taban was very close to dying from his bullet wounds when I managed to save his life. In more recent years, though, I'd turned my medical focuses to other areas. Uli was the surgeon of the bunch.

However, both of us were experienced, so that was a positive aspect. Our skills would be put to the test today; the man before us was as bad as Selas had been, if not worse. We'd have to work fast and hard.

The speeder was zooming through the Lower City of Taris, heading straight for the hospital that Uli and I operated out of; it wasn't anything fancy, but it did work nice as a base for the Resistance. Our main base of operations were in that hospital, which was probably why Uli and I were sent to help out with it.

During the ride back, we tried our best to help him with what little medical supplies we had; mainly, it was preparation for the surgery. We had brought some first-aid supplies with us to the field, but not enough to start a full-blown operation right here. He just had to hold on.

Soon enough, we arrived at the hospital. The soldiers quickly took the man, as carefully as they could, and brought him into the hospital as Uli and I followed. We rushed to the operating room, and once there, Uli was already giving orders to Nillia in order to assist with the surgery. However, he was fairly calm, even in such dire circumstances. Uli had impressed me many times over the years.

Soon enough, both of us were standing over the man on the operating table, ready to go. I looked at Uli, and took a deep breath. "No time to waste. Let's do this."

Emma Trok

"And the smuggler and his new friends managed to escape just in the nick of time," the old man, sitting on his chair in front of his apartment complex, told us as we all sat around him and listened curiously. "The Stormtroopers gave chase, but it was futile; the smuggler and his starship were away."

"Then what happened?" an anxious kid, a little younger than me, asked.

"You'll have to come back tomorrow to find out," the old man replied with a chuckle.

There were several groans from the kids, including myself; I always liked the old man's stories. I didn't remember his name, but he always told good ones. I didn't get to hear stories like those a lot.

"But remember what they always say about the smuggler?" the old man continued, smiling.

"He shot first," Demlan whispered to me. He liked the old man's stories more than I did; he remembered every war story that he ever told. I was interested, but not as much as Demlan was.

"He shot first!" several other kids exclaimed, repeating Demlan's exact words.

"Correct! And don't you forget it!" the old man said with a laugh. "Now, go play, hang out with your friends, or something; I need some rest."

As always, all of the kids dispersed quickly, and Demlan and I did the same; my little brother, just a couple of years younger than me, walked beside me, talking excitedly about the story that the old man had told us today.

"Wasn't it so cool when the wizard cut that alien's arm off? And then-" Demlan babbled, but was cut off by my comlink beeping.

I sighed. "It's probably Aunt Vania," I said. "I'll answer it."

I activated the comlink, and sure enough, it was her. Our aunt, Vania, had been our babysitter since Demlan and I were young; both of our parents were too busy to be around during the day, especially my dad. We still lived together, we still saw them a lot, but both of them had busy lives. It was up to Aunt Vania to keep an eye on us.

"When are you guys coming home?" her voice asked over the comm. "It's starting to get dark out there."

Demlan and I weren't really allowed to go out at all, especially not into the more middle or lower class parts of Coruscant; our dad didn't want us getting out and having fun. I didn't know why. Aunt Vania understood that we were kids; we needed to have some adventures once in a while! Life would be boring without exploring the world!

After all, it was boring enough already; having the Supreme Admiral of the New Republic as your dad really made life uneventful.

So, everyday, or at least most days, Aunt Vania would let Demlan and I go out and see what was out there. We didn't know too many people around here or have that many friends; Dad thought that friends were bad for us. But, we were still able to walk around and listen to stories like the old man told us.

Aunt Vania didn't want us to get found out, though; Mom and Dad would rip into her if they found out that she let us go out like this!

"We'll be home soon, Aunt Vania," I told her. "Can't we stay out a little bit longer? I want to look around a little bit more."

"You look around every single day, Emma," she argued with a groan. "But fine. Just be back soon! I'm not letting you guys stay out for too long."

"Okay. See you later," I said, before turning off the comlink and putting it back in my pocket. I looked at my brother. "Aunt Vania's getting impatient. What should we do before we head back home?"

"I dunno," Demlan said with a shrug, as we continued to walk along. "I wonder what Jaden's doing..."

Jaden Foxx was one of our few friends; we'd met him because Aunt Vania let us run around like this, and he was someone that both Demlan and I liked. Demlan looked up to him in a way, and I just liked hanging out with him; we got along really well. A lot of the time, we'd go see him when we were out like this.

"I'm not sure," I said. "Let's go find out."

[Rain]

Uli

After an hour and a half, the procedure was going well, considering. At one point, the man did go into cardiac arrest, but we managed to bring him back, and we had stabilised him. The man would survive, just about. There was still about another hour or two left, depending on if and when any further complications occured.

As Caitlin was busy tending to the mans punctured lung, I noticed something new. "Ouch..." I said wincing slightly, "Just found a slug round in here. Missed his liver by centimeters. Ornil, hand me that surgical clamp."

The nurse did so, and I used it to widen an incision I had made. I then proceeded to pull out the bullet, remove the clamp, apply bacta, and begin stitching up the wound. "Pal, you are a lucky one, let me tell you. It's a miracle you're still alive."

I grinned for a moment, but it was cut short. I noticed the man fingers moving. A sign that he was waking up. My gaze snapped to the anaesthesia tube. It had slipped out from the canister. "Caitlin... we have a problem." I immediately moved to re-attach the tube.

That's when the man's eyes opened.

Xandyr

The doorbell chimed. "I'll get it." I said to my wife, who was slouched beside me as we watched HoloNet news, still tired from the double shift she had at the hopital the previous day.

I got up, walked to the door and opened it. Jaden's friends, Emma and Demlan, stood in front of me. They were the children of Sora Trok. But Mara and I had agreed that there was no problem with them being friends with our son. They were just kids, and they should not be denied friendship simply because of who their father was. Plus, I had left the Jedi Order before Sora made them enemies of the state, and therefore I was a loyal citizen. As far as Sora was concerned anyways.

"Hey guys, you're out a bit later than usual aren't you?" I said. It was probably their aunt, one of Mara's collegues, who gave them that privelage. "Jaden, Demlan and Emma are here."

"Coming dad." The boy called back. A second later he was by my side. "Hey guys. What's up?"

I turned to walk away. "I'll leave you guys to it."

[hk47fan]

Emma

I shrugged. "Not much; we can't stay out much longer, so we came by to see you," I said, looking around at Jaden's apartment. He lived in such a different place than we did, but I always liked coming over here. It felt nice to have a change once in a while. "What's been up with you?"

"Jaden, we heard this really cool story today! It was about this smuggler who had to get a farm boy and a smuggler off a planet, but the Stormtroopers were after them, and a gangster was after the smuggler. There was a really cool part where the smuggler shot this rodian," Demlan said, already telling the tales we'd heard. Demlan always liked to talk to Jaden. He was easy to get along with.

[Rain]

Jaden

I smiled. "Yeah I heard that one." I knew who the men in the story were too. Dad used to tell me these stories when I was younger, but he made me promise not to mention any if the names. Names like Han Solo. I didn't know why I had to keep it a secret. I didn't even know who Han Solo was. But I kept the promise anyway. "It's a good one!"

I leaned back and peered into the living room. "Mom, dad, can I go out for a while? I won't be long."

"Sure Jaden." Dad answered, "Just try not to lose track of time."

"I won't." I said, before grabbing my coat and heading outside. "I know you can't stay out long, so you you want to just go to the arcade for half an hour?"

Memah

It was just another day at the Jade Sky cantina. We had just opened up for the morning, so naturally there was no one here. Apart from those who lived here. Trika, Caleb, Serra, Sky and Daron, who was still working as a bartender. They were joined by the cyborgs Dusk and Dawn, who often frequented the place when they weren't off on missions.

"Oh hi Memah." Daron said snarkily. "How nice of you to get out of bed."

I rolled my eyes. "Actually hotshot, I'll have you know I was doing the accounts."

"Yeah, of course you were. In your dreams." He smirked. "Literally."

"Remind me again why I haven't fired you?"

He paused for a minute in thought. "You look lovely today Memah..."

I smiled. "That's better." I walked behind the bar and poured myself a glass of water, "So, I hear Talon Karrde is arriving today? Now that's a blast from the past!"

[RobbyL9]

Blades

Having finally broken free from the disorientation and partial paralysis of being in anaesthesia and near-dead, Blades reaction came all at once. He had felt the surgical incisions on his back being opened up, his nerves being sliced into, the bullets being yanked out. All of the pain he had felt, but had been unable to express erupted from his lungs like an auditory volcano.

His screams barely having time to echo off the walls, Blades noticed one of the staff attempting to restrain him and quickly elboed him in the face before rolling over the side and dropping to the floor. Pushing up from his low position, Blades followed up on the man with an uppercut to the jaw.

As the staff member flew through the air to a certain knockout, Blades sized up the rest of the room. All he could see were people wearing surgical masks and blood all over the place. In the Lower City? How did he get here, why was he here? No time to contemplate, however, as Blades heard someone behind him and instinctively performed a rear right elbow-left knee.

The nurse came into focus as he spun around. The right elbow only grazed the top of her head, as Blades was more accustomed to performing this on men. But the knee hit the nurse solid in the stomach, allowing Blades to use both his hands to push her solidly against the wall.

Hoping to use the last of his adrenaline rush to its fullest, Blades spun around and noticed two more scrubheads. Charging into a headbutt-right knee, Blades smashed into Uli and brought him to his knees. Noticing the other surgeon trying to make a move he quickly grabbed a scapel from the tray next to him and slapped Uli across the face with the heel of his free hand.

Not caring much for safety, Blades flew all out at Caitlin. Throwing trays and carts aside on his way to her, he tackled her into the wall, his hand firmly gripping around her neck. Bringing the scalpel against her throat with his other hand, Blades stared into Caitlin's eyes piercingly.

His grip not loosening, Blades uttered to her in a strained, sinister voice "What... are you doing to me?"

[hk47fan]

Caitlin

It was a whirlwind, and an unexpected one. This man had barely gotten out of the woods and the surgery wasn't even finished yet, but he was already attacking us. He'd sent a nurse and another assistant to the floor, and had knocked Uli down, followed by a hard slap. Next thing I knew, I felt my teeth rattling as I hit the wall, and I felt the mystery man grab my neck. Then, I could see a scalpel out of the corner of my eye.

It's not like we hadn't encountered hostile people before; we had plenty of times. In this type of environment, it was to be expected. But this one was different. A little more professional, a little quicker.

"We were trying to save your life," I coughed out. As a doctor, I needed to remain calm at all times. It was very hard in this circumstance, as a part of me wanted to be terrified and another part of me just wanted to be furious. "You need to calm down. If you don't stop, you're going to bleed out; your surgery isn't even over yet."

Emma

"Sure," I said happily with a nod, and Demlan seemed to agree too. We didn't get to go to places like that much, but Jaden was the one that introduced us to it. Both Demlan and I had grown to like it a lot ever since then.

We were on our way. The arcade wasn't far from Jaden's place, so it was just a short walk. During that walk, we mainly just made small talk, and I admired the sights; Jaden saw these places all the time, so they didn't mean much to him, but it was still interesting how different they looked than what I was used to, even after all of this time.

Dad didn't let me see much of the world, much of the Galaxy, but there was so much more out there. So much more that I wanted to explore so badly.

For now, I guessed that this would have to do.

Soon, we got to the arcade, and there was a huge amount of games before us as we walked inside. Demlan and I both looked at Jaden. "So, what do you wanna play first?" Demlan curiously asked our friend.

Mara Foxx

I smiled as Xandyrr sat back down beside me on the couch. "Thanks for taking care of that," I said with a weary sigh. The day had been long and hard, as usual. Life as a nurse, sometimes, felt almost as tedious as being an Emperor's Hand. It just tended to stay in the same place.

I'd been working there for thirteen years; it was a cover job that I came up with a long time ago that I decided to stick with, once Xandyrr and I decided to settle down on Coruscant and raise our son here. It felt like a fitting job for me. I used to take life, now I was helping save them. It was the best I could do.

It earned a living for us; not a huge living, but it earned something. Of course, Xandyrr helped out a lot with that, too. Both of us had to do a lot, and we were only trying to make the best life that we could for our son.

Life really wasn't bad, though. Over the years, I'd risen through the ranks at the hospital, and I was now the head nurse. Our family wasn't rich, but that didn't mean that we were unhappy. We may be in the middle of the New Republic's tirades, but it wasn't that bad for us. We stayed out of it and had a fairly peaceful life. That's what I wanted my son to have. We weren't surrounded by war and disputes.

Even if all that was on the HoloNet News was about war and disputes.

Usually, I didn't like to watch the news, but tonight, there was a report on that interested me.

"Our kids being friends with Sora Trok's," I remarked with a slight snort. "Who would've thought?"

I looked back to the holo-screen, and watched as the news reporter started the report that I'd been very interested in hearing, ever since I heard murmurs about it at work.

"The hunt continues on for Winter Retrac; Officer Retrac has been a member of CoruSec for many, many years and was one of it's top officers. However, after investigations of intelligence leaks, it has been discovered that she has been working as a double agent. Her loyalties appear to be with the side of the Resistance," the reporter said, getting as dramatic as possible. "This revelation has sent ripples throughout CoruSec, and the former officer is now on the run. Head-of-Security Volt has issued a planet-wide search for her; officers are now on the hunt. However, Chief-of-State Solon has constantly assured the public not to worry, and that the New Republic has the situation well under control. If you have any information, please contact-"

That was when I heard enough, and flipped the holo-projector off. "Hope you don't mind," I said to Xandyrr, although I doubted that he did. I just shook my head; I wasn't surprised, I wasn't heartbroken. I was just disappointed by it all. Winter helped us out back in the day, and I genuinely felt bad for her.

"Sad, sad," I commented. It was all I could say.

[RobbyL9]

Blades

Now that the situation was neutralized, Blades was able to take the time to observe his surroundings. The room looked a bit clean to be what he was dreading it would be. While it still carried that certain urban "charm" that only Taris' Lower City could provide, the people running it seemed to be taking the time to sterilize it for proper surgery. Most organ chophouses were back-alley and often weren't run by real surgeons, which Caitlin and the others at least carried the right air of being.

Turning his gaze back to Caitlin, Blades released his grip on her throat. In a fit of sympathy, he also ran two fingers over the red spots where his fingers used to be, hoping to soothe it. "All right, Doc." he challenged her, keeping the scalpel ready "You still look capable, so why don't you do what still needs doing?"

As he spoke, Blades led Caitlin by the wrist over to the surgery table and sat down. "Just do me and do it fast so I can get out of here. I've got somewhere I've gotta be." his eyes flicked over to the door "And don't think about any fast ones. I've made throwing knives out of more unlikely objects."

[hk47fan]

Caitlin

Thankfully, the man had released me. Now, he seemed to be ready to continue the surgery, like it was no big deal. He was a different kind of man than what I expected, but he was going to let us save his life, so I supposed that I should be grateful for that.

"Let me get my colleagues off the floor," I remarked, almost with a hint of sarcasm, as I walked over to Uli. He was already starting to get up, and I extended my hand to help him. "Are you alright?"

Before he could answer, I glanced back at the man. "You know, we're going to try our best, but I'd suggest that you be patient. You got hit pretty bad out there and you're lucky to be alive; I don't know if you'll be able to just rush off like nothing ever happened."

[RobbyL9]

"Just do it. I used to go to hell and back like you drop in on neighbors for caf. I'm no stranger to pain and, in case you haven't noticed, nor am I to being shot."

Blades indicated all over his arms and abdomen to minor scar tissue. Some were small discolorations that had healed and were barely noticeable anymore, while a few others stood right out. Chief among them a deep knife scar running slightly diagonal across his sternum.

"So..." Blades sighed and ran his fingers through his hair "What exactly was the extent of the damage when you found me?"