~|Day 3, 6th Hour|~
Zora Nox
“I find that hard to believe,” Zora stated calmly, her voice firmly believing her own words.
Her lekku flickered in her movement as she twisted from the table, her figure forcing her to make a steady pace toward the exit. Each movement was controlled and trying to hide the anxiety she felt within growing over her experience with the Jedi. A Sith would never have allowed her to walk away this easily. While a part of her twitched at the Jedi’s words, she knew the chances of Nyiss falling at the Jedi’s hands were very slim. The Red Sith had too many connections, precautions, and more that would been set off before raptor like alien could’ve gotten close enough to attack. To even try was suicidal.
Keeping a tight grip on the small items in her hand, she edged toward the front to see if the Jedi was truthfully going to allow her to escape untouched. While ‘honorable’, Zora had spent years around other Sith and trust was a luxury, not to be expected of anyone. The war had changed many individuals… include some of those ‘noble’ Jedi.
Vebra snorted as the Twi’lek moved closer to the door. Vebra still trying to keep his cool and realizing Eyes was way out of position to intercept Vebra made a decision he hoped would keep containment tight . “Sweeper, Raj, move for secondary containment on the front door.” Vebra covered his mouth with his forearm as he spoke into the mic on his bracer. Just to help conceal what he was doing he even turned his back and kept trying to dance. He heard two pings from them signalling that they were moving around from the back of the building to the front. “Krem, Blitz, move on the door, don’t let the bantha leave, but don’t act like you're trying to stop it from leaving. Act drunk if you have to.” He heard two more com pings. “Eyes, Eli, back door. Let’s try not to spook it, they will panic if we mess this up.” Vebra without waiting for a response turned around and watched the Twi’lek approach the exit, hoping his team had enough time to move.
Krem and Blitz both looked at each other and almost laughed. Vebra was asking them to start a fist fight in front of the door. Krem slid his scatter gun back into his robe and Blitz did the same with his sonic blaster. “I get first punch this time, especially after the fast one you pulled in the mess.” Blitz sighed and reluctantly agreed. The pair of war hardened soldiers walked up to the entrance of the bar and Krem slugged Blitz in the stomach, then pushing him backwards through the front door. “Oy, ya Bantha tryin to make out with my creds ya sod. Take your mug out of here!” Krem had truthfully hurt his own hand more than Blitz, even light armor hiding under mercenary garb was still armor.
Blitz swung back at him, aiming for his head. But acting drunk he missed barely. “Good coming from you, ya Toydarian looking kath!” Blitz making sure to slur his words a bit. The two had managed to take up the space in the front door, leaving only a little room for them to try and punch each other over. Krem spotted what he assumed was the Twi’lek they were there for out of the corner of his eye approaching the pair. So the two continued hurling insults at each other and throwing shallow jabs at each other, waiting for Vebra or Fa to get closer so they could subdue the Sith.
Zora’s casual gait slowed. Her eyes peered at the drunken idiots in front of her, their timing rotten, as she came to a halt. Her arms crossed over her chest in debate on how to evade them without getting mixed up in the scrape. Annoyed by the fact her day was getting worse by the moment, she casually glanced over her shoulder and back at the Jedi with a brief wonder if this was part of Fa’s doing. However, Jedi didn’t work with thugs or other scum on this planet which caused her to toss that fact out.
Eli, who was sitting at the bar, shifted up as he whispered something to Eyes. Smoothly, he brought her up with him and pulled her toward the door. She abruptly pushed him hard against it as the two seemed to get a bit intimidate to block the exit in what appeared to be unintentional but natural way to block it.
Vebra seeing the Sith blocked up at the door and looking rather annoyed he figured it was time for him to move on her. He sort of mingled his way through the moving bodies so as not to disturb whatever it was they were doing, he didn’t want to look like he was set on doing something. He caught the Twi’lek look over her shoulder back at Fa, perhaps watching her to see if she would take advantage of the situation. Vebra realized as he closed in on her that he was banking on the fact that she wouldn’t see him as a threat. He also was hoping she hadn't pieced together what he was, afterall, he had no idea what Fa said to her. Vebra let an injector needle slide out of his bracer and into his hand. He held his left hand slightly behind his leg. Vebra made sure to keep his mind clear lest the blasted Sith be able to read his mind in all this degeneracy. Vebra finally stepped slightly behind her like he was walking past and lashed out with the needle as fast as he could. Hoping this Sith wasn’t much of a pre-cognizant force user.
With the Sith’s paranoid nature, Zora’s senses were already on high alert. Both her sixth sense and other senses of hearing and sight, looking for a way out of the bar. She wouldn’t have lived past her first year as Nyiss’ favored apprentice if she didn’t have a healthy dose of suspicion at all times. Being blocked the first time, she was frustrated at being kept here causing her to scrutinize anyone that came near. When Vebra, the one she recognized earlier as the one that Fa pointed to, she figure jerked back from him when she caught his arm move. Sadly, she had been far too relaxed with her combat training over the years and paid the price for it. The needle sank into her side just an inch from her figure’s edge. Her arm gripped about Vebra’s shoulder in shock at what he had accomplished.
Her fingers on her hand, closest to the floor, loosened and the alchemy ball simply began to fall onto the bar floor. On impulse Zora’s expression twisted into a snarl as her force collected and tried to shoot Vebra from her.
Fa, despite being calm on the surface, was entirely on-alert. Zora had a good portion of her attention on her, so she was not free to react to Vebra’s approach openly, but she was focused on every detail. In truth, Fa was surprised that Vebra was taking the approach that he was. He should have been aware that Zora knew he was connected to her, since she had pointed him out to the Twi’lek before. But, despite Fa’s doubts, he actually managed to accomplish his goal, at least from what she could see. Perhaps because of a mistake on Zora’s part, or a success on Vebra’s part to hide his intentions, he managed to jab what Fa recognized as a sedative into her. Without a doubt, it was a significant accomplishment, as Zora now officially had a time limit.
Just as Vebra had approached, Fa laid down a credit chip on her table: compensation for the trouble they were no doubt about to cause. The moment that Vebra injected the sedative, Fa jumped up, her hand on her lightsaber. It did not take any extra senses to see that the Twi’lek dropped something from her hand, but Fa still started her rather quick advance.
Vebra felt the rush of air as he was forced to stumble back from the Twi’lek. He felt the push not only physically but he could also feel her scrap his barrier. If she’d done that to anyone else it probably would have flung them across the room. Vebra stumbled into several other patrons who pushed him off of them. Vebra was just able to keep himself on his feet from the sudden outbreak of chaos. It didn’t matter to him, he had done his job. This Sith scum was going to come down either hard or soft, but she was now compromised. Vebra trying to regain his footing let Krem and Blitz the chance to move on her, however, he put his hand on his beskad, incase she pulled her saber.
Blitz and Krem noticed the sudden movement of the Sith and both of them quickly stopped their charade and clamped down onto The Twi’lek. Blitz flanked right and Krem came straight at her swinging his fist, hoping to bring her down. Blitz began pulling his sonic blaster out of the folds of his clothes, hoping to shoot her and keep her from using force powers. Blitz just hoped there wasn’t some race with really good hearing in the bar.
The moment the little ball hit the ground, it activated.
Smoke, thick and black, began to billow at her feet and filled the bar room at the moment Krem went for a swing at her. Her lips smirked as adrenaline flooded her system, her eyes narrowed on her attacker. Her head tilted back enough to let his fist merely skim above where a single hit might’ve made her faint. She pulled back a shoulder to add a few more inches as her arm back shot out, hitting at his when his punch followed through. When it connected, she adjusted her balance quickly then used her force to knock him toward Fa.
Not wasting much time she reached out the force to snag the sonic blaster then aimed to rip it out of his hands into hers. By this time, the smoke would’ve blinded everyone within the bar causing chaos. Many bar patrons had already shifted from their seats and raised their blasters at the group where the scuffle was happening.
Zora wasn’t wanting to be caught in the crossfire and bolted toward the exit. She reached for another alchemy ball, this one fire red, and tossed it at Blitz. It exploded on contact if it hit anything solid. As she did this, she held her now free hand out and catch her lightsaber now zipping to her hand. She was ready to cut down anyone that tried to stop her escape.
Even for Fa, the smoke cloud was somewhat of a surprise. She was farther away than Vebra or the others, but she still caught some of its effects. It was thick, and certainly obscured her view. She was not sure of what it was made, but she decided to avoid breathing for the next few seconds. Despite the foul concoction in the air, Fa could still react quickly. One of her men was launched towards Fa in the struggle, but she had little issue sensing him and evading to the side for only a small delay. Zora was certainly using the smoke to escape, so Fa knew her goal lay on the other side of it.
Fa concentrated a force push through the center of the cloud of smoke in an attempt to cleave a path through it that would give her better visibility sooner as she chased after Zora. Even if Vebra had not succeeded with his sedative, the Twi’lek would have a difficult time escaping her. While a humanoid such as Zora was much more efficient at endurance running than a Tiss’shar, Fa’s powerful, digitigrade legs were much more geared towards a sprint. Coupled with her own use of force speed, and Zora would not be able to escape on simple speed alone. If she wanted to get away, she would either have to find ways to be more clever, or it would be a fight.
Krem’s fist swung into the smoke cloud to no avail, all he got was a punch to the head. To make matter worse he felt his feet leave the ground and suddenly he was flying blind. He felt something fly past him and then he felt the nice hard ground. At the very least he was able to see again but being sent flying was never a fun thing for him. Blitz was slightly more fortunate. Blitz felt his blaster start to be pulled away from him and he gripped it tighter as the smoke began to engulf him and burn his lungs. Breathing heavily through gritted teeth trying to aim his blaster in the direction the Sith had been in suddenly he was swept off his feet and flung out of the toxic gas. He fell back first into a small group of people who were attempting to run away.
Both Blitz and Krem were scrambling to their feet when Vebra started yelling into his wrist mic. The gas was starting to seep into his lungs making him speak in broken thoughts “Target *coughing* moving out” Vebra paused a second trying to suck in air to give orders. “All.. pursue”. Vebra managed to choke out before he put his hands out in front of him and started running in the direction he thought the door was. The smoke choking him and burning his eyes he heard a bang off to his right side as he ran through the smoke. Vebra reached out and finally felt a wall and was finally able to see somewhat. He looked left and right for the exit, finding that he was actually very close to the door, so he began moving as fast as he could to get outside and out of the smoke. He managed to finally breach the thick cloud of smoke and began spitting up and sputtering on the walkway outside of the bar. Hands on his knees coughing he looked around and saw Fa and the Sith sprinting unnaturally fast away from him. Vebra took his hand off his knee and keyed his wrist comm again, “Elias, check Blitz, all others, target is moving west, assist Fa in capture, I stuck her good she’s on borrowed time.” Letting one more cough out Vebra busted into a sprint following the two force users. It was times like these he wished for some blasted implants.
Sweeper and Raj had moved off the door about a hundred yards, and luckily, the sith was running right in their direction. Sweeper was set up on a low lying roof with Raj waiting on the street below with his vibro blade. Raj had the benefit of having robotic leg prosthetics after he lost his real ones to a sith on Rhen Var. While he was still mad about it having the ability to keep up with force users was a benefit. Sweeper was painstakingly average compared to some of his other troopers but he was a good shot with a repeating blaster. They both knew the objective wasn’t to kill, they just had to slow her down.
By Fa had cleared a path enough to see, Zora had already darted through the explosion’s aftermath and through the door. Her skin was a bit singed but it wasn’t nothing that her alchemy couldn’t fix later. Ignoring the sting across her surface, she pushed her feet faster and jerked into the individuals crowding the streets on their way home. Meanwhile, several baster shots rang out behind her to nearly nick her on the exit. About three headed toward Vebra and two toward Krem before the panicked thugs headed out the nearest door away from the scuffle.
Zora continued forward as she used force jump to flip onto the nearest and smallest buildings’ roof. She skidded a bit to the left before her boots found purchase then continued to bolt away to attempt to evade Fa.
Once through the smoke, Fa had a much easier time tracking Zora, particularly since she was not doing much to blend herself into the crowd. In fact, Fa could not have asked for a greater mistake by the Twi’lek to jump up onto a rooftop. It was above the crowd, away from obstacles that might slow her down, and away from innocent bystanders. Not to mention, one or more of her team might have a line of sight on her.
Fa used the force to leap up onto the building right after Zora, gaining even greater height and distance on her jump. Since she was not wearing any hard boots, she landed more softly than Zora had, though the Sith would still have no doubt she was right behind her. The moment her feet touched the rooftop, Fa ignited the bright green blade of her lightsaber, then continued her force-assisted sprint after Zora. Since there was currently little risk of collateral damage, Fa also grabbed the blaster pistol she had been carrying in her other hand. With the weapon set to stun, she fired it as quickly as she could at Zora. Her shots did not even need to have an effect. Fa was already gaining on the Twi’lek, and having to dodge or deflect blaster shots would only slow her down even more.
Sweeper was caught off guard when both of the force users jumped onto his building, he hadn’t seen them approach. In a fit of quick reflexes, Sweeper pulled the trigger on his repeating blaster. This let loose a literal torrent of blaster fire, which he had to lead quite a bit so as to not hit Fa. While his weapon had a stun setting it barely worked, so just for solidarity he had it switched on, even if headshots had a nasty habit of killing people. The fire put forth by his cannon was some what inaccurate but that was sort of by design, Sith (and Jedi) had a hard time dodging weapons fire that even the operator had a hard time controlling. Holding the weapon of death at his hip Sweeper was trying very hard to avoid hitting Fa, which meant he had to aim off of his intended target even more. Thus his firing was rather ineffectual.
Zora’s legs pushed along faster than she was use to. Her eyes whipped about and skimmed over her shoulder to spot the raptor like Jedi hot on her heels, bend on letting her go. So much for a Jedi being true to her word, she thought bitterly. Her figure darted sharply to the left as suddenly a blaster bolt hit the spot she was just at. She glared in the direction of the source just to see another five shots about to head her way.
She clicked her lightsaber on and deflected the following three shots, sending them rocketing back to the soldiers and avoiding one. Unfortunately the last one wasn’t as easy to alter course. It skimmed the surface of her left Lekku, nearly taking off the end, causing searing pain in her mind and short of any serious brain damage. She glared at Sweeper with a look that promise complete violence if they ever meet again.
Not bothering to see if she hit them or not with her return volley, she gripped another Alchemy ball then whipped it at Fa. To ensure the raptor didn’t decide to return it, she added a bit of her force to make it faster and prevent back lash. It was the same color as the one she flipped at the soldier barring her path into the bar. This meant it would an explosive impact should it make contact.
In the meanwhile, Zora darted to the gap between the two buildings where she intended to slip into and vanish into street level once more.
Fa felt the impending danger, though she would not have needed the force to see that Zora was throwing something back at her. She could not know the exact function of the device that Zora was using, but it was certainly meant to be an impediment. Fa had already had to be mindful of the blaster shots coming from Sweeper on the other rooftop, which fortunately meant that Fa was just far enough back to be able to react. She felt the force acting on the small orb, so Fa leaped into the air instead in much the same way as she had to get onto the rooftop to begin with. It placed her high above the orb, though depending on the radius of the blast, Fa might still be caught in it.
If Fa was not sufficiently disrupted by the blast, then she intended to use her speed and momentum to attack from above, aiming for the arm the Twi’lek was currently using to hold her lightsaber.
Sweeper dropped down behind some unknown outcropping on the roof as several of his own blaster rounds were deflected back at him. He saw the Sith jump off the roof and after the blaster rounds finished impacting he began to run over to the other end of the roof to get a new angle on the Sith. Raj however, still trying to find a way to get to the roof swiftly, spotted the Sith go back down to street level and run between the buildings. Gritting his teeth in anger and barked out over the squad’s communications “She’s gone to ground, pursuing!” He broke into a sprint using his robotic legs, having had his original ones taken off by a Sith several years prior, barely surviving. Now though, it was an advantage. His robotic legs were similar to normal legs except his feet had been swapped for claws. This allowed him to grip deck plates when fighting Sith or hiding in unconventional places. For the time being though he was simply using them to carry him faster than a non-augmented person. He was going to beat this Sith down.
Vebra almost made it to the roof before he saw Raj speed down an alley, obviously following the Sith. Vebra was suddenly reminded of just how old he was starting to get. While it wasn’t much of an issue Vebra could feel his lungs burning a little more than they had a few years ago. All this running was not much fun for him anymore. Nevertheless, he followed his squad member down the alley, jumping over random rubbish that was blocking his movement.
Fa had just made it past from the blast radius to avoid serious damage, but not from being affected by the explosion’s force. Despite resembling the same ball type as the one used on one of Vebra’s men, its power was notably stronger and more dangerous. It scorched the roof it as it took off stone chunks which then toppled to the ground and toward Fa as well. Several individuals on the ground quickly leapt from its path and avoided being crushed, their eyes shifted upward to spy the source. Thankfully none of them could witness the Jedi Master or the squadron of troopers chasing after a Twi’lek sith.
Zora was starting to to feel the effects of the drug coursing through her system as her speed dropped notably, her vision blurred and danced. She had barely made it down to the ground floor when her eyelids become droopy and her shoulder scrapped the stone wall of the right wall. The Sith gritted her teeth in frustration, hard enough to nearly bit through her lower lip. Each step grew heavier while she struggled to remain upright before finally… she collapsed just inches from making out of the alley.
The force of the blast had been enough to disrupt Fa’s attack, and she had to take a brief few moments to avoid the stone that it had thrown around like shrapnel, or to use the force to deflect it. The bomb bought Zora a few seconds to put more distance between her and Fa, but fortunately, the delay ended up being irrelevant. As Fa dropped into the alleyway, she saw the Twi’lek’s figure collapsing onto the ground on the other side.
Fa wasted no time in removing any threat that the Sith might pose. Her lightsaber had deactivated as she fell to the ground, so Fa telekintetically pulled it to her and quickly slipped it into one of her pouches. It was only once the Twi’lek was disarmed that she switched off her own lightsaber. Raj had reached Zora at about the same time Fa had, so she motioned towards the Twi’lek as she knelt down beside her unconscious body to start going through her bags. “Help me search her. We need to get her secured quickly.”
Now that the chase had ended, Fa used her commlink to give her team new orders. “The target is down. The sedative did its job; good work Vebra. Raj and Vebra, help me search and secure the target. Everyone else, form a perimeter around the alley. Keep away any prying eyes. I want her secured, bound, and back on the ship before she wakes up.”
Sweeper peered over the edge of the now half collapsing roof down into the alley as Vebra ran up to the cluster of people in the alley. He then decided it was time to join them and he began making his way off the roof. Raj watched the Jedi pull away the Sith’s weapon quickly. Raj without even bending over began manipulating the bag on the Sith’s waist to search for items. He was finding pretty standard stuff, her credit chit, some food paste, until he ran into some of the Sith alchemy balls. These colors he hadn’t seen before. Not wanting to accidentally set one of them off Raj actually bent over and put his clawed feet back on the ground. He began shoving the small pieces of Sith corruption into his own pockets. Vebra arrived shortly after and saw the two going through the Twi’lek’s bags. It did look almost like looters, seeing as the pair were both dressed in common rags, though Raj’s metal claws poking through the bottom of his pants where there should be boots was a bit of a give away. Vebra turned around and looked back down the alley. He spotted a few kids peeking around the corner at them and he simply aimed his blaster in their direction and they ran.
“Looks like the bantha finally went down. Not sure I could have kept up with her much longer anyways” Vebra said in a half hearted tone. All things considered, the whole operation could have gone much worse. As far as he could tell no one had died and the target was going to be taken alive and mostly unharmed. “Saber-One to Saber-Wing, target apprehended, meet at entrance point for exfil. Ten minutes over.”
“Saber-Wing copies sir.” Vebra put his hand down when he heard the pilot’s response. Hopefully they could get something out her before Fa tried to turn her into a vegetable. His only real concern now was the fate of Blitz, he knew the nerf wasn’t dead but it didn’t mean the Sith’s vile sorcery couldn’t have put him in a Kolto tank for a few days.
“I think we’re clear, get anything obvious off her now and we’ll give her a proper search back on the shuttle. Looks a bit bad you know, could of shady folks over a Twi’lek.” Vebra turned around and looked out the other opening of the alley and simply saw a wall of people traversing the path. If the apprentice had gotten into that crowd Fa’s force ability would have become useless. Once again keying the comm on his left wrist Vebra spoke to the whole team. “All sabers, return to entry point. We got em.”
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