Saga - PT Get Carter [French literature, first line challenge. OTP Origins - Yav and Ysanne]

Get Carter
The French literature, first line challenge​

OTP - Origins of the Ysanne Isard and Yavinelf Dangerrescue relationship​

Started 15/11/2015​

CHARACTERS
Mitch Nifesta - 2000 year old Twi'lek Force Vampire, and Republic security agent with SGIS, the Secret Galactic Intelligence Service.
Ysanne Isard - late teen' or early Twenties Coruscanti human female, with SBI, the Senate Bureau of Intelligence.
Yavinelf Dangerrescue - Level 28 half-elf Rescue Ranger (Everquest), and agent with BESI, the Bureau of Extra-Sensory Intelligence.
Timeline: Clone Wars.
Genre: Angst (eg. some people aren't happy), loco parentis, corporal punishment, drama, threat, action, some sand.
Summary: Rescue mission to Tatooine is marred by character conflict, and a relationship kicks off.

Navigation link: most recent chapter (I-5 got tired of the scrolling)
Navigation link: High Desert
Navigation link: Desert Rescue

****

"They may be right when they say I'm a coward." Master Yoda confessed aloud from atop the white surface of the elongated oval conference table, the diminutive elfin Jedi grandmaster stopping in his tracks pacing the immaculate dull-finished plasteel, at the sudden drop in background noise from his "audience" He turned to stare down at them. "What?"

The onlookers, from his left to right, occupying white chairs, were the utterly soaked half-elf in his dripping wet black stealthsuit, Yavinelf Dangerrescue; the equally bedraggled in a burgundy red halter party dress which clung like a soggy second skin to her torso and legs, Ysanne Isard, frozen in the act of towelling her matted black-and-white hair; and in mostly dry tan robes, but with soaked sleeves, the broad-shouldered pale white Twi'lek owner of this here vessel, the Darth Unlucky, who had fished the first two out of the Iskalonian seas, Mitch Nifesta.

Respectively, the three were Galactic Republic security agents for the Bureau of Extra-Sensory Intelligence (BESI), Senate Bureau of Intelligence (SBI), and the Secret Galactic Intelligence Service (SGIS).

The Galactic Republic had more intelligence services than you have had hot meals.

"Uh, two things. One, have they met you? Two, you said that in proper Basic." Agent Nifesta rumbled in bassy disbelief. He turned to the two water rats. "This sith just got real."

"Ho-ho. Very funny you are, Mitch."

Nifesta regarded his short friend. "Look, these two have been in the sea; they need to towel off, and get their clothes dried, otherwise they'll die of exposure before this precious mission of yours can get started. So give us the rundown."

The woman aimed her thumb to the half-elf. "Maybe he'll die of exposure. SBI agents are made of sterner stuff." Suppressing all but the most subtle shiver within her wet clothes, she continued to vigourously rub at her head with the white Pasarena-branded bath towel.

"Hey!" Yav protested with good humour, furrowing his eyebrows at her. He had reached her in time, extracting her off Thromberg the Hutt's marine laboratory in the Iskalonian seas before her father, the SBI head, Armand Isard, had swooped in aboard a Victory-class Star Destroyer to scoop the laboratory base off the planet, and up into space.

​

Yav' finds, then unties Ysanne​

Thromberg, working for the Separatists, had been weaponising the Loedorvian Brain Plague, hence the joint SBI and BESI missions to stop him.

Neither Yav nor Ysanne had been particularly surprised when the elder Isard had not picked them up from the choppy seas, but they had been when the salon pod from a burgundy-hulled Consular-class cruiser had settled on the water, and the Twi'lek had pulled them aboard.

"Adopted the Jedi Order did, a youngling older than the usual intake, ago a few years."

All the agents took on expressions of concentration, as they tried to follow Master Yoda's speech.

"Have no attachments, we usually insist, but a mother this one has."

"Do we need to have the avians and the bees talk again?" Mitch queried with a raised eye ridge.

Yoda pointed off to the repeater screen at the far end of the conference room, which turned from a blank white, into the large colourful, lined face of a pleasant looking female human, premature lines weathered into those features.

"Shmi Skywalker, this is. From about a standard decade ago. Outside of this briefing, 'Carter', she will be called."

"Err.." Ysanne paused towelling her hair to raise a finger in query. "Operational security is all well and good, but suppose she's not home? Little point asking people where 'Carter' is."

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

Yoda turned to face the several foot-high face. "Enslaved on Tatooine, our information suggests. Extract her you will."

"What's the magic word?" Isard enquired, archly, not seeing the need to mention that the planet was outside Republic space; none of them would have jurisdiction.

The Twi'lek rose from his chair, fists resting on his hips as he regarded the still image. "If she bore one of your jedi, does that mean she's Force Sensetive too?"

Isard glanced up at him as he towered over her, marvelling at the way his too deep voice vibrated her chest. Strange being. She had always regarded Twi'leks as a bit fey; this one certainly was not.

"Eat her, you cannot, Mitch." Yoda warned with the appropriate tone. "On her safety, does the future rest."

Ysanne looked from the Grandmaster, to their host, and back. "Eat her?" She echoed. "Eat her? What's going on?"

"Don't you worry your, oddly pretty, little head about that, Princess."

She jerked away from his rough hand ruffling the matted hair on her scalp like she was twelve, accidentally barging shoulders into her first rescuer. "Don't call me that."

Nifesta turned back to the Jedi. "So, Master Yoda. Tatooine is a Hutt world. What sort of opposition are we expecting? Significant armed force, or simple lip service that a Hutt is somewhere around?"

"A decade old, our information is. In a settlement known as Mos Espa, she lived. Adjacent to a spaceport, it is." Yoda bowed his ridged forehead in concentration towards the screen, and a short several second recording showed a street of domed white dwellings, and an old starship rising into the air, somewhere beyond them. "Started as a mining settlement, I understand, and when that failed, moved in, the Hutts did."

The diminutive being explained that the images had been pulled from the artificial memories of Skywalker's home-built protocol droid, now in the service of Senator Amidala.

Frowning, Nifesta indicated Isard and Yav'. "I don't get why the kids are here-"

"Hey!" The half-elf glared back, affronted.

"Hey!"

"-surely you and me together can handle this."

A loud bleeping sounded from the hidden spreakers of the public address system.

"Brace yourselves, folks." Mitch warned, stepping closer to the table edge to press his fists down on the surface. "We are about to dock with the rest of the ship."

Ysanne scowled and dropped her towel across her lap, then gripped the side edges of her seat like the pillion passenger on a swoop, unlucky enough to be riding with someone who did not like being hugged.

Yavinelf just looked bored, arms crossed and legs stretched before him and crossed at the ankles.

"Not coming with you to Tatooine, am I. As soon as to the bridge you get , set pursuit course after the Död Bang, you should." Master Yoda referred to the Ursean Security Force Victory-I-class star destroyer that was even now, dragging Thromberg's marine laboratory out of Iskalon's gravity well.

"Maybe that's why people call you a coward." Ysanne ventured, adding an uncharacterically defensive "Just sayin'..." as she avoided the Twi'lek's reproving glare. She could not actually see it, because of his polarised black eye visors, but she had perceived a stern intent behind them, that somehow transmitted, not only that he felt that she had spoken out of turn, but that she had!

There was a slight shudder that swayed everyone towards the double doors at the back of the conference room, as well as a series of mechanical clamping sounds that echoed through the hull.

Lumi squares on the control panel by the doors went from red to green, and Nifesta immediately headed towards them. "Welcome aboard the 'Unlucky." He pressed a button on the wall, and the doors slid open.
Where before they had opened directly to the seas, so the other two agents could be hauled aboard; now they showed the sterile white corridor of a larger vessel. "Children, the cabins have sonic showers, hair driers, and clothing. Chill out and get some sleep. Comm the bridge using one of the wall communicators when you have recovered."

To be continued...

 

...continued.

Guest Cabin

Yavinelf sat on the single bed in the guest cabin, the light blue blanket sinking underneath him as he looked down at the carpet between the knees of his stealth suit.

This was his first true moment of relaxation and reflection since dropping into the Iskalon ocean to begin swimming, no sign of land in any direction, towards Thromberg the Hutt's marine laboratory, hoping to beat the orbital strike that the Republic, directed by SBI boss, Armand Isard, had planned.

In his mind's eye, a slowly flashing icon of a green thistley vine, indicated that his Shield of Thistles defensive magic buff was wearing off.

Well, the rescue was over, so that did not matter, but he had been grateful to have it, when Thromberg had set vornsk on them. Frag..

A quiet but rapid knocking on the door drew his gaze back up, his eyes focusing on the white metal door.

"Who is it?"

"Who'dja think? Ysanne."

Oh, right. The half-elf blinked. Aloud, he called, "Come in. It's open."

The still bedraggled girl stepped barefoot through the opening door, and was ranting aloud before it had a chance to reseal. "He was not kidding, that really was the nursery cabin, complete with soft toys, bunk beds, and twee little dresses with-"

"In your size?"

"Eh?" Isard stared down at him, as if re-evaluating the man.

Yav changed the subject, shooting off the bed and stepping towards her. "Come on, we need to get you out of those wet clothes, before you catch your death." He got her to bow her head towards him, so that he could stretch and pull the spagetti strap looped round her neck from the front, over her wet hair, and handed it to her. "Now don't say I never give you anything."

She turned to face the door, and looked back over her left shoulder at him. "There should be a zip back there; if you pull it down all the way, it will help me out a lot."

"Oh yeah, I see it. Hang on." He found the discrete bit of black metal, and gently pulled it down, tenting the wet burgundy from her damp back. There was a huge segment cut out of the design back here, so his assistance only released the fabric around her torso. He retreated till the back of his knees hit the bed's edge. "There you go. Let's see if I can find a towel."

He glanced around the room as he tried to spot the towels, opening and slamming back a couple of cupboard doors, then turned back to the bed, his gaze sweeping past Ysanne sliding the skirt part of her outfit down over her pert bottom and knees, stepping out of it as he spied the blanket drawn taut over the bedsheets.

"Aw, frag it." Yavinelf dug his fingers under the mattress' near side and pulled out handfuls of the blanket and sheet, then pulled the cerulean-coloured covering off the bed, turned to his fellow agent and draped it over her shoulders to draw her back to the bed. "Come on, sit on my lap; we'll get you dry."

"Umm..."

"Now do as you're told." The half-elf added a bit of bite to his tone, accompanying it with a glare that with her back to him, she could not see anyway. He continued guiding her down onto his lap as he sat back on the bed, immediately deftly rubbing up and down on her wet arms through the blanket. "Clearly we cannot rely on you, choosing to run about in your wet things simply because there are soft toys in the same room. You could catch your death!"

Isard twisted her torso to look down upon him. "What about you? You haven't changed either! I'm sitting on wet thighs here; I could get piles!"

"That's rocks."

She deliberately shifted her pantied bottom from side to side a couple times, and all but batted her eyelids flirtatiously down at him. "It certainly does!"

Yav pulled aside the blanket to expose her right thigh close to her cheek, and delivered a smack to her glistening flesh. "Behave!"

It was occurring to him that he was so far out of professional behaviour territory now, that it was little more than a faded stamp in his passport; but he quickly justified it to himself that this was necessary to get her towelled dry.

A shiver ran through him, one she could not help but detect as it got transmitted up through her bottom. "Agent Yavinelf Dangerrescue, you need to get dry and warmed up too. That's an order. She easily freed herself from his ministrations, and stood up to face him, clad only in the blanket and her underwear. "At SBI, we were taught the benefits of 'shared bodily warmth', for survival in cold conditions. Does your agency teach that as well? Cos I think that applies here."

Ysanne leaned towards him to open the diagonal zip on the chest of his drysuit, stepping back once she had done so, and re-pulled the blanket around her for the warmth.

Yav glanced up at what was still visible as he pulled his left arm out of the sleeve, the neoprene reluctant to let him go, and going inside out as he retrieved the limb.
"You'll have to lose the underwear. Won't do us any good to wet the bed up."

"Fine. This is me losing the underwear." The diaphonus pink garment was soon stepped out off, and pinched between thumb and forefinger. "What'm I supposed to do with this?"

"Just leave it on the floor. Nifesta said there would be dry clothing in here somewhere, even though its hidden better than the treasures of Xim the Despot."

She looked at him, scandalised. "Leave it on the floor? This is a Starflare!"

Yav rolled his eyes and sighed patiently, having progressed to clearing the top half of his suit, and was now half pushing, half rolling it down past his hips.
His muscled torso and arms were slick with moisture that had penetrated the suit. "Just pull out one of the drawers over there, and hang it over the lip." He sat on the edge of the bed, to work the drysuit down past his knees. Knackering work.

The former Surefall Paramedic halted for a breather, thinking, Tunare's Name! Those snakes on the East Commons make this moulting business look so easy!

The agent rose and shuffled unsteadily over to the moulded easy chair in the cabin, that served a circular-topped table on a unipodal stand with splayed metal feet.
"Since you are all done, you should get into bed first; I'll join you in a few minutes. Besides.." He eyed the sealed doorway warily, "...that Twi'lek looked the bustly, mothering type. I would not be at all surprised, if he popped in with extra blankets, and picked up after us."

Isard snorted with mirth as she knelt on the mattress, and eased her way in under the covers, shedding the blanket so that it would be available to the both of them.
Now, she allowed herself to shiver and shudder naturally, and pulled the two sheets up to her chin. "S-sorry about my Ug-ugnaught impression j-just now." She apologised with chattering teeth. "L-lucky that we-we're professionals; th-that would have been a mood killer."

"N-not at all." Yav ceased his exit strategy from the suit, and stepped over to her, hauling the blanket over the mound that she formed under the sheet, and spreading the thicker cover out a bit to provide more insulation. "D-did your r-room have a blanket on the b-bed?"

"Of-of course."

"Let me go and get it then."

Yavinelf Dangerrescue closed the cabin door behind him, and shuffled, naked but for the rolled suit trapping his calves in neoprene, down the sterile-white corridor, noting that her delicate footprints were still moist on the floor, as if they were there for him to follow them back to her room.

He slipped inside and stood among the brightly-coloured soft toys that she had complained about, then started tearing up, sobbing aloud, his shoulders shuddering as the emotion of having successfully rescued her, in time no less, swept over him.


To be continued...

 

Okay, I'm here for a review this time, and I'm liking this The mission to rescue Shmi promises to be interesting (and I wonder what Yoda has in mind for her) but I'm happy to finally get to see your OCs in action. So far I think I only ever "met" them through mentions in stories in which they don't appear, and that Isard/Yavinelf 'ship of yours always had me intrigued.

I really like your characterisation of a young Ysanne Isard. She's barely out of her teens and she acts like it, sometimes a bit childish, sometimes a bit mature and pro. The scene of mutual seduction-but-not-seduction in the second chapter was pure gold. She reminds me a little of Unamo in Renatasia, but with some very Isard-ish traits already.

Fantastic turnaround with Yavinelf in this chapter as well. For a while I thought that really his only preoccupation was to get her into (his) bed, but then... ooooh, very romantic indeed

And they're travelling with your famous Force vampire. Now this is a character that I hope to see more of, even if he isn't the focus of this story!

 

@Chyntuck - your posting a comment here, is the single best thing that has happened to me, during the first 23 days of this month (got my internet back today).

Pleased to hear that you are liking this; I am very excited about the story, and even enjoy repeating the title to myself!

Although I may have sufficient material for two or three more posts, how to reach the end of the story, is not overly clear.

There is a later piece with this pair, done for an OTP Holiday Challenge, where Ysanne is Imperial Intelligence director by then.

Thank you for mentioning that. Glad that came across okay.

Now this is odd; I didn't know that Yav' needed turning around, and it took me a couple of re-reads to try looking at his antics from the POV of a reader thinking that he just wanted his bed warming, and did not have a coal-filled frying pan handy.

I'm not sure how to take your tongued smiley for the romantic comment. Does that mean that you don't find the actions romantic?

I am open to advice on how to write such stuff.

Yeah, Mitch is large and in charge. Whether you remain a fan of his, is another matter...

 

...Continued.


Yav snuggled deeper into the soft surface under his head, then snapped his eyes open, noting Ysanne staring intently at him from beside the bed that he was in, the blankets snug between shoulder and pointed ear, with him laying on his right side.
Her bare arms were crossed, with forearms sunk into the white-sheeted mattress. She appeared to be wearing something with puffy yellow short-sleeves and a ruffled collar. Fashions that in the short time he had known the SBI agent, she would not touch with a sterilised tractor beam.

"You slept for, like, three days." She advised gently, with a hint of accusation.

"Well, I swam through a sea to get to you. You notice any boats moored nearby when we emerged from Thromberg's lab?"

"I've been stuck with Uncle Mitch this whole time."

Yav frowned up at her, not moving from his supine position. "Why are you calling him that?"

She sighed. "We......came to an understanding."

He felt his expression tighten, and was about to ask if their host had hurt her, when she added with a defeated tone, "It was either that or God of Cops."

The half-elf broke out into chuckles, and after a beat, a smile peeked through her normally serious face and she joined him with peals of laughter.

When they sobered, and caught their breath, beaming at each other, Ysanne updated him: "By the way, we have landed."

"Where?"

"Where do you think? Tatooine."

Yav leaned up on one elbow, the sheet sliding down from his bare shoulder, revealing more of his subtley olive-tan pallor. "Tatooine? We've arrived? Have you already been to check on Shmi, uh, Carter?"

He really liked the thin triangle of white hair amongst the black fringe over her forehead, and she had volunteered that she had had it since birth.

"Uncle Mitch said she'd keep. We have set down just outside the town of Mos Espa. He wanted us to just sit here, no-one leaving the ship until you had awoken, had your breakfast and were ready to go."

"Breakfast? Who cares about breakfast?"

"He does. He really insists on it as a healthy way to start the day." She glanced up at the bulkhead above and behind him. "And it seems to go beyond being a good host. Stars, I hope he doesn't think that he's adopted you as well."

The half-elf sat up, one arm keeping the undersheet to his front to preserve modesty while allowing the blankets to fall away. "You'll have to turn around while I get showered and dressed."

Isard showed no sign of moving. "It's alright. I'm good."

He cocked an eyebrow. "With that attitude, would I be a million light years away if I suggested that you had quite a look while I was out?"

"I was...I was intelligence-gathering." She blushed faintly. "You, um, have good muscle tone."

Yes. He thought. Good muscle tone. But to actually have any notable strength, he needed to magically buff himself with Strength of Earth.

Though to be fair, as a half-elf, born of a human and elf pairing, he could smack down a pureblood elf any day of the week, providing he found one unbuffed. That turned his thoughts to the one that he would give anything to find: Yavscout-

"Plus I shared the bed with you during my sleep cycles." Isard added, interrupting his thoughts.

"There are other cabins." Yav pointed out, pushing the blankets aside and shuffling over to the edge of the bed so that he could climb out, the movement causing his fellow agent to retreat a bit and sit back on her calves. "Didn't Nifesta offer you one of the others?"

"He reminded me that about the nursery cabin, of course."

He nodded, remembering his emotions getting to him in there. Putting his feet over the edge of the bed so that he was sitting there, he was able to see that she was in a flowered yellow sundress with a tight bodice that accentuated her chest, and a flared skirt that created a circle of fabric on the carpet around her, her bare knees poking shyly beyond the ruffled hem. It was likely one of the outfits that she had complained about, but twee or not, he thought she looked fantastic in it.

She caught him staring, and touched her hair with her left hand. "What?"

"I was thinking how pretty you looked."

She blushed and looked away towards the door, which he took as the opportunity to nip into the sonic shower, and close the door behind him. "Oh, that was cheating!" She laughed through the door.

"How was it cheating?" He called back, snickering to himself as he switched on the sonic shower and poured a bottle of coloured emollient into his cupped hand. He was fairly surprised when thin streaks of tepid water struck him in the face, temporarily flooding eyes that were not expecting them.

Massaging the cream into his scalp, he yelled through the door, "I thought Mitch called this a sonic shower!"

"Force of habit. It normally is sonic, but as he picked us up from a water world, the salon pod also scooped up a load of water. So for the time being, it can do both."

Yav smiled. Ysanne did not strike him as a dirty girl, in either sense. And she had been awake two or three standard days more than him. "So you are in some of this, then?"

"Well, its been recycled and filtered, but I guess, yeah." She sounded dubious at the idea. "Do you mind?"

"Mind? Hell no." He frothed up some liquid soap in his palms and moved onto doing his arms.

****

Later, that evening

The second of the twin suns was low in the sky when Agent Nifesta allowed the group to exit the ship, the boarding ramp from the lowest deck echoing hollowly to their footfalls.

They had tried earlier at the beginning of the day, when the Twi'lek was satisfied that everyone had digested their breakfast, Mitch in his habitual tan robes; Yavinelf in a black neck-to-toe shipsuit; Ysanne in the sundress; but the moment that Nifesta has emerged from the vessel's shadow, and the heat of two suns had struck his snow-white pate and lekku, he had wheeled around with the words, "Kriff that! We'll go tonight," and put his arms out wide to chaperone both junior, to him, agents, back up the ramp.

Isard naturally was the first to protest. "Look, if its too much for you, you wait aboard while Yav and I check the town out."

Mitch looked down at her as he continued to herd them slowly but steadily up into the compact vestibule. "You noticed me cutting up your sausages for you, right?"

"We didn't ask you to do that."

"So what in the Original Light makes you think I am going to let either of you two go anywhere on this planet without a grown-up along? You're not two thirds of Fedalle's Famous Five, you know." He added, referring to the popular series of standalone holo-spoofs of four youngling adventurers and their pet vornsk, Timmi.

She bristled and stood her ground, forcing Nifesta to stop in his tracks. "My Dad is Director of SBI, and he lets me go off on missions by myself!"

Yavinelf, who had silently supported her word-for-word till this point, leaned over to whisper in her ear: "Bad example." In his book, Armand Isard's willingness to drop her into the local sun along with the rest of Thromberg's marine laboratory, made the man's judgment suspect.

Nifesta put his big meaty hands under her armpits and lifted her bodily over the bottom lip of the outer airlock, stepped inside himself, then used the Force to pull Yav in after them.
He used one hand to keep Ysanne in front of him, and used the other to slam the durasteel barrier shut, cutting off the light and heat that was already drenching the three of them with perspiration.

"Sooo, tonight then." She had eventually conceded.


To be continued...

 

Welcome back to the world of the internet! Before I start my review of the new chapter, I just want to reply quickly to these two bits:

Well, there was a lot of ambiguity in the chapter until that point. Was it about getting Ysanne in his bed, or was he simply being very cold and professional about it all, or were there feelings behind his actions? I don't think I would have come to a conclusion on my own without that final scene, and the setup for the whole thing could easily be interpreted as two people turning each other on.

Here again, it's not the actions that I don't find romantic, it's the contrast with the setup. I mean, at this point in the story I (as a reader) am picturing a young man still dripping with water, with his calves still trapped in a rubber suit, in a cabin full of fluffy toys... It's not the moment when I expect a romantic reveal – and yet here it is! So on the one hand I'm going awww about that, and on the other hand I still have that image in my head that makes me chuckle. I certainly don't think you need lessons in writing romance, the tongued smiley was just about the incongruousness of the situation.

Now, on to the new chapter! Again, great banter between Ysanne and Yav here; I don't think these two will ever run out of ways of saying-but-not-saying "I like you" to each other. This bit, to me, was a real gem:

Beyond the hilariousness of the story, it was nice to see them share a moment of being together without reservations.

More generally, Mitch seems to be quite a piece of work. From his description I gather that he actually looks the part of a (Force) vampire, which makes the idea that he was cutting up Ysanne's sausages all the more bizarre And, well, yes, the twin suns of Tatooine would be murder on any vampire, so going out at night is probably a good idea.

Another bit that made me laugh, but also made me curious, was this:

Am I reading too much into this, or is there a backstory regarding Ysanne and her father that we will find out more about? She does come across as pretty fearless, but this made me wonder if you picture her as trying to prove herself to a father who doesn't really care or something along those lines.

(Before I sign off, my usual disclaimer: I can't promise that I'll be able to review in a timely fashion when you update, but I'll be reading regularly, just like your other fic.)

 

This is the background, this and the actual marine lab rescue.

Ysanne obviously killed her father for a reason, and in the hurley burley of roleplaying, where I don't have to worry about explaining, I used Armand's willingness to sacrifice his own daughter, in order to stop the Brain Plague, as fuel for the longevity of her and Yav''s relationship.

In the posted material so far, I did not intend anything to be romantic; Ysanne half-flirts while on Yavinelf's lap, but while Yav likes her, and is relieved that he got to her in time, it will take Mitch to alert him later, to just how much she appreciated the gesture.

 

...Continued.

Outside Mos Espa

And here they were, the Twi'lek leading the way with his two companions spread out either side of him in a v-formation, heavy brown boots sinking into the soft sand as they went.

Mitch had made sure that everyone, himself included, had a blaster, a spare power pack, glowrod, night-goggles, goggles (in case of a daytime sandstorm), and a water bottle. He consulted a hologram that he generated from his wrist-communicator, aimed a hand in a direction that was not directly towards the township, and struck out in that direction.

Though he doubted that either knew it, both Yavinelf and Isard were togged out in the rough, thickly-woven black belted tunics, trousers and boots of Sith or Dark Jedi that Nifesta had eaten in the past. The femme's tunic was so outsized that it came down past her knees, and only judicious use of a grey, industrial-strength sticky tape wrapped round the sleeves made it of any thermal use to her.

His idea of nutrition was to drain the life force energy from Force Sensitives, and upon completion their physical bodies collapsed into dust, leaving their clothing behind.

On the basis that the apparel might come in handy later, he tended to collect them and store them aboard the ship, tossed in a spare room like a younglings' dress-up hamper.

The Twi'lek would have preferred Ysanne stay in the frock, but he had been to Tatooine before, and knew that the nights could be bitterly cold once the suns went down.
The responsibility to keep her safe extended to allowing her to avoid frostbite.

"Do we have an address for the target?" Yav asked.

"She lived in a row of former mining personnel hovels that when Master Yoda's youngling lived here, was known as the Slave Quarter." Nifesta advised as they moved. "Should be on the outskirts of the spaceport."

"Wait, there is a spaceport here?"

"Is that significant?"

Mitch glanced back at Ysanne, but kept walking.

"We will have attracted attention, not landing there. Even though we are losing the light, I would not be surprised if we were being surveilled."

"Mm. Good insight."

Isard lifted a palm to shield her eyes from the sinking sun on the horizon "You already thought of that." It was not a question.

"Actually no." After a pause, he added, "Good girl."

She pulled down on the synthleather strap going diagonally from her right shoulder to left hip, bringing to bear the Blastech DC-15S carbine that had been slung down her back.

"If we are being surveilled, that will look provocative."

"Or prohibitive."

The sun sank below the horizon, before they were halfway to the nearest of the weather-eroded buildings and structures, dropping the ambient temperature rather harshly.

Ysanne shivered and pulled her jacket tighter around her, mostly concealing the face of the floppy-eared fathier that adorned the cap-sleeved yellow top that she had been given to wear underneath. "Th-that idea that the s-sands holds onto heat from the d-day, and releases it slowly at night, is f-feeling exaggerated." She also pulled the night-goggles that were resting gently above her forehead, down over her bangs and adjusted them comfortably over her eyes, silently grateful to see the terrain and approaching buildings laid out in contrasting shades of green, rather than everything a deep cave-level of blackness.

"If you are okay with it, I can buff you-"

"Is that as kinky as it sounds?"

"I had to get something out of being a Ranger. I can cast a protection spell protecting you against the cold for almost half an hour."

"Do it!"

"No. Wait till we get up next to the building. If we are being spied upon by nefarious types, we should try not to make ourselves look more desirable than prohibitive. Bad enough, we've got a child with us."

Yav glanced at the SBI agent to see if she pounced on that, and when she didn't he regarded her analytically, wondering what was wrong. As she trudged along with a dark mood, he instead directed his own response towards the Twi'lek. "A child. You no longer believe that I am one."

"What do you mean? You could be the child."

"Seriously?"

"Yav's aura of indignation felt different to yours, Princess. I sense that he is older than he looks."

The trio fell silent till they arrived by a tall white wall that ran along to their left and right, quite aways, it's surface battered smooth from the weather. Sand was piled steeply against it up to almost four feet.

Nifesta looked about, probing with the Force to see if anyone was watching them now. He did not sense anyone. "Alright, cast your spell. Try to keep the light show to the minimum. Princess, shut your eyes, and let us know when you have done so. I will-"

"They're shut."

"-be able to tell if you are fibbing."

"They are shut already! Why would I lie?"

"Alright, keep your hair on. Agent Yav', have at it." Nifesta watched the half-elf arms sweep up and down in front of him a total of eight times, like he was praying standing up, and each time that his hands were stretched to the heavens, a shower of luminous particles, either green, or light blue, showered from just over head height, down to the ground.

The first four were over Ysanne; then four over Yav himself.

Eyes still obediently shut, the SBI operative confided, "That tingled."

"Alright, you can open them now." Yav went onto explain that he had buffed him and her with Endure Cold, Strength of Earth, Skin Like Rock, and Spirit of Wolf, which he explained had increased their resistance to cold, strength, the hardness of their skin against physical attack, and faster running.

"Yeah, I think I got the one about the cold, just from the name," she admitted drily.

"Now now, don't be rude." Mitch glowered down at her. "What do you say?"

"Lead the way?"

"Really, there is no need to thank me. Plus we risk discovery the longer we stand here."

Nifesta crossed his arms and glared down at Ysanne. "Haven't you been taught 'please' and 'thank you'? After a several second pause, he decided, "Well, you are certainly going to learn about them, and demonstrate that you know how to use them, before we return to Coruscant."

Yav noticed her stiffen, and return the Twi'lek's gaze, while he was speaking; the green glow from her night-goggles casting Mitch's scarlet-eyed features into bas relief.

She turned to the BESI agent. "Thank you for buffing me, Yav'."

"You...are welcome." He looked from her to Nifesta, and back, aware that something was going on between them. More than just a clash of personalities.

"Better. Come on." The Twi'lek pulled his night goggles down over his eyes, and ducked down and moved forward, his right shoulder close with the wall. The wall was bright green with the heat it had absorbed during the day, while the sand, both underfoot, and piled against the wall in drifts, was a darker shade, and getting darker as it cooled rapidly. "The Sky...uh, the Carters, lived on Slave Quarter Row, which should be quite near the spaceport which we did not land at."

Behind him, Ysanne pointed out, "If we had landed there, we would have less distance to take her to safety."

"But then our Republic markings would have been noticed."

"Your entire ship is painted in Republic diplomatic colours, Agent." Yav reminded huffily, "If they have macrobinoculars on this backwater, they will know where we are from."

Mitch did not say anything, but admitted to himself that the BESI operative had a point. It also occurred to him that he could call Yavinelf "Bessie" after the name of his spy agency.
The fact that the idea had not occurred to him until three days into the op, was probably why he did not run SGIS.

He heard a few moments of intense shuffling and scuffing sounds behind him, but ignored it for the moment. They were only feet from him, what was the worst that could happen?

After a few minutes, he came to a gap in the wall, with it continuing again a couple of dozen feet further on. He put up his left fist as the signal to stop, confident that they would understand the military hand signal.

Mitch surmised that this qualified as their way into Mos Espa itself, with the route wide enough to permit entry and exit for vehicles and beasts-of-burden.
The sand running into the town looked battened down, which he took to be the accumulative effect of many repulsorlift vehicles.

He looked over his left shoulder at the two. "Alright, we can use this to enter..." He turned, focussing on the half-elf. "...where is she?" His urgent whisper highlighted his concern for the missing girl.


To be continued...

 

Hmm. The relationship between Mitch and Ysanne is... peculiar. She comes across as a cold-blooded pro in some moments (e.g. in the bit where she makes her blaster "prohibitive") and as outright petulant in others (for instance when Mitch refers to her as a child, or when he insists that she says thank you). He, on the other hand, seems to enjoy teasing her but he also seems genuinely concerned about her well-being – or is keeping her safe just another part of the job? And poor Yav is caught in the middle, trying to figure out the subtext. It was neat to see him display some of his Ranger talents btw (I went and read up a little bit about EverQuest, but you can expect many more stupid questions from me about what he's actually able to do).

And now... what was that scuffling and shuffling about? Methinks that getting Carter is going to have to wait a bit until our trio can sort themselves out.

 

Continued...

Yav, pointed a finger straight up. "She wanted to climb the wall into an elevated position."

"And you let her?" Nifesta straightened and stepped back from the wall to look up about two storeys worth of wall, where she was down on one knee, looking over what was behind the continuation of the wall beyond the gap. Her arms were down by her sides, but clearly she was ready to raise them like balancing wings if she felt herself wavering. The glowing green lenses of her goggles seemed bright this near to her, but he knew they would be hard to distinguish from any distance.

Frag. This is like herding shaak. He thought, whispering harshly up at her, "Princess! Get down from there! Before you fall down!"

She ignored him, and continued perusing whatever was over there. Yav sidled up to the Twi'lek. "I think that was the wrong thing to say."

"What's the right thing to say?"

"Trip, what can you see?"

Isard glanced down, wavering ever so slightly. "What did you call me?"

"Trip. After your callsign."

"That's it, tell the locals that she has a callsign."

"Yeah, that was pretty stupid, Yav'."

"What, we agreed on something?" Mitch raised an eyebrow that nobody could see. "You feeling alright, Princess? You wanna lay down."

"Ignore him. Can you see anything of interest over there."

"I think that is the spaceport. A lot of circular areas that would be the individual landing areas. Most of the citizens have retired for the night, but there is activity at the spaceport."

"What sort of activity?"

"Star jumps?"

"Not sure, but I can see the glow of lights around one of the few Corellian ships that looks better on flimsi, than in real life. The HT-2200 medium freighter. My angle is too low for details, but I recognise the light and shadow playing across the dorsal surfaces." Isard curled her lip in the darkness. "Frag ugly, those things."

Mitch nodded as he took in the information. "Hopefully it is nothing to do with our mission, here."

"I'm going to use the roofs on this side to come down to your level. If you turn right at this corner, and I will meet you at the next one. Looks fifty metres in."

The God of Cops was not having any of it. "When you're a big girl, you can run over all the roofs you want." He reassured angrily. "But for now, I want you down here, this minute."

The faint green beams from her goggles swivelled down to face him. "You're down there, I'm up here out of reach. What are you going to do about it, Grandpa?"

"Ohhh!" Yavinelf turned away from them both, hand to mouth to hide the grin.

"So help me, Ysanne, you are asking to be put over my knee again."

Yav spun back to gape up at Mitch. "Wait. Again?"

Nifesta rounded on the shorter half-elf. "I was three days alone with a stubborn, abrasive little girl who brazenly tells lies. Of course she got spanked!"

"Wha-? I never lied! Shrilled the indignant silhouette above them; then, as if it would help, now, she whispered. "I only insisted that I wasn't a child!"

Mitch glared up at her to see that she was leaning recklessly out from the roof toward them, hands planted on the edge of the whitewashed brickwork to support her.
"And are you saying that now?" He enquired with the dangerous tone that she had recently learned to recognise: The Rancor Threshold. For this way, there be Krayt Dragons.

"N-nope!" Isard punctuated the monosyllable by raising both hands of the roof, but somehow did not fall into the outstretched arms that she noticed the lunging Twi'lek had put out to intercept her. "Please. I put a leg back to counter-balance myself." She pushed herself back, then stood straight up, arms jerking as if they would have to balance her, but she relaxed them, looking over her right shoulder at what the boys couldn't see. "Like I said, I'll meet you on the corner."

Mitch knew he had lost this one. "Okay, but be careful crossing those roofs. They might look solid after however long baking in the double suns, but they're probably made of wattle. Your weight might be too much."

"Are you saying I'm fat?"

"No! I'm saying...frak it." Nifesta gave up, and stalked away towards the corner and rounded it, heading to the rendezvous point, the half-elf following him in silence.

As much as she delighted in the small victory, her tummy plummeted at the Twi'lek abruptly abandoning his concern and attention for her and stalking off. Reluctantly mindful of his warning, Ysanne made sure to stay off the roof itself, which was a combination of flat and sloped, following the line of the wall that bordered the entrance road.

One foot carefully in front of the other, just like her junior gymnast days on the balance beam, testing the weight and stability ahead with the toes of her leading foot, Isard progressed along the thin brickwork of the wall, it a few inches above the level of the roof.

She spied her path, and below to her left, the top of the Nifesta's head as he strode beside her, but three metres below, through her night-goggles.

If she had not needed him to fly them both, her and Yav, back to Coruscant, she could see herself being pushed to putting a plasma bolt into that bald pate; he definitely was not her flavour of the month, what with what she had to endure the last three days.

It was possible, she grudgingly conceded, that she had relied on her father's influence and reputation, to bolster her typical "what are you going to do about it" attitude, for too long.
The Twi'lek was all too willing to show her what he was going to do about it.
Her gaze narrowed at the memory of him consistently overwhelming her teras kasi to secure her tightly to his lap, the feeling of helplessness as her frocks were bunched up around her midriff, and the invasion of her personal space to the extent that he not only laid hands on her Starflares, but pulled them down to her knees, and no matter how she had tried to buck and wriggle off his lap, not being able to evade the horrendous hand spanking that he could unerringly deliver to her bare bottom.

That was why she had baulked at reiterating that she wasn't a child. They were in the field, on mission, and she reckoned that in the hurley burley of all that, he would forget or forgive this roof incident, but he had a stick up his choob about perceived younglings denying what he considered to be facts, or in his patronising vernacular, "telling fibs". That was an envelope that she and her bottom agreed; it was not worth pushing. If Mitch said the sky was green, she wanted several klicks between them before telling him to get his eyes tested.

Her internalised dis-satisfaction paused as she spotted the senior agent veer away to the left, crossing the road to the corner of that high wall surrounding the hick spaceport.

Where in Hapes was he going? Granted he had lost patience with her, but she thought he would still meet her where she intended to drop to the ground.

She glanced over the edge, and could see Yavinelf moving parallel to her wall. At least one of them was staying on point, and it was high time (she smiled briefly at the un-intended pun) that she joined them.

Ensuring that her balance was okay, she took a little run along the wall, trusting that her weight wasn't going to be in one place long enough to collapse anything, arced into a handstand, the stealthiness of her move ruined by her gun falling past her face to clatter noisily on the brickwork.

She continued regardless, her arms crossed at the wrists, and fingers folded over the edges of the still-warm wattle bricks, folded her spine to bring herself back onto her feet at the far edge of the wall, and arced into the air, twisting herself centrifugally as she plummeted feet-first to the ground below, knees bending slightly to absorb the impact, and stepping back with her arms wide.

She recovered, swung her gun over her shoulder so that it again hung diagonally down her back, and skipped daintily across the sand to join Nifesta as he peered around a corner of the spaceport, along an empty thoroughfare between it and several dark-windowed dwellings.

She was a little surprised at herself for doing that just now, the gymnastics and skipping. That's the sort of thing that would get her hurt on a lone SBI mission. But with Yav and Mitch looking out for her, she could afford to let her hair down a bit. Realising that she was the only one with the Twi'lek, she glanced around and behind her to see where the BESI agent had gotten himself to, and spotted him back by the original wall, his forearm leaning on it as he examined something hidden beyond his silhouetted form.

After a few moments, Yav walked quickly across to join them.

Ysanne leaned past Mitch's cloaked right shoulder, spotting the blocky silhouette of some sort of repulsorlift vehicle or container being steered into the street, and turning away from them.

Four apparent guards walked along at the front left and right, and rear left and right corners, and it was clear that they were on alert. Obviously, not alert enough to spot three Republic agents trailing them, including one coming out of a competition-level, dynamic Front Tuck; but it's the thought that counts.

The group moved slowly away, and at the hundred metre mark, Nifesta moved after them, keeping to the dark shadows to hide his pursuit.

Ysanne did not know where this Shmi woman lived, so followed him silently, almost stepping where he stepped.

"Guys?" Yav whispered harshly from behind her. "I think this might be the wrong way; I found a pictorial sign showing chained bipeds. I think it means Slave Quarter Row is behind us."

"Mm?" Mitch queried without looking. "That makes sense. Good spot."

Ysanne frowned at this, waited for her ribs to stop vibrating before enquiring. "So why are we following these guys?"

"Four Rodians wandering through the streets at night. Big container. Something suspicious about this scene."

"You know that's spatial profiling, right?"

"I think you mean 'specieist profiling', Princess." The senior agent corrected as he crept through the shadows, peering at his quarry. "'Spatial profiling' is saying to your ship-mates, 'nobody panic, but I think us being pulled off course is due to a black hole in the vicinity'."

"Regardless, why are we following them, rather than going for the Carter woman?"

"Not sure, but the Force is telling me that something about them is about to become everyone's problem. Guns out, guys; set weapons for stun force."


...To be continued

 

Continued...


Nifesta swept his primary weapon out from under his robe, a long-barrelled DC-15A blaster rifle, turning with it to face the entrance to the spaceport as they passed across it, to cover them from that direction, as his companions came past and continued after the escorted litter.

Despite feeling that the mission was being sidetracked, Ysanne brought her shorter DC-15s carbine over her shoulder and checked behind her to see that Yav had done the same.

The half-elf's attention seemed to be elsewhere, looking across the street up to the opposite roofs.

"You see something?" She asked worriedly, scanning the same direction.

Yavinelf shook his head. "No. I'm just conscious that all of our attention is towards the Rodians, not checking that we are not being tracked."

"Good thinking, but do not fall behind. Come on." She turned back to face Nifesta's back, and jogged lightly across the packed dirt to catch up, her blaster pointed up towards the ceiling.

BIP. BIP. BIP. BIP.

Isard dropped to one knee instinctively at the loud bleeping noise coming from ahead of them, then leaned to her right to peer around the Twi'lek's bulk to see what was going on - the security van had been turned around so that it's rear was square on with a white stone-fronted dwelling on the end of the row of similar habitats, wooden boards forming doors and window shutters.

The hovervan was beeping away as it was being backed up to the door, stopping a good two metres away. Probably not that loudly, but in the silence, you wondered why it had not roused the whole street.

The young woman was willing to bet that this Hutt-controlled territory did not have much of a problem with witnesses. What would be the point? There were no justice forces here, and neither she, Yav, or Nifesta could fill that role; the Galactic Republic for which they were all security agents, had no authority on Tatooine.

There was an armed Rodian on top of the van, one on this side, with, she assumed, a counterpart on the other side, and one in the driver's cab that faced the other side of the empty street.

The one on this side, pushed the strap of his blaster rifle up onto the shoulder of his padded jacket, and ran to the back of the vehicle, noisily unlatching the big swing door.

In front of her, crouched to the wall on their left, she could see the Twi'lek's green shape through her night-glasses, shake and change shape as he moved his arms around under his cloak.

There was an audible crack of wood splintering up ahead, and Ysanne peered around Nifesta to see one of the Rodians using a prybar to break through the front door of the chosen habitat, drawing a cry of surprise from inside, the high-pitched wail of a female.

Mitch straightened and picked up speed towards whatever was going on, Ysanne behind and to his right, right fist gripping hard at her DC-15.

The vandal with the prybar switched doors, side-stepping from the wooden one to the back of the truck, twisting two vertical metal bolts and pulling the door wide towards himself, so that the only part of himself exposed to whatever was being transported was the part of his legs below the door.

Four arm thick pseudopods shot straight through the wooden door into the darkness beyond, eliciting a blood-curdling scream of utter terror from whomever they had heard earlier, and an instance later, the struggling form of a female Rodian in a long-sleeved, frill-necked night-robe was hauled outside with three of the tentacles wrapped round her, pulling her towards the back of the open truck.

The Twi'lek thrust an empty hand forwards, his Force Push throwing the male, face first into the swing door, and then slamming the door on the exposed tentacles before its owner could retract them and the victim, drawing inhuman squeals from inside the truck, bouncing the metal sides around, and threatening to dislodge the man standing on top of the vehicle.

The Rodian on the door, dug his boots into the sand and tried to pull it open again, only to get double-tapped between the shoulder blades with bright blue plasma bolts from Mitch's DC-15A, sliding to the floor in a spatter of smoking flesh.

"That wasn't stun!" Isard blurted, movement from the top of the truck drawing her attention to the gunman up there. She hurried to raise her blaster in a double-handed grip as she dropped again to one knee to steady her aim.

"Frak stun!" The angry Twi'lek retorted, holding up his badge wallet with one hand as he surged ahead of her, as if anyone would see it in the darkness. "S.G.I.S.! FREEZE!"

Yellow-green blaster bolts rained after Nifesta from the one on the roof, till Ysanne hit the shooter in the chest, cartwheeling him out of sight behind the vehicle.

Yav dove into her from the left, sprawling her into the dirt as a lance of crimson blaster fire dissected the space where she had been, from the driver, blasting at them from behind his passenger door.

The half-elf rolled off her and fired his own blaster, expanding circles of pale blue stun energy washing over the truck as the driver ducked out of sight.

Whatever was inside the truck must have been particularly stupid, Mitch reflected as he reached the body of the one he had shot, for the swing door was slightly ajar with the dead Rodian's weight no longer applied to it, and the tentacle owner too busy bouncing around the place to notice. He jumped over the corpse and bodily hit the door, re-slamming it on the visible tentacles, feeling them slide and jerk against the durasteel hatch that in turn smashed into his back with enough force to almost send him into the wall beside the wrecked entrance.

"Honey, what's going on?" A confused male voice called from inside the hovel. A Rodian face peered round the door jamb, jerking back in time to avoid a blaster bolt through the face from whomever was out of sight round the truck's far side.

"Got another shooter!" Mitch called out to his companions. "But I want prisoners. No disintegrations."

"This is none of your business!" The hidden assailant yelled angrily. And to the Twi'lek's ears, self-righteously, like he thought he was in the right here.

"I'm making it my business." Mitch yelled back. The guy sounded like he was hugging the sides of the truck. he was acutely aware of the female Rodian, now silent in the tentacles, aloft maybe five feet above and to his right. He hoped she was still alive. "What's going on?"

"We operate with the authority of the Grand Protector."

Mitch's scarlet eyes widened behind his goggles. "The Rodian Grand Protector?" That was the title of the leader of the clan that now ruled their home planet. The different clans had fought a war to determine which one would run the planet, and his had won. For some reason, he had declared that the Tetsus clan be exterminated, on and off world.

"Of course!"

That meant that the woman intended as monster lunch, the man just inside the door opposite him, and anyone else inside, were Tetsus.

These frakkers had tracked them to Tatooine, and brought this creature with them. Whatever had happened to a clean double tap to the head, for drokk's sake?

The door bounced into his back again, as the monster randomly hit it from the inside.

Mitch pressed his backside against the metal and leaned forwards to try to get a better angle on this guy. "Well, I'm the God of Cops, and your authority is revoked. Anybody harms these people and I'm putting you, your Grand Protector, everybody in the ground." Mitch moderated his tone as he leaned towards the right, not quite peering around the corner and getting his face shot off, "Now, that aside, what have you got in here?"

"A Rathtar."

The Twi'lek blinked. What the hell was a rathtar? He said as much to the unseen Rodian.

"You know what a sarlacc is?"

"Stationary thing on Tatooine with tentacles and a big mouth, according to Jabba the Hutt's press secretary."

"Someone decided to breed ones that could move about."

The door scraped up his back a couple inches as the God of Cops' knees turned to jelly. He turned away and leaned to his left, where his people should still be. "Yav!"

"Yo!"

"Take Ysanne back to the ship. Right now!"


To be continued...

Note: The line about "putting everybody in the ground" is used by Mr Reese in Persons of Interest to warn HR away from Detective Carter (no relation to this fic's title).

 

Continued...


"WHAT!!"

Nifesta sighed at the precocious child's indignant exclamation. In other circumstances, it would be almost endearing. "Hang on and shut your eyes." He told her. His right hand dove under his robe to retrieve his lightsabre, thumbing on the activator to bring forth a humming white lance that cast welcome light over proceedings, as he fanned it up through the visible tentacles, extinguishing the blade as the captive Rodian dropped into the dirt, and unsurprisingly upsetting the rathtar as it slid it's stumps through the door.

The seated woman hesitantly started to shed the thick coils while Mitch turned back to Ysanne.

"I'm already upset with you, Isard. Assuming I live long enough to return to the ship, if you are not tucked up in bed and asleep, I will make sure that you have to sleep on your tummy between here and Coruscant."

Ysanne stepped in front of the Twi'lek, looking up at him with a determined expression. "I am not going anywhere. How can I help?"

Nifesta had an angry retort ready to burst forth, but got interrupted by the door bouncing into his back, and he had to brace himself not to fall into the young woman. He raised the lightsabre hilt between them. "You know what this is, I assume."

"It'll be up your choob in a minute if you don't stop asking stupid questions." Ysanne's mouth fell open as her brain caught up with what she had just said, her look of shock matching the Twi'lek's own. "Um, I'm sorry; I-DOWN!"

Mitch dropped into a squat and fanned the re-ignited the laser sword through the waist of the assassin who had just stepped up behind him, same time as Isard shot him in the chest, the top half flying away to land several metres away in the dirt.

He rose quickly to block Ysanne's view of the killer's still-standing hip and legs, handing her the hilt and diverting her attention to the doorway; the truck behind him making metallic battering sounds as the rathtar re-doubled its efforts to get out. "Take this and her inside. Use the lightsabre to cut a hole in the wall big enough for you and the civilians to get through, but not this thing in here."

"That's your plan?" She stepped back to look along the truck's side towards the elven agent. "Yav, check the drivers cab. Let me know if you can reverse this thing."

"Roger." Yavinelf leaned up to pull the heavy door open, and grabbed hold of what he could to haul himself up into the high seat.

Isard spun to the open doorway and called into the darkness. "Hey, pack up your stang-" The sting across her bottom pushed her shoulder into the rended doorframe, and she had to shut her eyes and bite her lip not to cry out.

"Sorry, reflex action. Language."

"-pack your stuff up and get out of there."

"But what do we pack?" The shrill voice sounded from inside.

Nifesta leaned past Ysanne. "Precisely nothing. We don't have a lot of time to play with here. Is anybody else in there with you?"

Behind them, the rattling and crashing from inside the truck increased in volume.

"That...thing isn't calming down," Mitch murmured into the girl's ear, joining her in the doorway to help coax the rodian out.

* * * *

In the drivers' cab, Yav had found the white plastic activation card slotted into it's uniquely designed tray, so the vehicle could be moved and driven if they needed to.
Plus the buttons, pedals and steering wheel to provide locomotion and directions were labelled for simplicity. Which suited him just fine.

He did a double take and stared at a grainy holo image of what he assumed was in the cargo space behind. A large, postule-covered globe covered with numerous flexible tentacles. it was bouncing off the walls and ceiling and slapping against the increasingly dented surfaces with several limbs at a time.

A thin shard of light from a slightly ajar door at the far end of the metallic boxey interior cast across the hellish-looking creature.

Yav did not immediately discern the relevance, until, Hold on. Ajar?. " His eyes widened, shrilling, "Guys?"

* * * *

Ysanne accepted the Twi'lek's proximity at first, then felt the hairs on the back of her neck straighten as the significance seeped into her mind. "You're leaning on me." She pointed out, not yet able to vocalise what she needed to.

"So?"

"Soo, who's holding the truck door closed?"

Nifesta backed away from her and spun round, just as the truck's back door snapped open, batting him away down the outside wall, sprawling in the sand.

"Ysanne!" Yav yelled, seeing this happen in the door mirror. He opened the door and jumped out, running back and bringing the Root spell up in his mind, already saying the words to cast as the thickly tentacled nightmare emerged from the back of the van. It was a huge red and yellow fleshy sphere, easily ten feet across, covered with dozens of eyes of various sizes.

Green shoots of the like that Tatooine's parched sands had not seen before, sprang up from the packed dirt directly beneath the Rathtar as it held itself aloft with its lower pseudopods, the magical vegetation intertwining with the creature's limbs to trap it.

He halted, the struggling creature between himself and the dark doorway. "Ysanne, get out of there!"

"We can't, that thing is in the way!" She called from inside, her voice high with hysteria, now that she could see the thing that had been wildly rocking the large vehicle.

"You have to do something, that will only hold it for a few seconds."

"This way!" The female rodian grabbed for Isard's hand and tugged her after her, opening a door and slapping a circular fixture on the wall to the right of the doorway. White lights in the ceiling glowed down upon a surprisingly nice-looking bathroom with white tiles on the walls and fixtures that were no strangers to similar rooms in the Core.

The Rodian turned and locked the door while Isard gaped in amazement.

"Wow, this is better than I expected."

"Well, we're not slave scum."

The Republic agent spun on the balls of her feet and delivered an open-handed slap across the taller being's face, knocking her sideways into the wall and sliding down it to sit at her feet so that Isard was able to rage down at her. "Hey, you want to get rescued, you knock that brix off!"

She hesitated, for the woman was a little too still for her liking, and upon looking closer, she could see that one of the mushroom-like antenna and side of the femme's head was crushed in, glistening with fluid welling up from within the crushed skull.

Ysanne glanced at her own right palm, slowly closing and opening the fingers. It was like she did not know her own....strength.

"Oh stang."

Her breath shallow, she recalled Yav buffing her and himself earlier, just before they entered the town.

Perhaps she should have gone back to the ship after all. Like a good girl. At least the civilian would still be alive. She had only stayed to help out.

She retreated from the corpse, feeling blindly for the fresher seat that she had seen in there beside the wash basin. The back of her knees felt the edge of the seat through the thick fabric of the Sith trousers and she sat heavily, too big to fall through the waste ring.
She stared unfocused at the nightgowned form before her, and eventually a thought wormed its way into her consciousness.
Hadn't there been a male Rodian?

"Ah-ah-ah-aaaahhhhhh!!!!" Sounded from beyond the doorway as if to punctuate the point.

Ysanne sprang off the toilet seat and grabbed hold of the dead woman's feet to pull her away from the door, her skull hitting the tiled floor with a sickening smack.

She unlatched and pulled the door open, in time to see kicking legs disappear into a sharp-toothed nightmarish maw of the multi-eyed Globe of Death.
She slammed it shut and re-latched it, pushing the chromium bolt home into its little hole in the wall, backing away, stumbling a little when the back of her foot hit the dead femme's shoulder.

"Princess?" Nifesta's voice sounded from her wrist comlink. He had had the sense to have the pink-strapped device outside the taped up sleeve. "What's your status?"


To be continued...

 

Wow, you've been active here, and I was just treated to a nice multi-chapter splurge!

And, ahem, this isn't going as planned, is it?

I loved the moment when Ysanne is showing off on the wall with her gymnastics moves. Once more, she proves that she's good at what she'd doing, but not quite that good yet that her gun doesn't swing straight into her face And now, having seen it from her POV, I can understand why her relationship with Mitch is, errrr, complicated. Yes, he wants to keep her safe, but spanking? Seriously?

Interesting world-building about the Rodians here – both the idea of extending the extermination of the Tetsu clan to those who are on other planets (that's nowhere in canon, is it?) and the idea that, even in this context, there's always someone below you in the food chain. The Rodian woman got her just deserts for the "slave scum" comment, but Ysanne overdid it a bit, and, well, this rescue is turning into a disaster.

Fantastic use of the Rathtars too! The action sequence is very well-written (loved the bit about Yav having a go at the Rathtar with his magic) and, again, great world-building with the idea that Rathtars are Sarlaccs that were bioengineered to be mobile. I may borrow that for a fic, if that's okay with you

 

Circumstances required that I accelerate my posting schedule, just in case.

I am glad that you were not overwhelmed by it, and were still able to give feedback

The Tetsus and Grand Protector thing is totally on Wookiepedia, though I cannot say that I have seen it anywhere in Legends or Canon.

It forms the basis of my SPAGETTI organisation, in the Fanon thread; the Tetsus clan trying to fund a response.

Thank you for the feedback on the Rathtar sequence.
That creature was the first inspiration that I got from The Force Awakens and is as central to this fic as the Yav and Ysanne getting together.
Conversely, the problem is going to come when the plot steers towards actually getting to Shmi, since not a whole lot of thought has gone into that.

You are welcome to use my Rathtar idea. I have a write-up that the Holowan Corporation did this, but their cover up of the ensuing disaster, is why most believe this is a naturally occuring animal.

Lastly, Isard's...forthright personality, probably works best when other adults know that she is one as well.
Mitch is in what he considers a loco parentis situation. He has this child to look after, way too young to be on missions; aggressively talking back to him and telling fibs. Something had to give.

Many thanks for continuing to read and review.

 

...Continued

"I-" She hesitated, not ready to admit that she had killed the woman. This was her first known instance of collateral damage. "I couldn't save them. They're both dead."

"Okay, never mind. Well, the Rathtar is in the house. Where are you?"

"I'm in the bathroom. Trapped."

"Well, obviously trapped; I didn't think you were having a, uh, doing Number Twos. Yav', go get Carter."

She heard her spy partner in the background, refusing to leave her.

"Don't worry, I've got this."

"You can say what you like, I am not leaving her. Besides, its your fault she's trapped in there."

"My fault? I TOLD you to take her back to the ship!"

This almost brought a smile to her face. Girls at school, and some of the female cadets at the Republic Intelligence schools, had proudly talked about cute males arguing over them. Hadn't been Ysanne's cup of chakroot, and there was nothing cute about the overbearing Twi'lek, but she felt a stirring of something approaching pleasure at the argument going on outside, whilst she was in this white-tiled bubble of safety.

"Hold on Yav'. Princess, do you still have the lightsabre?"

She fished the hand with the comlink down into the deep V of her crossed-over tunic, and felt the metal cylinder nestled against the ribs on her left side. "Yes, Uncle Mitch."

"Good girl. Okay, point it away from you and turn it on using the activator on the side. Tell me when you have done so."

"Roger that." She acknowledged. "Stand by."

She fished the cylinder out from her tunic, and checked which end had the belt hook, and which end had the focussing crystal, then stretched the arm holding it out in front of her, aiming the business end away and thumbing the activator along the metal.

A coherent blue-white light blade thrummed into hummy life, reflecting off the wall tiles.

"It's on." She reported. Accidentally slaying the housewife on the floor behind her had shaken her enough to not argue with the Twi'lek.

"Okay, cool. I am having Yav' move the truck so that it is blocking the front door."

She frowned at the comlink. "Won't that trap it in here with me?"

"Well, your job is to cut your way out with a hole small enough for you to get out, but keep the Rathtar contained." The voice paused, leaving her alone with the humming blade, drinking in the ethereal glow. "Think you can manage that?"

She blinked. "Y-yes." She stepped to the opposite wall, having to pull aside a thin plastic shower curtain to see it, the lightsabre aimed down at her side.
She looked down and then behind her, seeing that she had burned a shallow trough into the floor, but no matter, the couple were past caring.

Isard lifted the weapon and pushed the tip into the wall at shoulder height, the material around the coherent plasma pole crackling, turning black then orange, and then melting to a form of molten lava, all within a matter of seconds.

Behind her, the door rattled with an impact from the other side. It was not repeated, so she guessed that one of the beasts tentacles had randomly struck it.

The lithe intelligence agent sidestepped from being beside the hilt, to behind it, so that she could use her weight to push on the pommel, aiming to get it all the way through the moisture-stained obstacle before she started trying to cut a line.

She kept her right fist around the hilt while she leaned forwards and used the fingers on her other hand to prise loose tiles that were threatening to pop off the wall with the heat, and helping them drop noisily into the ceramic base of the shower.

"How is it going in there?"

"I have started cutting my way through." She reported into the comlink. "Not much attention from the Rathtar. I am trying not to make too much noise."

"Okay, good thinking. Now listen." There was a short pause, during which she wiped at the perspiration that she could feel on her brow from the heat washing over her. "Either they have a lot of night-time firefights around here, or they are a lot of heavy sleepers. I am not seeing anyone emerging from their houses; you might find yourself cutting your way into the home of someone still asleep, or huddled in the one place they feel safe. So be careful."

She nodded though he could not see her, and wiped at her face again. "Copy that."

Wiggling the hilt, she found there was not much resistance from the wall, encouraging her to start pulling it downwards while keeping the hilt and blade horizontal.

Molten material glowed and pulsed heat towards her as it bulged and flaked off in large pancakes of yellow-hot magma, collecting at the foot of the wall, charring the bits of tile already there.

The progress was too slow for the young agent, so she pulled and pushed at the handle, effectively sawing her way down the wall.
The width of the blade, plus the molten material around it, was creating a channel through the wall, but one way too thin for her, so she would need to cut a long rectangle down the barrier.

She bent at the waist, then at the knees, to get the line cut down as far as appropriate, while behind her, the bathroom door banged and rattled alarmingly, presumably from another random swipe of the rathtar's heavy tentacles.

As dangerous as the things clearly were, they did not seem too bright.

She pulled the lightsabre out, careful to sidestep any hot gobbets that splashed along the floor near her feet. She lifted the weapon and stabbed it into the cooling space at the top of the gash she had made, and pulled it sideways, the wall resisting, but not much.
She pulled it along a good fifteen inches, then pulled down to create a parallel vertical slice in the wall, blinking perspiration out of her eyes, and using the rough black sleeve to wipe her face dry.

The comms chatter from Nifesta and Yav had gone silent, though she could faintly hear a slow bleep bleep that she associated with reversing vehicles and surmised that that was what one of the them was doing with the rodian's transport.

****

Back in the driver's seat, Yavinelf Dangerrescue felt the bump of his back hitting the seat padding as the truck's backward motion was arrested.

He applied the brakes, and shuffled over to the left side of the cab so that he could look through the side door mirror to check on the rodian on that side.

Yep, he was still down. Good.

Yav pushed his hands down on the seat to help himself shuffle back to the right, and lowered himself carefully out the open door till his boots hit the packed down sand of the thoroughfare.
On both sides, the windows to the buildings were dark. Still no-one coming out to see what the racket was.

* * * *

Ysanne emerged onto an elevated walkway, gingerly bringing her trailing leg through the hole she had made, so as to not tag anything hot and flammable.

Across a junk-strewn floor beneath her, at the far end she spotted a pull-up barrier in rusted brown metal, while below and to her right, which she had to step forward and glance over a welded durasteel safety railing to see, several diminutive beings in brown hooded robes, gathered around a rusting hulk of a landspeeder, which looked like it had been dragged through a warzone.

They were all looking her way already, so she had a clear view of their twin glowing eyes within the dark recesses of their hoods, eyes which looked more artificial than organic.

Their silence was eerie, which she broke first.

"You fellas won't want to hang around." She pointed back the way she had come, where the pristine white bathroom contrasted like crazy with this garage or chop shop, or whatever it was. . "There's a monster right behind me." She took her eyes off them, glancing left and right along the junk strewn walkway, to see which way led down to their level, or showed a way out.

One of the creatures at the rear of the angular-hulled vehicle, and with a better angle to see where she had come through, pointed past her and jabbered in a high-pitched tone, "Manootah! (Hole!)" She noticed that it wore a bandolier of brown leather pouches going from shoulder to what she assumed would be a hip, seeing as the short thing's robe went all the way to the floor.

"Yes, from back there." Keeping the humming lightsabre where they could see it, she moved away from them to her left, hurrying to where she had spotted diagonal railings heading down, and where she figured steps would be. She picked up her pace at the sound of thin metal being battered and bent. "That thing is coming through!"


To be continued

 

Wow, what a wild ride!

First of all, interesting choice of speaker for your prompt , because as Mitch notes, A.) who that has actually met Yoda would accuse him of cowardice and B.) it’s in correct grammatical order. Hmm, what’s up with that? And a very intriguing mission that he presents the company—to rescue Shmi Skywalker, er “Carter”. I must be too suspicious because I mistrust the Council’s motives in “rescuing” her, what with the whole non-attachment doctrine. What is it they want or need from her?

Our three intrepid agents certainly have a unique dynamic, don’t they? Ok, Mitch, I get that everyone is a child to you, but you might want to leave off cutting up Ysanne’s food and trying to dress her in cute frocks, or at least spanking her. It’s a bit inappropriate, even if you are her adopted uncle. Meanwhile, Ysanne, yes, you’re a grown-up now, so you should know that plush animals will not hurt you. Shove them all in a closet if you can’t bear their beady eyes looking at you. Yav is kind of interesting, because as I understand, he’s somehow been transported from the Everquest universe to the GFFA, so I find it kind of unusualthat his magic still functions. Is he drawing on the Force to accomplish it?

The three really hit their stride when they're embroiled in danger! I have to wonder what the unfortunate Rodian couple did to not only have the Rodian Grand Protector order their execution, but to have that execution carried out by rathtar! Seems like a bit of overkill (pardon the pun) and as potentially fatal to those carrying out the sentence as it's intended victims! I'm not sure that any of them are lucky that Mitch and co. were in the wrong place at the wrong time. I kind of feel for young Ysanne here; she hasn't become the hardened, cynical head of the ISB we're used to seeing, with the way she takes the opportunity to enjoy some fancy moves as she skips across the roof and her distress at killing the female Rodian and being unable to to save the male. She just keeps going out of the frying pan, into the fire and, well, into more fire, or maybe lava, trapped in the bathroom with the rathtar outside and having to cut her way out with Mitch's lightsaber! I hope the unfortunate Jawas can get away before they become snacks!

How will our heroes finally defeat the monster? Will they ever find Shmi? And what’s the significance of the name “Carter”? We need answers to these questions!

 

Ah, @Raissa Baiard , thank you ever so much for such a meaty review, and I am impressed that you read so much of it, in one sitting.

I am glad that you liked my choice of person to deliver the opening challenge line; this was back in 2015, so I cannot recall if much thought went into that choice.

There is no in-story significance to the "Carter" name. Get Carter was the title of a Michael Caine thriller that I have always enjoyed; and since the central mission was to go get someone, it seemed apt to marry the two together.

Before Anakin set off to rescue his mother in Attack of the Clones, he had been reporting nightmares about her for months, and I always felt that the Jedi Order could have headed off a lot of trouble by either allowing him to investigate, or arranging for her to be transferred to Coruscant, so that latter idea is what is being explored here; Master Yoda having Mitch pick up the other two from the end of their own Clone Wars mission, and take them on an off-the-books operation outside of Republic' space.

So the jedi don't actually want anything from Shmi; they just want to alleviate the source of Anakin's nightmares, before he, um, goes and does something rash.

Yav's magical fuel is sort of self-contained. In Everquest, his race just have to sit down and relax to replenish their store of 'mana', and different spells take up concise amounts of the stuff before he has to recharge.

The crime of 'living, while Tetsus'. The entire Tetsus clan, which by the way, includes Greedo, has been sentenced for execution. So it is not necessarily anything that these two did themselves. This is how genocides work.
I remember briefly considering if Mitch should make an extra-judicial hit on this Grand Protector fella, as he threatens to, here, but I don't know if that will ever happen.

I see her as a younger version of the female Russian agent in the James Bond film, The Spy Who Loved Me, which a sequence of, I use as the mission that Ysanne and Yav are finishing off, when Mitch turns up.

That agent, is already hardened, has a pack of half-a-dozen burly KGB minders, but if someone takes them out, there is not a whole lot that she can do by herself if her unarmed combat and handgun doesn't stop the opponent.

So, Ysanne, here, had already progressed to being a hardnosed young woman, who also heavily relies on people's fear of her Dad, Armand Isard; comes up against Mitch Nifesta, a senior authority figure who completely invalidates her adult behaviour, and takes away any barriers to stop her playing a younger role.

I love how you put this.

I haven't a clue. Much of my imagination has been on the Mitch, Yav, and Ysanne dynamic; and their intervening in the rathtar incident. I don't have the end games worked out yet.

 

To be continued...


Mitch and Yavinelf peered through the vertical slit between the edge of the hovertruck’s right rear corner, and the hovel’s doorframe, at the giant ball of hideous flesh that railed and swiped at the furniture and walls with its tangle of industrial cable-sized tentacles.

It did not seem to notice that it had been blocked in by the vehicle that they stood beside.

“If the man of the house survived the teeth, he might still be whole in there.” The half-elf operative pointed out, aiming his forefinger like the barrel of a blaster through the gap. “If you could cut your way through the back-“

Mitch looked aside at his shorter peer. “How about nooope. How about you get yourself eaten, grab hold of the victim, and Gate the both of you out of there? Besides, your little princess has my lightsabre, still.”

Yav scowled through the slit. “My little princess? I’m not the one who calls her that!”

“Girlfriend, then.”

“Um, she’s not my girlfriend.”

“Well, give it time. It meant a lot of to her, what you did for her, back on Iskalon.” Nifesta advised, returning his attention to the trapped Rathtar. “I think you two could be keepers.”

Yav shifted back to the Twi’lek’s earlier statement. “Gate would only evacuate me-”

“So good for constipation, then?”

“-not me and the casualty. Hang on.” The BESI agent straightened and peered suspiciously up at Mitch. “How do you know about ‘Gate’?”

“What do you think the ‘I’ in SGIS stands for, ‘ice rink’? It’s ‘intelligence’, Bucko. It’s our job to know these things.” Nifesta had no plans to reveal that the Secret Galactic Intelligence Service had had an elf medtech working with them at one point.
He did not know the particulars; maybe his Yavscout was hiding out from this Yavinelf.

“Well, if you are so clever, how do we kill it?”

* * * *

Ysanne made it across the garage till she got to the exit door, her gaze darting about to find the controls to lift it or open it, and after a few seconds, it occurred to her to look low enough for these diminutive drokkers to use it, rather than what would be normal for her, and spotted the UP and DOWN arrowed buttons about knee high, and to her left, set into the crumbling brickwork.

She took a quick glance over her shoulder, the occupants having made no move to pursue her, possibly because of her still lit and humming lightsabre.

She stepped over to the controls, the barrier immediately rising noisily, all rattling chains and fluidics.

The SBI agent waited until the linked metal rows that formed the hatch had risen to chest height, then ducked under it into the night, using the available light behind her to find the control's exterior twin, so that she could close the exit behind her.

There was a high wall in front of her, topped with coils of razor wire, that she realised was for the spaceport. There was no point walking to her left, for that was a cul-de-sac. Really, what she wanted was the Slave Row where this Shmi lived, and according to Yav earlier, that was in the opposite direction to the way that they had come.

She extinguished the lightsabre, and tucked it back into her tunic, then pulled her night-goggles down over her eyes, which showed the alleyway around her in shades of green, and looked towards the cul-de-sac end again. Unless she wanted to try creeping past Yav and Uncle Mitch, or simply re-joining them, the blocked route looked like it was her best bet for going after the elder Skywalker, and completing this mission her darned self.

She already had experience of climbing a local wall, and coupled with the Twi'lek's advice about watching the stability of local rooftops, she reckoned that she could do so again. She headed that way, picking up her pace a bit.

Ysanne dug her fingers and the toes of her boots into the crumbling mortar of the wall, and scaled it to the top, snaking one arm over the rough brickwork to help anchor herself enough to slip the lightsabre out and under the razor wire.
The light would damage her sight, if her eyes were open whilst she was wearing the night-goggles, and would temporarily ruin her night vision if she had her eyes open so close to her face.

Steadying herself, she shut her eyes, thumbed the activator on, still detecting the brightness through her eyelids, quickly swept the blade up, and thumbed the thing off, opening her eyes again.

The edges of the now-separated coils were brighter with the heat of the plasma blade, and she used her right fist, still holding the jedi weapon, to pull the durasteel spirals aside.

When the coils were hanging down on either side of her, the young Coruscanti brought her right knee up. laid her lower leg along the brickwork, and used it as an anchor and leverage to bring the rest of herself up to straddle it, and tucked the hilt inside the thick fabric of her belted coarseweave top, nestling it against the thin yellow top, that she wore underneath.

Then she turned herself round so that her front hung over the wall's other side, and carefully lowered her feet towards the sandy ground.
She bent her knees to absorb the impact of the drop, then turned away from the wall, to find herself at the town entrance where she and the other agents had first entered Mos Espa, with the twilight desert to her right, and the town innards to her left.

Ysanne wiped her gritty palms together to clean them.

The night time cold was harsh on them, but she had been through SBI climate training, and was able to ignore the discomfort.

It wasn't as bad as the frigid waters flooding through Thromberg's installation, for instance.

The agent went jogging to her left, towards the intersection where she had jumped off the first wall, to the Twi'lek's annoyance; then, instead of cutting left as they had in pursuit of the suspicious Rodians, she went right, after this Slave Row location where Shmi Skywalker was supposed to be holed up, unaware that this was likely to be her lucky night.

****

"She's no longer in there." Mitch announced, taking a step back from the habitat door as he stared down at his raised wrist-communicator.

Yavinelf squinted up at the tall alien. "Wha-what? I mean, how do you know?"

The SGIS agent dropped his arm and looked down at the half-elf. "A. The Force. And B, her signal is heading-" Now he raised his other hand and pointed it with two fingers straight like a slightly open scissors, back the way they had come. "-thataway."

"You bugged her?"

"And how!" Nifesta quipped, under no illusions as to how annoying she must find grown-ups unwilling put up with her guano.

Yav gritted his teeth and counted to five in his head. "I mean, you placed a tracking device on her?"

"Maglev kid-carer (loco parentis) must just be a collection of syllables for you." He started to re-trace their steps, abandoning the bulging hovervan and the stunned or dead assassins. "Rule Three of taking a disobedient child to work with you, on a hostile planet, at night time, outside of your jurisdiction. Try not to let her out of your sight, but make sure to put a tracer on the little barvelet (piglet)."

"Rule Three? What's Rules One and Two?"

"Don't take her to work with you. Failing that, have a responsible adult take her back to the ship, the moment you discover a monster in a van." He glanced aside at the half-elf, adding dryly. "Thanks for doing that, by the way."

Reluctantly trailing after him, now that he had bought into how dangerous the trapped creature could be to the local population, Yav asked, "Er, speaking of which, what about the creature?"

"Oh, I'm sure I had a plan to deal with that. But for the moment, securing Ysanne and Shmi take priority."

****

Ysanne glowered into the night as Nifesta's voice ringing out of her wrist-com, ruined her stealth mode.

"Princess? Where ARE you?"

Sighing, she lifted the wrist-communicator up so that she could respond into it. "I'm going after Shmi myself, to prove to you that I am old enough, and capable enough, to be in the field."

"I would ask you to flounce back here, but-"

"I do not flounce!" She retorted with indignation.

Mitch's voice laughed from her comlink. "Ysanne, you flounce like a champion!" When his voice finished chuckling, he added, "I'm transmitting two hundred S-A-T words to your comlink."

She halted, kicking up some of the cold sand under her feet. "What?!"

"Not 'what'. Pardon."

She opened her mouth-

"Say. It."

She froze, feeling that the Twi'lek's tone brooked no argument. Despite herself, she repeated his replacement word, while carefully looking around her with increased caution. "Pardon."

"Good. Now, every five standard minutes, you are to say one of the words down the comlink to us, spell the word, say the word again, and then use it in a coherent sentence."

"And why in the Twin Suns would I want to do that?" She looked deep into the shadows as she walked past them, where the dark was even darker than that afforded by the night-time streets that she was strolling along.

"Think of it as a collective Avoid Being Put Over My-"

The sound of Yav' strategically clearing his throat, drowned out a key part of that threat, though Isard did not need to be an intelligence analyst to get what the missing words might be.

"-oment I catch up with you. And after I have stunned Yav-"

"Hey!"

"Plus, it will reassure Yav and I that you are still alive."

"You have got to be-" She stopped herself, though she had an expletive locked and ready to go. She was already in enough trouble, and the Twi'lek's ship was her only way out of here.

She stopped and peered into the gloom behind her, wondering if she should just go and rejoin the two older agents. Her raised comlink pinged, and she used one hand to push her night goggles up her forehead, to allow her eyes to glance down at the glowing display screen without blinding herself. She could see from the tiny orange text whizzing up the screen that reams of data were being received.


To be continued...

Note: this was how I had planned to tackle the 200 S-A-T word challenge, from before.

 

...continued


The young agent frowned. This was not the work of a moment. Surely the Twi'lek had not just dreamt this guano up. "When do I have to start?"

"Now would be nice. Unless it would be too difficult for SBI's bestest agent."

"Stand by. Let me have a drink first." This was just to feel like she had recovered a small slice of control, but still she fished out the opaque water bottle, her fingers slotting into the ridges up the side of it as she plucked it off her Sith equipment belt, though of course she did not know that that was what it was, and blindly unscrewed the cap to take a swig as she stood in the centre of the street, keeping her senses open.

The fruity sweetness of the dipao juice caught her by surprise, and she raised eyebrows into the darkness; she had only been expecting water.

Sloshing the refreshingly cool liquid around her mouth, and licking some of it onto her lips, Ysanne wondered if all three of them had dipao instead of water. It would not surprise her if her perceived youngling status had singled her out for the liquid treat.

She capped the bottle and returned it to her belt.

The young SBI agent found herself coming around to idea of putting some effort into this unwelcome task, thanks to the provision of the juice. It was those little things...

She glanced down at the word 'Adulation' on the tiny screen. Seriously?

"Alright then, Adulation. A-D-U-L-A-T-I-O-N. Adulation. When I bring back Shmi Skywalker, all on my lonesome, I will be expecting your adulation."

"Okay, good girl. Just a hundred and nine-nine left to go. You've got four minutes to either get back here, or show us what you can do with word number two."

After a pause, during which Ysanne stepped left towards the silhouettes of dwelling that had loomed up out of the gloom, she could overhear the two guys chatting over the open comm line, wherever they were.

"You sent the words to her comlink?" The BESI agent who had rescued her, was asking. "As text?"

"Yep."

Smug drokker. She thought to herself.

"Won't she be able to read it off the screen, when she is doing the spelling?"

".......Good point. Spelling and saying the words aloud, aids the memory though. She is going to learn something out of this, even if it is only how to spell 'adulation'."

"Alright, ready for the second word?" She interrupted.

"Well, you are not here standing next to us, so yeah, go for it."

"Okay then. Adversity. A-D-V-E-R-S-I-T-Y. Adversity. When you stop to think about it, these poor drokkers face adversity every day."

She was trudging alongside the fronts of the hovels, rough-hewn facades and window frames, with sand-pitted metal doors, looking for any with signs of life, rather than silent, dark windows.

"Yeah, try that again without the swearing, Princess."

She smiled into the darkness. At least he had not berated her about the word she had inserted, which was progress of sorts. "Sure thing. Adversity. A-D-V-E-R-S-I-T-Y. Adversity. These people deal with adversity every day."

"Much better."

Ysanne dropped the hand bearing the wrist-communicator to her side, and noted that she could see the road ahead a little bit clearer now, and it took a few seconds to realise that this was not down to her eyes adjusting to the darkness, but a faint flickering glow coming from the windows of a hovel.

"Mm. Candles," she observed aloud, coming to a halt and regarding the sight for a moment.

"Well alright, jump to the Cs if you want to. As long as you don't miss any words out."

She glanced down, too surprised that the voice-pickup was sensetive enough to hear what she had said, without her having to lift the gadget to her face. "Huh?"

"Candles, then. Come on."

Though neither Mitch or Yav would be able to see her doing it, she indicated the hovel ahead, as if it would help explain that she had been talking about it, not the next word on the list. "No-"

"I BEG your pardon?"

The Twi'lek's emphasis on the second word, had her sighing with resignation. "Alright fine, but this is probably a bonus word, unless your list is peppered with easy ones. Candle. C-A-N-D-L-E. There is a house with a candle in the window, that I am going to investigate in a moment."

"Okay, good. Three for three."

"You know you can have five standard minutes between each word, right?" Yavinelf's voice interjected from hip level.

Ysanne ignored both as she glanced around her and walked closer to the abodes, stepping onto the single rough-hewn step fronting the one with the candle, and rapping her knuckles on the door, which sounded like hollow durasteel.

There was the sound of stirring inside, then the gruff sound of an older male voice demanded, "Who is it, this time of night?"

Isard glanced off to the side, momentarily stumped as to how she was supposed to answer. "Hi. Can you direct me to Shmi Skywalker's place, please?" She muted her wrist-comm to prevent Uncle Mitch queering her pitch by interjecting a warning not to talk to strangers.

"Oh, a girlie is it? You alone?"

"Yeah?"

"Well, give me a moment then."

"You can just give me directions through the door if you want." She advised, cognizant to the lawless nature of this place. Who would want to open their doors at night around here?

After several moments of audible movement from inside, the agent's forefinger was tracing a precautionary message into the upper half of sand-encrusted metal, and had completed "YSANNE SPOKE TO" when the door slid sideways into a recess; half the speed of the insane Imperial doors, but still sudden enough that the youngster had to snatch her hand back to avoid getting it trapped, and was frozen with the hand up level with her head, forefinger hooked towards the haggard-faced human male standing before her.

And then her gaze travelled down his unkempt form to the Czerka Arms' blaster that he held in his hand, down at waist level.

She spasmed as blue rings of stun energy washed over her, the whine loud in the silence, her jerking form falling back off the one step, thumping into the sand, her upended view of the open door, fading to darkness.

The last thing she heard before losing consciousness, was his grudgingly approving voice above her. "Well, you weren't lying about being alone, at any rate."


To be continued...

 

This update was brought to you by a 12/07/2019 discussion in The Scribble Pad' thread regarding a "Fic, Interrupted" article. In that it gave me an idea on how to break my block. Skip past what I can't do, and move onto what I can:


...continued

Suspect House, Slave Row, Mos Espa


Mitch and Yav stood before the door with the scrawled message on, one gazing up at the sealed entrance, the other standing by the widely scuffed depression in the sand.

The half-elf pulled a red and off-white sphere from a pocket, the thing casting a bright red glow as soon as it was in the open, lighting up the sand.

"Drag marks." He reported, casually.

The Twi'lek looked round at the BESI agent. "Into the house, or off somewhere?"

"Off somewhere."

"Great."

Yavinelf was worried about his SBI partner, but was more concerned about something else. "She'll be fine. We need to deal with that rathtar."

Nifesta stalked off. "Frag the rathtar. We didn't bring it."

Yav put on a brief burst of speed to overtake the Twi'lek, and stop in his path, turning to him and holding up both palms. "Just wait a moment. Ysanne won't thank you for rushing to intervene. She needs to be allowed to succeed on her own, and if that involves making mistakes, she can learn from doing that."

Mitch stopped to glare down at the half-elf, crossing his arms. "Not if she dies in the process."

"Do me a favour and check with the Force, will she still be alive tomorrow."

"When tomorrow?"

Yav paused, not having thought this far ahead. "I dunno. Say, ten in the morning."

"Fine. Ysanne will still be alive at ten." He cocked his head to listen to the Force, and he got none of the negatively vibed ripples that would cast doubt upon the assertion. "Okay yes, she'll still be alive. But in what-"

"Never mind that." Yav dropped his arms and turned, walking ahead of Mitch, heading back to the cargo truck. "We have the rest of the night to play with, and a rathtar to contain."

Nifesta trailed after his fellow agent. "Why just contain? If we're dealing with it, we really ought to remove it, rather than leave it for the locals. Although, if there are slavers......hang on!"

Yavinelf turned back to Mitch. "Now what?"

"If there is a Slave Row district, then there are actual slaves here?"

"Yes." Yav nodded his agreement. "Yes, that follows."

"Shouldn't we be rescuing them? I mean, we've got all night, according to you."

"Rathtar first. As it is a clear and present danger. Then, if we have the time-"

"We will make time."

****
High Desert

Ysanne awoke to the immediate sensations of a hot face, and a mouthful of foul-tasting cloth, her vision scarlet even though she felt that her eyelids were still closed.

The youthful operative understood the benefits of captors thinking that you were still unconscious, until you were ready for them to know the truth, so kept her eyes shut, her breathing unchanged, and remained relaxed and still while she tried to determine her situation.

From the uncomfortable stretching of the flesh at the sides of her mouth, she figured that she was wearing a gag. Not enough to impede her breathing, thankfully, however she would probably have difficulty making herself understood, if she tried to vocalise before it got removed.

Her wrists were bound too, and tucked close to her chin. She ever so slightly, scissored them against each other, just enough to try to work out how she was bound. They were not completely immobilised, so unlikely to be Force Cuffs, thick bands of metal connected to each other by a miniature tractor beam.
She was not feeling the thin metal of regular handcuffs slicing into her flesh, nor plastic ties.
She reckoned that she had been tied up with fabric, though her ankles seemed to be free, and she could not sense any other constrictions, anywhere on her body.

Not concerned about me running then. She thought, considering what her preliminary findings meant. Or could mean. Perhaps he ran out of things to tie me up with.

She could feel a subtle vibration through her back, and started ruminating on that: Elevation changes. So we're moving. Vehicle, repulsor or hover capability.

She could feel tucked up, not quite in a fetal position, but her knees were up, her back pressed down onto a soft surface, whilst her right elbow felt pressed up against the same, so she was thinking landspeeder seating. She clearly had the whole thing, so , what, she was in the back seat?

Under her eyelids, her eyes flicked left towards the sound of a cough. Sounded very close, too close. However, unless whoever had taken her, had a partner to drive, or a droid, he ought to be looking away from her and concentrating on getting them- -to the scene of the accident, she thought grimly, a nasty smile curving around the torn rag in her mouth, as she recalled how IPRC's veteran pod-racing pundit, Mart Vrund'l, would refer to wherever a pod was smashed into, scattering bits of itself along lines of momentum.

Despite being trussed up in back of a landspeeder, being driven into the desert of an unknown planet, Ysanne was in no doubt that at the end of the day, figuratively at least, she was going back to Coruscant, safe and well aboard the Darth Unlucky.

However, in that outcome, Mitch Nifesta was either going to regard her as trusted peer who had found and brought in Shmi Skywalker; or as the defiant little girl who had needed rescuing.

She had eyes! She had seen other younglings - dammit, Ysanne, you are not a youngling - that despite being warned and told to behave, had carried on misbehaving till their parent or guardian had dealt with it.

Unshakeable confidence that she was getting saved, was easily better than feeling lost and abandoned, like she had on Iskalon before Yav had showed up; however, as sure as night followed day, her rescue would be swiftly followed by her being pulled over Mitch's lap, and getting soundly spanked for being sooo naughty that she had gotten herself kidnapped..., no, if she wanted any chance of controlling the narrative, she needed to get herself the heck outta this.

I'm SBI, I should be able to handle that! Isard focused on the little finger of her right hand, and waggled it for a few seconds.

No response from the driver. No sign that he had seen the movement, and knew that she was awake. Just his presence, and the vibrating purr of the vehicle under her as it continued on it's way, the warm breeze pushing a sprinkle of particulates across her face. Additional reason not to open her eyes at the moment.

Getting her face to her fingers, or her hands up to her face, to brush that stuff clear off her eyes, might be too much movement for her pretense of slumber to remain, however she was increasingly waggling her digits of both hands, like they were an unseen flower in front of her.

The SBI agent really did not want to touch the cloth with her tongue, but it was necessary if she was going to learn if she could bite through it. It tasted dry, and foul, and she had to concentrate to resist audibly gagging.

*

In time, Ysanne felt the quality of the vehicle hum changing, the landspeeder slowing, clearly they were arriving at their destination.

She had already cracked one eye open, and squinted around enough to determine that the speeder that she was in the back off, was a decades old Sorosuub V-19. Sometimes called a "Gian" for some odd reason.

A classmate of hers, 11-year old girl from Savareen, had had a theory that it was based on a term that her people had, to describe something dramatically leaving at speed, "Gee-yarn."

She mentally shrugged. It was possible.

The vehicle stopped, the driver leaving the engine running while she could hear movement, and the craft shifting on it's centre of gravity.

"Alright girlie, I and leaving you here for the Ghorfa. Pretty youngling like you, you are worth ten hubba gourds."

Isard had no idea what in Oseon he was talking about. Ghorfa? Hubba gourds?

She kept her eyes closed, not reacting to his voice, and felt the speeder dip deeply to one side, which ought to be him climbing out, then within seconds, felt the soft spikes of a crinkly material scrape and jab at the nape of her neck as she was roughly grabbed at the back of her collar, and pulled out of the speeder.

Now she reacted, opening her eyes and bringing both her hands up to try to grab him and pull him down to her, and bringing her knees up as hard and fast as she could to strike him in the head with them.

The initial moves failed, with him too far back for her knees to reach, and her hands already compromised by being together, fingers slicking down the chest what appeared to be a dusty silver vacsuit, so she extended the move into a backward roll, getting her legs around what turned out to be the hard shell of a visored space helmet, rather than his head, and squeezing whilst he straightened and backed off, pulling her upside-down form out with him, the SBI agent inter-twining her fingers as best she could and double-fisting him in the groin area, which did connect, eliciting a groan as he folded up, her weight taking them both to the sandy ground, by way of her back hitting and sliding down the speeder's side, and her shoulder - Ysanne spotted the danger and swung to shift her angle and protect her head - pile-driving into the ground.


To be continued...

 

Continued...

High desert


Ysanne was stunned for a moment, and concentrated on keeping her legs hooked around her kidnapper's helmet, just to stay in the game.

He must have put it on when stopping, as she had seen him without it earlier in the journey, and she had chosen not to attack him then. Not to mention, the way that she had been placed in the back seat, she hadn't had the angle to neutralise any counter-attack, if he was armed.

She pulled him down towards her, till she was on her back, and twisted at the hips to force him down next to her, so that she could roll onto him, then spin around on him to orient herself so that her top, and his top were now aligned, her bruised, gagged face, reflected in the silver faceplate of his helmet.

Isard settled astride him, knees clamped to his sides, and clubbing his helmet and visor with her doubled-fists, directly into the visor, as well as hitting the helm from the left, and from the right, the adrenalin making her attack pain free, but she wasn't making any impression on his head protection, beyond smearing her blood on and beside his visor.

Eventually, his gloved hands clamped under her ribs, and with a heave, and arching of his body, tossed her aside, away from the speeder.

The young girl went with it, using the momentum to roll to her knees, rise up, and run away across the golden sand flats. She had already figured out that he was not openly armed, unless there was something concealed in his sleeves.

Stumbling slightly as the sand inclined unexpectedly underfoot, she noticed a dark slash in the otherwise uniform-coloured grains, several metres ahead of her, that seemed out of place, but it was not enough to change her course, as she needed to get out of her attacker's line of sight to find somewhere to hide.

A bipedal figure exploded out of the ground in front of her, in a geyser of sand, and without any chance to avoid it, she used her momentum to kick one leg up to it, then launch herself off the ground, bringing her trailing leg up to join the first, and double kick whatever this was, in its centre mass.

It was like torpedoing a brick wall, and she slammed into the ground, half on her right side, pain shooting into her right elbow and shoulder.

"Uh." She groaned and squinted up at the being.

Swathed in tan-coloured rags, that covered it from a tightly bandaged head to its boots, the thing had brown leather-looking bandolier pouches crossed over its chest, and bore a long stick-like club in both hands. There were metal protuberances from head coverings to accommodate eyes and breathing, as well as four 'horns' along the top of the skull, two on each side.

Two other versions of itself had risen from the sand, several metres to each side of it, closer to her.

The central one waved it's stick above its' head and gave off a piercing, unsurprisingly alien vocalisation that chilled the young agent to her core. "Wurr-ah AH-AH-AH!!!"

If part of her hair wasn't already white...

****

Darkness, pain, something burning somewhere.

Beyond these initial sensory impressions, the young SBI agent was roused by the pain in both wrists, and her right shoulder and elbow and the sound of someone softly saying, "Hey there, sleepy head."

Isard carefully cracked her eyes open, fairly quickly finding that her face was resting on her still-bound hands, which were in turn, bound to a horizontal length of wood, scattered bits of desiccated bark covering it.

She carefully turned her head to looked left and right along the pole, seeing that it was supported on A-frames at both ends. Doing so hurt her, not only because moving her neck hurt inside, either the bones or the cartilage; but also she could feel that the back of her neck was sunburned, and rubbing against the thick collar of her Sith tunic.

"Well hello." A friendly, if strained, female voice spoke again in the near darkness, prompting her to look past her steepled fingers, across to a barely illuminated face about a metre from her, it's owner similarly bound.

"Good morning." Ysanne smiled. "I'm Ysanne."

"That is a pretty name." The older woman's voice sounded like the throat needed lubricating, making Ysanne wish that she still had her flask.

"Thank you."

"I'm Shmi."

"Sh..Shmi?!" Ysanne stared across at the other woman. "Carter? Uh, I mean-"

"No, Lars."

This shut the bound Isard up. "Oh. I was hoping that you were somebody else. Same first name." She tentatively put weight onto her knees, which she seemed to be kneeling on, all her joints from her shoulders down feeling stiff and frozen from being in the position that she had woken up in. "Anyway, where are we?"

Now, she tried to peer the slightly greater than hundred-and-eighty degree arc that she could see around, as she was constrained by the pole from looking behind her. As her eyesight adjusted to the darkness, she could see that they were inside a very low dome-like structure of currently unknown composition.

"This? We are with the Sandpeople. In one of their encampments."

"What do they want with us?"

"That, I could not tell you. So, uh, which farmstead are you from?"

Ysanne looked back at her fellow captive. "Huh?" The other woman did not respond, as her head had fallen forward enough to rest on the pole that she in turn, was tied to.
She could well imagine that this was the most energy that the woman had expended in a very long time, so the exchange had probably taken it out of her.

That gave her a bit of time to get an account of her surroundings and situation, and to effect an escape. For the next few hours at least, she would remain confident that rescue was likely, even though she'd lost that pink-strapped youngling's wrist-com that Mitch had insisted on putting round her wrist.
She hadn't thought about it when she had struck out on her own, however since then, with time to think, she would be disappointed if he hadn't put a tracker in there. She had been unconscious a lot, so didn't know when she had lost it.

She regretted thinking about her flask, as that reminded her just how dry her mouth was. SBI advocated cleaning a pebble and putting it in your mouth to try to generate saliva, but even if there were any in reach, her hands were suspended up here, so she wouldn't be able to pick one up anyway.

She did the next best thing, selecting a thumb, sticking it out towards herself, and closing her mouth over it.

Please Uncle Mitch, don't walk in while I am doing this. You'll never let me live it down.

That old man that had handed her over. He had taken the flask, the wrist-com. Mitch's lightsabre for Flamewind's sake!

And there was no getting any of that stuff back! She didn't know what that old scumbag had done to his Gian speeder, but as he had pulled away, leaving her with the, the Sandpeople, and gotten a couple hundred metres away, his speeder had exploded.

Fortunately, she had been out cold on the ground, of course awoken by the concussion, so had escaped being hit by the shockwave and any shrapnel, but at least two of the bandaged warriors had been thrown off their feet, and one of the big hairy beasts that they rode, had been killed.

Isard tried to think how she would explain to Mitch why she could not give him his lightsabre back, and squeezed her eyes tightly shut for a moment, dispelling the visual that had flashed into her mind's eye, of her upside-down examining chair legs, her hair brushed the sand, while above her that Twi'lek holding her securely to his lap with one hand as the other deftly pulled her trousers down, exposing the backs of her legs to the harsh sunshine-

She opened her eyes, and took in a ragged breath and let go an audible sob, tears welling up. She could not let that happen. Maybe if she got away, she could catch a ride back to town, try to arrange passage on another starship, or see if she could contact SBI somehow.

Her first idea was to monkey-climb and get her legs up onto the same pole where her hands were, but that would need her to be in a sitting position first, and she was already on her knees, so she tried something with that position first, shuffling closer to the pole to bring herself underneath it, then rise and get her left shoulder underneath it.
With that managed, she rose, taking the weight, hoping to either lift the pole off the two A-frame supports, or if they were tied together, lift the whole caboodle.

"Aaaaahhhh!!" She shut her eyes again, this time to focus on lifting this blasted thing, didn't look that heavy, but seemed to have the weight of a dying star!
It shifted a bit, and she could feel that behind her, that end had lifted, and the minor success gave her extra impetus. She tried to lift her right knee, and get that underneath her, so that she could further up, and unbalance the frame even further.

Baring gritted teeth with the effort, Ysanne slowly became aware of a soft whistling sound coming from outside the dome tent, steadily growing in volume, sounding not unlike a mortar, which she had heard in the battlefield, when indirect artillery pieces were in use, propelling solid projectiles high into the air, with the intention that they land in the enemy territory, with a Death from the Skies sort of motif.


To be continued...

 

To be continued...

Sandpeople Camp


A massive, deafening BOOM coincided with the very ground under the tent jumping up into her, and she had the quick glimpse of a foot-high band of light at the base of the tent as it was bounced into the air along with her, and then they both fell back, and her vision went black...

****

Ysanne felt the fingers of her left hand aching as if crushed, and a scrape along her left temple, with her face pressed into a hard surface,

Opening her eyes, she found that the support that she had been tied to, had fallen over, with the top beam pressing one of her hands into the ground.

She herself had fallen in such as way that the beam was in the natural arch between her jawline and left shoulder.

Lifting her face from the sand, and feeling a layer of sand granules remaining on that side of her face from her hairline down to her left cheek, Ysanne drew back onto her knees and haunches to lessen the weight on the beam, enough to retrieve the trapped hand, which she succeeded in doing, flexing the freed fingers to get some circulation back into them, and to test if they were broken.

Felt fine, but she was still bound to the beam.

She could hear the sounds of consternation outside, variations on the sounds that those sand...people had made after springing up from the dunes as she had tried to escape her abductor.

Mixed in with their sounds, were more modern ones, discharged blasters dialled down to stun force.

That just had to be Yav and Uncle Mitch. Tatooine didn't seem to be the sort of place where stun settings got much of an airing, apart from maybe with bounty hunters whose clients did not want outright kills.

Kneeling there, the young SBI operative pondered calling out to them. Was it worth trying to get out of here, just to avoid Mitch rescuing her, and what she knew would accompany that act?

As she deliberated, her gaze fell upon her fellow captive, getting a better look at the older femme's face as she lay in a similar position to how Ysanne had just awoken, but a near mirror image of it.

"CARTER!" She exclaimed in surprise. For it was the correct Shmi after all, Ysanne recognising a more wrinkled version of the kindly face projected onto the repeater screen within the Darth Unlucky's detachable salon pod, right at the beginning of this mission!

She didn't know where Shmi had gotten the 'Lars' surname from, but she had solved the mission and...actually, she had better check that whomever were bothering the sandpeople, were who she thought they were, before exposing Carter to them.

Using her hands and the entire strapped-together A-frame as a very wide and cumbersome third leg, she shuffled on her hands and knees in starts and stops over to the tent flaps, and was quickly exhausted with strained shoulders by time she got into place, and gratefully collapsed her elbows enough to push her face sideways into the long-dried flaps of brown animal skin, and looked through, Ysanne discovering that it was already too late for her, but conversely fine for Shmi Skywalker, the mauve bulk of the Darth Unlucky parked less than a hundred metres to her front and right, and Mitch Nifesta's imposing silhouette even closer to her, firing expanding circles of blue stun energy from his DC-15 plasma rifle, out-of-sight to her left.

His face turned to her, leading to a humorous-looking double take; then he was running to her, squatting to drop his gun to the ground, then rising again, one strong hand pulling her through the low opening and to her feet, and enveloping her into a relieved hug, his bassy voice rumbling above her head that he was glad that she was safe, as well as: "Err, is that a toddlers swing set in your pocket, or are you just pleased to see me?"

He released her and retreated a few paces to regard the contraption attached to her.

"Wow, when you make something in wood, you really get possessive, don't you." He queried, whilst off to her left, she could see Yav spraying the scurrying sandpeople with blue rings, their roles and ages defined by different types of metal and cloth armour combinations.
For instance, the more diminutive members of the tribe, uniformly had headgear that seemed to be hardened segmented hoods, rather than the skull-tight bandaging of the mature versions that had captured her.

Beyond them, was the bizarre sight of a sandperson tent flattened under what had once been a metal ball, but had suffered terribly from falling out of the sky. Viscous red-brown ichor flowed from large cracks in the crushed metal, and the odd tentacle flopped around spasmodically.

Her curiosity sated as soon as she realised that that was the rathtar with the Rodian truck somehow crushed around it, Ysanne switched gears, snapping her attention back to the taller Twi'lek. "Can you get me out of this or not?" She asked testily.

"Hang on a second, Sweetie." Mitch Force-pulled his DC-15 plasma rifle up into his right hand and fired off a few stun rounds of his own, one swamping the half-elf from behind, and dropping Yav, face first in the sand, a few feet short of a pair of warriors that he had put to sleep himself.

Horrified, Isard rounded on the Twi'lek, glaring up at him. "What the **** are you doing?!"

She didn't even see him move, just felt him pressing alongside her left, an arm over her back and hooking under her right-side rib cage as she was bent over slightly, then feeling and hearing the searing impacts of his other hand audibly WHAPPing across her trousered behind, her bladder giving way, and streaming cool liquid down the insides of her thighs, past her knees, soaking into the thankfully dark cloth of her trousers. She hoped Nifesta didn't have a keen nose.

"That's for bad language." Mitch advised sternly as she felt tears instantly welling up in her eyes. "I strongly recommend that if you plan on misbehaving, that you don't do it wearing trousers, as that way, you'll avoid being punished twice. And you'll be getting another lot in a moment for missing your bedtime, but first let's get rid of this."

She managed to blink away the tears, and retain what was left of her composure, though it had been quite the struggle, both from the pain that she couldn't rub better due to her tied hands and the news that there were more to follow in a very short time. "Noooo." She whimpered, hopping from one foot to another, clenching and un-clenching her burning butt cheeks. In her hurry to prove her independence, she had forgotten that she had a set bedtime.
Even though It had been superceded by their nocturnal sojourn to find Carter, the SGIS agent had no reason to honour it once she had run off to seek adventure.

Nifesta grasped the beam with both hands and lifted it between them, turning it for better leverage.

"Shut your eyes, Princess. Don't want you getting splinters in them, do we?"

She squeezed her eyes shut, and heard a tearing sound, followed by a loud pop, along with several hard particles spraying across her eyelids and the bridge of her nose. She felt the heavy weight fall away from her arms, accompanied by two thuds into the sand on either side of her, and she tried to send a hand round to her backside, only to find her wrists still bound. "Umm, my wrists-"

"Keep them shut, Sweetheart. I want to brush that stuff off your face."

"Okay." Keeping her eyes shut as she held still, the heat of the sun beating down upon her scalp, and still sweltering in the thick tunic, she felt gentle fingertips brushing over her eyes and nose, as well as addressing any sand stuck to the sides of her face.

"You are going to have some sunburn, Kiddo."

"Tell me about it." She returned wryly, then felt him move round to the side of her, arm going over her back to her right side in an echo of the way he had secured her a few moments ago. "Noo-"

"This is what happens to naughty little girls who miss their bedtime."

Ysanne struggled against the reverse embrace, but recognised that she wasn't making any headway. "No, please-"

"I-"

WHAP

Her jaw dropped open, as she looked down at the sand and broken piece of wood, unable to resist how he was holding her in place against him, and though she so badly wanted to retaliate with a boot to his ankles, she remembered from before, how indignant he could get when his 'little girl' started kicking. She couldn't conceive a more punitive demonstration of the phrase, 'adding fuel to the fire'.

"-will-"

WHAP

She whimpered through tightly pressed lips.

"-not-"

WHAP

"-have-"

WHAP

"-my-"

WHAP

"-baby-"

WHAP

"-girl-"

WHAP

"-missing-"

WHAP

"-her-"

WHAP

"-bed"

WHAP

"time."

WHAP

Released and allowed to recover her balance, she was blubbering so much that she could taste the salt tears streaming into the open mouth through which her breath hitched on the way in and out, rivulets of snot glistening against her top lip and preventing her from breathing through her nose.

Later, in a calmer environment, she would probably feel that as an SBI agent, she ought to be able to take more punishment than this, but this Twi'lek when he thought he was dealing with a misbehaving youngling, actively endangering herself with her nonsense, was worse than any adversary that she could imagine.

Feeling her face hot through more than the baking day, and sure that it was pink as anything, she opened her eyes to see him leaning down with his glaring gaze level with hers. "What happens to baby girls who miss their bedtime?"

Not feeling very grown up and defiant, right at that moment, she repeated by rote, her learned lesson. "Th-they get their bottoms smacked."

"Are you going to be missing any more bedtimes?"

She shook her head fervently, wanting only to ask him to free her hands so that she could massage her bum, but didn't think that he would go along for that. She would get no help until he felt that she had learned her lesson.
And she had. Though she felt too old to have such organised stages around her, there was no way that she was missing another one of his.

She must have convinced him, as he called her a "good girl" and patted her head, Isard wondering how many bathtimes and bedtimes she would have between here and Coruscant. She had only joined him at Iskalon, so didn't know the journey time from Tatooine to the Galactic Core.

"Trousers down and off, and wait by your tent."

Ysanne nodded vigourously, totally onboard with getting rid of the soaked clothing, and letting the suns dry her legs. Her hands were already under the front of the heavy belted tunic to reach her zubon (trouser) ties, un-knotting them so that she could pull them down.

He turned to leave, but she called him back, asking him to wait. "Whassup?"

"I...I found Carter!"

Remembrance of that part of the mission, flashed across his face, then Nifesta regarded her with new interest. "You did? Where is she?"

Ysanne shifted on the spot to point with her hands towards the tent behind her, wincing as her bruised cheeks brushed against each other. "In-in th-there."

The Twi'lek marched past her, bending low to hook his free hand under the rim of the chocolate-coloured dome, and lifting it with him as he rose back to his full height, seeming to flip the entire structure away to the point that the wind caught it and rolled it away into some nearby dunes.

Now exposed to the daylight, were the upended form of the Skywalker woman, along with what looked like a large pile of folded coarse tatame cloth, about four feet high.

"Oh, that'll be useful." Mitch opined, looking over Shmi towards it. "I can put you over that. Or sit on it, with you over my-"

"Hey Mitch, focus!" She snapped at him.

Kneeling next to the casualty, the Twi'lek silently regarded her.

Ysanne backtracked instantly. "Uncle Mitch, sorry."

"Better." Nifesta gently drew back the brittle grey hair from Shmi's face, and put a finger to her carotid artery under her jawline. "Alive, but her pulse is weak. You should have told me before I stunned our healer."

Her canvas-type zubons had been negotiated down to her calves, but unable to go down past her boots, requiring Isard to gingerly set herself down onto the sand, within two metres of Nifesta and Carter, negotiating a boot off as best she could whilst bound. "Well, I didn't know that you were going to do that, did I?" She placed the footwear beside her left hip, and leaned forwards to get the other one.

"I literally told you last night, during the spelling bee. Though to be fair, I don't think Yav believed me either." He pulled something from his robe and tossed it to her. "Here, catch. You seem to be responding well to it, so we may as well finish as we've started."

Ysanne caught the maroon-coloured, velveteen object, with both hands, turning it over in her hands, and spying the embroidered initials: JC. "Uncle Jorus's slipper?" Now, this made more sense than her assumption that he had been spanking her with just the palm of his hand.

"Indeed. Perfect for dealing with naughty little girls like yourself, don't you think? Take it over to that pile of tent material over there, and wait for me. I'll bring the fishing rod back though, in case you're still in trousers for some reason. I shall return after I have gotten Carter settled aboard the 'Unlucky." He pulled a black metal lightsabre hilt from his robe, and thumbed it into life, a scarlet energy blade thrumming into existence. A short yellow flame flickered up from Shmi's A-frame, as he pressed the blade into it.

Ysanne was still working on that second boot, watching Mitch stow the extinguished lightsbre inside his robe, laying Shmi on her side into the classic recovery position for humans; when he unexpectedly swivelled towards her, grabbing and twisting up a fistful of the black canvas gathered about her calves, and stood up, upending the SBI agent!

"Hey!" She exclaimed, glaring up at his head from below, her supporting elbows on the verge of collapsing her into the ground.

"Hey yourself. I told you what would happen if you were still in these, when my attention returned to you. And Carter can keep for a few moments."

She could see through her mostly bare legs that he had pulled out the aforementioned fishing rod, and was angling both himself and her to find an opening to use it. "Hey, whoa I've almost got them off!"

She felt mortified as she felt her underwear peeling itself off her hips, and could only look on as, with neither of them in a position to physically touch them, her sodden panties slid up to her knees.

To be continued...