The End of the Exodus [completed]

[Anbira Hicchoru]

It had been a harrowing few days. The escape from Felucia was harrowing and bittersweet. Anbira had been eager for such a chance to return to the galaxy after four years of monastic isolation. His spiritual communion in the jungle with Jedi masters of the past had given him the skills to become such a mystic, but he knew in his heart that he was untested. The breakout from Felucia's imperial stronghold was testament to that.

Rognan Dar and Wei Wu Wei had been the first friendly faces of the living he'd seen in years. Within an hour, he was alone again. He had no idea as to Rognan's fate. Wei evacuated in a separate ship, and the two parted ways, pursued by imperial forces and a sinister agent of the dark side.

That was a week ago. Anbira had since left his stolen transport behind, and booked passage on a half dozen transports across the outer rim. Where he was going, he did not know. He trusted only his feelings to guide him, knowing that he was a leaf on the wind.

His age-worn stormtrooper armor was long-since recognizable as anything imperial standard issue. He'd bartered in several backwater trading depots for the sundries to repair what was worn out, so that his garments were now more or less unique, with only the hint of a past behind them. His lightsaber, a unique and tell-tale weapon, was kept hidden in a nondescript courier's pouch at his side. On Nal Hutta, he appeared as any rough & tumble spacer would. His hard features blended well with the harshness of his surroundings.

That was fine and well, but Anbira was not content to hide. He needed to find others like him, as Obi Wan had suggested. The Jedi Order was a flickering candlelight, the last embers of a once mighty fire that brought light to the farthest reaches of the galaxy. To do anything else but embrace this destiny would be to squander all the hope that had been placed in him.

In the meantime, there was work to be done. Anbira had found himself in the employ of a smuggler named Jelaad, who brokered contraband into the Imperial sectors toward the mid core. He had no illusions that Jelaad had anything on his agenda other than profit, but his employ was useful to the Jedi. A man in such a business would have many connections, and some of those might lead to the Rebel Alliance. Anbira's former enemies were idealogues, and rumored to consider some Jedi among its ranks of freedom fighters.

Anbira's use to Jelaad was also fairly simple. Through more than a few brawls, the Jedi had proven he had the brawn to protect the smuggler's interests. He accompanied supply convoys, and saw that Jelaad's property was kept safe. Fortunately, Jelaad was not entirely specific as to the why and how of his job, and he hadn't had to kill anyone, or reveal his true nature. If Jelaad knew he was a Jedi, he would turn him into the Empire in an instant. Anbira would be an impressive bargaining chip for a man who was constantly in trouble with Imperial entanglements. For now, he plied his trade with a telescoping staff. Jelaad's underlings had seen enough of his prowess not to question his eccentric weapon choice.

This mission was a mercy mission - of sorts. Medicine to be specific. Jelaad was shipping seven crates of anti-inflammatory serum to Corellia, where it would be unloaded at costs that the Empire and its taxed and tarriffed drug providers could not match.

It was the closest thing to the right thing that Anbira had been involved with in some time. Hopefully, it would bear fruit.

[Arya Ravenwing]

"You filthy rotten stinking..." Arya's curses continued under her breath as she monitored the traffic around Corellia from the cockpit of the Wing of the Raven. She'd landed for her drop, but hadn't offloaded yet. And it looked like - yeah, Jelaad had been given clearance for the sector she was in.

Someone had doubled up, and that meant trouble. Usually the sort of trouble that meant less pay. She didn't feel like putting a hole in Jelaad today, but it might come down to it. Arya pulled on her spacers gloves and straightened her dark brown nerfhide jacket as she stood up. It was time, and she wasn't about to let another smuggler horn in on her profits.

[Anbira Hicchoru]

The crew of Jelaad's ship debarked, and Anbira followed their lead, eyeing the landing platform for any signs of trouble. They weren't hard to miss.

"I wasn't aware our client was expecting another shipment."

Anbira crossed his arms, tilting his head toward the adjacent freighter so that his skipper could notice it too.

"Keep to the job. Lets not make trouble we don't need."

[Arya Ravenwing]

Arya emerged from her ship and watched Jelaad land his freighter through lidded eyes. Dae had sent her this job, had set the whole thing up, and Arya trusted Dae. The mistake was not on her end.

Plus, where would someone get two cargos? And how would they end up on separate ships? If Jelaad was even carrying a cargo. Maybe he was here for a pick up. Yeah, right.

The tall and lean smuggler pushed herself away from the hull of the Chevvette77 freighter and made herself noticeable to the two men who walked out of the other ship. "Jelaad!" She nodded at him as she moved a tad closer. "I never thought I'd see you in Corellian space again."

[Anbira Hicchoru]

"I don't choose my competition, Ravenwing. Only my customers."

Jelaad, a hawk-eyed man with a clean-shaven head crossed his arms over his chest.

"I can't be responsible for who they choose to associate themselves with. But lets spare the pleasantries for later. I have an appointment to make, and you're distracting me."

Jelaad motioned for his other crewers to offload the cargo as he stepped toward the entrance of the spacedock warehouse. Anbira followed.

[Arya Ravenwing]

She rolled her eyes at his back, and gave the guy who looked like a coiled spring a smile full of teeth. "Yeah, well, you're not the most pleasant of company, but I do have appearances to keep up." She waited half a second, and then sauntered along behind the two men towards the entrance.

Behind her the Wing of the Raven opened up the cargo airlock and her bulky freight droid 2P-0 began shifting crates and offloading her cargo. Arya lit up a choice cigarra, and bounded forward as the customer arrived, drawing even with the other two before they could get there first.

"Hey, got your cargo here, Trike." She flashed the man a smile that almost reached her eyes, and then kept on going. "Where'd you want it this time?"

[Anbira Hicchoru]

"I only had one shipment scheduled."

Trike, a slight-framed Zeltron with delicate glasses frowned at both freighter crews.

"Manifests? This has to be a mistake."

He extened a hand toward Jelaad and a hand toward Arya each, behaving as if his time was a dish in a restaurant they couldn't afford.

[Arya Ravenwing]

Arya pulled a grubby looking datapad out of her back pocket and gave the viewscreen a swipe with her sleeve before handing it over. "All accounted for, boss."

He took it gingerly between two fingers and glanced over the lists before handing it back. She flipped it in the air and caught it, then did it again for the only reason that it seemed to make Jelaad's partner tense up a little. Behind them 2P-0 was making nice stacks of the cargo from her freighter six meters away from the pile that was being shifted from Jelaad's ship.

[Anbira Hicchoru]

"Aha Aha. Somebody is having fun. Except I am not amused."

Returning both manifests, Trike crossed his arms.

"This is how it works. I hire freighters through a contractor. You are both prompt and seem capable, but I honestly don't make a fuss over names and faces. Smugglers are commodities, and I'm trading in a more diversified product. One I am only willing to pay a certain amount for."

Trike frowned at the smugglers, which on his well-featured face didn't strike as a terribly unpleasant gesture, but all parties included could read between the lines well enough to know he wasn't happy at all.

"If you're telling me the truth, then you have shipped me exactly twice as much of the product as I am interested in. At your current asking prices, I will only accept the amount I want, which as I have already explained is half. Which means, one of you is leaving without my business, because I'd be a fool to pay double the overhead for half of each cargo."

Trike seemed to rest his eyes on Anbira, and an expression of concealed unease flashed beneath his demeanor.

"That is, unless one or both parties are receptive to unloading their cargo at a handsome discount. I am willing to entertain that possibility, but not many others."

[Arya Ravenwing]

Arya frowned. "Well it seems to me its easy enough - what contractor did you use?"

"I was holding a pair of Knaves when I last played sabaac with them." Trike looked from Jelaad to Arya and back again, the bland look on his face threatening to bite their heads off. "I trust you know what happens to people who cross them."

"Well aware." Arya groused, and added, "Can't you just run the recog code to verify who came through the right channels?" She showed him the datapad again without making him touch it. Dae was mixing her up with the Sullustian Brothers? Bad, bad news. She was happy being a small fry, and knowing that she'd been sub-contracted for a Brothers job made the spacious hangar feel a little.. close.

[Anbira Hicchoru]

"I'm not going to bother my vendors by questioning their methods. I'd wither on the vine here on Corellia if they pulled the plug."

Exasperated, he glanced to Jelaad and back to Arya.

"I have a meeting with hospital staff in two hours and I need a seltzer. You two settle it."

With that, Trike turned to leave.

[Arya Ravenwing]

She narrowed her eyes at the departing Zeltron's back, and then pulled her railgun and blaster, pointing it at Jelaad and his guard. "Look, I didn't come here for a fight, Jelaad." She backed up a little, her jacket hanging open and loose. "I'm sure we can settle this peacefully."

[Anbira Hicchoru]

"You're well armed enough for not coming here for a fight."

Jelaad noted sharply, spreading his coat wide to show he was disarmed; as if to emphasize the dichtonomy between the two smuggling captains.

Anbira stood off to the side, leaving the two to their forum.

[Arya Ravenwing]

"Yeah, well, a girl likes to be prepared for any occasion." She lowered her weapons a tad, but not enough to put her in a bad place should someone start shooting at her. "I was big on math in school. There's one of me, unless you count the droid," Twopio was clunking back into the ship to get the last crate, "and like... oh, more than that of you.

"Plus, I'm not stupid. I know you, Jelaad. Remember when you shot me in the leg? We were even working together at the time."

[Anbira Hicchoru]

"Point taken."

Jelaad half smiled, crossing his arms.

"So back to math. The number of us, minus the number of you should equal half of your take on the cargo you get to keep. Lets not do something stupid and unbalance the equation. Put the frelling gun back into leather"

Anbira slowly paced, at an unthreatening distance from Arya, so that the angle between himself and Jelaad was untenable for Arya to cover simultaneously. More insurance.

[Arya Ravenwing]

Arya laughed, her eyes turning a bit yellow in the bad lighting. "Put my gun away? Which one?" She continued to track the muscle's movements with the railgun while keeping Jelaad casually covered with the blaster.

"Look, half price for all this cargo seems like - well - a bad deal. Considering all the frelling fuel I burned up getting into this Imperial hellhole, I wouldn't even break even." She thought for a moment. "Well, maybe barely even."

[Anbira Hicchoru]

"The one pointing at me, of course! If you shoot my men, they'll take you in a rush. That gun might as well be against your head."

He glanced to Anbira.

"Krosk!"

Jelaad's white armored assistant reversed his slow gait, walking his arc back to a point between Jelaad and Arya.

[Arya Ravenwing]

Arya sighed and slipped her blaster back into the shoulder holster, tugging her jacket back over it. "You really think those things you call men could take me?"

She took another step backwards. "Twopio! Load that junk back up! I'll just find some more buyers. Somewhere. Hiring a frelling stormy, that's a new low, even for you Jelaad." The rail gun was pointing vaguely somewhere around shins of that white armor.

[Anbira Hicchoru]

"If this fella was any kind of stormtrooper, you could almost convince me to salute the Imperial flag."

The smuggler scoffed, slapping Anbira's shoulder pauldron heavily.

"Call my bluff though! I'd just as soon take your cargo while I'm at it."

[Arya Ravenwing]

The dark haired woman faked a gasp. "You were bluffing? Well, why did you wait until now to say so?"

She shook her head, her back against the crates that her slow but faithful freight droid was coming out to load back into the Wing of the Raven. "The only bluff I heard was the one where you said you'd pay me half of what this dren is worth." Jelaad would never pay for anything he could get for free.

[Anbira Hicchoru]

"I'm not going to pay for it. I'm not even gonna steal it. Paying .5 credits on the chit for your load is the only way you're gonna make ends off this haul. Whatever you've got against me, that's a fact. No need to get violent over it."

[Arya Ravenwing]

"I haven't gotten violent, Jelaad. I'm just taking... precautions. Besides, you're the one who brought the double load. I was here first."

[Anbira Hicchoru]

The man Jelaad calld Krosk was upon Arya in half a breath, chopping upwards at Arya's wrist with an armored shinguard, knocking her weapon up and away from the her centerline.

A snap of his foot outward liberated the firearm entirely from her fingers, and it clattered to the side.

[Arya Ravenwing]

Arya yelped, eyes flashing gold as the rail gun was unceremoniously stripped from her. She snapped at Krosk with her teeth, punching for his unprotected face as best she could. Hitting the armor would only break her hand.

[Anbira Hicchoru]

Anbira shuffle-stepped, arching his back and twisting to the side as Arya followed through with her attack. Hooking a forearm into the crook of her attacking arm's elbow, the ex-stormtrooper held fast as he drew an upswinging elbow into her upper-right ribcage. He kept close to her, in physical contact where he could be most effective.

[Arya Ravenwing]

The air left her lungs with a pop, and Arya gasped for air even as she tried to hook her foot around his ankle and pull his foot out from underneath him. She was too off balance, however, and was also trying to pull her free arm out of her jacket.

She got all snarled up, and took another hard blow to the body while she got the jacket half off. Satisfied, Arya headbutted Krosk as hard as she could in his face.

[Anbira Hicchoru]

Starbursts exploded in Anbira's eyes as the headbutt landed true. He didn't anticipate the strike, or its intensity. The wiry smuggler could hit harder than he imagined.

It knocked his grip of her arm free, and he stumbled back with only a handful of her jacket in his hold. Improvising, the Jedi twisted the fabric around Arya's wrist, so that it acted as a tether to her right arm. He took another step back, lunging away from Arya to pull her off balance.

[Arya Ravenwing]

He caught her left arm neatly with her jacket, pulling her forward and off balance. With a cry the smuggler pushed off with her toes, throwing herself on top of him and knocking him to the ground.

As Krosk fell, she changed. Bones shifted and lengthened while some shrank. Her pants came off as her legs narrowed, knees bending the wrong way as for a moment it seemed her joints were all confused. Thick dark fur covered her naked skin as her small shirt stretched and ripped as her chest expanded and deepened with canine strength.

Everyone in the bay was frozen for one split second as the large vornskyr shook out it's black coat as it stood over Krosk. Then it snapped at the armored man's exposed face.

[Anbira Hicchoru]

"A metamorph, huh?"

Anbira spoke for the first time, wedging a forearm gauntlet into the crook of the beast's jaw, to keep it from snapping down on his face.

His position wasn't a good one. He was out-leveraged, and at this rate, couldn't resist the downward attack for long. It was no longer an option, he had to use the Force in earnest.

He "punched" at the beast's ribcage with his unhindered left arm, which helped to cover a tremendous telekinetic wave that knocked the vornskr back, which pulled his hindered arm free from the plastoid armor gauntlet.

With a roll of his legs, he snapped up to his feet, wiping spittle from his face.

[Arya Ravenwing]

The beast yelped as it landed, scrabbling with clawed feet at the smooth duracrete while it skidded to a halt. The gauntlet had come off in it's mouth, and as the armor dropped to the ground the creature howled in rage. The black vornskyr's tail whipped from side to side, a glistening point at the end of it, but the beast was maddened by the use of the Force and it launched itself back at the man.

Instead of leaping for his chest, or neck, the beast went for Krosk's unprotected wrist. The small part inside the animal's brain that was Arya knew that it had to take out the trooper's blaster hand, so the vornskyr crashed heavily into the man's legs as it slavered and snapped for the un-gauntleted forearm.

[Anbira Hicchoru]

"Aaaagh!"

Anbira was floored by the charge, and this time the animal found purchase on his unarmored forearm. The vornskr's teeth sank through skin and muscle, until the bone beneath both broke in two places. Anbira was now at her mercy.

The Jedi went limp, and his eyes half closed, as Arya's air supply was cut off in her throat by an unseen force.

[Arya Ravenwing]

With the tang of blood on it's tongue and the terrible vibrations of the Force rattling through it's brain, the vornskyr turned in to rip out the offender's throat. Saliva tinged pink with Krosk's blood dripped onto his chestplate as the beast lunged inward -

- as just as suddenly the creature stopped short, panting for air and stumbling to the side. Claws raked at the armor of the man, and the vornskyr foamed with desperation and fury. The unseen hand on it's throat would not relent, and the animal's vision blurred. With the last bit of energy it tried to get at the man's throat, pawing at his face weakly.

The vornskyr slipped into unconsiousness, heavy body stretched across the former trooper. It shuddered, and then it reverted to it's human form, leaving Arya's lean body lying naked with her hand at Krosk's throat.

[Anbira Hicchoru]

"Huh."

Jelaad stroked his chin as he looked at the pair of unconcious combatants. He glanced to his men.

"Secure Arya's cargo. We'll sell hers here, and fence what we've got somewhere in the outer rim."

Half the crewers got to work with Arya's cargo, getting ready to sell it off to the client. One crewer chimed in with a concern.

"What do we do with them?"

Jelaad looked at Arya and Anbira.

"Put them in our holding cage."

The crewer seemed taken aback.

"Krosk too?"

Jelaad nodded.

"Our man in white has a peculiar way about him. I wager he'll make rich men of us."

[R. S. Esalis]

The order had come swiftly, from the Director herself - Apprehend the Ravenwing woman, and bring her to Coruscant. Impound her ship, and anything onboard.

The directive issued, it had not come a moment too late - in a twisted way it was Arya's saving grace; if only from the men currently around her.

Two black-uniformed Imperial officers stepped from the shadows, into the light. They gave no acknowledgement to the smugglers around them, intent only on the woman laying unconscious.

[Arya Ravenwing]

In the wolf dream she sometimes feared that she would never wake, and that her body would remain four legged and her mind would grow fur and sharp teeth. Sometimes, she wished it would.

The pressure on Arya's throat eased, but the coldness of the hangar and the sudden jostling as she was pushed off of Krosk by Jelaad's men served as a wake-up call. She groaned, skin pimpling from the cold duracrete, her mind foggy and not clear on her surroundings.

Wait, no clothes. Always a bad sign, unless you woke up in a bed. Or at least a hotel room. Mind clearing even as her eyelids fluttered open, Arya started to push herself up on her elbows and back to the attack when she saw that Jelaad's men were backing away. She looked over her bare shoulder and saw the Imperials, her feral blood still raging from whatever it was Krosk had done to her. With a snarl the shapeshifter lunged backwards and towards the Imps, twisting and changing as she did so.

[R. S. Esalis]

Without so much as a thought, one of the officers lifted his arm, brandishing a stun pistol. There was no need to aim; the distance between the Imperials and the woman wasn't great, and it was diminishing with the officers' uninterrupted gait.

He waited only a split second before tightening his finger over the trigger.

The stun blast hit the woman dead center, square in her chest.

The Director would have her new toy no matter what.

[Arya Ravenwing]

The stun blast enveloped her half-way changed body, halting the progress from woman to beast as her nerve endings mis-fired painfully. Arya crumpled to the cold duracrete without even a moan.

[R. S. Esalis]

Continued here. (http://sw-fans.net/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=39900)