Second Tour of Duty

[Tank]

Eriadu


They'd seen enough of Eleutheria to know they wanted no part of it. That much was certain. Mandalorians were uncomfortable bedfellows, and those who controlled their leashes weren't much better. Still, the break had been amicable enough. Whatever Eleutheria was, they at least allowed their rescues more than the mere illusion of choice. So when CT-5542, known as Tank, and the Jedi known as Sejah Haversh had decided they had to part ways, Mand'alor respected their wishes.

That wasn't to say that they'd made the parting of ways easy. Eleutheria gave them two options:

1) A drop-off point at the nearest habitable world on their travels - Eriadu.

or

2) Getting chucked in an escape pod to hope for the best.

The latter option gave Tank a severe case of chills. He'd heard the stories of his brothers involved in hunting the Separatist super dreadnought Malevolence. He wanted no part of a plan that left him in no fighting position. Waiting for death in a tin can was by far worse than dropping into deeply hostile territory.

The Devil we know...

That was poor solace, Tank realized, once the Eleutheria ship lifted off from the Imperial star port, heading back to deep space. The Mandalorians had given them forged credentials, but they were sloppy enough that they wouldn't stand up to a second glance. No sense in complaining, they didn't have to give them anything at all. At least this way, they had a small fighting chance.

Tank glanced back to his partner, swallowing through a slight grimace. A Jedi's garments were simple enough to appear common, but neither of them could afford sticking to that assumption for long.

As the crowd bustled around the spaceport, Tank felt the meager purse of credits in his pocket that Eleutheria had graced them with. It wasn't much. Not enough to get off planet. But maybe enough for breathing room.

"Commander," Tank spoke low, just within his partner's earshot, "I think you should get off the street. You're going to need a change of clothes."

Unless things had changed, Eriadu was a deeply imperial world. It was the fortress holding of none other than Grand Moff Tarkin. There as little chance of finding a friendly face here.

Tank frowned. That is, if any of my friendly faces are still around.

[Sejah Haversh]

In an instant, Sejah's life had changed. He recalled being suddenly grabbed in the Jedi Temple, then waking up in a fight for his life against unknown assailants. Much of it was a blur, violence, explosions, then extraction by a group who seemed to Sejah was something he was not. Only a man he'd never before met, luckily from near his own time, had stood up for him, and for that Sejah had no end of words of thanks, if only he could manage to get them out. Without his lightsaber, the brown-furred Nehantite felt useless, and the title of "commander" weighed unwanted upon him like a yoke of iron.

"Please don't call me that," he whispered in return. "You'll, uh, give us away. Just Sejah is fine."

For a moment, Sejah considered putting his hood up, but a raised hood always generated more curiosity than a man who bares his head, so he kept it down. "What we need to do is find a slum. We find one of those, I can figure out how to get us out of here."

At least he hoped that would be the case. Most Jedi would work on tactics, angling themselves to find just the right opening while keeping their hands clean, but Sejah had spent enough time in the gutter that he knew the stench never wore off, and he feared little that a dark alley could dish out. After all, those alleys had more than once been his home.

[Tank]

Prudent. Good Jedi usually were. Tank nodded in agreement with Sejah's tactical assessment.

"Solid copy, er, Sejah."

Of course, it never quite sounded right, and Tank felt slightly sheepish addressing the Padawan by the familiar, even when it was a sound tactic. A wince was better than a grimace.

"Noise discipline when past the wire, got it."

It was the best justification possible. Bucking protocol wasn't quite as easy as breaking character for Tank. Not that easy for any Brother. At some point in the Nehantite's life, he hadn't been Commander Haversh or even Padawan Haversh. He'd been Sejah Haversh, probably a good kid with a whole galaxy of possibilities in front of him, and he'd managed to lasso one particularly bright star. He hadn't been a planned commodity, engineered from the genome up through Officer Placement Academy to do one thing.

It was hard to hang up the war when the war was your raison d'être.

It invaded all aspects of yourself, large or small. It was the reason you kept your hair short and your nails trimmed. It was the reason you saw the world in clicks and declinations and enfilading positions. It was the reason you ate fast, slept light, and always knew where polar orientation was on whatever planet you found yourself. It was the reason you always slept with your boots strapped on - no exceptions.

"Should be a map kiosk here at the star port. That's the easy part. It's getting past the security cordon that worries me."

Tank scanned the concourse with a few quick glances.

"Our credentials are probably good enough if they're not looking for a reason to dig deeper. The way that black site went up, I doubt the Empire could tell what they lost or what went up in smoke."

A few commercial stalls caught the clone's attention, and Tank prodded Sejah on the shoulder, jerking his head in their direction.

"Clothes. Best we move under concealment."

[Sejah Haversh]

Concealment on Nehantish had been easy. Concealment was easy anywhere everyone looked like you, meaning Tank shouldn't have a problem, but Sejah certainly would.

"Clothes?" the question was quickly answered when Sejah spotted the storefront, as the proper name above it meant nothing to him whatsoever. "Oh, yes, clothes, right." The tone of his didn't exactly inspire confidence, nor did the meandering path he took through the crowd to arrive at the small shop, accidentally bumping into a few passers-by along the way with many apologies.

As with many large starports, fashion and expense seemed the order of the day instead of understatement and frugality, meaning Sejah's choices would be limited. No one was going to carry trousers with a tail fly, or boots for Nehantite footpaws, so his current duds would have to do in that department, leaving him looking at shirts. So many shirts, so many colors, slick fabrics and flashy designs. None of it would do without a complete ensemble, until at last he found what appeared to be an upscale version of an engineer's work shirt, complete with slim pockets for pens, pocket screwdrivers and the like. Disguise relied on giving people what they expected, and no one batted an eye at an off-world Nehantite engineer, even if there were some sparkly accents on his shirt that had no right being there. That, combined with a simple, black jacket would have to do, though the price tags gave him worry.

"See if you can stall the shopkeep for a moment," he whispered to Tank. "Like, ask if they have something up front in your size. I need a distraction."

The moment everyone had their back to him, Sejah slipped three wallets out of the front of his shirt, praying that people still carried cash at spaceports when traveling. The fist was almost empty, though the second was a winner, and he plucked the cash out of it quickly before hiding the trio once more. One didn't grow up on the streets without learning how to liberate passers-by of their valuables, because many days no one was willing to give a starving street boy a dime if he asked for it.

"Ma'am, I'm ready to check out," he spoke up, pulling the shopkeep back from whatever distraction Tank may have been struggling with. Cash was laid out for the purchase, Sejah smiling and polite through his transaction, but before the shopkeep could bag his purchase, he raised a finger. "Actually, could I use your changing room and just put that on here? It's been a long flight, and my current shirt isn't... fresh, if you know what I mean. Spaceport lost my luggage, see? Thanks." Soft-spoken, yet polite and engaging, it was the manner of behavior which would put anyone at ease, and Sejah was granted his request with a smile.

Minutes later, outer robes and cloak in a shopping bag, and new duds on his upper body, Sejah pushed through the crowd to the security cordon with Tank, looking as best he could as some normal Nehantite engineer who'd arrived for an extended layover on his way somewhere else. In his head, hundreds of silent prayers to Garfife were said, as being caught here would be just as bad as not having escaped Hoth in the first place.

[Tank]

Distraction was easy enough to do. Tank had clothing issues to deal with himself. Having a face shared by a hundred million or so brothers had a way of standing out. While there were certainly retired clones eking out their twilight years in the galaxy, his time in cryogenic sleep probably meant he was nearing the point of being one of the last of his kind, assuming the juvenile batches weren't disposed of. That particular thought made him ill, but Tank endured through it. The upshot to that bleak consideration was that fewer numbers - and added time - might dull peoples' face recognition.

Not one to leave matters to chance, the former clone commander made a few smart purchases. General purpose utility goggles to keep out the UV rays and obscure the eyes, and a utility shawl that could be used to wrap the head, neck, or face - as well as a myriad of other uses. He folded the shawl atop and around his head, cinching the draw band of his goggles around the headscarf once it was done. Five credits wouldn't break them, and it was a smart choice in the short-term.

As Tank settled with the store clerk, he kept an eye on Commander Haversh - trying not to stare for too long as the Padawan made a few glaring tactical mistakes. Shoplifting wouldn't do them any favors here, and it was wholly unnecessary until they passed the security cordon. What was he thinking??

"Thanks again miss." Tank nodded to the merchant as he put away his credit purse. He pulled alongside the Nehantite as they slid back into concourse traffic. The clone clamped a hand at the Nehantite's upper arm - a bit tight - but for good reason.

"That was reckless, sir." he hissed, carefully panning his eyes as he walked. There were at least two squads of stormtroopers visible on the concourse, but it didn't appear that any of them were looking in their direction.

"It's a bad tactical gamble. We have to choose our engagements."

[Sejah Haversh]

"I wasn't reckless, I was good," Sejah whispered back. "This is a protected area, everyone's guard is down, they're easy marks."

They were the words of a professional, someone with no remorse for pickpocketing if he believed he needed cash more than someone else did. It was a strange mindset for one to professed to be Jedi, but years of living on the street had formed in Sejah a sort of rationalization of his deeds vs. what was morally wrong. He had taken what was needed in order to preserve himself, and to pass as a common Nehantite. If it saved his neck, it was justified.

A sidelong glance took in Tank's new appearance for the first time, and he pinched his eyebrows as he looked at the utility shawl and its goggles headband. "Who are you supposed to be, anyway? Lawrence of Alderaan? You look ridiculous."

[Tank]

"Yeah, well ridiculous is better than recognizable, sir."

A pair of spacers passed by, and Tank shifted his gait to give them enough of a lane to push past. Once they did, he gestured to their slapdash array of clothing.

"Besides, it's a star port. Good chance of enough outer rim flavor to give the ridiculous a pass. Believe me, I've seen crazier."

He'd made the decision to tactically withdraw from the argument about the shoplifting. The deed was done, and they weren't staring down blasters with binders on their wrists. Still, the clone commander had a nagging feeling that this sort of prioritization would have to be confronted again.

"It's not a bad skill to have, sir. In fact, once we make it past the wire, creative procurement might be a better option. Weapons, cash, intel. We need to find a way off this planet on our terms."

[Sejah Haversh]

"Like I said, we make it to a slum, we're set," Sejah repeated.

Truth be told, there was no way of knowing if what had worked for him on Nehantish could be repeated on an Imperial world, but it was a risk he was willing to take. Each step carried them closer to the security checkpoint, and Sejah rubbed his thumb over the ID card in his pocket. He was to be Kerran Fahadlan, a low-skilled engineer who had just finished a four week contract aboard a freighter. Finishing a contract meant there was no ship to ping, and that made things easier, just as long as the security officer didn't actually ask about anything having to do with sharship maintenance. Beyond a scant few basics, Sejah could no more hold his weight on that subject than he could discussing the finer points of inter-Ewok-tribe schisms and acorn harvest disputes. Still, he would go first through the line, as his unusual race and appearance on an Imperial world would allow Tank to speed through easily after him, should the person manning the checkpoint be the distractable type.

Swallowing the lump in his throat, he entered his lane, tapping one footpaw as he waited on those in front of him to be checked and waved through.

[Tank]

They funneled into the queue for the security cordon and the exit. Tank kept a casual stance, but made certain to note the position of each trooper in the area. If things went bad here, they went bad in a hurry. He'd certainly have to take a man out, get a weapon, and there was no guarantee at all of a good ending if it went that way.

Much better to play it casual. The clone rolled his shoulders, glancing at his shoes, at a woman in the adjacent line, and at everything and nothing. This was, after all, routine.

"Name and ident slip." An Imperial army corporal stood at the turnstile, backed up by a pair of troopers. Tank passed his forged ID on to him.

"Jasper Marol."

The officer glanced to the card before sliding it into a nearby droid terminal. After an excruciating moment, it pinged green, ejecting from the data port.

"Do you have anything to declare?"

Tank smirked.

"Don't suppose aching knees count? They packed us in that transport like sardines.

"Funny." The officer remarked without a trace of mirth on his face. He returned the ident slip to Tank with a gloved hand.

"On your way."

Tank stepped through the turnstile, pocketing his ID once more. He took enough paces away to not hang by Sejah's shadow, but still close enough to intervene if there was trouble in the Jedi's passage.

[Sejah Haversh]

Sejah found himself directed to a hatchet-faced woman who'd seen better days perhaps half a century ago, and how clung to life by sucking the life force out of any unfortunate enough to pass through her queue. Eyes as cold as iron locked onto him as he approached, his friendly smile immediately wiped away when he realized it would do no good against a lifetime of sheer customer hatred.

"Name and ident slip." Her voice churned out the words like an icepick chipping at a block.

"Kerran Fahadlan," Sejah replied, extending his own fake ID. Behind him his tail lashed, unable to control itself from betraying his nerves.

The old woman glared at his ID, scowling at it as if it were the face of all evil itself.

"What are you doing on Eraidu?" The words snapped like a steel trap.

Sejah swallowed, fearing he'd already been seen through. Stick to the story, Sej, stick to the story. Ran through his head, and his voice cracked slightly as he replied, "Apparently looking for a new job. Know where an engineer should go around here to find an employment office?"

The woman studied him, gaze boring into every molecule of his expression. "I wouldn't know; I have a stable job." She answered. "Anything to declare?"

"Uh, just a change of clothes, if you need to see those." Sejah lifted his bag and began to open it before his ID was thrust back in his face.

"Not necessary. Move along."

There was no point in any further conversation, so Sejah accepted his ID and moved on past the troopers and out into the city proper. His ears were still pale, and he had no true direction, but it was best to keep walking. Surely Tank would catch up with him, right? Anything to get away from that scary old woman.

[Tank]

True to discipline, the clone had lingered close enough to link up with Sejah. He'd taken advantage of the time economy of the moment, doing a little extra business at a side kiosk before the Nehantite was back in sight. Tank carried two tubes of foil-wrapped parcels, pushing one into the hands of Sejah as he closed distance.

"Chow. Eat up."

Not waiting for further explanation, the clone peeled back the foil to reveal some kind of food wrapped inside a giant steamed leaf. He took a healthy bite, eyes still moving.

"We'll likely have to come back to this location at some point, provided we're leaving Eriadu legitimately. Best not to take any risks on getting our ident cards noticed."

The soldier's discipline to pack food didn't waver, and Tank efficiently filled his mouth between dialogue.

"Question is, where to?"

He had ideas, but he wasn't even certain how relevant his knowledge of the galaxy was at this point. There were several active resistance cells that he knew of, and a few crossed paths on Alderaan. That might be a good place to start. But first, they had to get the means to get to that point.

"Slums, you say?"

[Sejah Haversh]

No time was wasted in tearing the foil from his own leaf-encapsuled parcel before Sejah took cautionary sniff. While not entirely appetizing, he didn't smell anything which put him off from it, so he opened his huge maw and tore off a bite likely larger than he meant to. Leaf, rice, some kind of spices, and... something resembling meat filled the street-corner delicacy, and the Nehantite chowed down as it had been a good nine hours since his last meal.

Wiping his muzzle with the back of his arm to clear any straggling bits of rice, he swallowed. "Yeah, it'll give us time, and information," he replied. The thought to explain just what he meant by that didn't occur to him until halfway through his next mouthful, at which point he nodded to indicate he'd explain once his mouth was empty. On the run or not, there was simply no excuse for talking with your mouth full.

"I grew up in a few of them, various cities," he admitted. "Nobody goes to the worst part of town unless they absolutely need to, and those who live there protect their own. What money we have will go far, and a few credits here and there will help the locals keep us hidden. But most important is the information. Anything shady going on anywhere in the city, or any backroom deals you need to know about, I guarantee someone will know them. If there's a way off this planet and to Alderaan like you were talking about, we'll find out about it there. Also, they generally attract non-humans, so I'll stand out less."

[Tank]

"That's reassuring." Tank deadpanned, figuring he'd be staying incognito a little while longer then.

"Fortunately, we're not on the Imperials' scopes. Not sure how long that will remain. Best to use the breathing room to our advantage. We'll need weapons, but we can't be hasty using them."

The clone looked to his Jedi Commander with a pained expression.

"I've done my fair share of favela combat, sir. We can run out of room quick if we don't have an exit. Best not to come to that."

A waiting tram was filling up at the starport's entrance, and Tank jerked a thumb towards it, indicating that they might want to hop on.

"Looks like the tram runs a circuit through and around Eriadu City. Good chance it'll pass through the bad side of town."

[Sejah Haversh]

His mouth full once more as he finished his meal, Sejah simply nodded, and together they made their way to the tram. A quick glance was spared to study the route map, though the place names might as well have been in Wookiee for all the Nehantite could understand them. Two credits were fed to the coin slot, allowing each of them access to the belly of the beast, where Sejah made his way to a corner with haste. The fur upon his tail bristled, his pink eyes scanning about until he closed them simply to breathe.

Breathe. Be still, shut it all out, just breathe, he told himself, paw clutching tight to a rail to steady himself as the tram got underway. With each breath his racing heart slowed, his mind cleared and his nerves calmed themselves. Danger was everywhere, yet to be fearful only roused its suspicions, so he forced his fear away until reason and logic remained.

"I don't like crowds," he spoke quietly, feeling Tank's eyes upon him. "I've never liked crowds. Never been good with crowds. I should have told you that earlier." With that, his pink eyes opened, and immediately he turned to look out the window instead of into the packed tram, watching the landscape hurtle by. "And, there's something else you should probably know... I can't read."

[Tank]

Crammed into a seat, Tank winced as old war wounds found themselves aggravated all over again. He'd never be parted from the shrapnel in his back, so the best he could do was learn to smile in spite of it.

"Funny." Tank commented as Sejah laid bare his weaknesses in relative privacy. "I've spent my entire life looking up to the likes of you, I never stopped to consider that, distilled down, you're as real as the rest of us."

The tram began to move, feathering its acceleration in small doses as it followed the maglevs. The clone glanced over his shoulder, then furtively forward before speaking again, his voice lower by a degree.

"Back on Kamino, the cloners had a designation for batch deviation. Called it 33N. Don't ask me why. Anyone beyond one percent deviation from genetic source got tattooed on them. Including me."

As if to demonstrate, Tank rolled down his left sock, revealing a faded tattoo in alien script on the inside of his ankle.

"Marked us out, you see." He said with a small humorless laugh, pulling his sock up once more.

"Most 33N's, they got euthanized and processed into organic input. Too far gone for any good, I guess. The ones that were healthy enough, we just got a lifetime of due diligence. Everyone checking our personnel file. Everyone seeing the number before the man. I would've been an ARC, but command looked at my jacket and didn't give me a second glance."

Tank's expression turned somber as he watched the trees blast past the window at higher and higher speed.

"I grew up angry and ashamed, and aware that even feeling that way set me apart from the rest of my brothers, who didn't because when the system works, they shouldn't.

The Clone's eyes turned back to the Nehantite.

"The system doesn't always work. Everything I've seen in my tours tells me to always bet on entropy. I've learned that you can't curse the sky that you don't have x, y, or z. Good soldiers adapt. You're born with bad eyes, you get lenses. You get shot down over hostile territory you learn to go to ground."

He reached for Sejah's knee, thinking twice about extending a pat of solidarity to his partner who he still hadn't pegged yet.

"You can't read, you trust your partner to get you what you need. That's unit cohesion, sir. We watch each other's back."

[Sejah Haversh]

Can't read, not good with crowds, barely good at anything they tried to teach me at the Temple, what good are you to anyone, Sejah? The Nehantite's mind found nothing but fault with himself as he considered his immediate future. And look at you now, paired up with some other fifth class loser who wasn't permitted to move up because there might be something wrong with him. Some other orphan who only knows how to fight. Surrounding yourself with more of yourself doesn't work, Sejah; you know this.

Outside the window, trees and buildings passed from blurry forms into focus before they hurtled by. A metaphor for his own life, he imagined, unfocused until it mattered, and then it was gone. One stop and the passengers aboard their tram changed like the rotation of stock on a supermarket shelf, with Sejah and Tank sitting in the corner like tins of beans destined for the discount rack in due time. Another stop, and another, each time the class of passenger declined, as did the onboard conversation.

There were few trees anymore, and those which clung to life were gnarled, stunted, or ringed with a fence of iron to protect them from the very populace they were planted to shade. Gleaming spires of mirrored glass devolved into dark and tightly-packed rectangles of brick, concrete or stone, their signs of cheap neon buzzing and casting technicolor sunlight upon the grime of the sidewalks before them.

"This is our stop," Sejah nodded to his companion. "Wallet in your front pocket."

[Tank]

"Solid copy." Tank complied with the suggestion as he rose with a grunt. Sejah hadn't been one for conversation since he'd poured his heart out. Whether that was out of some ingrained Jedi aloofness or for some other unknown reason, he couldn't say. Maybe he'd been full of it to even suggest they were that similar. Who knew what the force did to a person's mind, rattling up in there in ways no one else could tell.

The first thing that struck Tank once they were out and about in the favela was that the Imperial presence had fallen off a cliff. Back in the city center and near the starport, he'd been able to pick up a patrol on the grid every five to ten minutes at least. Half an hour of navigating increasingly dingy and narrow streets and the only stormtroopers they'd seen were the ones posted at the tram stop. The favela was crowded, bustling with an interstellar gumbo of at least three dozen species. Undesirable sort that the Empire didn't want populating it's model cities, and people that the regime couldn't quite cart away to a prison planet.

It hit him then at the why of it. The Empire didn't want to solve any of this mess. Keeping patrols active on the outskirts of the favela kept the undesirables inside it. It enforced the regime apartheid without requiring an entire legion of troopers to actively crack down on the grid. That left the favela to it's own law, more or less. That is - until the Empire decided at some point to roll in with force and remind the people who ran this planet.

"Info kiosk, sir."

Tank leveled a finger at a nest of standing-room-only computer terminals, arranged in a half moon beneath a patchwork tent of tarps.

"Probably can't get into the HoloNet, or at least it won't be cheap, but should give us some limited intel."

[Sejah Haversh]

"You'll be able to get more than I could get out of one of those things," Sejah replied, then sighed. "And please, don't call me 'Sir.' Others might have been worthy of that title, but not me. We're on equal footing here, okay, Tank?"

He'd made a point to use his companion's name. Titles in a place such as this only drew attention, and attention coupled with the size of the milling crowd before them hardly settled Sejah's unease, but at least he took some comfort seeing that aliens outnumbered humans in the favela. That said, it was more of a slum than he'd expected, his mind having conjured up images of the ghettos and projects of his youth on Nehantish - all of which seemed better prospects than the shantytown which spread like a cancer around old building, its veins flowing with people instead of blood.

Access to an open terminal would be a waiting game, providing Sejah's phobia of crowds time to seep back in. Each one of his distractions was performed: biting his lip, fiddling with his fingers, flexing his toes inside his boots, and attempting to count backwards from 100, and each worked for a short while, yet each carried with it an ultimate fate of failure, so he searched for fresh distraction.

Garfife, I could go for a few tokes of some good Dagobah green, right now.

He was saved from his search for the illicit substance when a Trandoshan stepped away from one of the terminals. Both Sejah and Tank stepped toward it simultaneously, shoulders colliding before the Nehantite chuckled and stepped aside. "You first," he smiled at the awkwardness of the situation. "If we're closer to Nehantish than Alderaan, we could go there, too," he offered.

[Tank]

"That's a good contingency plan S...Sejah." Tank corrected, glancing over his shoulder as he squared to the kiosk. He fed the computer a chit, bringing up a holographic representation of an hourglass in the corner of the viewing area, illustrating the ten minute chunk of access he'd purchased.

"Fairly industrious, these guys." Tank's eyes narrowed, scrolling through postings. "Looks like there's an entrenched shadow market here. Used to crack down on these pirate hubs back in the day. Never thought I'd be using 'em....hmm."

The screen stopped scrolling, and Tank frowned.

"That's odd. These guys keep a meticulous listing of intersector transit. Empty seats, empty holds. Whatever they can sell to smuggle or forge an ident to move people off the grid. There's a lot of activity here, but nothing at all for Alderaan. Plenty to Camaas, Neimoidia, Kuat. Just no Alderaan at all."

The clone wet his lips with the press of his tongue, looking annoyed at the results.

"Nehantish gets a result, but it's not a direct route. Looks like no fewer than six stops. Could be done, but that's six opportunities for risk."

[Sejah Haversh]

Geography, like so many other subjects, had never been a strong point for Sejah, and he only vaguely could recall Camaas, but had no clue where Nemoidia or Kuat were. "Maybe there's a blockade or something?" Sejah offered, though it was rather grasping at straws. "Or maybe the, um, Empire changed its name?"

Through Nehantite history, several cities had their names changed as new rulers came to power, and it was the only idea which sprang to mind which could totally explain why Alderaan wasn't coming up. Either that or Tank had spelled it wrong, though Sejah wouldn't have been able to tell or not on that front.

His pink eyes glanced back around at the crowd, sure that someone would have spotted them by now, but everyone seemed to be just going about their business as usual. Voice low he suggested, "What about Jedha? We should be safe there. Should always be someone going to the Holy City of NiJedha."

[Tank]

"Bit out of the way, but let's see."

A quick browse, and Tank's frown deepened.

"Damned peculiar. Not a thing. Let me try something different."

Bringing up a star map, Tank decided to search by grid coordinates instead of planet names. Both Jedha and Alderaan were familiar enough to be in the archives. It wouldn't give them a way there, but it might give them an idea of nearby options.

"What the hell?"

The grid for Alderaan returned a result, but it wasn't Alderaan.

"NFZ-0135."

On a hunch, the clone tried Jedha's grid. Similar problem.

"NFZ-0130".

Something was wrong here. Seriously wrong. Was there a major crackdown in play? Tank glanced back to his Jedi partner, concern on his face.

"We may have a problem. Looks like the naming designations for both Jedha and Alderaan have been replaced with NFZ prefix."

[Sejah Haversh]

To be perfectly fair, Sejah had no idea where the Empire's reach extended to, nor was he entirely surejust where in the galaxy Jedha or Alderaan even were. Sure, he'd been to both, but with a group of other padawans, and there were lessons to learn and history to be taught along the way. He hadn't been the pilot, so why would he really know where they were? Wasn't that what astromechs were for?

So to that extent, the prefix of "NFZ" meant about as much to Sejah as tire tread depth meant to a submarine captain. Naturally he looked at the screen anyway, even though doing so was entirely pointless as all the strange little symbols looked the same to him. Blinking, he asked in a low voice. "So... are they not supposed to start with NFZ?"

[Tank]

"Only if something's gone wrong. Come on."

They'd dawdled for too long at the terminal, and Tank was feeling cagier than before. Definitely didn't want to risk attracting attention after a search like that.

"It's a prefix we used back in the war. NFZ - No Fly Zone. Under orders of the Senate, it bars planetary entry or departure, and effectively removes the entry from commercial travel lists. Could be due to blockade, to some kind of outbreak like a plague, or a Base Delta Zero operation."

He paused, and from the look of the kid, he figured that the latter term probably was as well understood as NFZ.

"Total orbital bombardment."

That was probably a hysterical assumption though. Even in the height of the Clone Wars, there had only been a handful of Base Delta Zero incidents, and most of those were done by the Separatists. But they both knew well enough that the Empire was not the Republic.

"It probably isn't that." Tank did his best to allay concern, but he still carried a pinched expression as they quickened their pace around a corner.

"Blockade is more likely. A dissident Senator shooting off at the mouth too much, and the Emperor starves his planet of trade. Maybe."

It would explain Alderaan, perhaps. But Jedha had no trade to speak of.

"Still, I've got a bad feeling about this."

[Sejah Haversh]

"Then we should make for Nehantish," Sejah suggested. "Yeah, it might be six stops, but I'm a Nehantite, it won't arouse that much suspicion."

Worry over why Alderaan and Jedha had been blacklisted for travel helped to keep Sejah's mind from his phobia of crowds as he and Tank shouldered their way through the masses to the relative safety of a nearby alley.

"We have to do it, Tank," he stated. "I don't know where else we can go that'll be safe. "Yeah, it'll be hard, but I can deal with that. It took me a month and a half to make it from Nehantish to Coruscant, when I went. I had no money, none. So we're at least better off now than I was then. Not to mention you know how to read."

It had to work, it simply had to, even if Sejah needed to will it to be so. Yet no matter how much he willed it, there were other concerns which took precedent at the moment.

"But first we need to find a place to sleep. A safe place," he started. "This place is more crowded than I expected, though, so that could be hard. No missions, they're overcrowded and they ask too many questions. We should get away from the hub here and see what we can find on the outskirts."

The Nehantite glanced back at the main thoroughfare, daunted by the challenges which faced them. "Finding a Dagobah Green dealer would sure make things better, right now."

[Tank]

He could feel the star lag too, and they'd had a longer day than most. Still, Tank didn't like bedding down without having a contingency.

"No narcotics. We need to maintain combat readiness."

He would've slapped a fellow Brother for talk like that. That's bad batch nonsense. You didn't do anything in a combat zone that would carelessly reduce your fighting potential. It was selfish, and it put your brothers at risk. He wondered why the Jedi mentioned it at all. Didn't they hold to the same ideal as the clones? Maybe there was a lot about Jedi that Tank still had to learn.

"But you're right. Let's find a safe place to bunk. Maybe with a bit of shut-eye we'll have clearer heads about for our next step. Four hour shift, and I'll take first watch."

[Sejah Haversh]

"Oh yes," Sejah replied, a bit snippier than he meant. "That way we can both be groggy and ineffective tomorrow. Or we could just find some cheap-as-hell lodging with a door that locks."

His tail flicked behind him, while his pink eyes began to narrow. The concepts of emotional neutrality and mindfulness over one's self had spotted a window and appeared set to hurl themselves out of it at a moment's notice within the Nehantite, before he took a breath to center himself. "And I wasn't talking about smoking anything, I meant we need to find a dealer," he clarified. "They're typically dumb as hell, and easy to either befriend or put pressure on. Also, it's a gateway drug in more ways than one. You want to get in with the shadier side of town, you want to find out about smugglers who might not put themselves on flight plan lists, it's where you start."

He stared hard into Tank's eyes, his face hard, until at last a glint of humor returned, along with the faintest hint of a smirk. "I should know, I used to deal that shit myself."

[Tank]

There just wasn't any use in figuring a Jedi. Tank stared blankly at Sejah a moment before shaking away his bewilderment.

"I'll take your word for it. Right, then. Lodging. Problem on that front, we're in the favela. We might be able to squat a shipping container, but this isn't exactly Coruscant."

A pair of Trandoshans passed close, and the clone stowed his loose talk until they pushed past. When they did, a bit of gaudy neon signage caught the Commander's eye.

"So maybe not a hotel or a hostel, but there is a brothel. Not exactly safe as houses, but that's always a fallback position."

They pushed on through a few more crowds. Bars seemed to be plentiful. Little more than open air pavilions with a shipping crate or a tent in the back. The people who made a living here definitely slept within the premises.

"I've been thinking about our options. Nehantish is probably safer in the short term, but we need to get to Alderaan. I'm not exactly privy to all the details, but there's something big happening there. A few of the brothers mentioned a network. Nothing directly linked, but apparently a few outfits with no love for the Empire seem to use the planet as a go-between. There's even talk that the Viceroy and the Senator are in on the whole thing, but I think that's conspiracy rubbish."

Tank shifted his stance, pulling Sejah into an alley for a little more privacy.

"If we're chartering someone to stick us in a smuggling compartment, I agree the best odds are Nehantish. We can't trust anyone not to do anything dodgy if we ask them to fly into an Imperial No Fly Zone. What are the chances of getting a ship on Nehantish?"

[Sejah Haversh]

"Pretty high," Sejah replied. "Well, as long as we have money they are." He leaned back against the wall, looking up and down the alleyway before setting his bag down and rubbing his muzzle and temples with both paws. "Nehantish would at least give us a safe place to get our bearings, and figure out what the hell is going on," he sighed.

"As far as I know, it's still a non-unified world, and they would have resisted the Empire as much as possible. Even the Hutts leave us alone because we're a bitch and a half to try and strongarm, and we've got no great resources but furred engineers, so I doubt Nehantish would have been high on the Empire's 'to conquer' list."

As he looked up again, safe in the relative obscurity of the alleyway, a different face emerged. It was tired, worried, and nearly devoid of hope, a lingering fear hiding at the edges of his pink eyes. This was not the face of a Jedi. Those tired eyes met Tank's, and for all the exhaustion, discomfort and worry he felt, there was also a sharp honesty. "Tank, before we go any further, I need you to understand something," he said, then bit his lip before continuing.

"I am not what you think I am," he said at last, then held up a paw to forestall any interruption until he was done. "The Jedi you know of, and may have known personally, they are so very different from me that I doubt I can ever reach their level. They were trained from childhood, given education, understanding, and, well... taught how to handle things like this, and how to handle their power. I was a street kid, I didn't get any of that. I grew up picking pockets, stealing food, stealing anything I could fence, selling green, selling whatever I could to get by. And in the times when that wasn't enough, I... sold myself." A hard swallow and a moment to re-focus followed that admission. "The only lawful skill I learned was fencing, and that was because I was sentenced to community service for getting busted for prostitution when I was fifteen. Had to clean this fencing teacher's school, and he put me up in this little loft above the studio so he could keep tabs on me for my parole officer. In the evenings, he taught me a bit of fencing, and turned out I was a natural, and soon I was teaching there. Well, until it turned out that I was unnatural because of the Force."

He was losing Tank's focus, and knew it. "Long story short, the Jedi didn't come find me, they didn't call for me, hell, they didn't even want me. But a year and a half ago I lost everything I'd tried to build a life around, and I had nowhere else to go, so I hitchiked to Coruscant and surrendered myself to them. Know what happened? They turned me away. Told me to leave. I was too old, too stupid, and I had a criminal record. I wasn't Jedi material, they said. For the next month I kept coming back, though, every day, until at last they relented and took me in. Only then did I realize they were right. I'm not Jedi material, and even if I hadn't gotten my ass frozen, and the Emprie did... whatever they did, I'd likely never be knighted. I'm a padawan, a student, with no real skills outside of fencing, and I knew that before I even joined. I get flashes of things, but I can't control it, and I got banned from practicing telekinesis because I was so shit at it. I am not the Jedi you think I am. I will never be the Jedi you think I am. So you need to stop treating me like I am one, and realize that you're hooked up with the same sort of scum who pry a living from the fucking garbage around here because it's the only way they can live. That is who I am, and that is the person who will try and get us out of this shithole by any means necessary, legal or not. Sorry if I've destroyed your illusion about me, but in a place like this, it's best that we understand each other."

[Tank]

For a while, Tank was silent. Maybe deep in thought, but his craggy face always seemed serious, even at rest.

"Maybe it's time that I come clean too."

He was close to it. The wound in him that had scabbed up and almost left to be a scar. It always itched, tempting him. If he gave in to it and scratched, there would be blood. Just not his own.

"I told you about 33N. Obviously I'm, you know, I wasn't deemed deficient due to some obvious physical flaw. It's my brain. Sometimes, I have a hard time remembering things. Could be as little as what I had for morning ration. Could be an entire campaign I fought in."

Frustrated, Tank's eyes squeezed shut.

"It's like there's an operator inside just pulling out connections and plugging them at random. I had to bury one of my men after Dantooine. He...I...er..."

The clone's knee bounced with impatience.

"Brick. Yeah, that was him. We came up in the same class back home. Good guy. And then in the company of everyone standing around as we were putting him in the ground...I couldn't remember his name. I couldn't."

Tank slowly dragged his tongue between dry lips.

"Forgive me. I...I'm getting off target. Point is, I lose things. Sometimes I pick them up again. Was a matter of blind luck that I lost one particular thing at a time when I needed to."

The Commander fished into the neckline of his shirt, drawing up a thin metal chain. It was similar to the one that his clonetrooper ident tags hung from, but this one had a pendant of transparisteel. Sandwiched between the two little panes was something tiny and delicate.

"Do you know what this is?"

[Sejah Haversh]

"I just told you I can't read, and we've already figured out that I was frozen before you were even... born?" Sejah snapped, his voice more testy than intended. Rubbing his brow with a paw, the Nehantite stepped back for a breath, allowing fresh oxygen to cool his suddenly hot blood so that sense could prevail.

"Sorry," he continued. "No, I don't know what that is. Will it help us get out of here?"

A defective Jedi and a defective clone trooper. What a pair they made, each deficient in their own way, and Sejah wasn't sure if their combined powers would make up for it all. Before his time with the Jedi, if push came to shove and necessity demanded, Sejah would have abandoned Tank and found his own way home. But now he wasn't sure he could do that; lessons on selflessness had sunk too far into the heart of a man who'd only been able to rely on himself most of his life. Defects or not, Tank was his friend now, and they had to stick together to survive.

[Tank]

"It's a brain chip."

Tank spoke of it with tones of shame, even if as Sejah mentioned, he'd been frozen long before the clone wars.

"Me and all my Brothers, every last one of us, we got 'em implanted in the final stage of in vitro. Implanted up here..."

The Commander traced a line through his hair, accentuating the small raised scar hidden below.

"The cloners said it was to make us less aggressive and more controllable than our template. That was only half of it."

Tank gave a rueful glance to the waver-thin artifact between his fingers.

"Somewhere on this...thing, is a hard-wired command. We called it Clone Protocol Sixty-Six. There were lots of protocols, you see. One hundred and forty nine, to be exact. But only one of them had specifically enforced compliance. Order Sixty-Six.

In the event of Jedi officers acting against the interests of the Republic, and after receiving specific orders verified as coming directly from the Supreme Commander, the Chancellor, Grand Army of the Republic commanders will remove those officers by lethal force, and command of the GAR will revert to the Supreme Commander until a new command structure is established."

Tank paused, screwing his eyes shut. Even now, he heard it in his head like a phantom pain. Good soldiers follow orders. He looked back to Sejah.

"We had the protocol memorized, like all the other ones. This was to stop a Jedi from leaving the command structure and going rogue. It all made sense until it didn't. Until that order came."

Tank shook his head.

"Sir, I want to tell you that I know how to tell the difference between a just order and one that is unjust. I sure as hell can make the case. But the only thing that prevented me from gunning down my Jedi Commander was a defect. A bit of bad neurological wiring. That's it."

The clone's voice quavered. He averted his eyes.

"I'm a murderer and a war criminal. The trigger pulled. The only difference between me and the rest is that the round was a dud."

[Sejah Haversh]

Sejah listened with interest and confusion. Brain chips, neurological... stuff, programming; these were things which only existed in the realm of cheap holovision for him, and he had no practical understanding of any of it. But it was not the shame of his own ignorance which repulsed him, it was that this man, this... broken soldier, had just admitted that he knew an order was wrong, had the ability to disobey it, and yet still attempted to murder the very Jedi he was supposed to protect. In the depths of his heart, Sejah wondered if he knew what Jedi that was. Perhaps he was misunderstanding, perhaps in the concepts Tank spoke of, Sejah had it backwards. But Sejah sensed regret, massive regret, so he doubted he was wrong.

His footpaws scuffed back upon the dirty floor as he shook his head. "Get away from me," he warned, raising his paw before him once enough distance had been cleared. Pink eyes flecked with red as anger swelled like a raging river within him, Sejah's fear turned to defiance, lips curling to expose his fangs. "You tried to murder a Jedi. You might try and murder me. I think we're done here." He continued to back up, heading further into the alley. "You find your way, I'll find mine."

[Tank]

Tank's expression was grieved. He downturned his eyes, taking a step away as Sejah rebuked him. As much as he wanted to argue his case, he wasn't certain he could with certainty.

"If that's what you feel is best, Sejah. I don't want to endanger you. I..."

The clone swallowed heavily. He had something he wanted to say, if only because there had been no other Jedi for him to tell.

"I served with plenty of Jedi during the war. They weren't just my superior officers. They were my friends. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't think of them."

He sighed.

"May the force be with you, sir."

[Sejah Haversh]

"If you tried to kill them, you were never friends," was the only response Sejah gave.

He could feel the pain, the anguish, and the regret rolling off of Tank in waves, but the Nehantite didn't care. Almost all guilty men felt remorse when confronted with the ramifications of their actions, but it made them no less guilty. His backsteps became a sidestep before the Jedi turned his back on the Clone Trooper, and headed off on his own into the sprawling mess of urban slum wilderness. Losing Tank would be a detriment in the short term, yes, but after losing so much, Sejah could not ally himself with someone who was an admitted danger to his very being. After all, who knew what else might be broken in that brain of his? No, it was best to move on alone.

The other end of the alleyway looked much like its beginning, opening onto more ramshackle structures, countless aliens, and dangers both physical and monetary. Neon signs glared from any window which presented itself, while yet more signs were painted on boards or walls, and Sejah could read none of them. On Nehantish he had managed to survive despite his illiteracy by virtue of knowing local customs and smells. But here, in the most foreign land he'd ever set foot on, any familiarity was gone, and dread began to creep into his heart. He had cast aside his only friend, and now knew he could trust no one. Tank could keep searching for transport to Aderaan or Jedha, if he desired; Sejah only wished to return home.

Just how he was going to do that, though, he hadn't managed to figure out just yet.

[Tank]

"Karrabast!"

Tank kicked a piece of trash down the muddy favela alleyway, still a bit raw about the sudden bad blood between him and Sejah. He didn't fault the kid for feeling that way. There was only a small fraternity of chip pullers that he'd run into before getting frozen by the Empire. Not a single one of them that didn't harbor their fair share of self hatred.

Couldn't be helped. Besides, a young Jedi Padawan? He didn't need an aging clone with shrapnel in his back and a head full of re-routed signals. He could get along just fine.

Tank sidled up to an open air bar, tossing a pittance to the man to fill his cup with whatever he was decanting from the oversized jug. It smelled like green apples and rocket fuel. Not that he intended to get drunk in a place like this, but guys who loitered at a bar without drinking tended to stand out, and he needed to hear chatter.

As Tank took a bitter sip, he grimaced, then sharply shook his head. Bantha bile! He disdainfully plonked his cup on the sheet metal bar counter, turning to strike up words with dirty-faced Nautolan.

"Hey, you a pilot?"

"Do I look like a pilot?"

The clone turned his palms up in a shrug. Couldn't help trying. He moved on to a human woman with slightly cleaner clothing and what appeared to be a flight jacket. Better odds there maybe.

And then his unattended glass began to quaver slightly. The surface of the liquid within shook in concentric rings as something big caused it to vibrate.

The tension in Tank's face fell. So too did the grimace. Either that was a ground tremor, or...

...or the Empire was about to clean out the favela.

"Karabasst."

[Sejah Haversh]

Sejah felt it before he heard or saw it. A wave of dread rushed through the crowd like a sharp, ill wind, tainted with the noxious, bitter flavor of hatred. It was a sensation he had felt before, when homeless camps were raided by police, or when riots would push innocent people out of their way. But those things had been on Nehantish, before he realized why he could perceive emotion in the way he could. The Jedi had taught him that, but precious little else he could immediately apply to his situation. For that, he fell back on a life of living on the street.

Regardless of the danger, the first rule of surviving a raid was to locate your allies, and stick with them. Even a single friend provided you with support and courage in numbers. Tank may be someone he didn't especially care for, but any known entity in a time of strife was better than going it alone.

Turning on his heel, Sejah rushed back through the alley in search of the Clone Trooper, cursing how all humans looked alike, even when they weren't clones. Already the crowd worked like a tide against him, rushing away in the tidal path of that wave of dread, its peaks growing ever higher, threatening to become breakers as he fought through he panicking masses. Without his lightsaber, Sejah knew he posed little threat against whatever danger there was, which was where the assistance of a combat veteran would come in handy. If only he could find him.

[Tank]

Tank ducked through a narrow alley, switching right, left, and right again as the warren-like passages narrowed. It was slow going, fighting upstream against the flow of fleeing refugees. Still, the prudent decision was to assess the tactical situation before anything.

He ducked into a ramshackle made of corrugated durasteel, with a mesh screen window bolted onto it. In the dark, he had a partial view of the western gate to the favela. Quickly, the former commander took stock of his situation. Three TX-225 GAVw Occupier combat assault tanks growled forward on treads. Each tank carried a squad of troopers on its payload deck, with another two squads on foot for direct support. The other four gates to the slum probably had a similar incursion, and there were probably an equal number of troopers hanging back in reserve, with detention processing assets. It seemed like a boilerplate operation - he'd done similar duty on a few enemy-occupied worlds during the war. Now all he had to do was reverse-engineer the tactics, and think like the enemy.

First order of business was finding a weapon. The hovel he was in certainly didn't have anything that would rate, at least beyond a metal pipe. That was better than nothing so Tank took it. Upon turning to exit, the clone froze in his tracks. He could hear footsteps ahead. Not scurrying, not running. They were advancing with a careful pace. The clone hugged the wall, out of sight from the window and from the cloth-flap door he'd entered. Unfortunately there wasn't much in terms of better options for hiding places here. He tightened his grip on the knurled edge of the pipe, waiting for the cloth flap to push open...

[Sejah Haversh]

Within the mass of panic, Sejah's mind found itself becoming overwhelmed, assailed from all sides by extremes of emotion, until he could not sort his own feelings from those of the crowd. Shoving hard against the oncoming flow, he pushed into a small recess formed by the corner of a building, finding a lee in the flow of foot traffic where he could close his eyes and focus. Slowly, decibel by decibel, he drowned out the screaming and yelling, and he forced his own inner calm to overtake the extremes bombarding him from beyond.

I am me, I am the only me, I can focus on myself, and only myself. The matra ran through his head, a variation on what had been taught him by the Jedi, until at last he found himself in a bubble of pure peace and isolation, where he was able to breathe a sigh of relief.

Within that bubble, he could look out, extend his senses to isolate and locate other extremes of emotion, using them to separate the occupants of the favela from those who wished it harm. And in it all, he found a third presence. One which possessed fear, but also resolve and readiness. It was different from the pockets of rage which dotted the structures, those ready with weapons to attack based out of hate, instead of out of self-preservation. And while he could not read this one's mind with so much emotional noise in the area, Sejah guessed it had to be Tank.

Opening his eyes, the Nehantite pushed out into the fray once more, sifting and side-stepping through the crowd, his pace slow and deliberate as he maintained focus on what he thought to be the former clone trooper, until at last he found himself at a small shack, its door flap still swaying just so. Taking a deep breath, he stepped inside.

The interior of the hovel met him with a hollow, metallic clank which resounded through his skull, and then his world went black.

[Tank]

"Ah, karrabast!"

Tank immediately dropped to the ground next to the Nehantite, cursing himself for not checking fire. That was sloppy, soldier! He pressed two fingers under the alien's jaw, relieved to find a pulse. Poor kid got his bell rang. About the worst possible time for it.

"Did you hear that?"

Tank froze, ears straining for the vox-clipped dialogue that sounded from outside. Unmistakably a stormtrooper. He crouched over Sejah's prone body, tightening his grip on the pipe in his hands.

"Didn't hear anything. Move on."

"Move onto the next grid without me. I'm gonna check this out."

"We've got a schedule to keep. Don't take too long."

Tank considered moving Sejah's body out from the doorway, but as close as they were, the trooper might even hear the sound of a body being dragged. Instead, the clone carefully rose to his feet, pressing against the nearest wall. A moment later, a figure in white armor pushed through the curtain, leading with his blaster. The stormtrooper fixed on the Nehantite lying on the floor, and prodded his body with a boot.

"On your feet, scum. You're being processed for detention. I said on your feet!"

Tank wound up a swing and took a sidestep behind the trooper. The Imperial diverted his attention a moment too late.

"What the??"

CRACK

The clone swung for distance, hitting the stormtrooper hard enough to take him off his feet. The trooper rudely collapsed on top of Sejah, and Tank winced, hoping the clattering racket was too quiet for the troopers he hoped had moved too far away. When no troopers rushed in to reinforce, Tank glanced back at the unconscious Nehatite.

"Sorry, sir."

At least this situation presented an opportunity. With another furtive glance, Tank swiped the trooper's blaster, and began to remove the plastoid armor as well.

"Time to see if the Empire made any improvements to trooper armor..."

[Sejah Haversh]

As the darkness lifted, a brilliant white light filled Sejah's vision instead, and he squinted hard against it until his eyes adjusted. He was standing, though there was a fierce pain in his muzzle and forehead, which he reached up instinctively to rub, then looked down to see why he had remained on his feet.

Blinking again, Sejah saw that he hadn't. There, laying flat out on the ground, with a stormtrooper flopped over him, was his own body, and Tank was already stripping armor away.

But, how? his mind asked, and he glanced around to see everything in pale, luminous hues, while sound came to him in wobbly echoes.

"Tank. Tank! I'm up here!" he spoke, waving his paws to get the old Clone Trooper's attention, then attempting to tap his shoulder.

To his shock, Sejah's fingers passed through him as if he wasn't there. Or, more appropriately, as if Sejah wasn't there. "What in the pit?" he muttered, holding a paw up to his face, his eyes going wide as he found he could see directly through it. "No! I'm... I'm dead?!"

Reeling back from the discovery, the padawan stepped back, passing directly through the hovel's flap and out into the chaos beyond. The street was flooded with people running, while a procession of Imperial soldiers approached, many walking around a slow-moving APC, and a mounted gun vehicle beyond that. His feet carried himself further out into the ghostly white crowd, each person passing through him as they ran from the oncoming storm. There were screams - he knew there were, as he could hear them - but with each step away from the hovel, the screams and rumble of vehicles grew more faint, until he could scarcely hear them at all, despite being next to their source. Fear was present, however, as was arrogance, hatred, and desperation exploded from those around him in palpable waves.

The energy was strong, chaotic, and intense, and Sejah looked around himself in panic before looking down at his paws once more. With each tremor of panic, each engine rumble, his image faltered and shook, threatening to lose cohesion altogether. Panic of his own set in, and he glanced about, trying to find that doorway he'd come out of in the first place, then realized he was lost. Glancing about, he could feel emotions growing stronger, threatening to cause him to lose his focus, and he scanned for any sign of where he had come from until he started to run in the direction he thought it was.

No, it was wrong. What little sound he could still hear turned to absolute silence, so he turned back the other way. Sound, he discovered, was localized to where his body lay, and he used it like a beacon, following the steadily increasing volume until at last he saw the flap, and he dashed inside. There, Tank was almost finished, and his own body remained unconscious on the floor. In an act of desperation, he jumped upon it, only to have his footpaws pass through and land on the ground, making no connection with himself.

"Oh, come on!" he snarled, then attempted to lay down in the same position. Still no luck. A glance back toward the doorway as rumbling grew louder, and he forced himself to think. Surely the Jedi had told him something about out-of-body experiences, right? He hadn't believed they were possible, so he likely paid little attention in that lecture, and so he kicked himself for it now. He could recall the lecture hall, the color of the accent stripes, and what he was wearing that day, but the lesson? Gone, all gone. Lost to the winds. Slumping to the floor, Sejah cradled his head in his paws, ready to cry, as he knew the Imperials would kill him if he didn't wake, and they would likely discover Tank if Tank attempted to protect his body.

"Please, let me wake up," he whimpered.

In that moment, the brightness of the world around him dimmed, and he felt himself fading. Was it death? Had he passed?

A second later, he cracked open his eyes, one opening wider than the other, and he saw dirt. Then he felt pain. He was alive!

Coughing, he began to move, only to wince and whimper as he attempted to breathe in through his nose. No airflow, and it hurt. Badly.

"Owww," he groaned quietly. "You broke my friggin' nose." It was his moment of selfish reflection before memory of his experience returned. Crawling up to his paws and knees, a sharp pain split behind his eyes, and he knew his nose wasn't the only broken thing, as the pipe had connected first with the top of his muzzle, deflecting up into his forehead, likely fracturing something there. But he had to push on if he wanted that to be the limit of his injuries. "Soldiers incoming, mobile gun," he then whispered. "Did this guy have a grenade? We can take them out."

Hardly the words of a Jedi, but as he professed, Sejah wasn't actually a Jedi yet. Students were allowed to break the rules.

[Tank]

"Could've broken a lot worse. We might need a call and repeat if we plan on splitting up again."

Tank shimmied into the body glove, finding it a little tighter than he liked. The kid was aching, but he was still in the fight, clearly picking up a new wave of imperial approach.

"Well, the Empire kept some standard kit."

He gestured to the cylinder affixed to the back of the belt, before clipping it around his waist.

"Thermal detonator. High yield. That'll definitely hit the foot patrol, but it'll draw every bit of attention back to us, not to mention hurting some of the refugees."

Tank's eyes went slightly distant, switching left and right as he took Sejah's observations into consideration.

"That being said, we know they've cleared this shanty, and probably the adjacent block. We set this to remote...we could reduce this hovel to matchsticks and cause one hell of a diversion if we need one."

The clone slipped on greaves and cuirass.

"I've got half a plan, Sejah. You, uh, might not like it."

[Sejah Haversh]

The Nehantite was busy feeling over his muzzle and brow, wincing and whimpering at even the lightest of touches in places. He had a skull fracture, and he knew it, but there wasn't any time to do anything about it.

"Not the biggest fan of the half of the plan we've done so far, either," he grumbled.

A turn of his head and he spat out a mouthful of blood which had run through his sinuses and down the back of his throat. It was all he could taste or smell, robbing him of one of his greatest senses, and forcing him to breathe through his mouth. "But, if we know they've cleared this area, why not just stay? They'd have no reason to come back. We'd be safe."

It was not the voice or mindset of a Jedi, but that of one who had lived on the streets, and suffered similar abuses at the hands of authorities. The voice of a man who had long been forced to care for himself before anyone else. Sejah could feel their suffering, their fear, and those emotions clogged his brain like the blood clogged his nose, forcing him to think around them.

"What's your plan?" Realization dawned on him, and were it not going to hurt so much, Sejah would have furrowed his eyebrows. Instead he held up a paw. "Wait, I'm about to get chucked out there in stun-cuffs, aren't I?"

[Tank]

Unable to emote from behind a mask, Tank shrugged.

"So, uh, you're familiar with this one then?" His voice scrubbed sterile by the vox, clicking at the beginning and end of each sentence.

"At least you're making it look convincing. That should get us past the cordon, and with a little luck, to a motorpool."

The trooper could tell that Sejah wasn't quite on board, and he relaxed his body language.

"No half measures. We commit to a strategy, and we follow through. No one gets left behind."

[Sejah Haversh]

As the adrenaline in his veins began to clear, the dull throb of Sejah's muzzle and forehead ramped up their presence into sharp, splitting pain. Pink eyes crossing slightly, he closed them, only to gasp and wince as that put additional pressure upon his brow.

"Heknesh!" the Nehantite hissed a curse in his own tongue, then bit his lip as he scanned the room for any semblance of a better plan. He couldn't breathe through his nose, it hurt badly, and beyond the fracture in his skull he began to think he may have suffered a concussion. Thinking? Thinking wasn't much in the works at the moment, he decided, and beyond just hiding and hoping the Empire wouldn't come back for a second sweep, Tank's plan was about the best option.

Unless the favela's occupants were being gathered for a firing squad, that was. No, if they wanted everyone dead, they would have simply leveled everything via aerial bombardment, and they certainly weren't looking for a Jedi. Even if they were, a bloodied Nehantite would hardly be reasonable guess, he imagined.

"Fine," he relented at last. Shoulders slumping, Sejah placed his paws behind his back. "Just don't you dare turn on the stun setting. I feel one shock, and I'm gonna kick you in the nuts so hard that no plasteel codpiece will save you."

[Tank]

"Hehe," the 'stormtrooper' chuckled, roughly prodding his 'prisoner' in the ribs with the blaster barrel. "I can make it look convincing other ways. Now move it."

They made their way out of the shanty, carefully negotiating the alleys headed towards the Imperial advance.

"TC-855, where are you taking this...thing?" An orange pauldroned trooper flagged Tank down.

"Person of interest, transferring to segregated detention. Code Cresh-Seven-Nine."

The Stormtrooper sergeant's body language changed.

"Oh, just great. Well, get it over with then. Head to the back, I'll follow up with your squad leader."

"Yes sir."

Tank thumped Sejah in the shoulder with his blaster.

"Alright, move!"

[Sejah Haversh]

Choice words were snarled in Nehantite at the less than gentle shove, and Sejah moved to wipe away blood dripping from his nose, only to recall his paws were bound firmly, and any attempt to move them might be met with being shot by some overzealous trooper. His head throbbed, left eye becoming unfocused due to swelling around it, and he plodded along at Tank's behest, selling his misery more by part of method than by acting.

Cresh-seven-nine was no code he knew, not that Sejah knew any codes used by the Empire. For that matter, he doubted he could pick out which letter Cresh was from the alphabet. At least he presumed it was a letter. Seven and nine were numbers, and he knew those, at least. Numbers were easier, as there were only ten of them. Glancing around, there were certainly more than ten stormtroopers, though he and Tank were approaching the end of the group.

Sejah wanted to look back over his shoulder. He wanted to ask the plan, wanted something, any kind of guidance as to what they were going to do, but that would be too great a risk. He was a prisoner, and his life appeared to depend on acting the part. So he trudged on, trusting the very man he'd turned from not even an hour before. It was a thin ice of trust, and he prayed it would bear his weight.

[Tank]

"What's this, then?

One of the junior officers at the rear of the staging area broke away from another two in conversation near a Sentinel-class shuttle. Tank frog-marched Sejah another couple of paces before coming to a halt.

"Ad-Seg. Cresh Seven Nine. I drew short straw."

The officer swore, taking a step back.

"I didn't get my commish to have to deal with C-79's anymore."

"I have to take care of this myself? I have to get back to my squad, my sergeant will have my ass for getting rotated back!"

The stormtrooper junior lieutenant swore again, snatching his hat off his head. He readjusted his blonde hair back into a crisp part before tucking his hat back on. Glancing at Sejah, he sneered.

"Fine. I'll help, but it'll cost you. Two hours of credited HoloNet use on your code cylinder."

Tank played along, hamming a little.

"Two hours? I'll be spent for the next week and a half!"

The Lt. JG thrust his chin out.

"You want my help or not? Your HoloNet access, or you can deal with this..."

He gestured at Sejah with a look of almost nausea on his face.

Tank's shoulders slumped. "Fine." He shook his head. "Where's the, uh, kit?"

The officer jerked his thumb towards the shuttle.

"In the hold. Didn't get unpacked. I think we were all hoping we wouldn't need to. Come on."

The black-uniformed man gestured Tank and his prisoner ahead. As Tank forced Sejah along, he very discretely disengaged the Nehantite's stun cuffs, mindful to keep them closed just enough to appear to be still locked. Though he knew Sejah couldn't see his face, Tank nevertheless made a pointed expression beneath the mask.

He's a Jedi, he can figure out where this goes from here.