Loose Ends

[Nelaa Kyris]

"We have a hit in sector 6B"

The analyst's voice was calm and even in Kyris' earpiece. She took a quick glance at the small screen on her wrist, noting the location being pinged to her and it's relation to her own.

"What is it?"

"Derelict warehouse. No operational security system, but nearby security systems picked up the sound of glass breaking and reported it"

"Seems too easy. Keep eyes surrounding the area but don't move in. What buildings are in the area? Anything occupied right now?"

"There is a textiles factory nearby that is currently running production."

"Any workers inside?"

"Just droids."

"If he were hiding inside, it would be tough to pick him up on a scan. Keep the perimeter tight, I'll check it out on foot."

Her voice was low with a slight trace of fatigue. It had been a full day since the assassination of Gallus Tagge, and even longer since she'd slept. She had begun pursuit of one of the conspirators immediately after events transpired but opted to hang back and track her quarry rather than attempting a heated chase through Coruscant 's underbelly in an evening gown and heels. A supply drop had brought her more tactical clothing and some stimulants to keep her sharp while Intel began to focus resources on the area.

The building was a few blocks away and she opted to head there on foot. If the conspirator was inside, the sound of a speeder pulling up would alert him to her presence. She moved in shadows as she neared the building. Across the street was the abandoned warehouse the analyst had mentioned. It occurred to Kyris that he might have broken a window on purpose to see if stormtroopers would go swarming in. With this in mind she noted all the windows on the building she was about to enter that could be used to observe the warehouse, opting to make those a focal point of her search.

She made her way along the side of the building, keeping close so she couldn't be seen from inside. As she approached she heard the locking mechanism of the door closest to her unlock, a testament to Intel's efficiency, and she quietly made her way inside.

[Dashiel Starborn]

For the first time in what felt like an age, Dashiel Starborn was still. Still on the outside, at least. He’d contorted himself into abandoned shell of a speeder, squeezed into the backseat with his head and shoulders sunk low beneath the windows. Just about every part of him ached and cried out for a chance to rest, but he couldn’t sleep. There was too much rattling around inside his head. Too many ideas, too many regrets.

Why the frak had he left Charlotte at the Imperial Palace?

She had to be dead now. That was what she had wanted, wasn’t it? To die and in doing so, to take the head of the Galactic Empire screaming to hell with her. They’d never discussed it, not outright, but had she expected him to die with her? Dash squeezed his blaster pistol's grip, fingers practically seized in place around it from holding it so tight for so long.

What were his options now? Report back to Bothawui and be court martialed, a coward and a deserter. Reach out to his family... who would turn him in to the Alliance, without a doubt. Coruscant was his home, the place he’d be born, and yet it had never felt more like a strange alien world, a planet that he didn’t know any more than he knew himself.

Frak.

[Nelaa Kyris]

Frak

When Kyris entered the factory she was certain that she would find her target. A thorough sweep had come up completely empty and cost her valuable time. Instead of going back to the street level she stepped out onto a fire escape on the third story overlooking the street. Maybe he slipped through the net. She didn't even want to think about the trouble that would cause.

"Factory is clear. Do you have anything else for me?"

"It's pretty quiet. We're picking up some humanoids on our scanners, but it's probably just vagrants. Should we have CorSec come in and..."

She softly cut him off. "No, no. We're already stepping on ISB's toes as it is. We'll use our own resources until they tell us to get out of the way."

She looked down on the streets one more time. From her higher vantage point, she could see the criss crossing maze of streets slicing the buildings up into neat little squares. Some buildings, like the one she was at, were still operationational, but a lot of the places she could see were abandoned and in obvious disrepair. On the streets with no operational buildings she could even see broken down speeders on the road, shells of their former selves that had long been stripped of anything useful.

Just then, a thought crossed her mind.

She scampered down the fire escape and dropped down to street level once again. Just a block over was a street running between two abandoned warehouses. At the corner sat one of the broken down speeders she had seen from the fire escape. The front windscreen was still there but badly cracked and caked with grime, making it impossible to see through. As she got reached the passenger side she could see that the window on that side was missing. She eased up silently until right at the last second when she suddenly brought her blaster up and training it on the backseat of the speeder where she sudden saw...

Nothing. Empty speeder.

She stepped back and eased the blaster back into its holster when she saw another empty shell of a speeder farther up the street...

[Dashiel Starborn]

Footsteps.

Dash tensed. He had chosen this street for a reason: what little speeder and foot traffic it attracted was infrequent and hurried. People travelling through this particular part of Coruscant did so on the way to somewhere else. It hadn’t exactly been a well-thought out choice, however. He was working on instinct, on what he knew about the mega-city, and what he could guess from appearances… but appearances could be deceptive.

Taking a shallow breath to steady himself, Dash tried to focus on what he could do if someone approached the speeder. Play dead? Pretend to be a vagrant and hope to scare off the interest of a passerby by feigning intoxication? Wearing an overcoat he’d found in a dumpster and already beginning to stink of stale sweat, he’d look and smell the part. It was a fifty-fifty call whether a passing Stormtrooper patrol would haul him out or laugh at his misfortune and walk on.

Betting on the latter, Dash hunkered down lowered into his overcoat and feigned sleep.

[Nelaa Kyris]

As Kyris approached the speeder she could see, and smell, a person in the backseat. As she approached, she sorted out what position the man was laying in the best she could. It was hard enough to see as it was, and the way he was curled up under his overcoat didn't do her any favors. After a moment she was able to see that he was laying with his head closer to her which would give him a really weird angle if he tried to roll over and pull a blaster.

It dawned on her then that this could very well just be some poor homeless person trying to get some shelter from the elements. For a moment her mind ran over all the minutia, looking for that dead giveaway that would leave her one hundred percent sure. While that little bit of evidence didn't seem to exist, she decided to go with the simplest solution: Just assume it's him. Worst case scenario she ends up having a really strange conversation with a vagrant.

With her mind made up, she leaned over on the side of the speeder. She ducked her head close enough to the missing window so she wouldn't have to shout, but not so far to leave herself vulnerable to an attack. Her tone was light and conversational, almost as if she were speaking to an old friend.

"Here's what I propose. You come out of there quietly, and leave your blaster laying on the seat, and I won't shoot you."

She hesitated for a slight moment, looking for any sign that he was going to try something desperate.

"I'll even let you keep the jacket. Deal?"

[Dashiel Starborn]

Dash stirred, only enough to give the appearance of a rough-sleeper who was used to being disturbed on a nightly basis. After a grumble of half-hearted protest, he kept his voice low and groggy. Though his time with Rebel Intelligence had worn away his natural Coruscanti accent, like water wearing detail from stone, Dash slipped easily into mimicking a lower city inhabitant. It was, unbeknownst to the stranger, a flawless impersonation of his brother Salvo.

“Dunno what y’talkin’ ‘bout... no blashter’s,” he mumbled. “Am jus’... tryin’ t’get some shut-eye.”

[Nelaa Kyris]

"Fair enough, sorry to bother you."

Sorry if you're actually a homeless guy. As she stepped away from the speeder she pulled a small round device from her belt and casually tossed it into the front seat of the speeder. Kyris hit the ground just in time to cover her ears and shut her eyes as the stun grenade erupted inside the speeder. The speeder's metal frame did enough to blunt the worst of the effects to Kyris, but the man inside would be less fortunate. If his face was covered, his eyesight probably wouldn't be affected, but unless he had some heavy duty hearing protection his hearing and balance were going to be a bit worse for wear.

As soon as the blast was over, Kyris was back on her feet. She was holding a blaster in one hand as she snatched the speeder door open, hoping to pull the man out onto the pavement while he was still disoriented.

[Dashiel Starborn]

There was no need to pull him out of the speeder. Dash scrambled out of the backseat and tore himself out of his now smoking overcoat, hurling it to the ground. The motion of tearing himself free of the singing fabric caused Dash to stumble and as he struggled to right his balance, he looked right into the face of the woman who’d just flushed him out of his less than stellar hiding place. He had his blaster in his hand still, but it didn’t matter; the stranger already had hers pointed at him.

“So much for the jacket,” Dash said, the sound of his own voice made distant by the ringing in his ears.

[Nelaa Kyris]

"I did ask nicely" she replied, although her tone suggested she was speaking more to herself than him. It was just as well considering he probably couldn't hear a word she said by that point.

"Target located and subdued, ready for extraction."

Kyris half circled Dash while keeping her blaster trained on him. She kept just the right angle on him that she could see his blaster, but he'd have to turn to fire at her.

"Leave the blaster on the ground when you pick those up."

With her freehand she reached up to the commlink in her ear as if to check if it was working.

"I repeat, target located and subdued, ready for extraction. Do you copy?"

[Dashiel Starborn]

Without his overcoat on, Dash looked all the more incongruous, dressed as he was in the waiters outfit that had allowed him to go briefly undetected at the Imperial gala. Moving with a deliberate slowness, he lowered himself into a crouch and dropped the blaster pistol on the ground. Still crouching, he looked up at the woman circling him as he picked up the cuffs.

“Think my fingers got singed in the blast. There’s no way I’ll be able to put these on myself.”

[Nelaa Kyris]

"Just try real hard, like your life depends on it."

She rolled her eyes at the hamfisted attempt to get her close enough for an attack. He even started making a show of not being able to operate the cuffs with his 'singed' hands. She hadn't left him many options though, so part of her could appreciate the attempt.

"Okay, okay. You've made your point. Turn around and walk slowly toward the speeder and put your hands on the hood."

She motioned toward the speeder with the muzzle of her blaster and watched as he did as he was instructed. Just as he neared the speeder though, he felt a hard hit on his back as Kyris tackled him out of nowhere. They landed with a thud just in front of the speeder as a loud boom and a flash of light erupted from a flashbang grenade that landed on the other side of the speeder and blaster fire erupted around them.

"STAY DOWN!"

She shouted at him as she took a peak around the speeder, trying to see what direction the attackers were coming from. The speeder was providing cover but they were also pinned down. She fired off a few shots in the general direction that the attack was coming from then ducked behind the speeder again. While she was cool under pressure, her voice was beginning to edge toward frantic.

"Kyris to HQ, we're being fired on. Do you copy. HQ this Agent Kyris. I'm being fired on it Sector 6B, do you copy!"

There was no reply over the comms.

[Dashiel Starborn]

Hunched down beside the speeder wreck, Dash looked over at his would-be captor, firing off shots into the unknown. In the quiet between each blast, she was calling for backup. Repeatedly. Did that mean she was alone? His eyes twitched again to the blaster, a matter of metres away on the ground. If he scrambled away, for just a moment, he might be able to get a hold of his blaster - but then what? Someone was raining down blaster fire and the stars knew what else on them. On him? On her? Did the shooters even know who they were targeting, or was this just some unfortunate coincidence?

“Sounds like you could use some help,” he ventured, as she ducked down beside him.