Star Wars KOTOR: Counterplay

[ForceFightWMe12]

Dominic stood at the edge of the small crowd that had gathered to listen to the man, his hands hidden in his pockets beneath his cloak. With Arai standing by his side, dressed likewise, they looked nothing out of sorts. Just another pair of wandering spacers stuck on Nar Shaddaa.

 

But when a couple of thugs made some unpleasant comments - and the small gathering caught sight of the blasters they were waving and their drunken gestures - the crowd began to break up. As everyone drifted away, including the thugs, Dominic and Arai stayed, without moving.

 

"Pauel." Dom called, not doubting that he would be remembered.

[Tysyacha]

NAR SHADDAA, COMMONS

 

The preacher, recognizing the voice of one of the Truth's most faithful Pilgrims, raised his right hand high in greeting. "Fellow traveler!" he called. "Seeker of the Truth! I am glad to see you again, Dominic. Come, and tell me what in the name of our holy Creator happened to Seeker Adeline! Why did she fail, along with the Coruscanti? The Jedi could not have been the only ones to take her down. She took her life like a coward instead of facing me or the Prophet that we serve."

 

Pauel was a very strange man, but stranger still was the fact that he neither preached nor traveled with any more fellow Seekers. He was second only to the Prophet, known to the crowd as the Apostle. Only the worthy knew his name.

[ForceFightWMe12]

Dominic raised his own hand in greeting - the tattoo proudly on display - as he crossed the few paces of space that separated them, Arai tailing after him.

 

"I believe it has something to do with what we came to speak to you about." he said, clasping hands with the Preacher when they came within range. "My companion," he released Pauel's hand to indicate Arai, "Is interested in joining our ranks. But we had a few questions about ostanovium first. Do you know a place where we can talk?"

[Tysyacha]

"Certainly, Pilgrim Dominic," replied Pauel with a small smile. "I always have time to converse with and guide one of the faithful." He motioned for Dominic and Arai to follow him. "Even though I don't like to visit cantinas because they're sinful places that encourage drunkenness and depravity, there is a private room I have paid for in one of them that serves only non-alcoholic beverages." Another smile. "It's called Geeda's, owned by a Rodian female merchant who expanded her business opportunities as soon as her opponent--a thug--was duly displaced."

 

The way Pauel said displaced suggested another word altogether, and an altogether different method of getting rid of Geeda's entrepreneurial opponent. However, the Apostle said nothing more of it, and he entered Geeda's Cantina as a polite and respectable patron would. He ushered Dominic and Arai to a table.

 

"Now, then: How may I advise you, Pilgrim, and you, Friend Arai?"

[Writer]

Arai was a little put out by the fact that the rented room was in a cantina that served non-alcoholic beverages only. She felt like she could use a drink right about then, but it couldn't be helped. She had decided that her best course of action would be to remain completely silent, focusing all her energy on finding Pauel's shatterpoints and subtly manipulating them as Dom did all the talking. But it was not to be. They had scarcely sat down when Pauel turned directly to her and asked in rather elusive terms what it was she wanted.

 

"Ostanovium," Arai said quietly. She closed her eyes for half a second, trying to see his shatterpoints through the ostanovium-induced haze. "What happened on Coruscant is that all the Found died. Poisoned by ostanovium. Now, Dom suggests that the difference between them and him, and the reason he's none the worse for wear is that they ingested the stuff in capsule form. I need to know if that's the case or if it's dangerous to some extent in any form."

[Tysyacha]

Pauel sighed disgustedly and shook his head. "The fools! They should have known better! Seeker Adeline was misleading them. From the reports I've heard through the holonews and my...better-informed sources....that she insisted her Pilgrims take the metal in its capsule form as extra protection against the attack from those wicked and amoral Jedi." He took a sip of his drink. "The truth is that extra doses of ostanovium are only effective, and non-debilitating, if they're inhaled. Breathed in as a gas! That's why we Apostles take our message directly from the Prophet and do not contradict it: "you must be inspired, breathe the breath of life, and so on. That applies to ostanovium as well! Why didn't they listen? Oh, the poor, murdered fools!"

 

The Apostle seemed about to cry, but Force knew he was beyond such things...

[ForceFightWMe12]

"So it would be safe, then," he said, turning to give Arai a quick glance. "For my companion to be exposed to it. In gas form, at least." It would appear that his information had been as incomplete as Seeker Adeline's. He was lucky that he had been absent for the start of the preperations of the compound's defenses, or he too might have died at Coruscant.

 

For the longest time, Dominic hadn't understood why he had survived the Coruscanti slaughter. With his tattoo, he had been directly exposed to ostanovium for much, much longer than many of the Pilgrims that had died of its poisoning. When he saw his Brothers and Sisters begin to drop like flies, he assumed that it was only a matter of time before he died, as well. So he sat upon the Throne of Gain and waited. His vision grew dark and he lost consciousness...but he woke up again when the fumes had cleared, and heard the approaching voices of the Republic investigation teams. He gained enough strength to flee just as they came into the Throne room; with his extensive knowledge of the compound, he was able to escape before any of the investigators could give chase.

 

The ex-Jedi licked his lips. He could really go for a drink right now.

 

Looking up at Pauel again, he folded his hands on the table and leaned slightly forward. "So, you said that the gaseous state is the only safe way to ingest the mineral. Is it powerful enough to sever a connection to the Force? Or is there a better way?"

[Tysyacha]

The Apostle nodded somberly. "Yes, on both counts. The sublimated, or gaseous, form of ostanovium is enough to sever one's connection to the Force if one inhales it. However, there is also a better way to do so, yet only the Prophet knows it. Khristoff himself is an expert on severing connections to the Force without using it himself. I do not know what his method is, as he does not share all of the secrets that are a part of the Truth with his disciples."

 

Pauel turned to Dominic and Arai after meditating a moment. "I have a personal vessel," he said, "meant for me and a maximum of three others. Shall I take you to the white world of Cocyta, where the Prophet lives? There, he can tend to you and teach you. Of course, it will be a long and dangerous journey, but are you willing to risk it?" He looked at them with his piercing, yet not unkind, eyes.

[ForceFightWMe12]

That was it; that was what Dominic had been hoping for. But it seemed almost...too easy. Seeker Adeline always said that Khristoff was a very private - perhaps even paranoid - person that wanted his location kept secret from even his followers. He looked at Adeline, uncertaintly. Was he telling the truth?

 

- - - - - - - - - -

 

As the shuttle landed on the Nar Shaddaa dock, Salvatore turned away from the pilot's console, turning around to join the others in the main hold, where Mika was reloading the overview of the briefing Admiral Onasi provided for them on this Pauel character. With hands in his pockets, he looked on as the map of the city section unfolded on the rotating holographic projector.

 

"Pauel has been preaching lately mainly in this area." Mika said, a yellow dot blinking in the indicated position. "We are currently here." A blue dot appeared over their docking location after he fiddled with the controls. "If he isn't preaching, he's often been found here." Three green dots began to blink over buildings near by the yellow dot. "You heard Captain Starr's orders; if he isn't preaching in the streets, we split up and go after each of these three locations." A rotating portrait of Pauel took the place of the map. "Upon locating him, contact the others so that we can bring him safely into custody aboard the Millenial. Violence is only permitted if there is violence answering us." He looked around. "Any questions?"

[Writer]

Arai's instincts screamed that she shouldn't accept Pauel's offer, that to do so would change her in ways that would ensure she wasn't herself anymore. She was just preparing to do her worst to Pauel, to find and exploit his most sensitive shatterpoints, but the expression on Dom's face pulled her up short. That had been the information he was hoping for? She didn't even have to go searching for his feelings on the matter.

 

Turning back to Pauel, she changed tactics. She looked into his mind as best she could and caught his mental picture of how a Force-user would act. Comparing it to her own understated behavior to this point, she found that if he'd identified her as a Force-user, he probably thought she was using deathsticks.

 

Time to correct the misconception.

 

"Wow, that's something," she said sarcastically. Crossing her arms over her chest, she shot Dom a smirk before turning back to Pauel. "We haven't been here ten minutes and you're already..." she snapped her fingers and pointed skyward, "... directing us higher up the chain of command?"

 

Looking very unimpressed, she turned back to Dom, ignoring Pauel for the moment. "Dom, I thought you said this guy had all my answers. Is this what you meant? That he knows the one who really does have all the answers?"

[Tysyacha]

((Dom couldn't have been looking at Seeker Adeline--unless he was literally seeing a ghost! With her not being a Force user, that's rather impossible!))

 

GEEDA'S CANTINA, NAR SHADDAA

 

Pauel gritted his teeth. And here I thought you were walking the same path as Pilgrim Dominic, he thought, a lost soul wanting to be Found. It appears that you are just another scoffer, one who mocks the Truth instead of seeking it. I shall address myself no more to you, unless it is absolutely necessary. I sense that you are callous, young woman, and also arrogant.

 

"I repeat my offer once more," he said to Dominic, "and your...friend...may come along if she needs treatment for ostanovium poisoning. As for the Prophet, he has studied the Truth for far longer than I have. There is a central tenet of our faith: 'No student is greater than his teacher, and no servant is greater than his master'. I have served the Prophet for many years, and yet in no respects do I consider myself greater or more knowledgeable than he is. He alone knows the final secrets of the metal that..." Pauel trailed off. "The metal is an instrument of the Truth, and he knows how to wield it."

 

COMMONS, NAR SHADDAA

 

"I can't believe it," mumbled Jedi Knight Perdante Dareva. "There's no one here! No Khristoff, no Pauel, no crowd of unwashed masses waiting to hear what kind of bantha dung is pouring forth from his so-called 'holy mouth'! We must have just missed him." There were several passersby milling around the Nar Shaddaa Commons, but it didn't look like any of them had been part of any makeshift congregation. "Where do you suppose Pauel could have gone?"

[Writer]

((Semi-sorta JP with FFWM. She contributed a line ))

 

It wasn't quite the response she was expecting, but Arai could most certainly work with it. She glanced at Dom, reached over and gave his hand a brief squeeze, an unspoken plea for him to trust her...

 

... but when they were younger, it had communicated a double meaning and the second meaning was that she was probably about to do something incredibly stupid, and she would need his help. Turning back to Pauel, she addressed him as though he'd still been speaking directly to her.

 

"Hey, apostle," she said sharply. "If I'm not mistaken, the term refers to a messenger, a sort of religious ambassador, right? So when it comes to ostanovium, that makes you an expert, right? I'm not talking about the all-consuming fount of knowledge on the stuff. I get that your Prophet has a higher claim to that title. But thus far, you haven't given me anything I can wrap my mind around, so let's try this again, shall we?"

 

She raised her right hand and sparks began to play across her fingertips. "See, I have this little trick at my command. I'm told it doesn't feel all that great..." Glaring across the table at him, she growled softly, "I'm losing control, Pauel and I've already lost patience. Go into as much of the technical detail on ostanovium as you can in ten seconds. At the end of that time, I'll decide whether you've earned freedom from pain or not..."

 

"Raia..." Dominic said quietly, warningly, shifting his hand ever so slightly to touch her arm.

 

Arai jumped as though the sparks on her fingertips shocked her and they vanished. She let her hand fall to her side and closed her eyes as though fighting an intense wave of darkness. In reality, it hadn't been quite that intense, but this was a show for Pauel. When she opened her eyes again, she couldn't look at Pauel.

 

"Oh, Force," she mumbled, staring at her hands as though in disbelief. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry."

 

When she looked back to Pauel, there was no anger in her gaze, but it was extremely intense. "Do you see what I'm dealing with?" she asked him, her tone soft and urgent. "This is how ostanovium has presented itself to me. Damned if I do, damned if I don't. I need reassurance and I'm sorry, but you're not giving me any."

[Tysyacha]

To tell the truth, Pauel had encountered many users of the Dark Side of the Force--mainly Sith, and those who were going through training to become Sith--but he had never met one so cunning and unstable as the young one sitting across from him. Trying to keep his hands from quivering and finding himself unsuccessful, he reached into his satchel, the only traveler's bag he carried with him, and pulled out a stainless-steel inhaler. He handed it to Arai.

 

"Inhale this, and quickly," the Apostle said. "It's a dose of ostanovium, a small one. It shall begin to sever your connection to the Force so you won't be able to do that for at least seventy-two hours, but in order to sever it permanently, you need to be exposed to the gas in a hyperbaric chamber. Do you want to come to Cocyta with us, or shall I give you all of the inhalers I have in this bag?" He shook his head. "Whatever happens, after this is over, I never want to see you again. Are we understood?" He looked at Dominic. "I...if you can't keep your companion under control, we might need to part ways also."

[Cyborg Ninja]

Zen had followed Perdante through the streets of Nar Shaddaa for quite some time now. He couldn't help but agree with Perdante's statement regarding Pauel. Though he was a former member he did not recognize the name. He had only known of Adeline, the one who took him in. He hung his head in silence for a few seconds in honor of her. She had given him a second chance and he wished he could have done the same for her. He then looked back over at Perdante when she questioned where Pauel could be. He could be anywhere in Nar Shaddaa by now. An idea suddenly popped into Zen's head. They knew where he preached, if they could get him to that spot they could surround him when he got there.

 

"Perhaps we won't have to worry about that, that is if we can force him to come to us. If one of us were to preach under his name he would have choice but to come and see why the name Pauel is being chanted and he is not there. We would be able to surround him and take him with us without harming him...unless he gets violent," Zen said stating his plan. "If we go with my plan I would like to volunteer to be the speaker. I was once a former member and I have given many speeches in order to rally my troops back when I was in the army," he added in.

[Tysyacha]

COMMONS, NAR SHADDAA

 

Perdante's eyes sparkled with excitement. "Brilliant!" she cried. "I couldn't have thought of a better plan myself. I completely agree, and if the rest of us do, then we could act to re-incite the crowd that was once here--or start a new one," she added after thinking a moment. "If Pauel's still somewhere in or near the Commons, he's going to want to find out who's preaching in his name. Although," she said warily, "will he recognize you from the holo-news reports about the Jedi attack on his Coruscant sect, or has that blown over by now?"

[Cyborg Ninja]

Zen thought about what Perdante had said regarding the incident on Coruscant. Though Zen did not know Pauel, there could be a chance Pauel knew Zen.

 

"Do not worry about my appearance. If need be I can cloak myself before he arrives only for him to find himself in an ambush. Or I can stay on the same level as the crowd we draw in and force him to push through them until it is too late." He said to Perdante in order to reassure her. "Though I am not sure if he knows who I am. I only knew of Seek...Adeline. She brought me in and guided me along the way." His head dropped down again. "I am quite confident we won't have to worry about that though," he said in an attempt to raise his own spirit.

[ForceFightWMe12]

"That won't be necessary."

 

Salvatore had gone on a bit of a recon mission, and was returning now to the group. In his hand was a datapad with the same image of Pauel rotating behind the glass screen. Evidently, he had been asking around.

 

"A group of guys over there say that Pauel is a frequent of Geeda's cantina," he indicated the building behind them. "And that he has a private booth there. They say he went in with two others about fifteen minutes ago."

 

"And they didn't say anything about seeing them leave?" His brother - who had automatically taken oversight of the mission - asked him. Sal shook his head 'no', and he turned to look at the others. "Alright, in that case, we won't waste any more time. Sal, you're with Zen. The two of you go into the cantina and secure the room from the door-side. Tysy, you come with me to secure the back of the building - to make certain that he doesn't escape. Sal, you have permission to get inside as soon as you can. Any questions?"

 

When no one answered, Sal moved for the front door of the cantina and Mica moved for the back end. The pilot was bristling with excitement; it wasn't often that he got to pull a mission like this...

[Writer]

Arai accepted the inhaler without a word, but her mind was racing. She could not give up her only advantage, however slight it might be, and yet she couldn't simply walk away from this chance. With only a slight hesitation, she put the device to her lips and pressed the activation button... or so it seemed.

 

In reality, Arai executed a little "Force trickery", cutting through the ostanovium-induced haze undoubtedly in the room because both Dom and Pauel had used the stuff in one way or another. It was the simplest of mind tricks, just enough to make both of them think she'd done what Pauel wanted her to do as she lifted the inhaler up and ejected its payload over her right shoulder.

 

When it was done and she was satisfied neither of her companions had realized her trick, she dropped the inhaler and put one hand to her stomach as if suddenly sick, and the other to her forehead as if she was fighting a massive hangover. "Feel like I got punched in the gut... and the face," she groaned. "With a hydraulic battering ram or something..." She glanced over at Dom and a twinge of concern entered her already sickened expression.

 

"Is this what it's like?" she gasped. "Loss of Force-sensitivity?"

[Tysyacha]

COMMONS, NAR SHADDAA

 

The Jedi Knight followed Sal toward the exit they were going to cover together so Pauel wouldn't have a chance to escape Geeda's Cantina. Even though her heart was racing at the thought of the upcoming assault, a small doubt worried her: What if we scare him and he won't talk, or what if he takes hostages? If this Pauel character is anything like the late Seeker Adeline, he won't give up without a fight. Also, he might commit suicide rather than surrender, like she did. If that happens, then all is lost! She propped herself up against the door, waiting for Sal's signal to charge.

 

GEEDA'S CANTINA, NAR SHADDAA

 

Pauel's steel-gray eyes suddenly grew wide. "No!" he cried. "That's not what it's supposed to feel like. It's supposed to feel like nothing at all, after a brief sensation of oneself being...emptied..." Quickly, he reached into his satchel and brought out a syringe full of clear liquid. "An antidote," he announced. "Sometimes, sentient beings have averse reactions to the metal, and this solution immediately counteracts the effects of it. Hold still, miss," he said.

[ForceFightWMe12]

Dominic immediately responded to Arai's sudden illness, half-standing from his seat so that he could steady her with one hand on her bicep, the other on her side. "Just sit down," he said gently, guiding her back into her seat. Losing his Force sensitivity hadn't been fun for him...though it wasn't really a sense of pain that set in. For him, it was as if he had gone deaf, like someone had suddenly pushed the 'mute' button on the galaxy's voice, that communion of voices that played a constant music to the backdrop of his existance. Gone. The nausea had set in later.

 

That her reaction was so sudden made him worried, and it showed in his eyes. "Just breath. You'll be--"

 

And then Pauel interrupted, Dominic's worry multiplied into fear on his face. An antidote? The Pilgrim had never before heard of an antidote, and so was immediately suspicions and moved to try and head off the needle before it could get to Arai.

 

But he never quite got far enough to complete the action for, just as Pauel was reaching across the table, the booth's only door opened. Sal's voice came before his body did.

 

"Pauel the Apostle, you are under arrest for public endanger--" The Republic officer stopped in his tracks when the door fully opened and he saw Pauel's two companions. At first, the only thing that occurred to him was that he had seen the second man before, and that alone caught him off-guard. But what really made him stop was the realization that he recognized the face because it was flashed on the computer consoles and datapads of every Republic official and soldier at the start of each day, along with the other visages of the Republic's most wanted. His eyes widened. "He's a Republic fugitive!"

 

Several things happened at once. Salvatore drew his blaster and made a lunge for Dominic, but the Pilgrim anticipated the move. He made his before the young officer was even certain of who he was; grabbing Arai by the arm, he yanked her to her feet and climbed onto the table that separated them from Pauel. With a heave, he pulled her into his arms, tucked her head under his chin, and made a fantastic leap for the small window above the Apostle's head. He went crashing through, back-first, and dropped with Arai into a trash receptacle two stories below.

 

With Zen standing behind him, Sal could do nothing but just stare at the window, his face betraying his incomprehension of what had just happened. A human being, he thought, shouldn't have been able to move that quickly...

 

- - - - - - - - - - -

 

Down below, Mica had been readying himself for Pauel to come crashing through the door - but instead, he found his blaster turning to a dumpster that was stacked high with trash bags - or had been, at least. A moment ago, something fell from a window that caused them to flatten them out quite effectively, a few bursting, and the item that had fallen had been vaguely person-shaped. Signaling for silence and caution from Perdante, he slowly moved towards the trash. If they were quiet, they could keep the element of surprise...

[Writer]

((JP with FFWM. Real one this time, with more than a one-liner from her ))

 

Arai laughed softly as they crashed into the garbage bags. She'd been too preoccupied with her sick-act to fully realize what was happening until she was tumbling through the air with Dom. Now that her mind had caught up with her body, she found the situation rather entertaining. Then her mind recalled what had been said and she pushed herself up onto her knees, staring down at Dom with an eyebrow arched in partial amusement.

 

"Republic fugitive?" she asked, the faint trace of a smirk on her lips. "That's an element of your past you hadn't gotten around to mentioning yet." Shaking her head, she went on, "No matter. I'm sure it'd have come up eventually... probably along with my own less-than-sparkling status."

 

Unlike Arai, the tension wasn't broken by their flight through the window. Instead, he became supremely aware of the position that their fall had landed them in - what with her straddling his hips and all. It took him a while to detach that thought from his mind and until he did that, he didn't even register that she had been talking. "Um, yeah, I uh..." What was he trying to say again? Something about 'Republic fugitive...'

 

Hang on a moment. Had she been...laughing?

 

Dominic pushed himself up on his elbows and eyed her suspiciously. "You made a surprisingly quick recovery."

 

As if suddenly realizing how right he was, Arai's smile faded. "I... yeah... a bit of subtle trickery..." Hurriedly, she added, "Had I known I'd need to, I'd have tried to tell you in advance, but... he didn't exactly give me the time."

 

He narrowed his eyes a bit, and began to shift out from underneath her. "You used the Force on me." He said quietly. He knew Arai, and had seen her use the same scheme before - so deducing what she had done was a mere matter of connecting the dots.

 

Her mouth opened and shut at least three times before any noise came out, and then twice more before she got out any words. "It... I, I had to be a bit... imprecise. With both of you in something of a haze put off by that ostanovium, I had to cover both of you or risk failure. Plus, your reaction..." Her cheeks reddened. "Would you have done anything to that level if I hadn't?"

 

He looked at her for a long moment before shaking his head. "Just get up, Arai." He said quietly. "We need to get out of here--"

 

Arai's head swiveled abruptly toward the front of the dumpster. "You're right," she said softly. "We've attracted attention... and one's a Jedi."

[Tysyacha]

BACK ALLEY AT THE REAR OF GEEDA'S CANTINA, NAR SHADDAA

 

The Jedi that Arai had mentioned, however, was not going to make the opening move toward capturing either Arai or Dominic. For starters, neither person really seemed to be Pauel--their true target--and for another thing, she was following Mica's lead, and he had signaled for silence and caution from her. Thus, she waited. Perdante was not a fan of striking first, unless she knew that her opponent was armed and ready to strike in return. Dominic and Arai? They looked more like people who had just taken a huge leap into some smelly garbage bags in a waste receptacle and needed to recover for a bit. Although...now could be the perfect time to capture them, if indeed they were allies of the Prophet's Apostle...

 

Still, Perdante held her ground, watching for Mica's signal.

[ForceFightWMe12]

((It's Mica she's with, Tysy =P))

 

Mica was close enough to hear the woman's comment - though they weren't being particularly careful about not drawing attention to themselves. Perhaps they actually thought that their pursuers weren't smart enough to bring back-up, the fools.

 

"Stand up slowly," the officer called, still about a yard away from the dumpster, for his own safety. "With your hands in the air. And no sudden movements; we are both armed and authorized to use deadly force."

 

The truth was that the elder Caraway twin had no idea who was hiding in the trash - but they had jumped through a window on the second floor, and the second floor was where the VIP rooms for most cantinas and clubs were located. Pauel was supposed to be in a private room, according to Sal...and if they needed to dive out of a window, he could only assume that it was in an effort to escape his brother. This could easily have been Pauel hiding in the trash before him.

 

But as the man rose slowly, with hands in the air as he had been ordered to do, it became evident that he wasn't. Instead, it was a man that had been appearing on his datapad for at least two years now, and unlike Sal, his brother could remember names.

 

"Dominic Travesty, isn't it?" He kept his blaster trained on the man, who kept his eyes trained on him.

 

By way of answer, the fugitive said, "I'm going to get out of this dumpster, and then my companion is going to follow me." Slowly, cautiously, he took his first step towards the edge of the container. "So just don't shoot."

 

Dominic knew that his vibroblade would swing into view when he hopped out of the dumpster - in fact, it caught on the edge as he did - but it was something that he couldn't help. He heard the Republic officer's blaster click in response to the exposed weapon, and set his jaws together. He hadn't given him any reason to shoot...yet...

 

When he straightened up, Dominic cast a quick glance at the two aggressors, first at the Republic officer...and then at the Jedi, where his gaze froze for a moment. He recognized this one; it was their third time meeting.

 

"I see you recovered from the Throne quite well." he said to her, a slight note of disparagement in his tone. Mica growled.

 

"No one gave you permission to speak, schutta!"

 

"Relax, relax." Dominic said, turning to him and holding his hands up defensively. "We know each other." And then he turned back to the dumpster to help Arai hop to the ground behind him.

[Writer]

As Arai dropped to the ground behind Dominic, she turned her full attention to the Jedi. When Dom mentioned he'd met the Jedi before, Arai's examination of the woman intensified. The thought that there was a Jedi that Dom knew and Arai didn't struck her as a little surprising, especially since she had been exiled after he left the Order. At the Republic soldier's snarling rebuttal, Arai scowled.

 

"Fugitive or not, this is my best friend you're talking to," she said and though her tone was quiet, there was a distinctly sharp edge to it. "You would do well to remember that, Republic."

[Tysyacha]

The Jedi unholstered her twin silver vibroblades, but did not ignite them. "I will not attack either of you," she announced, "unless I'm absolutely forced to." She suddenly realized who had spoken to her. "You? I can't believe it! The last time I saw you, I was shackled to the Throne of Gain, fearing for my life whilst being irradiated by that blasted ostanovium. I see the tables have turned..."

 

She stood tensely, waiting for Mica to give the signal to charge toward the two.