It was usually sudden, with none of the courteous speeder bike-rumbling or tremor in the planet’s core that accompanied a well-mannered earthquake. It was usually loud, even louder than the freaks at the Land of Wonder event. It was usually brief, so much so that you might even miss it, if you didn’t have any ears. And it was usually deadly, if you happened to get in the way of a hurling chunk of durracrete that was bound and determined to make an emergency landing in your skull.
When the moderate-sized building that housed the refresher unit and a small snack stand blew up, Renora was more than ready for it. She didn’t even flinch. The same couldn’t be said for everyone around her, including Mr. Jepp.
“Son of a sexless march-toad murglak!”
After logging that revelation of an insult into her extensive memory files of profanity, Renora said, “Be quiet before someone recognizes your voice. Come on, we better get out of here before we’re squished to death.”
“Did you…?” D’onny whirled on her, tearing his gaze away from the remains of the explosion, the charred building, and the smoldering bodies. “Did you do that?”
“Yes and no. Now will you please get moving?”
“Yes and no? Yes and no? What kind of an answer is ‘yes and no?’”
“The kind you’re going to live with for now. Now move, Mr. Jepp.”
The screaming, pushing, hysterical mass of creeps, most of them still decked out in full costume, would’ve been hilarious in any other setting. Renora stood on her toes and tried to peer over their heads, seeing a familiar, disgustingly red, four-seater speeder cruising overhead. No, make that crashing overhead.
The speeder swerved and stuttered as if it had gained a mind of its own and was torturing its hapless occupant, not stopping until it crashed into a building that was as tall as it was eyeball-numbingly shiny. Thankfully, the building was under massive construction, and Renora couldn’t sense anyone inside. Unfortunately, the crowd didn’t have the Force to reassure them. Assuming Weirdo City was under attack, they began to push and scream with renewed fervor.
“Please tell me you weren’t in that speeder,” Renora muttered to Giddy.
“You seem perfectly capable of making a total mess of things all by yourself. What do you need me for?”
“Encouragement.”
“Ever try discouragement? I think you’d like it better.”
“Come on, Mr. Jepp. Our one-way ticket to eternity is almost here.”
“Wait,” he said, his voice nearly a whisper. “Wait.” Renora studied his face, astonished to find that he had gone almost transparently pale. D’onny had been a fair-skinned man to begin with; now he looked as if he had been spending an exotic vacation on the planet Hoth.
“What is it?”
“Listen…to what…they’re saying.”
Renroa listened, using her Force-augmented senses to pick apart the various levels and nuances of sound produced by the huge mass of beings. She located the problem almost immediately.
“What’s so bad about that?” she asked. “It’s obviously not true.”
“Not to them.”
“It’s more important that it’s not true to you.”
“They think I’m dead!”
“Could you please shut up before someone thinks you’re insane?”
“This whole thing is insane!”
Renora sighed. “Okay, listen. Give me your comlink.”
“Huh?”
“Don’t play dumb with me, Mr. Jepp. I know we weren’t close enough to the explosion for your eardrums to have gone out. Give me your comlink.”
He handed her the comlink that he had stuffed into Lari’s right pants pocket.
“Give me the code so I can key in your family.”
“Are you nuts?” asked D’onny and Gidrea simultaneously.
“Just give it to me.”
D’onny rattled off the eleven-digit number that would reach one of the ground comlinks at his main estate. The comm buzzed for a few seconds until a woman with a barely detectable Onderonian accent answered.
“D’onny? Is the premiere over already?” she said, rolling the letter “r.”
“He’s alive,” said Renora. She hung up.
“They’ll get a comm trace on you, you know,” said D’onny. “Now we’re never going to make it out of here.”
“They could’ve done that already, regardless of whether we had made the call or not.”
“Oh. Yeah. I didn’t think of that.” He paused for a moment, fingering his mustache in thought. “You didn’t search me when we left the lounge. I could be carrying a hold-out blaster, for all you know.”
“Uh huh. You have a point?”
“You are without doubt the worst kidnapper I’ve ever heard of.”
“And you’ve heard of dozens of them, I’m sure.”
=========================
“Hey, Master!”
“Shut up, Padawan.”
“Where’d you get the police speeder?”
“Get in, Padawan.”
Renora piled into the back of the Coruscant security speeder, watching as D’onny opened the other passenger door and climbed into the seat.
“Now that I’ve shut up and gotten in, are you going to tell me where you got the speeder?”
“No, Padawan.”
“Are the natives always this friendly?” asked D’onny.
“No, this is actually one of her good days.”
“Your Master, I take it?”
“Inescapably. Mr. Jepp, meet Master Gidrea Lightsky. Master Giddy, meet D’onny Jepp.”
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Jepp. I have to congratulate you on how you’ve managed to defocus my Padawan.”
“A pleasure,” said D’onny, trying to smile.
“Master Giddy,” said Renora, folding her hands and muffling a slight smirk. “Of all the people in the galaxy to kidnap, we’re safest when talking about Jedi affairs in front of this one. Except for any and all Jedi affairs involving Master Kenobi, of course.”
“Anything involving Master Kenobi is unsafe,” Giddy chuckled in spite of herself. “But why can we talk about Jedi stuff in front of him? He’s not a Jedi.”
“No,” D’onny said softly. “But in another lifetime, during the Clone Wars, I fought side by side with the Jedi against the Separatists. When Order 66 went down, I stood up for the Order, and tried to use my influence as a military officer to try and stop it. Not that it did any good.”
“Why didn’t the Empire just eliminate you when the war was over?” asked Giddy. When Renora shot her a warning glance, she added wryly, “Not that I’m not glad they didn’t.”
“I don’t know. When the Emperor summoned me to Bastion, I thought for sure it was all over. But I can’t remember anything after that. I just remember the day after, not what happened inside the Imperial palace.”
“If I were you, that would’ve concerned me,” laughed Renora.
“If I were you, that would’ve killed me,” muttered Giddy.
“If the Emperor didn’t kill you first.”
“You’re about to kill me first.”
“Does this memory loss thing have something to do with all…this?” asked D’onny.
“Of course not, it’s just a coincidence that you’re involved in a grand plot to amplify the powers of darkness as exemplified by the Order of the Sith.”
“I am?”
“No, I just like hearing myself talk.”
“That must be why you do it so often,” said Giddy.
“Master, behind us!” said Renora, whirling around and pulling D’onny away from the windows.
“I sense four of them,” said Giddy. “Not Coruscant police.”
“No, their thoughts are too organized.”
“Red Guards.”
“That would be my bet.”
“Jedi don’t bet.”
“This one does. Where do we keep the heavy weapons?”
“I thought he was sitting in the back with you.”
“Actually, I think I knocked him out.”
“Sorry to disappoint you,” said D’onny, his voice muffled.
“Blaster rifles are under the middle seat,” said Giddy.
Renora lifted up the marred synth-leather compartment in the middle seat, digging out a short, stocky blaster rifle. As she checked the blaster clip and was in the process of locating and clicking off the safety, the speeder jolted with a wrenching recoil that dwarfed the blast generated by the earlier explosion. Renora clutched at anything her hands could locate to try and keep herself from banging her head, her ears screeching with alarm klaxons.
The speeder dipped.
“What hit us?” shrieked Renora.
The speeder swerved.
“Master? Master?!” Giddy’s head lolled over the side of the headrest, a large, mottled, blue and red welt rising on her forehead. She was unconscious, but breathing steadily.
“What happened?” asked D’onny.
“They hit us. We couldn’t sense them, so we’ll have to assume they were blocking us somehow.”
“They can use the Force?!”
“Apparently. Can you drive a speeder?”
“Well, yeah, of course, but--”
“No time for buts, not even from you. Uh, that’s not what I meant.”
“Don’t worry about it. Help me move her to the back.”
The two gently lifted Master Giddy from the front of the speeder and eased her into the back, keeping low as the speeder rocked from pelting blaster bolts.
“They want us alive,” said Renora.
“Is that bad?”
“Yeah, sort of. Get in the front.”
“Got it.”
Renora leaned out the rear window of the speeder, using the Force to take precise shots at the pursuing vehicle. The pilot, who she was unable to make out through the tinted windshield, was incredibly skilled. He was probably very strong with the Force, but her probing senses were blocked, so there was no way to tell for sure.
“Renora?” D’onny yelled over the din of their small battle. “Can I ask you a personal question?”
“I don’t think now is the best time!”
“Do you get space sick?”
Her eyes widened slightly, and she had to pull her head back inside the speeder to keep it from getting blown off by a crimson blaster bolt.
“Go for it, D’onny,” she grinned.
He smiled deviously. “Hang on. I’m going to see what this baby can do.”
As if to illustrate that sentence, D’onny slammed on the breaks, nearly slamming Renora into the ceiling. Then he let go of the steering wheel.
“Whatever you’re going to do, don’t think about it,” said Renora.
“Caution? From you?”
“It’s not caution, they can sense what you’re going to do and anticipate your movements.”
“Oh, yeah. Getting rusty.”
Renora thought of a response to that, but she didn’t think it was entirely appropriate to this situation.
D’onny gripped the wheel, his dark hair whipped wild by the rushing air streaming through the open windows. He threw the speeder into an overhead loop, swinging it upside-down as it moved behind the pursuing car. Renora saw the Red Guards hesitate. Their moment of indecision was incredibly brief -- they were obviously extremely well-trained -- but incredibly brief was all Renora needed.
She didn’t bother to push her arms and shoulders out the left window as she had before. Gripping the blaster rifle in sweaty palms, she lunged through the back window, smashing the blaster bolt-proof material, took aim on the speeder’s main engine, and fired.
This time, nobody flinched at the explosion.
“Where to, Ms. Ta’a?” asked D’onny, lifting his hat in mock deference to his passenger.
“Somewhere quiet. I think I’m getting a headache.”
=========================
She wasn’t the only one. After Renora applied a bacta patch to her forehead and gently prodded her with the Force until she awoke, Master Giddy had a headache, too. And for once, it wasn’t Renora’s fault.
The three of them landed on an abandoned lot near a condemned apartment building. Neither Renora nor Giddy sensed any sentient life nearby, which eased their collective headaches somewhat.
“That’s it?” asked D’onny, gesturing towards the purple rock sitting in Giddy’s hand.
“That’s it, all right,” said Giddy.
“That little thing caused all this trouble?”
“Are you referring to the rock, or Renora?” laughed Giddy.
“I’ll leave that up to interpretation,” said D’onny. Giddy handed it to him, and he hefted it in one hand. “Any suggestions on how I should destroy it?”
“Spit on it. The heat alone should burn it to a crisp in less than a second.”
“A femtosecond,” added Giddy.
“Even less than that.”
“10 to the power of negative 15?”
“Show-off.”
The three laughed, the deep, painful sound of pure release only attainable by the intensely exhausted or the profoundly relieved. They were both.
“I’m the one who taught her that in the first place,” said Renora.
“It’s about time you started pulling your own weight.”
“I should’ve left you in that speeder.”
“I never would’ve allowed it, m’lady,” said D’onny with a bow. The three laughed again.
“Time to murder a rock!” piped Renora.
“I feel like I should say something important before I do it,” said D’onny.
“Then why don’t you?” asked Giddy. “I haven’t heard something important all day.”
“Good idea!” He dropped the rock onto the pavement, and it made a soft crunching sound when it hit. A few clouds of gray dust swirled into oblivion. “Something important,” said D’onny, his voice grave, and he crushed the rock under his heel. Renora didn’t even notice that he was wearing his out-of-style, black and white, custom tailored shoes.
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