Ch. 30 - Dirty Work, part 2
9adam4
No emotion, only "peace"
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I feigned a stagger as Rondil led me down the alleyway toward a lift that - to give the man credit - would have led to my apartment if I actually lived where I had said. It was unclear just exactly how his bigger, less congenial companions found us, as it was unlikely they would be waiting down one of the dozens of shifty corridors in the lower levels. But find us they did. Two more humans, like Rondil, and a Gamorrean male.
They hunched together in a recess at the side of the alley, seemingly lost in their own conversation as they waited for us to pass. In fact, their attention was wholly on us, apparently waiting for a signal from Rondil to make a move.
As I sized up the group, I realized that the Gamorrean threw a wrench into matters. He wasn't wearing the leather armor of a clansman, but rather the colorful synthetic clothing of Coruscant… and they fit poorly. But more importantly, unlike Rondil and his two human friends, Stubby (as he thought of himself) exuded not malice or anticipation but simple confused fear. He… didn't know what his companions were planning to do to me. They'd brought him along as muscle, but hadn't even explained to him the nature of the job. It wasn't unusual for the low-intelligence Gamorreans to be treated as little more than beasts, and Stubby's 'friends' had taken that approach with him.
I met his deep-set dull eyes above his pig-like snout, and felt his spark of pity and disgust. He'd go along with hurting me, I realized, not because he wanted to, but because he always went along with what his group did. He found the idea distasteful, but standing up to his companions never even occurred to him. He widened his mouth in a grimace, and only then did I see four points sticking up from his lower jaw. This boy was only starting to grow out his tusks, and his horns were similarly small nubs (likely the source of his nickname).
So now the matter was complicated. I wasn't going to kill this kid; but that left me in a situation where killing the other three was no longer a clean, zero-witness affair. I'd have to subdue him non-fatally, then hopefully get him to understand the situation he was in. Rehabilitating a rogue Gamorrean was hardly -
My thoughts were interrupted when Rondil gave the signal, bodily throwing me towards his companions. I began to reach out a hand to steady myself with the Force, but I pulled back, realizing that I could probably win this battle without breaking cover. None of these thugs were sensitives, and knowing where to move to avoid their Force-telegraphed blows made the battle easy. They weren't drawing blasters, having expected to carve me up with knives (not even vibra-knives, just the regular kind), and the humans yelped in surprise as I put one, two, and three of them on the ground with wrist grabs and disarming flips.
I cheated a bit with Stubby, putting enough Force behind my leather-clad punches to penetrate his thick hide and knock him down. The fear wafting off of him now mirrored that of his friends perfectly, but the outcome would be very different.
The experienced thugs made no attempt to rise, and I could sense them lining up their placating entreaties as they caught their breath. They never had the chance to say them; my hand blaster spoke six times in rapid succession and three human corpses returned to the alley floor.
My attention turned to the Gamorrean bull, who was grunting something that I sensed to be the equivalent of a plea for mercy. I knew nothing of his language, and couldn't have physically spoken it even if I did. I tried a reply in Galactic Standard. "Where is your matron?"
He snorted a response, and I caught whiffs of loneliness. Images of an armed conflict, Gamorrean against Gammorean, and the clear impression that he and his clan had lost.
"So there's no one that you really answer to, then," I said, as much to myself as to Stubby. "If I tell you to run off, where will you go?"
No verbal response this time, but he recalled his recent past. Sleeping in unlit passages farther underground, scrounging for food. He had nowhere to go.
"The Gamorrean Consulate Office," said a voice behind me, "encourages the return of what they call 'maverick males.' I believe he'd qualify for their assistance program."
I rounded on my apprentice-to-be, not bothering to hide my deep surprise. "Your shielding is really quite good, Olanna. How long have you been following me?"
"Long enough." She frowned darkly at the bodies surrounding us, clearly having many questions but wanting to focus on the issue at hand. "Do we need to cuff him?"
"I don't carry handcuffs. That's… not what I do down here." She made as though to press the point, but I quickly changed the subject. "Stubby," I ignored Olanna's eyebrow raise at the name, "if we hire you a cab, will you go where we ask and talk to the people there?"
He was clearly confused, but he breathed out assent, and I sensed no intent to deceive us. He didn't know what a consulate was. I hoped he'd be happy back in the care of those who knew what he needed.
It was a very long lift ride up to where I could hire Stubby transport, and while I couldn't sense her mind telepathically, the hostile tension in the elevator was palpable.. Olanna waited until the Gamorrean was safely in the automated flyer before she turned on me.
"Obi, what is going on?" She asked as we walked along another corridor with bad lighting.
"I was getting ready to ask you the same thing," I shot back. "How did you follow me? Qui-Gon never managed it."
"I suspect that Qui-Gon just never got caught," Olanna pointed out. "You're easy to sense, even from a great distance, when you open your mind up to others. Particularly non-Jedi."
I nodded. "Perhaps that's something we can work on together? I'd rather be able to investigate others without broadcasting my own activities in return."
"Please don't change the subject," my student frowned. "You come down here to, what, slake bloodlust? Experiment on the helpless? Give me a foothold here."
"It's training," I shrugged, making an abrupt turn into a cross-corridor. "Listening, reading, and guiding the thoughts of others in an environment where my influence won't be noticed. Hand-to-hand and blaster combat, to lethal ends, against multiple enemies that don't have Force training."
"That wasn't combat," Olanna replied. "It was carnage. You disabled those humans with ease, and then executed them coldly."
"You're… right," I begrudgingly admitted. "I was expecting them to put up a lot more of a fight. Detaching myself from the act of killing is still useful practice, but I certainly didn't learn anything new from the violent exchange itself."
Olanna muttered something under her breath that I didn't catch. "How long have you been doing this?"
"Four years."
I felt more than saw her jaw drop at that. "Why?"
"That's… a complicated question." I finally arrived at one of the numerous low-cost, low-security storage walls that dotted the lower levels, and popped open my locker with a quick code sequence. Shucking my leathers, I saw Olanna turn away blushing as I donned my Jedi garb. "I'm hungry. Let's grab a bite, and I'll explain."
They hunched together in a recess at the side of the alley, seemingly lost in their own conversation as they waited for us to pass. In fact, their attention was wholly on us, apparently waiting for a signal from Rondil to make a move.
As I sized up the group, I realized that the Gamorrean threw a wrench into matters. He wasn't wearing the leather armor of a clansman, but rather the colorful synthetic clothing of Coruscant… and they fit poorly. But more importantly, unlike Rondil and his two human friends, Stubby (as he thought of himself) exuded not malice or anticipation but simple confused fear. He… didn't know what his companions were planning to do to me. They'd brought him along as muscle, but hadn't even explained to him the nature of the job. It wasn't unusual for the low-intelligence Gamorreans to be treated as little more than beasts, and Stubby's 'friends' had taken that approach with him.
I met his deep-set dull eyes above his pig-like snout, and felt his spark of pity and disgust. He'd go along with hurting me, I realized, not because he wanted to, but because he always went along with what his group did. He found the idea distasteful, but standing up to his companions never even occurred to him. He widened his mouth in a grimace, and only then did I see four points sticking up from his lower jaw. This boy was only starting to grow out his tusks, and his horns were similarly small nubs (likely the source of his nickname).
So now the matter was complicated. I wasn't going to kill this kid; but that left me in a situation where killing the other three was no longer a clean, zero-witness affair. I'd have to subdue him non-fatally, then hopefully get him to understand the situation he was in. Rehabilitating a rogue Gamorrean was hardly -
My thoughts were interrupted when Rondil gave the signal, bodily throwing me towards his companions. I began to reach out a hand to steady myself with the Force, but I pulled back, realizing that I could probably win this battle without breaking cover. None of these thugs were sensitives, and knowing where to move to avoid their Force-telegraphed blows made the battle easy. They weren't drawing blasters, having expected to carve me up with knives (not even vibra-knives, just the regular kind), and the humans yelped in surprise as I put one, two, and three of them on the ground with wrist grabs and disarming flips.
I cheated a bit with Stubby, putting enough Force behind my leather-clad punches to penetrate his thick hide and knock him down. The fear wafting off of him now mirrored that of his friends perfectly, but the outcome would be very different.
The experienced thugs made no attempt to rise, and I could sense them lining up their placating entreaties as they caught their breath. They never had the chance to say them; my hand blaster spoke six times in rapid succession and three human corpses returned to the alley floor.
My attention turned to the Gamorrean bull, who was grunting something that I sensed to be the equivalent of a plea for mercy. I knew nothing of his language, and couldn't have physically spoken it even if I did. I tried a reply in Galactic Standard. "Where is your matron?"
He snorted a response, and I caught whiffs of loneliness. Images of an armed conflict, Gamorrean against Gammorean, and the clear impression that he and his clan had lost.
"So there's no one that you really answer to, then," I said, as much to myself as to Stubby. "If I tell you to run off, where will you go?"
No verbal response this time, but he recalled his recent past. Sleeping in unlit passages farther underground, scrounging for food. He had nowhere to go.
"The Gamorrean Consulate Office," said a voice behind me, "encourages the return of what they call 'maverick males.' I believe he'd qualify for their assistance program."
I rounded on my apprentice-to-be, not bothering to hide my deep surprise. "Your shielding is really quite good, Olanna. How long have you been following me?"
"Long enough." She frowned darkly at the bodies surrounding us, clearly having many questions but wanting to focus on the issue at hand. "Do we need to cuff him?"
"I don't carry handcuffs. That's… not what I do down here." She made as though to press the point, but I quickly changed the subject. "Stubby," I ignored Olanna's eyebrow raise at the name, "if we hire you a cab, will you go where we ask and talk to the people there?"
He was clearly confused, but he breathed out assent, and I sensed no intent to deceive us. He didn't know what a consulate was. I hoped he'd be happy back in the care of those who knew what he needed.
It was a very long lift ride up to where I could hire Stubby transport, and while I couldn't sense her mind telepathically, the hostile tension in the elevator was palpable.. Olanna waited until the Gamorrean was safely in the automated flyer before she turned on me.
"Obi, what is going on?" She asked as we walked along another corridor with bad lighting.
"I was getting ready to ask you the same thing," I shot back. "How did you follow me? Qui-Gon never managed it."
"I suspect that Qui-Gon just never got caught," Olanna pointed out. "You're easy to sense, even from a great distance, when you open your mind up to others. Particularly non-Jedi."
I nodded. "Perhaps that's something we can work on together? I'd rather be able to investigate others without broadcasting my own activities in return."
"Please don't change the subject," my student frowned. "You come down here to, what, slake bloodlust? Experiment on the helpless? Give me a foothold here."
"It's training," I shrugged, making an abrupt turn into a cross-corridor. "Listening, reading, and guiding the thoughts of others in an environment where my influence won't be noticed. Hand-to-hand and blaster combat, to lethal ends, against multiple enemies that don't have Force training."
"That wasn't combat," Olanna replied. "It was carnage. You disabled those humans with ease, and then executed them coldly."
"You're… right," I begrudgingly admitted. "I was expecting them to put up a lot more of a fight. Detaching myself from the act of killing is still useful practice, but I certainly didn't learn anything new from the violent exchange itself."
Olanna muttered something under her breath that I didn't catch. "How long have you been doing this?"
"Four years."
I felt more than saw her jaw drop at that. "Why?"
"That's… a complicated question." I finally arrived at one of the numerous low-cost, low-security storage walls that dotted the lower levels, and popped open my locker with a quick code sequence. Shucking my leathers, I saw Olanna turn away blushing as I donned my Jedi garb. "I'm hungry. Let's grab a bite, and I'll explain."