Daniel Ciin (miaiphonos) wrote in thegalaxy, @ 2016-07-06 08:54:00 |
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Entry tags: | !locale: coruscant, hannah vizari, sinjir fel |
someone's got a hot date with death
Who: Sin & Hannah.
What: A rescue plan is hatched.
When: After Dee's been kidnapped by the First Order, and after Abeloth tore the shit out of the Finalizer.
Where: Coruscant.
Rating: They say fuck a lot, so there's that.
"I know where she is."
Hannah paced madly inside the workshop that Sinjir had directed her to following the elf's excited admission that she had finally discovered Dee's whereabouts. Or, at least, some semblance of an idea of where the priestess had disappeared to.
The elf had remained on Coruscant following the slasher's final demise, having no desire to return to Naboo. Dee wasn't there, and the only thing Hannah cared about was finding her friend and ensuring her safety. Now she felt useless, unsure of how to navigate in this new galaxy.
"How bad is it?" Sinjir asked. He was leaning back against a drafting table, elbows resting on its edges as he nursed a glass of whisky. The one he had poured for his otherworldly friend sat nearby, unattended, with the bottle beside it. Drunken plans were not the best ones, but Sinjir had long ago found they were the most uninhibited. And he suspected uninhibited was precisely the mindset they both needed to be in if they were to consider this job to be even remotely possible. He hid a grim look behind the rim of his glass, tossing back another shot's worth of extremely high proof booze.
"Tell me she's not on the Finalizer. Please say that, at least."
"No, thank Necrius," Hannah replied, her eyes darting to Sinjir's face and then back to the floor as she tried to make sense of the screaming thoughts in her mind. Her worried feet took her toward one wall, before her body turned and moved back to the drafting table.
"Some fucking planet called Bastion? In the Outer Rim territories. Doesn't mean a fucking thing to me, but I'm hoping you can tell me something more." She met Sinjir's eyes again, desperate expectation filling her gaze.
Much was communicated in the thin, tight line of Sinjir's lips. "Not much, and nothing good," he said. He took another hearty pull from his glass, then set it aside and turned back toward the table. He picked up a holoviewer from its surface, flicking it on with a slide of his thumb. A quick search of his typical, less than savory information sources resulted in the image of a slowly rotating planet, its sickly yellow-red hue glowing like a faintly radioactive, plainly toxic bulb set into the void of space.
"It's old school Empire land. Settled by human supremacists, ended up being the Imperial capital for a while… lots of Imperial facilities still there. It's a perfect place to keep your friend, really. It's out of the way, and it'll be hard to find anyone on our side who'll know their way around it. It took a miracle to find the damn planet. It'll take another one to find a remotely reliable map of the place, ground-level."
Hannah pressed her tongue to her lips as she heaved a labored sigh.
"So this is a dead end?" Her hands went to her hips, the picture of denial. "No, there has to be something we can do. I'm not fucking leaving her there, Sin. Fuck, I'll go by myself and tear the fucking thing apart if I have to. All I need is a ship willing to fly me there."
Sinjir set the holoviewer down. The image of the planet continued to turn, but he put his back to it, returning his gaze to his newest friend. "I didn't say it was a dead end," he said. "I said it'd take a miracle. Han Solo and Lando Calrissian found the place when it didn't want to be found, and we at least know where it is. Sure, one of them's dead and the other fucked off somewhere, but if they got dirt on the place, we can too. I just want to make sure you understand the odds and don't take this as a promise that we're going to get her back. We can try, but I'm not swearing to anything. That's all."
He stretched out his arm, moving it slowly as he felt the strain of still-healing wounds. "To be honest," he said, "I want to go in there with at least one disposable freighter and a shitload of explosives. If they're still using those Imperial facilities on the surface, we should take them out while we're there. Escape in another, smaller ship. A light cruiser, maybe, or corvette."
Hannah nodded, her eyes darting between the hologram and Sinjir's face. "Is this something you think the Resistance would help out with? We need to move quickly. They've already had her for too long of a godsdamned time, and I don't even want to think about what they're doing to her."
"Best you don't," Sinjir said. "We can probably get a few of them on board, but we have to spin this a certain way. Leave out the 'shitload of explosives' part and stick with hostage rescue. Why did the Order take her, do you know? The Resistance doesn't know her, but if she's got something we can use, I might be able to rally at least enough to make this plan something close to viable."
It was her turn for her lips to press into a thin line, arms coming up to cross over her stomach as she came to a stop.
"He thinks she opened the rift." She watched Sinjir's expression carefully, the short phrase containing a multitude of possibilities and she wasn't sure where her newfound friend would land among them. She wanted to trust him, because Bilford Bogins knew, she had no one else in that universe. "I think he thinks she can control it." She chewed on the side of her lip, the slightest edges of her fear sliding into her gaze.
His brow raised to a sharp black slash. He picked up his glass and drained it, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "Well," he said. "That should definitely be enough to get some people on our side. We'll go with that. But between you and me… can she? Really?"
Hannah's arms dropped to her sides before sweeping up into an over-exaggerated shrug. "Dee's capable of a lot of shit but I don't know that she could have done something like that. Maybe...Bogins, I'm saying too much here, but it could be something to do with the shit-for-brains deity her people worship. I'm not the person to ask, because I don't know. I don't know if Dee is even aware of the possibility." Her mouth worked for a moment, and she ended on a sigh.
"I don't know if I'm comfortable spreading that information around. We can't just say they took her because she's Force sensitive? I heard rumors that the Order was sending people out to recruit sensitives once the rifters started coming in full force. Maybe we just say they're not taking no for an answer?"
Sinjir sighed. "I… I mean, I'll try that, if that's really what you want. I'm not trying to stir shit up, Hannah, but the Resistance is still recovering right now. They aren't likely to send serious firepower after an Order stronghold for someone not even from our 'verse. They have to weigh the gains versus potential loss of life." He chewed his lip.
"Ah, fuck it," he said. "I'm owed enough favors, I can pull some strings and see what we get with the least information possible. Barring that I'll go to the undercity and see what I can scrounge up there. There's bound to be a smuggler who'd take this on for whatever artifacts we can find while we're pulling her out of there."
The relief that filled her face was palpable.
"Thank you, Sin," Hannah started, moving forward as though she would grab him up in a bear hug. She stopped midway, clearly rethinking the plan because of his injuries. Instead, the grin on her face could not be doused. "I'll do whatever you want to make up for this. Blow up a squadron, clean your fucking outhouse, I don't care. I just need to get her out of there before they do something to her I can't fix."
"I don't know what an outhouse is, but blowing up a squadron sounds really fucking fun." Sinjir laughed. He reached for the set aside glasses, filling them both more than perhaps was wise. He held one glass out to her. "Let's just get through this alive. Maybe if we make it back you can teach me that shield trick you pulled in the undercity. Seems like a really useful thing. I'd gladly take that as payment."
Her fingers eagerly wrapped around the drink now that she felt more reassured by the fact that they had a plan; it wasn't much of a plan, but it was a start. Hannah threw back half the glass in one go, wiping her mouth with her wrist in the same motion. A grin slashed her face.
"I can try; not sure how well spells are going to work with your guys' Force crap, but it's worth a shot. Anything I can do to help out, I will." She held out her glass to Sinjir's, offering a toast. "To the hope that this doesn't turn out to be a suicide mission, because I still have a lot of shit to take care of back home."
"That's a mouthful," he said. "But I can get behind it. To hope." He clicked his glass against hers, his broad grin speaking to the very real confidence he had in their fledgeling plan. Between the company and the liquor he felt certain of their cause and the path set out before them. He poured them both another shot of liquid courage, and together they talked deep into the night.