Anakin Solo (anakinsolo) wrote in starnomad, @ 2015-02-13 15:27:00 |
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Entry tags: | character: anakin solo, character: jacen solo, character: rikki barnes, date: [60.10], location: coruscant |
Who: Rikki Barnes, Jacen Solo & Anakin Solo
When: 60.10
Where: Cantina in the Undercity.
What: Hero-ing.
Rating: Low
Status: COMPLETE.
Word traveled quickly in the Undercity. Gossip always moved faster than actual news and word that someone was going out of their way to help people was not something that people kept to themselves easily. Sarli Bathens didn’t seem to entirely mind the added traffic to the cantina, even if he rolled his eyes when he saw Rikki walk in tonight with the boys behind her. There was an affection there all the same, a small relief in the way he held his shoulders. If she showed up it meant she hadn’t managed to get herself killed yet. “You know I never see Jedi here until you show up, little Nomad.” he chided before passing along the most recent of the possible issues for them to help with. Sarli had gone out of his way to help as a go between. After all there was no way that they could have constant contact in the Undercity. And the disputes they had helped mediate had not been anything that would drive unwanted attention to his business. And Rikki did hope that when a situation like that did come up they would be able to keep the Bathens out of it. But tonight someone was in the back room waiting before they had even arrived. That was not a problem at all. Except Rikki did not know what the problem was when they stepped in. They immediately launched into a story and Rikki didn’t understand a word out of the mouth of the person who had some for their help. Basic she had a handle on but anything else? There were a few words here and there that she had managed to pick up of some of the more common languages that filled up the Undercity but that didn’t give her any help. Not even thinking, she reached out and grabbed the edge of Anakin’s sleeve. He tethered her, grounding her to the moment as she frowned just slightly as she focused. No, she still had no idea what they were saying. Why couldn’t they have translators like in Star Trek? Anakin had stepped up directly towards Rikki. There was a pattern to how they worked - Rikki taking point because she knew the people and the cantina better than the boys did, even now. Jacen tended to stay back, observing - and probably with a certain desire to protect the both of them, even though neither of them needed it, although someone did need to the job of backing the group up and it seemed Jacen had chosen to be that person. The figure in the room had startled Anakin because Wookiees were so rare on Coruscant, and even rarer as best he could tell in the Undercity. And it wasn't Chewie, but the sight as the Wookiee rose up to stand still caused a lump to form in his throat. He didn't know where his Dad was… he stopped the train of thought and cleared his mind. The Wookiee had started in speaking Shyriiwook almost immediately as they entered the room and he was lacking the handy translator droid that Lowbacca had carried with him almost everywhere. It took a moment for Anakin's brain a second to adjust to the language, but he did and as Rikki's hand reached for his sleeve he turned to her, translating without a second thought. "He's got a youngling - maybe two or three standard years it sounds like. They're being turned out of their apartments, but he swears he paid the landlord." The translation seemed so natural, Rikki’s head tilting closer to Anakin as he spoke while her eyes remained on the wookie in front of them. Rikki didn’t even pause to think about the fact that there was no reason for Anakin to know what she needed. After all she had shown a better grasp of basic and she knew words in a few other languages. But him immediately filling in the blanks, running the conversation into basic just felt right. She also didn’t let go, even if maybe she should have. “Did you give payment to the landlord directly or an intermediary?” Rikki asked as she kept her attention on the Wookie. This was the first time she had seen one so close. It was just a little bit different from seeing the movies. But a wookie was not the strangest being she had ever run across, or even the biggest. The allies had taken all kinds after all, and so did the avengers. He was no Hulk. The Wookiee spoke again and Anakin listened as he spoke. The familiar rumbles were impossible for any human to emulate, but basic was impossible for Wookiees to speak. And Anakin and Jacen had both grown up with Chewbacca. While many humans would have needed a translators, the Solo boys most certainly did not. The accent was a variation of Chewie's, and their friend and fellow Jedi Apprentice Lowbacca's, but it was still understandable. Certainly enough so to get a jest. Jacen stepped up to the table, and he offered a nod to the Wookiee. "Yes, we're Jedi. I'm Jacen Solo, this is my brother Anakin. And Ri-Nomad," he managed to swap out to the nickname Rikki seemed to use in the Undercity at the last minute. "He gave it to the office," Anakin said to Rikki. "He's given it there before without difficulty. But this month it went missing. He has two days to come up with the money or he and his daughter will be out on the street." He turned to the Wookiee. "Was there someone different in the office this time?" He listened for the translation and turned back to Rikki. "The droid that always works there." Rikki’s eyes darted quickly over towards Jacen for a moment as he introduced them. Codenames were not something she had actively tried to explain to the Solo boys. It was a different culture here, after all. The rules of super heroing really didn’t apply. But Nomad was an identity and it was an easy moniker for the Undercity. She had gone by it for months, to the point where outside of a handful of her employers Rikki had barely heard her real name until she found Han Solo in this cantina. It had taken some reminding to step out of Nomad’s role. “We’ll need the name of your apartments as well as your landlord. We’ll do what we can. Have any other residents had this problem? Any other suspicious evictions?” If this was a pattern of behavior it had to be approached differently than a one off swindling. Either way less than two days was not a lot of time, especially since Anakin and Jacen at the very least needed to return to the surface for part of that. But as long as the conspiracy wasn’t too deep the time limit was manageable. She had found out worse dirt with less time. In response the Wookiee reached into the pack he was carrying and he pulled out a crumpled durasheet which he handed over to Anakin. Anakin took it and glanced at the name on it committing the name of the owner and the apartment block to memory. He handed it over to Rikki for safekeeping and turned his attention to what the Wookiee was saying. "He doesn't know of any other residents at this time, but people come and go frequently in the building. It is possible that some have had similar experiences, that he's just not heard of," Anakin turned to him. "Do you know any of the ones that have gone? A name, or where they were headed to?" The Wookiee responded, and Anakin nodded. "it was worth the asking any way. What was your name?" The Wookiee responded again and Anakin offered him a smile. "It's good to meet you, Jowdrrl. We will -" he glanced to Rikki as if for approval, and then looked back. "We will do what we can for you." Rikki took a quick look at the sheet before securing it away in a pocket. Her head tilted back towards Anakin as she watched the wookie, processing the information he was relaying to her. It was a rough reminder that there was so much about this world that she didn’t know even with the amount of time she spent trying to absorb as much as possible. She could only learn so fast, she wasn’t a super genius. Her eyes darted to Anakin’s in the moment that he looked at her. She had no idea why she looked but the impulse was there, making eye contact and giving a soft, instinctive smile before looking back to the Wookie. No, Jowdrrl. Every individual that came to see them deserved their name, after all there were too many times such things were forgotten. “We will be in touch as we can. Is there a way we can reach you should we need to?” Jowdrrl rumbled the answer and Anakin nodded. "He says that he'll stop in here tomorrow night at this time, he apparently knows Bathens." The answer pleased Anakin. The barkeeper, for all he was rough around the edges, had struck Anakin as the sort that had a good heart. He'd looked Anakin and Jacen up and down when they'd first met and he'd seemed to be all right with what he'd seen. He'd kept an eye on them, but as they'd continued to start in the cantina and with Bathens, Anakin's sense of the man had only improved. There were good people down here, and a lot of people who were just trying to raise families, stay safe, get a better break on life. It was enough that at times Anakin wished that the Jedi could be doing exactly this sort of thing. It was the sort of thing they ought to be doing, but the war - survival - meant they had to keep a focus elsewhere. But that had been true for decades now. It was no wonder the Jedi weren't looked upon with kindness… it had been too long since they had walked among people dispensing it. It was possible that Jacen had a point about the need of the Jedi to do something else. He offered Jowdrrl a lopsided smile. "We'll do what we can," he promised again. "And we'll be back here tomorrow at the same time to touch in with you." Jacen nodded and offered a smile of his own. Jowdrrl nodded back and tilted his head with a questioning rumble. "Is there anything else you can think of?" Anakin translated to Rikki. Rikki’s hand dropped from Anakin’s sleeve naturally as she smiled as well. This was the kind of work that the galaxy needed. Of course there was a war that needed to be fought, but that didn’t mean that the people could be forgotten. Without the people there was no reason to have a war to begin with. “No, for now I think we have the information that we will need to hopefully help you. I hope that we’re able to return to you with good news.” There was a lot of ground to cover and a finite amount of hours to find an answer. But between the three of them Rikki had faith that they would find something that she could at least work on while they returned to the top side of the city. After all if Luke needed her then he would contact her on the commlink. “Thank you for trusting us to help.” she added before Jowdrrl left. As he left, Anakin watched him go. "He looked like Chewie," Jacen said softly almost as if he was afraid mentioning Chewie wasn't a good idea. "The markings around his nose…" Anakin looked back at his brother. But Jacen was right Jowdrrl's fur had been lighter in tone - at least as best he could tell in the light, but the facial markings had been similar enough to remind anakin of Chewie as well. "We've got to help him," he said instead of responding to Jacen. Anakin couldn't do a single thing for Chewie, but he could help Jowdrrl and his youngling. "So what do you think? Should we go to the office first? Talk to the droid?" "What if the droid's in on something?" Jacen asked, stepping up to the table and pulling out a chair to sit down while they figured out their next move. "He could be and then he'll know Jowdrrl has asked someone else to help." “Helping is the plan.” Rikki commented, looking over at Anakin. A wookie wasn’t expected and Jacen was right. Even if Rikki had never seen Chewie outside of the movies and probably couldn’t tell one Wookie from another, this had to have triggered something in Anakin. This was going to be more than just helping someone who needed them, it would likely on some level be personal. Which meant they should work through it as quickly as possible. “The droid would have to be involved somehow if its the one handling the money.” Rikki followed suit, taking a seat at the table as she looked at the other two. “I think the best bet would be to start with canvassing the tenants. I really doubt this is the first time this has happened.” Anakin stood for a minute and turned around to pace across the room. "Well, we have the apartment block numbers, so we could start there. The quickest thing would probably be to split up. You and Jacen can take one level and I could take the other. People may not want to talk to strangers, but maybe if it's a Jedi… that'll help." "Or maybe not," Jacen muttered. "It's not as if we're exactly winning popularity contests these days." "Well, then we convince them we're going to help them and not cause harm. And then we actually do follow through with that," Anakin said simply. "Besides, this isn't about popularity contests and it isn't about PR for the Jedi. It's about the fact that this guy is trying to make a life for his kid, and he's working hard to do it, and he did what he thought he needed to and something has gone wrong and maybe we can help him." "Are you sure about splitting up?" Jacen changed his tactics, now looking to Rikki. "It's the Undercity." “No it’s a good idea.” Rikki agreed, looking back at Jacen. “This is the Undercity. All three of us show up together, it would look intimidating. A smaller group is easier to trust.” She looked over at Anakin, nodding slightly as she went over it in her head. “We could cover the most amount of ground if we split three ways. But I only understand basic, so I’d need one of you to translate if it’s needed.” The plan made sense and it fit within the time constraints that they had. “It’s just asking questions, so we shouldn’t run into too much trouble. And if people are hesitant to talk that tells us that they’re scared of someone, which means it’s more than just a droid.” Anakin nodded, turning on his heel and giving Jacen a nod as well. "Look, it's simple, we go, we ask questions, we try to get people to tell us things. If they're scared, like Rikki says, maybe it's more than this, and it's up to us to try to figure out if it's something related to Jowdrrl. But, it's going to probably be a good twenty minutes to this apartment block, so we should probably get moving that direction unless we need to do something else here." Jacen couldn't say that he liked the idea of his younger brother going off on his own. Pairs were good. Pairs kept everyone from being drug off by bounty hunters, or worse, but it was logical. It was very logical, and he couldn't argue with that. And it seemed Rikki agreed with Anakin - another thing Jacen couldn't entirely like but he'd get over it - so that made two against him. He stood to his feet and nodded. "The speeder should cut it down to fifteen if we cut through the 34th block sector." "Then we'll cut through there," Anakin said, already at the door. "And I'm driving." |