oh we can burn it and leave Who: Issan & Glasya. What: The dynamic duo go in search of an important piece of information, leaving devastation in their wake. When: Following Glasya Ren's narrative; backdated like woah. Where: Rishi. Rating: PG for some...violence and torture? Notes: Glasya Ren & Issan Ren go to Rishi to recover the datapad, which contains a portion of the gene sequence used to determine Force sensitivity.
The dilapidated structure at the edge of the city could only be called a house by the most generous of definitions. The little building squatted above a softly buzzing neon sign, itself affixed to a column of rotating advertisements and generic office buildings. Its round facade looked like weathered plasteel, faded with age, bearing the marks of having weathered more than a few hard storms. Its windows were empty eyes staring down at a dirt-strewn courtyard. From its doorway sloped a teetering bridge of uneven slats and threadbare rope. The place seemed utterly devoid of life.
Glasya Ren was not so easily fooled. He stood in the shadows of the courtyard, mask on, hood drawn, his apprentice close by his side. He stretched out his perception, seeking out the frightened, rodent-quick heartbeat he knew would be there. Inside that collapsing hovel was a Galandan male, and a datapad containing information whose value Glasya could only begin to estimate. Glasya could see the creature in his mind, in the broken-glass memories stolen from a dying treasure hunter. He closed his eyes and let the Force flow through him. Slowly a single thread came into focus.
“Do you feel it?”
Issan made no move to reply immediately; her own masked face was set straight toward the building, which gave more of an answer than her silence. Finally, she nodded.
"How do you wish to approach?"
Glasya pursed his lips behind his mask. “He will try to flee as a distraction. He has hidden the datapad inside the house, though from here I cannot see where. We should not leave without both. I would prefer the Galandaran alive to dead, but either is acceptable.” He turned to face Issan. The weight of his gaze was palpable. “Conceal us as long as you can. I’d like to watch him more closely for a time before we move.”
Her mask tipped forward in a nod, and though her smile was unseen, Glasya could surely feel her excitement at the beginning of a hunt through their shared bond. Her right hand rose, its fingers warping and weaving strange sigils in the air that left a lingering green fog in their wake. The fog disappeared moments later, and so did the pair standing in the courtyard. Anyone watching -- anyone blind to the Force, anyway -- would have seen two eerily dressed figures vanish from sight. If that wasn't enough to warn the foolish away, Issan didn't know what would.
Issan glanced to her right; Glasya was still as solid and visible to her as he had been moments before. She would appear likewise to him as well, but there was a subtle weight on their shoulders. Nothing that would impede them; it was more like a light tapping on one's shoulder, a note to remind them of their current status and if it should disappear.
"Ready when you are," she replied teasingly.
Glasya moved in front of her. Their boots made no sound on the uneven cobblestones beneath them; their robes made only the barest susurration as they walked. Emboldened by their cover, Glasya took the rope bridge up to the very front of the house; Issan followed in his wake. He paused in front of one bleary window, but the pair could see little through its dust-smeared opening. No shadows moved to indicate someone walking within. No sounds betrayed the occupant’s presence. Glasya opened the front door and ushered them inside.
The air within the shelter was oppressive. Sorrow and hopelessness hung in the air, dancing like dust motes in the dim sunlight. Glasya followed the path of these emotions, feeling them grow stronger as they advanced through the building. The second room was a small galley kitchen. It reeked of alcohol and spoiling fruit. Bottles and cups filled the single narrow sink. Issan wrinkled her nose in response to the mess; Glasya frowned and moved on.
They found their quarry lingering in the third and final room. He sat at the edge of a sagging bed, carefully tweaking the inner workings of a comlink. At once Glasya knew what the man meant to do, and the utter futility of it: no matter how hard the man worked, Wryx would never answer him again.
“Test,” the Galandan said. He pressed his lips so closely to the comlink, they brushed its metal surface. “Test. Come in, X. Do you read?”
Issan eyed the humanoid, her head tilted almost like a bird's. An idea struck her, and she transferred it to Glasya's mind via their Force bond, glancing in his direction as she did so. An image appeared in his mind, of the comlink speaking back to the Galandran. The voice, of course, would be illusory, a ploy to quickly discover the datapad's location.
He looked to her and nodded, his satisfaction evident and reverberating in their shared connection. It was a ploy that would work, he thought, one that would perhaps even keep their quarry from attempting his escape.
“Come in.” The Galandan’s voice broke. It wavered, cutting in and out through barely held-back sobs, as he went on. “Please, Wryx. If you don’t answer before the next standard rotation, I have to go. I can’t wait any longer.”
Issan's gaze swung back to the humanoid seated on the bed; he looked more desperate by the minute, and she savored the feeling for a beat. Then her concentration fell to the comlink, taking his desires and projecting them onto the device.
"Bleswe?" The name, skimmed by Issan from the humanoid's mind, came through the comlink's speaker in a wave of white noise. "Bleswe, is that you?"
The man on the bed gripped the comlink so hard it creaked beneath the strain. He leaned forward, toward the clutched device, as though he could fall directly into the voice he had so badly wanted to hear. “Yes,” he said, all but shouting into the little receiver. “Yes, it’s me. Where are you? Are you all right? I expected you back days ago.”
The speaker crackled; a dramatic pause ensued, before the voice reappeared. "Where are you? I need...can't find...should be there."
Another pause followed, static filling the space as much as the tension in the Galandan's shoulders. "Bleswe? Where...you?" Issan watched Bleswe's expression carefully, guiding the illusion with skilled hands.
“Coratanni Town,” Bleswe said. “Near the dockyards. What can’t you find? What is it you need?” His hand tightened to a fist around the comlink. “Where are you?”
As Bleswe’s agitation grew, Glasya slipped away from Issan’s side. Still shrouded by his apprentice’s magic, he moved to stand in front of the narrow door leading outside from the bedroom. Both exits were blocked; the trap was laid and set.
The voice spoke once again through the comlink, but this time it was unintelligible; a thread of worry seemed to move through whatever the words were trying to get across, and Issan watched the Galandan's eyes widen.
"...datapad...don't...." A large crackle sprang through the speaker, harsh to any listener. A few more broken words came through in the aftermath. "Bring it...I'm...Coruscant. Leaving...I don't...you hear...?" The Nightsister's intense gaze watched Bleswe like a hawk, waiting to see if he would take her bait.
“Coruscant.” The word fell from his lips with an audible shudder. “It’s so crowded. Someone will see me.”
Though his words hesitated, his body did not. Bleswe rose from the bed and moved to the grimy wall of the home. He passed his free hand over its surface, fingers raising and lifting as though playing a keyboard. His thumb landed on one particular, flyspecked, pockmarked portion of wall. A narrow slit opened, revealing a shelf just inside. He reached in and withdrew the datapad.
“Where on Coruscant?” Bleswe asked. Desperation colored his voice. “How will I find you?”
Glasya leaned forward, hunger in the lines of his body. It would be easy, so easy, to take what they wanted now.
"You won't," the voice replied before the comlink went entirely dead. The Galandan had signed his own death warrant by loosing the datapad from its hiding place, though there was no way he could have known. Issan glanced at Glasya, and then moved forward to the humanoid, bringing her hand up to run her nails over his bald scalp.
Bleswe’s knees went weak at the sudden, unexpected pressure of her touch. He dropped the comlink, all his focus now on holding the datapad close. Still hidden, Glasya pressed into the Galandan’s mind. The creature’s thoughts were a tangle of confusion and sorrow. Fear threaded them together, made his heart skip a beat.
“Who’s there? Please--” Bleswe’s grip tightened on the datapad. His face flushed as he realized just how much he stood to lose.
“It’s a shame Wryx died for nothing,” Glasya said. “He gave you up, and now you’ve done the same to him and his secrets. How does it feel?”
"Hm, I'd say it feels like regret," Issan replied, answering a question not meant for her. Their voices appeared out of thin air, like ghosts. A moment later, Issan dropped the Force illusion that was keeping them shielded, showing Glasya by the door and Issan standing a hair too close to poor Bleswe. The Galandan gave a little shriek and jumped back, away from her personal space.
"I think it would be best if you handed that over," she continued, making a gesture at the datapad. A delighted grin curved her mouth, invisible behind her mask. Still, it shaped her words. "If we have to take it from you, things could get messy. And just so you know, I like it when things get messy."
Their black robes and heavy masks struck a chord in him. He could not have named what they were, but he felt it all the same. He shrank back further from Issan, pressing himself flat against the wall. His eyes were wide, their whites flaring bright in the dimness of the room. His fingers dug into the datapad’s sides.
“I can’t,” he said, without conviction. His trembling lips curved into a frown. “Not to you. No.”
Glasya felt the weft and weave of the Galandan’s emotions; he felt them change, fear deepening, sorrow giving way to utter despair. He slid around this thread, gently pulling it to the fore. “It’s too late,” Glasya crooned. “Don’t make this any more difficult than you already have.”
Bleswe's knees seemed to cave, but the wall behind him gave him the stability he needed to not sink entirely to the floor. His gaze flicked from one mask to the next, clutching the datapad tightly to his chest, as though he would impress it and its data onto his person and keep it from them entirely. As Glasya's influence blanketed his mind, his eyelids seemed to droop like they were iron doors. Every muscle in his body went slack, and after a moment's struggle, he dropped like a bag of bricks. Issan gave a soft sigh, then removed her mask and kneeled in front of him.
"Does anyone else know about the datapad?" She asked softly; her voice combined with her pleasant face seemed to stir confusing and some reassurance in the humanoid, but he still did nothing to release the datapad. It was as though his hands had frozen around the device, unable to release it.
“No-one. I think.” His tongue was thick in his mouth; his words were soft around the edges. “It’s Kaminoan. Found it on a dive. Hadn’t tried to sell it. Yet. I was waiting--”
“What crew did you take with you?” Glasya took a single step closer. The Galandan shuddered.
“No-one. It was just us. Always just us.”
Memories bubbled to the surface of Bleswe’s breaking mind. Glasya found one as fragile and delicate as spun glass: Bleswe and Wryx, waterlogged and exhausted, clinging to one another for warmth and comfort. The future lay ahead of them, bright and open, a sanctuary so close they could see it on the horizon. Glasya dragged out that baseless hope, that childish optimism, and laid it bare for Bleswe to see. The Glanadan silently wept.
“We couldn’t read all of it,” Bleswe said. “I knew it was genetic sequencing. I couldn’t tell for what purpose. I don’t know anything. I don’t know anything. I swear it.”
His words seemed convincing, and between the pressures the two dark jedi were imposing on his form, Issan was sure there was nothing more to be gained here. They had cornered the rabbit, and now it was time to enact the kill. Raising one hand, her fingers made a grasping motion; Bleswe released one hand from the datapad, instead clutching at his chest. Issan pulled her fingers closed in an almost lazy movement. Bleswe gasped, struggling to pull in air as his heart was crushed. The muscles holding onto the datapad clenched and released, allowing the device to slide to the floor. Issan paid no attention to it for the moment, instead too focused on her work; Bleswe gasped again, shuddering, as Issan's closed hand made a fist. Finally, he stopped moving.
After a beat, Issan lowered her closed fist, her gaze lingering on Bleswe's still form. Then she reached for the datapad, lifting it as she rose to her feet. Glancing at the screen, she offered it to Glasya. He took it from her, his gaze lingering on it only a moment before he slid it into some unseen fold of his cloak.
"Should we leave him here?"
“Yes,” Glasya answered. “One more dead offworlder will hardly cause a stir here.” He chuckled. “And frankly I’ve had enough corpses on the Wraith for a while. Our time is better spent finding someone who can repair the corrupted code.”
Issan tilted her head as she glanced back to the dead body on the floor. "It's a pity I didn't bring any tools; he could have been good fertilizer for my yo'uqiol." She shrugged, letting go of the idea as she looked back to Glasya. "But you're right, I've no desire to travel with so silent a companion. We're done here, then?"
The edges of her robes brushed against the ground as she moved around Glasya toward the door; the accommodations were far less than what she was used to, and she was glad to be free of this rotting house sooner rather than later. Side by side they strode out the back door, entering onto a rickety bridge of knotty rope and rotting boards. At the end of the bridge lay a spiral staircase, descending to the courtyard where the Wraith waited in shadow.
"Did you have a plan in mind for who might be able to fix the datapad?"
Glasya thought for a moment. “There are a few Corellian slicers I would trust with the work,” he said. “They’re hungry for contacts within the Order, and for credits enough to get off world if the Resistance gains a greater foothold there. We should start with them.”
Issan's head bobbed; the pair paused before the freighter as the entry walkway descended to allow them to board. "I suppose we should wait to make a report to Kylo," she mused aloud. "Anything less than a fully working datapad is sure to imbalance his fragile temperament. Besides, conversations with him are like talking to a wall."
“Agreed.”
The ship’s astromech rolled by, squealing merrily at the reappearance of its master. “To Corellia,” Glasya said. The little droid squeaked confirmation, then rolled back toward the cockpit, with Glasya following close behind. In short order they were underway: behind them the dirty rock of a planet, before them Corellia, and the promise of the priceless knowledge they now held.