{{ absolved - chapter 07
-- HAPAN CRUISER UNTOUCHABLE / HYPERSPACE
Tenel Ka had fallen asleep as soon as they had left Hapes, most likely in an attempt to sleep off the fatigue she still felt from what had happened throughout the previous couple days. They had left at dusk, three days after the assassination attempt, on a small Hapan cruiser headed for Coruscant, then Tatooine, then Yavin 4 and finally Dantooine. If anyone had been keeping an eye on them, they hoped their planet-hopping would throw them off.
She had woken a few times since then; once when they had left Coruscant and then once for awhile after leaving Tatooine. But she stuck to her quarters, attempting to recover fully. She had told Jacen that she wanted to be in top shape once they got to Dantooine. She knew that being in an unfamiliar setting could prove lethal if she wasn’t prepared.
Pacing up the ramp and shutting it behind him, the musty, heavy Yavin 4 air was closed off from the ship now and Jacen exhaled. He occasionally missed that air, which never failed to remind him of when he was younger and more carefree. Brushing hair from his eyes, he started up to the cockpit, preparing to finally set the course for Dantooine, when he stopped at the entranceway. There was a huddled mass of blanket in the co-pilot’s chair and slowly shifting forward, he noticed a mess of copper hair poking out of the cocoon.
“Good afternoon, Your Majesty.”
The hair shifted and a face could be seen, the eyes now peering up to him. Her body was all wrapped up in the blanket, her legs curled under her in the chair. The only visible part of her was her head, a messy bun of copper hair at the back of her neck and the blanket reaching up to her chin. “Greetings,” she responded, blankly.
“Feeling okay?”
“Better.”
“I would hope so. You’ve slept for hours.” Jacen began punching in the controls in front of him, preparing to take the ship out of the atmosphere and into the galaxy above. He set their hyperspace route in and leaned back, once they emerged into the darkness of space, throwing his hands behind his head and relaxing slightly. The stars turned from specks into lines once they were moving and after witnessing that, he felt it was safe to take his eyes off the displays and the viewport and look over to Tenel Ka.
She was glancing around the cockpit, her eyes running over the sleek Hapan design of the control panel. Most of the buttons and lights and gadgets on the display seemed like they were more for show than for actual use, and they cast a pale glow on the Queen Mother’s face. Her eyes shifted to his in the dim light, the gray lit up by a soft red. “What are we supposed to do with this ship when we get there?”
“We’re landing in Khoonda, and supposedly Gadell sent a few of your intel people ahead of us. They’ll be picking up the ship and taking it back to Hapes. He said your friend, Aurelio, was supposed to meet us there and take us back to the estate where he lives.”
“So we have no ship. Meaning we have no easy way off of the planet.”
“Relax, Your Worshipfulness.” Jacen shrugged his shoulders. “We should have no reason to need an easy way off of the planet. We’ll be in the company of friends, yes?”
“Aurelio is our friend. I do not know about the others.”
“Well, if Aurelio is your friend then I can’t see him letting you walk into any danger, right?”
Tenel Ka didn’t answer that question; she just let her eyes slide away from him, back to the blinking lights and screens ahead. Stifling a yawn, she shifted in the tightly wrapped blanket, her shoulders and knees forming faint lumps under the thick fabric. An expression of pain flashed over her features for a split second, but Jacen caught it and slightly leaned over the arm of his own seat towards her.
“You alright?”
“My back. I have had to sit and sleep a certain way to keep the pain from my side low. Needless to say, that is not good on my back. No matter what I do something is going to be in pain.” She seemed to shrug lazily at this fact, like she was used to it by now.
“Here,” Jacen pushed himself out of the pilot’s seat and stepped over to where she sat, his arms spread out and shifting awkwardly around her blanket cocoon, as if trying to figure out a way to help her up. She noticed what he was doing, and pulled herself to her feet, staring blankly at him. He felt himself smile slightly as he looked back to her expression, and then motioned towards the back of the ship, back to the quarters near the rear of the main cabin. “Go sit in my room, I’ll be there in a second.”
“For what?”
“I’ll give you a backrub. It’ll make you feel better.”
“In your room?”
He had turned to the controls while they were in the middle of the verbal exchange, and now he paused, hearing the sudden tone in her voice. Slowly turning back, he caught a glimpse of her incredulous expression, his hands thrown out to the sides seconds after, closely resembling his father with a feigned sense of innocence. “What?” A pause. His eyes grew wide. “I figured you were sick of being in your own quarters, Your Majesty.”
Jacen swore he saw a smirk cross her face before she turned away from him, and as he watched her practically waddle from all her blankets across the main cabin, he felt himself grin a bit as she entered his quarters, the door staying open behind her. Spinning back around, he checked the viewport, then the displays once more, making sure they were on the right course before he felt safe enough to exit the cockpit and stroll casually back to his quarters.
He left the door open as he entered, his eyes first landing on her, seated on the edge of his exceedingly luxurious bed, the blanket cocoon finally broken and the control to the holoscreen in her hand. The light from the screen on the fancy dresser was the only illumination in the quarters, except for a few dim lamps along the walls. The ship itself was cushy and lush, but the bunks in the back outshined the rest of the ship when it came to being lavish. His and Tenel Ka’s quarters were both similar; overly decorated in mostly purples and reds, with a dash of gold and silver here and there. The holoscreen Tenel Ka was absently watching was one of the latest models, the picture clearer and crisper than what Jacen was used to.
Padding across the room, he kicked off his boots and crawled into the bed, the covers and cushions melding to his form as he sat on them and he leaned back against the fabric-covered headboard behind him. “Scoot back here, relax.”
Tenel Ka shifted backwards, moving back on the bed until she felt his hands gently stop her. Crossing her legs under her, her blanket hanging around her shoulders, she noticed Jacen’s feet on either side of her form, heels on the bed and toes pointed towards the ceiling. His hands pulled at the blanket and moved it to the side of them, his palms finally meeting with her back. She missed the blanket briefly, having been wrapped in it for hours.
His hands were warm against the simple short-sleeved shirt she had on, the heat shifting through the material and onto her skin. She forgot about the blanket at that point and relaxed, her posture becoming slightly slouched. Her fingers were still wrapped around the control and she began shifting the channels on the holoscreen again, as Jacen’s hands began to move around her back, gently kneading the muscles.
News, holodocumentary, infomercial—
“Oh man, stop, you have to see this. This thing is so annoying.”
Tenel Ka stopped flipping and kept it on the advertisement. There was a Rodian on screen, rambling in his own tongue, bright words flashing across the screen in all kinds of different languages and colors. He seemed to be very excited about what he was pitching, which Tenel Ka couldn’t pick up on. “What is he even trying to sell?”
Jacen laughed behind her. “I still, to this day, have no idea.”
She chuckled with him momentarily before tapping the up arrow once more, the picture on the screen changing and shifting with each press of the sensor, the different colors flooding the chamber for seconds at a time before vanishing and making way for a whole new set of hues. She paused on a travel documentary concerning the planet Mustafar, the reds and oranges of the fire from the planet setting the room into a warm glow. His hands were at her shoulders at that point, and her eyes drifted away from the holoscreen for a moment as his fingers danced down her shoulderblades and kept traveling, stopping at the small of her back. Quickly flipping the channel, she snapped her attention back to the screen, landing on a holodrama.
It was called The Empress and the Army and Tenel Ka had seen it once before, while on Fondor for a political gathering. She had been bored, lying in her guest quarters and it had been on. She had drifted in and out of sleep during it, but the premise wasn’t that hard to understand. There was an empress and she was in love with one of the knights in her army.
“Oh yeah, keep it here.” Jacen let out a stiff laugh at the holodrama, most likely because of the plot.
“You know what this is?”
“I do. I see you do too.” He leaned forward slightly, his voice almost a whisper. “What, are you afraid I’ll make fun of you because you’ve watched this sappy piece of holofilm?”
“No, I was just making sure you knew what it was before I started making fun of you for watching it.”
“Tenel Ka! Cracking another joke.” Her poked her in the sides a few times before letting his hands rest on her shoulders, which were still slightly tense. “You’re on a roll here, you know that?” He began to work at her shoulders harder now, the knots in them frustrating him slightly. He felt as though they were probably permanently there, from all the stress and annoyances Tenel Ka had to deal with on a daily basis. “You learned from the best though, didn’t you?”
“And who might that be?”
He laughed, long and loud, his forehead now resting between her shoulderblades. Even after an assassination attempt, on the way to go into hiding, Tenel Ka managed to put a smile on his face. Jacen Solo couldn’t imagine himself with anyone else. He picked his head up, and planted a quick kiss on the back of her neck before leaning against the headboard once more and continuing his massage. They sat like that for a long while, his hands working at her back and a tiny smile not leaving her face – neither of their eyes leaving the holoscreen.
The empress and the knight’s feelings were about to be found out by the rest of the army when Jacen Solo felt a jolt in the Force.
He ripped his hands away from her shoulders and stumbled off of the bed, racing into the cockpit, the looming sphere of Dantooine hanging in front of their ship. That wasn’t what unsettled him though. What unsettled him was the matte-black ship that drifted between the Untouchable and the peaceful blueish-green planet. It was a jagged shape, unrecognizable to Jacen and he found himself instantly reaching out to it, surrounding it with his mind and prodding it with the Force. It felt dark and hollow. It was the exact feeling that had knocked him out of his moment with Tenel Ka, who was just now entering the cockpit behind him, the blanket now wrapped around her once more.
“What is it?”
Jacen turned around to glance at her before looking back to the viewport. How could she be asking that when there was an unfamiliar and disturbing-looking ship right –
Right nowhere. It was gone.
His jaw dropped and worked a bit before he stopped, failing to come up with any proper explanation that exact second. Shifting forward, he leaned over the control console and moved his head around, looking up and down, then left and right, and finally moving his eyes all over every standard inch of visible space from the viewport.
No ship.
“There was a ship there. I felt it when we started to slow from hyperspace.” Jacen pointed out the viewport, to the vast expanse of space and the planet what almost filled their field of vision. “I… I got an odd feeling from it.” He shook his head, his eyes glazing over for a second before he shifted them slightly and focused on Tenel Ka. “And then it just vanished.”
“Is that why you got up and rushed out here?”
He nodded quickly, “I felt something. And there it was. Now…” With a sigh, Jacen turned towards her, dropping the train of thought. He figured he could focus on it later and try to figure out what it meant then. They were almost ready to begin their descent to Dantooine.
Tenel Ka approached him, throwing the blanket around him as well, causing him to shift around to her and lean down, gently pressing his lips to her forehead. “Buckle up. We’re almost there.”
“Yes, General.”
Slipping away from him, she seated herself in the co-pilot’s seat once more, connecting the clasps of the crash webbing around her and her giant blanket. She stifled another yawn, mildly disappointed at the fact that they wouldn’t be alone anymore. Although, on a vehicle made exclusively by Hapans, Tenel Ka realized she never probably would’ve been able to feel truly alone.
They began their descent, both secure in their seats now, and Jacen transferring their landing codes to the officials in Khoonda. He risked a glance away from the console for a moment to look at her. “You know you’ve really opened up to me lately, right?”
Her eyes darted back to him as she shot him a sideways glance, shifting in her seat. She had noticed it when they returned from the Urbania, she had been a lot more vocal with him. She didn’t acknowledge or deny it when he said it, she just looked at him.
“I like it,” Jacen added, finally, looking back to the controls.
She felt a small smile cross her lips as they continued their landing.
-- KHOONDA – MAIN SQUARE / DANTOOINE
“You must be Tenel Ka!” A dark-skinned man, eyes wide and jovial, bounded across the empty landing bay to her, grabbing her hand and shaking it quickly.
She nodded, sensing Aurelio nearby. She figured this was one of the friends Gadell had mentioned. “I am.”
“I’m Trexler Pirr. And you already know this huttslime.” He jabbed the thumb of his free hand back to a clearly Hapan male, who was approaching the two slowly and cautiously peering around.
“Afternoon, Your Majesty.” The man smiled a sort of sly grin that reminded her of Gadell. She remembered them when they were younger, bounding around the square in town and causing trouble. She had always wanted to leave the Palace to join them – to join any of the children out there. It was so boring being cooped up all day and the fact that she had finally been allowed to go to the Jedi Academy when she got a tad older had come as a huge relief.
He looked the same, shaggy dark hair and bright blue eyes, his body still awkwardly lanky. “Greetings Aurelio. It is nice to see you again.”
His smile widened, his eyes drifting from her to the tall male that appeared at the top of the Untouchable’s ramp. Jacen had finished shutting the ship down and was pacing down to the stone floor of the bay, preparing to join the group.
“This is Jacen Solo.” Tenel Ka said, as he stepped up to them, a big grin pasted on his face.
He stuck his hand out, Trexler and Aurelio taking turns shaking it, respectively. “Good to meet you both.”
They all stood around for a few minutes, making idle chit-chat and introducing themselves further. Tenel Ka noticed Aurelio nervously peering around the bay, which was clearly empty. She waited until Jacen and Trexler were deep in conversation before reaching out and grabbing the Hapan’s arm. “You alright, Tahva?”
He was startled by her touch, but calmed down instantly, forcing a smile over his lips. “I’m fine, Your Majesty.”
“Aurelio…”
“Sorry – Tenel Ka.”
“My great-grandmother was a Jedi,” Trexler was bragging to Jacen, as he led him away from the ship, Tenel Ka and Aurelio in tow.
“Really? Do you have the Force?”
“Nope. Unfortunately. But I wouldn’t trust myself with it anyways.” Pirr smiled, waving a hand towards the entrance to the docking bay. “C’mon! Speeder’s out here.”
Emerging into the cool Dantooine breeze, Jacen first noticed the brilliant greens on every side of him, the plains around Khoonda reaching farther than he could see. He breathed in the fresh air and let it out in a content sigh. He had only been to Dantooine a few times before, but he knew it was a place he wanted to visit again. And here was the perfect chance. He had stopped for a moment, taking in the scenery around him, as well as the calm bustle of the town, and absently watched Trexler and Aurelio argue playfully ahead of him about the best way to return to their destination. Tenel Ka had stopped beside him.
“What are you thinking about?” She asked him, quietly.
“About how this might actually be a relaxing break from everything.” Jacen responded, hoping desperately in his mind that he wasn’t speaking too soon.
“Only if we are lucky,” Tenel Ka’s tone was more sarcastically amused than she had meant it to be.
“Lucky? Your Majesty, I’m a Solo.”
“That is what I am afraid of.” Already wandering off after Aurelio and Trexler as she spoke those words, Jacen stifled a laugh and followed her.
Their bags had already been moved to the opened-top landspeeder and Aurelio reached his hand out to help Tenel Ka into the vehicle. She was clad in a plain gray shirt and pants, a matching cloak slung over her shoulders. The hood was pulled up at this point, as to not draw attention to herself. He helped her into the backseat, while he offered the seat beside her to Jacen.
“Let him sit up front with me!” Trexler exclaimed. “I want to ask him more about the Jedi.”
Aurelio rolled his eyes briefly. He knew Trexler was a violent and cruel man sometimes, but he seemed to act like an excited child when the Jedi were mentioned. He thought very highly of his great-grandmother and got defensive when anyone talked bad about Jedi in general. The Hapan male sat down in the backseat beside the Queen Mother, his face turned out towards the plains as Trexler started the speeder up. There was a hole in his stomach; a deep hole filled with nothing but hatred for himself and fear over what would happen back at the estate.
He was part of the Absolved. They were a group of bounty hunters. They had been around for a number of years, members coming and going sporadically. They had a core group of seven for a long while. It had been six until Aurelio had to leave Hapes with his brother and join him on Dantooine. He was the seventh member, the youngest besides Harahjah. They had taken on many jobs since Aurelio had joined them – and even though they all occasionally got in little spats and arguments, like any group does, their teamwork is what propelled them to the top of all the wanted lists. They were sought after, hired for jobs marked impossible, trusted with extremely high-paying bounties.
It all left Aurelio with a sick taste in his mouth, it always did. But where else was he supposed to go? He had no one. He had nothing. He had his brother.
He had Verdot.
Aurelio didn’t even want to look to his left. To the Queen Mother that sat beside him, riding in the speeder towards her downfall, towards their estate. Towards her death.
“Aurelio.”
He turned his head slowly, his gaze landing on a crease in the fabric of her shirt near her shoulder. He couldn’t even look her in the eyes. The sound the wind made as they sped across the tall grass and around herds of Kath Hounds drowned out the laughing and babbling of Jacen and Trexler in the front seat and lent their own conversation a backdrop of white noise. A constant stream of air and crackling as the bottom of the speeder drifted over the greenery. He wanted the noise to stop. He wanted everything to stop.
Aurelio whipped his head away from her, his eyes back out to the plains. As he did, he felt her right hand on his arm, her fingers curling around it. Knowing he couldn’t avoid speaking to her, as that would appear even more awkward, he glanced over to her, narrowing his blue orbs against the lazy afternoon sun. Her hood had fluttered off as they traveled, and it, along with her long copper hair, was trailing out behind her, whipping and fanning out in the breeze. He caught a glimpse of her stone-colored eyes before she squinted slightly against the airflow.
His breath momentarily caught in his throat. “I’m fine…”
“You lie.” Her pointed statement was punctuated by a roar of a Kath Hound they were passing, the sound quickly getting lost as they moved along.
He shook his head violently and she seemed to give up after that, her gaze trailing back out over the sprawling expanse of green ahead of them. His throat had constricted and his chest felt tight. Aurelio knew he would feel better once he was in the presence of his brother. His brother knew how to get out of anything. He could distract a Twi’lek on spice if he had to. He could just follow his brother’s lead and not have to worry about anything anymore. Part of him was screaming inside – why would he follow his brother’s lead? Why was he helping Verdot now? Why was he helping the Absolved at all? Why was he a part of them?
His thoughts traveled instantly to his parents. Both dead. If they were still alive, Aurelio wouldn’t have even had to deal with any of this. He would’ve been on Hapes, hanging out with Gadell, possibly even courting the Queen Mother.
Finally looking over to her again, he watched her momentarily before staring down to his hands, which were locked together in his lap. Last he had heard, she hadn’t chosen a noble yet, she hadn’t warmed up to any of the suitors. Although, he didn’t hear much news from Hapes – or much news from anywhere. He shook all those thoughts out of his mind. There was no way back to that now. Now he was a bounty hunter. An assassin.
All thanks to his brother.
“There it is!” Trexler hollered over the wind as they crested a small hill.
It easily was the first thing noticeable once that hill was cleared. An off-white and multi-level manor with archways over the windows and doors, and columns reaching from the ground up to the roof. The walls seemed to sparkle in the lazy afternoon sunlight, growing brighter as they got closer. Jacen Solo stared in a sort of muted awe at it, from the passenger seat in the front, his eyes widening at the slick architecture and the way the curves of the arches matched and meshed perfectly with the columns around them.
He felt a pang in his chest, but only for a moment. It was a flash of the same feeling he had felt above, when he saw that unfamiliar ship. It hit him when his gaze first landed on the building. He paid it no mind though, figuring it was just a lingering after-effect of what he had seen and felt when they had come out of hyperspace.
As the speeder got closer, the building grew larger and loomed overhead, casting a dim shadow over the patch of land where they parked the vehicle. It was a spot to the side of the front door, near the front right corner of the building – very close to it in fact and Jacen marveled at this as he jumped out of the speeder and ran his hand along the wall of the estate. It was smooth, almost like a Wayland marble. It vaguely reminded him of the hallways in the Fountain Palace, which caused him to turn his head to the left, to peer back at the speeder where the Queen Mother was climbing out with Aurelio’s assistance. Jacen felt a tad guilty that he wasn’t helping her down from the vehicle, but he figured she wouldn’t want any help and they both knew they had to appear as a Queen Mother and a bodyguard, and a couple of old friends – nothing more.
Trexler was shutting the speeder down, and then jumping out, he reached into the back and grabbed all the luggage he could manage, carting it towards the double doors at the front of the manor. “Come on, it’s time to meet everyone,” he stated, with a grin on his face.
Aurelio followed him and Jacen waited for Tenel Ka, the two of them bringing up the rear and keeping their chins up, their eyes still roaming all over the exterior of the building, admiring the work.
Somewhere inside of Jacen, a cold stab of familiarity pricked at him. It was so small and insignificant that he couldn’t place his finger on it, but he figured keeping his guard up wouldn’t hurt him.
It wouldn’t hurt Tenel Ka either.
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