{{ urbania's void - chapter 08
...questioning the quadripdici (day fourteen / +14)
Kaidin's eyes seared with tears of weariness as he was jerked awake by Rez. Looking at the chrono, he scowled. They had slept until the middle of the afternoon. Anywhere else and Kaidin could've told what time it was just by looking at the sky.
But on this damn place, who knows?
"Whakrrrrifff?" Kaidin mumbled as he tilted his head upwards to look at Rez. She was hanging over him, her hair tumbling over her shoulders to sweep his face. Her hands were planted on either side of his head and to him, she was upside-down.
"What'd we do last night?" Kaidin rubbed his face with both of his hands as he waited for an answer.
A quizzical expression crossed Rez's face as she blinked, "Nothing. We slept."
"Oh man. That must've been a dream then." Serasai sat up, ducking under the canopy Rez had formed over him.
"What?"
"Nothing," Kaidin laughed nervously as he let his eyes roam around the bed. "Where's the comlink?"
Rez pointed to the nightstand.
Sweeping it into his grasp, Kaidin put the comlink up to his mouth, "'Sick? 'Sicko? You there?"
"Shut up, you idiot!" A quiet hiss was suddenly returned through the small speaker.
He slid off of the bed and snickered, shifting his weight onto his right foot. He waited for an explanation from Tessick, his eyes locking with Rez's questioning gaze.
A whisper. "Khee and I are trying to get out of here and you come in blazing your kriffing loud voice over my--- I bet you just woke up, didn't you? You lazy tramp."
"You guessed right, my man. We just woke up from a nice, long slee---"
"You sithspit. Kai, we'll meet you guys at the Vina---- oh no... Khee, run!" Tessick didn't get a chance to flip the switch on his comlink that would stop transmitting, so Kaidin and Rez heard a scratchy and disturbing scene. Shouts, blaster fire, curses. The two stared at each other, Rez looked away when the comlink abruptly cut out and the room lapsed into silence.
"Tessick, come on!" Khee Verelen clenched a fistful of the back of Tessick's shirt in his hand as he ran, pulling Tessick away from the firefight. They ducked behind debris, trash, anything they could find that they could both fit behind. The Quadripdici were after them and they obviously didn't want to get caught.
Tessick had picked off the other three gang members with his blaster as they walked Khee to their destination, The Mircas Tower. One of the three had commed back to the building causing more men to be sent out. Tessick and Khee had made their escape to the lower levels of the city and hid out in some abandoned slums for the night. And now as the afternoon was passing, they had been found and were being chased.
The men running after them, the gang members from the Quadripdici, were all in the colors of the gang, purple and black with a smidge of yellow. Tessick suddenly had a deep hatred for those colors, if only for the fact that they were chasing him and hunting him down at the moment.
Passing under a large decrepit walkway, Khee and Tessick halted the full on run when three figures jumped down, blocking their way. The silhouettes of the beings were all drastically different from one another, but Tessick and Khee could see the purple, black and yellow on their clothes.
"Why me?" Tessick muttered.
The figure in the middle hissed, "Duck."
Grasping Khee's shoulder and pulling him to the ground, Tessick watched the three figures ahead of them whip out blasters and begin shooting over their hunched forms. Only moments passed and everything was silent, the smell of charred flesh permeating the air. Slowly brushing themselves off, Khee and Tessick stood up, staring into the shadows where the figures were all standing.
"Thanks? I think...?" Slipping his own blaster back into the holster on his leg, he watched as the figure exited the shadow of the walkway.
A barabel, his long tail lashing back and forth. Wide black eyes bore into Tessick's as he slithered over to the bounty hunter. "Watch your back more carefully next time, human." Walking around behind Tessick, he snapped his head up beside his ear, "Because next time, we won't be as graciouz."
He stopped his loop around Tessick and stood in front, glancing sideways to him. The bounty hunter stared back, his eyes narrowed, calculating. Tessick felt like he knew this barabel from somewhere. In the back of his mind, gears that didn't belong to him were turning and working. Zekk was tempted to break through and strip his Mindmap off just to see... He went the smart path and decided against it.
"Now get out of here before I change my mind and blow you both to bitz." The barabel glanced to Khee, his eyes forming slits as he sneered and growled at the blonde man.
Tessick and Khee heard cackling from the other two figures, both unmistakably female. And giving the barabel one last quizzical glance, Tessick turned and motioned with his head to Khee and they both started off down the alleyway, towards the upper levels.
"We need to get there. And we need to get there fast." Kaidin jumped upon the expanded metal board, snapping the repulsors to life.
Rez stood beside him, on the street in front of the Klecttrinn. "And you expect me to do it on one of those?"
Kaidin's eyes turned to slits at Rez's sudden attitude. He grabbed the neck of her coat and pulled her onto the board behind him, "Now shut up and hold on, babe."
Scowling, Rez Nyena snaked her arms around Kaidin's waist and pressed her head against his back as he hunched over and stuck his right foot between her two feet to smack the pedal. She cringed as they sped off over the walkways of the spacestation, the wind whipping her mane of blue hair around. "I hate you for this!" She yelled over the noise.
"I love you too, sister!" Kaidin cackled, pressing the front of the board down to send them both under a walkway. Minutes of diving up over walkways and under ledges, they arrived out front of the Vina Lidrina. Rez, slipping off of the board, didn't even see the two men running up to them.
"Rez!"
Blinking the dizzy spell away, Rez turned to face the caller, "Khee!"
Scooping Rez up into his arms, Khee planted an obviously passionate kiss on her lips, swinging her around. Khee set her feet back on the ground and rested his forehead against hers, "You okay?"
"I'm fine." She whispered her answer to him, oblivious to Tessick and Kaidin who were staring blatantly at the two. "What about you?"
"I think I'm okay. Tessick took good care of everything."
Khee had his arms wrapped around her neck and their foreheads were still together when Kaidin cleared his throat. Rez turned her head, "Oh!" She pulled herself away from Khee and grabbed his hand, pulling him to where Tessick and Kaidin stood, "That's Kaidin."
Khee clapped Tessick on the back, "This is Tessick."
Tessick glanced to Kaidin and back to Khee, "That's Khee."
Kaidin finished off the confusing round of introductions by sticking his pointer finger in Rez's face, "Rez."
She smacked his hand away from her face and glanced to the men who had just gotten back, "So what happened?"
Plopping down on Kaidin's board that was still floating behind the group, Tessick sat down, happy to get the mental and physical weight off of his shoulders. "Well, the Quads wanted your man, Khee, here. For what reason, we're not sure yet."
"They're probably just out for some fun," Kaidin could feel twinges of jealousy inside of him, towards Khee, but he didn't know why. Probably because Rez had been flirting with Kaidin, when she had Khee. "And Khee here looked like an easy target."
A slender eyebrow arched as Khee crossed his arms, while glaring at Kaidin. Rez dismissed the whole thing and wrapped Khee up in her arms, "I'm so glad you're alright!" Turning her head to Tessick, she let a wide smile show, "Thank you, Tessick."
Tessick nodded and steeled himself as Kaidin sat down on the repulsor board beside him, the board bouncing with their weight. "So where do you guys live anyways?"
Khee piped up, taking the speaking job away from the bubbly Rez, "We're pretty much drifters. We have... a lot of friends in a lot of places so we basically drift and whoever we end up near, we hang with."
"Do you consider us friends?" Tessick stretched his legs out in front of him, staring up to the two.
Khee tilted his head, "Do you want us to consider you friends?"
"Why not? It's always good to make new friends," Tessick said, throwing his arms in the air. "Corellian Hells--- do you want to stay at our place for a few days?"
Everything skipped a beat.
"That'd be perfect! Thank you!" Rez replied to Tessick, but her eyes locked on Kaidin as she spoke. Khee snapped his head to her, surprised at her answer, but quickly regained his composure, glancing back to the two men seated in front of them.
"We'd love to. Thank you."
"Then let's get back. Who knows when the Quadripdici might show up again." Tessick stood up off of the board and looked down to Kaidin, who was vacantly staring to the ground. "Come on, Hutt Boy."
"Huh?" Serasai glanced up, his wide gray eyes reminding Tessick of a gaze belonging to a questioning child.
"Let's go," Tessick's voice was firmer with the second command, as if trying to suggest something or let Kaidin in on something.
Kaidin slid off of the board and picked it up, compacting it down to it's carrying size and the four walked off towards the Klecttrinn, dodging crowds of people and making small chat.
Tessick had excused himself and Kaidin from the living room. He had pulled Kaidin into the refresher and shut the door behind them, claiming they had to discuss sleeping arrangements.
"Why did you invite them to stay?!" Kaidin seethed.
"Calm down, man. Listen," Tessick had grabbed Kaidin's wrists and held them out in front of him, so Kaidin wouldn't be tempted to hit Tessick or beat something up. "They seem pretty street smart, maybe we can use them to help us find Ryled and stuff--- wait."
Tessick had shook his head quickly and then reached up and pinched his nose.
Zekk stood in front of Kaidin with an expectant look on his face, like he was waiting for Kaidin to do something.
"Think I'm gonna do a trick?" His eyes narrowed, "Tessick? You look kind of funny."
"Kriff me--- come on!" Zekk reached up and grabbed Kaidin's nose, yanking it back and forth, catching the Mindmap as it fell.
Jacen Solo held his nose with his right hand, a painful look on his face, "That hurt."
"Good. What is your problem? You can't even tell Kaidin when to take the Mindmap off?!"
"Zekk, he's eating me up."
"Huh?"
"You know how Danni told us, that you'll still have control of your mind and you'll be able to know when to take it off and such?"
Zekk nodded and motioned for him to keep his voice down.
"Well, to Kaidin there's no such thing as 'taking the Mindmap off'... It's like I can vaguely remember snippets of my own life and memory... but they just feel like something Kaidin's seen in a holodrama or something."
"You really need to work with that Mindmap."
"I know. But we can't use the Force."
"Jacen, we're looking for Raynar. We're going to have to use the Force sooner or later."
"Fact." Right as that word came out of his mouth, Jacen cursed himself for being reminded of where he would rather be.
Hapes...
A male's deep voice floated in from the living area.
"In other news, there has been an uprising on the planets of Hapes..."
Jacen and Zekk looked at each other and then scrambled to put their Mindmaps in and rush out of the refresher only to plop down on the couch and watch the holo-screen with Rez and Khee. It was showing footage of a ceremony of some sort.
"...splendid news, it was all in good nature. The uprisings were generally waves of relief and celebration. Earlier today, Queen Mother Tenel Ka Chume Djo announced that the Commander of her fleet, Gadell Vessau, was to be promoted to Admiral. The galaxy now knows that Hapes really is a superpower to look out for."
The holo-reporter chuckled and then began to go into boring details about the ceremony as they showed footage of it. Kaidin's heart skipped two beats, one for himself and one for Jacen as Tenel Ka was shown, acting as regal as she could. Gadell stood by her side, dressed in a rich azure Admiral's uniform, the silver buckles shining in the Hapan sunlight. A genuine smile was on his face and his hands were clasped behind his back. As the reporter rambled on, they cut to footage of the banquet afterwards and a shot of Gadell and Tenel Ka in an embrace of companionship.
Kaidin couldn't help himself. "Get your hands off of her, Sithspawn! She's mine!" Afterwards he laughed it off as a joke, Tessick backed him up by giggling too. Khee and Rez stared at Kaidin like he had just murdered someone.
"What? A guy can dream, can't he?" Kaidin arched an eyebrow.
They all looked back to the screen as footage was shown of a question and answer session. The camera was in the back of the chamber and a coppery mass of hair could clearly be made out at the front, with masses of reporters and subjects around the platform the Queen Mother was on. Her right arm pointed to someone in the audience and they could faintly hear the voice on the screen, "Is it true that you and General Jacen Solo of the Galactic Alliance have a relationship going on, your highness?"
Totally calm. "I am not going to answer that question at this time. Next?"
Kaidin cackled wildly, filling the room with a shrill sound. "Who would want to be with that little whiner anyways?!"
Tessick chuckled, "I've seen interviews with Solo. He's such a little Hutt lover."
Rez could feel Khee clutching her hand tightly in between them and she just laughed along with Tessick and Kaidin. Khee joining in the laughter.
The four chatted with one another until the night grew and Rez fell asleep in Khee's lap. Their relationship confused Tessick and Kaidin. One minute she was calling him "Master" and the next minute she was treating him as an equal and the minute after that they were showing off an unmistakable father and daughter relationship. It confused Kaidin and Tessick.
Later, the bounty hunters went to their respective rooms and fell asleep, leaving Khee and Rez to sleep on the unnaturally large couch. While Khee snored, Rez stared to the ceiling; her mind never pushing it's way around thoughts of Kaidin. She was drawn to him. Drawn to him physically, drawn to him sexually. And she couldn't explain why. With a snicker she rolled over and curled up with Khee, her body used to being near his. Snuggling up to him, she fell asleep wondering what the coming days would bring.
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