Again, I am so, so sorry for how long it took me to get this chapter finished. Between a long bout of writer's block that is still plaguing me and trying to write two stories at the same time, I don't know when the next chapter will be released either. I hope you all enjoy this overdue chapter though.

-000-

"Attachment leads to jealousy. The shadow of greed, that is." - Yoda

-0-

The planet Taris definitely had a long, tragic history. The planet was once seen as the Coruscant of the Outer Rim, with the 70% of the surface not covered by ocean being a massive ecumenopolis. Located on the Hydian Way, it had once been a nexus for commerce thousands of years ago, but with the discovery of improved hyperspace routes Taris began a gradual descent into disrepair.

Civil war had once raged across Taris, caused by the poisoning of Taris' oceans by toxic pollution. Famine swept the planet, and the rich nobles hoarded food and supplies, leaving the poor to starve and die. The poor revolted, but failed and were thrown down into the rakghoul infested Undercity, never again to see the light of the Tarisian sun under penalty of death.

And then the Jedi Civil War came. Legends said that a Jedi mission crashed on Taris. In an attempt to stop the Jedi from escaping, the Sith Lord Darth Malak ordered his fleet to bombard Taris and leave nothing standing. The Jedi escaped barely, with some help from other survivors from the Jedi mission, and Malak died some time later at the hands of his former master, Revan.

Taris was a wasteland though. Billions of civilians died in the bombardment, and billions more died from the toxins brought to the surface by the turbolaser blasts. Countless more were turned into monstrous rakghouls that now populated the surface.

Taris eventually recovered. Centuries later, the planet would be repopulated by the Republic in an attempt to restore the planet somewhat. The Sith Empire, however, opposed them at ever step of the way, and the Republic lost control of Taris despite their and the Jedi Order's best attempts.

By the age of the Clone Wars, the Taris Recolonization Project had finally somewhat succeeded. Cities once again dotted its surface. It was a part of the Council of Neutral Systems, once led by the late Duchess Satine Kryze of Mandalore.

Toxic waste pits still were sprinkled across the planet however, too potent to be easily cleaned up. Major progress had been made, although it would take many more years for the planet to be completely purged of the toxins that laced its surface. One of these waste pits was known by many Tarisians as the Sunken City, an area of Taris where the ground under the giant skyscrapers had liquified under the mighty force of Malak's turbolasers. Mangled wreckage lay everywhere amongst the shifting soils and puddles of toxic goop occasionally marred the ground.

"Zyon," Ahsoka said in a mock whine as she skirted the side of a large pit of toxic waste, "why don't you ever take me anywhere nice?"

Zyon turned to smirk at her. "Once this is all over, I'll guarantee you we'll go to a nice tropical planet and enjoy the perks of finding lost treasure by relaxing on a secluded beach."

Ahsoka scoffed. "You just want to see me in a swimsuit, don't you?"

Zyon responded with a sheepish grin, causing Ahsoka to roll her eyes. "Figures." Despite herself, she couldn't stop the small smile that formed on her face.

They turned to face a sound approaching them. It got louder and louder until they could see the object making it. Ahsoka identified it as a speeder bike with a very familiar Nikto onboard.

"Syr!" Zyon called out to him. "Glad you could make it."

Syr Keth stepped off his speeder bike with a big smile on his face. "Zyon! Thanks for the invite." He paused seeing the lightsaber hanging from Zyon's belt. "You've come to terms with it?"

Zyon nodded, glancing over at Ahsoka with a slight smile. "Yeah, I did."

Syr wrapped him in a massive bear hug. "I'm happy for you, Zyon. Truly, I am."

"I've asked Ahsoka to retrain me as well." Zyon said, nodding over at Ahsoka who was leaning against Syr's speeder bike.

"So I was right," Syr said triumphantly, dropping Zyon and turning to Ahsoka. "I knew I recognized your face." He pointed over his shoulder at Zyon. "Take care of him, will you? He can be a bit of a hassle."

"Oh I know," Ahsoka laughed, even more so at Zyon's flustered response. They introduced Syr to Hondo. Syr had heard of the Weequay pirate's reputation, but had never met him in person.

"So what's the plan?" Syr asked.

"According to the map," Hondo said, "Davik's estate was at the top of one of the skyscrapers that collapsed here under the bombardment thousands of years ago. We'll need to get to the other side of this large waste pit to gain entry to the building and then make our way to the penthouse. That's where the vault Davik held his riches in was located."

"What can we expect to face?" Zyon asked.

Syr answered. "Despite Taris' rebuilding, there are still quite a few scavengers in the area who are just barely scraping by. They're fiercely territorial and will fight any interlopers they find. Other than that there's likely to be rakghouls here as well."

"Rakghouls?" Ahsoka asked in confusion. She had never heard of rakghouls before.

"Rakghouls are mutant humanoids infected by the rakghoul plague, a disease thought to be created millenia ago by Sith alchemy," Syr explained. "The plague is carried by every rakghoul, and can be spread simply by being scratched by a rakghoul claw or being bitten.

"Other than that there's the toxic waste lying around everywhere. Please try not to fall into it." Syr handed out gas masks to the other three members of the party. "We might need these in the ruins. Not sure what toxins lie in there."

"There now," Hondo said cheerfully. "Let's go carefully and walk away rich!"

-0-

Ayllis Felhun watched the quartet of outsiders from her vantage point in the twisted wreckage half jutting out of a massive pit of toxic waste. Years of scavenging things for herself had allowed her to go places many wouldn't dare go. The rakghouls wouldn't come after her in this waste pit either, no matter how big their desire for flesh and blood was.

Millenia old tech wasn't really worth anything to a lot of people, but sometimes she would find artifacts to sell to collectors or tech that would somehow still work with a bit of tuning. Marooned on this damned planet since she was 16, the 28-year old human didn't have many options other than scavenging the hulks of the destroyed Taris ecumenopolis.

Born to spacer parents, her family's merchant freighter had been attacked by pirates when she was 15. Her father was killed. Her mother, older brother, and herself were taken to be sold into slavery. Being 18 standard years of age, her brother was sold to the spice mines on Kessel and was probably dead. No slave lasted long on Kessel. Her mother was sold to a Hutt to repay some debt the pirate leader owed them. Ayllis had been kept by the pirates and was their slave for months until the pirates set down at some base they had on this planet. Another captive and her had managed to escape their cells and made a break for it, hoping to lose them in the wilderness. Her partner was shot down by the pursuing pirates as they ran and Ayllis had hidden inside a hollow log, holding her breath as the pirates first executed him, then searched for her.

Then the beasts showed up. Bleeding from their eyes and mouths, the monsters fell upon the pirates in a swarm, ripping and tearing them to pieces. The surviving pirates ran and fled, but the monsters followed, destroying their camp. Ayllis had spent the night huddled in that log, shivering in the night air. When she emerged in the morning, the monsters were all gone, leaving only shredded bodies behind. The pirate camp had been destroyed and their ships were gone, having fled when the creatures attacked. They never came back.

Ayllis had made that pirate camp her home for the past decade. Years of living by herself had toughened her into the grizzled scavenger she was today. And now these four outsiders might be her way off Taris.

Barely a day's walk from her home was a treasure so vast she could live the good life forever!

She doubted they'd cut her in though. Every other outsider she had approached asking for help had turned away the scrappy, rugged scavenger or tried to use her for their own advantage. Ayllis had killed more than a few and left their bodies for the scavenging rakghouls.

No, these four were more of the same. They would not help her.

Resting a hand on the hilt of the blaster she had taken from a dead pirate, she watched as they moved towards the largest wreck of all: an old skyscraper that she had been inside and picked through over and over again. Somehow she had missed a treasure inside that thing!

It would be tough to get though. Not only would Ayllis have to take out the quartet of outsiders before her, but rakghouls periodically patrolled the building. She had a trump card though. Ayllis knew the ventilation systems of that place like the back of her hand. She knew where the entrances were, where the exits were, where they were blocked, etc.

Ayllis could follow them discreetly through the vents, safe from the rakghouls that would no doubt lock in on them after a while. A bonus was that, unlike her with her lithe form, the rakghouls could not fit inside most of the vents.

After they found the treasure they sought, she would steal it from under their noses, leave them for the rakghouls, take their ship and leave rich.

It wouldn't be easy, but it was better than doing nothing until her luck inevitably ran out. Nothing was easy on Taris anyways.

Leaving her perch, Ayllis ran, leaped, and swung her way across the decaying ruins in pursuit of her future.

-0-

It didn't take long for the four to reach the ruins of the skyscraper that once housed Davik Kang's estate. The shifting soil caused some instances of footing giving out from underneath the group and a close call with a sinkhole filled with polluted waste that almost claimed Ahsoka, who was only saved by a last second Force-assisted jump.

Climbing up old ruins was also risky, and they had a few close calls where handholds or footholds gave way. They scampered up the side of the skyscraper towards a large gash that was their entry point.

Making it up there, Ahsoka shimmied along ancient window frames to the opening and managed to climb inside. It was a strange sensation, to be walking on the walls. She found herself in what had to once be an apartment. There was what appeared to be a closet in the corner, all the contents of which long since gone from probably scavengers or looters. Syr followed her inside, followed by Hondo and then Zyon bringing up the rear.

They found the exit into the main hallway. The map indicated that they had to move to the top of the skyscraper, but in order to do that, they needed to find a stairwell or some means of what would once be ascending the building. They found a turbolift shaft, any turbolifts or elevators this building might have once had were long since destroyed or non-functional, but the shaft for the most part was passable.

It had split in some locations, causing the shaft to slope up at some points and then slope downwards in others. There was also the occasional ledge they had to deal with, but the drops or climbs were definitely manageable for two former Jedi.

They had made it about halfway along the shaft when Ahsoka sensed something in the Force. Something that was approaching them. She dropped down another ledge and stopped to scan the area around her. Her montrals picked up something approaching them from behind, coming up the elevator shaft. It was alone, but unlike anything she had ever felt in the Force before.

When the turbolift shaft had cracked at this junction, it had left open an alcove below it that was just big enough for them to all squeeze in lying prone on their stomachs. Ahsoka and Zyon grabbed some random debris with the Force and used it to partially cover the entrance, there wasn't enough to fully obstruct them from view if whoever, or whatever, was coming after them had a good enough angle of sight.

Footsteps pounded the ground as the presence came closer and closer to them. Heavy footsteps that sent vibrations rippling along the old metal of the turbolift shaft. Suddenly, they stopped.

"It's right above us," Ahsoka whispered, her breath caught in her throat.

"No one move," Zyon ordered slowly and quietly.

A liquid of some kind dripped viscously onto the durasteel before them and they heard a growl from right above their heads. There was the scratching and squealing of claws on metal that set the quartet's teeth on edge. The creature jumped down in front of them and they saw its pale, waxy skin.

The creature was hideous, possessing massive claws on its hands and feet and spines on its back and head. Vicious teeth gleamed as it turned its head, scanning the territory around it.

"It's a rakghoul!" Syr whispered harshly.

Suddenly the rakghoul froze. It arched its back and roared into the air before taking off up the shaft towards what was once the top of the skyscraper.

-0-

Ayllis watched the group of rakghouls approach the decrepit skyscraper from a window about halfway up. Brushing her reddish-brown hair out of her face, she brought the macrobinoculars to her face again. There were maybe four or five, too many for Ayllis to take out even from her vantage point. She had followed the quartet of outsiders inside and had hunkered down in this apartment. The entrance to the old ventilation system lay open next to her, but she waited patiently to see what would happen.

There were already rakghouls inside the skyscraper. The one lying on the ground behind her with smoke rising from the several blaster holes in it's chest was evidence of that. She had seen another one trailing the outsiders from the vents and watched as it hunted for them. Those outsiders were lucky, ordinarily they wouldn't have made it out of there without the rakghoul attacking. But something had happened.

The rakghoul had been called away by this other group outside. Ayllis watched more rakghouls run in to congregate around what looked to be a nekghoul standing upright amongst the hunched rakghouls. She knew what that meant. The rakghouls knew there were outsiders here. Ayllis smiled grimly to herself. The four treasure hunters were as good as dead. Nekghouls were nasty business, being larger and smarter than the typical rakghoul. They had the strange ability to move objects without touching them, and they were extremely violent.

Her comlink crackled. She had taken this one off of a dead pirate and discovered that it could be used to tap into other conversations. As Ayllis listened to the scraps of the message being transmitted before she realized it wasn't the outsiders in the turbolift shaft the nekghoul was after.

There was another group in the area, and they were hunting the outsiders.

-0-

Ahsoka and the others moved swiftly and quietly along the turbolift shaft. Yes, this was the path the rakghoul had taken, but they couldn't back out now. According to Syr, where you saw one rakghoul, there were probably a half-dozen. Staying in one place for too long meant that they would eventually be found by the rakghouls, so they had to keep moving.

They made it close to the penthouse without issue, but they were forced to stop in their tracks. Before them the skyscraper had fallen into another building, destroying its frame and leaving a long gap in between them and their objective. The only thing connecting the skyscraper to the penthouse was a few girders and random supports.

To complicate matters even more, the penthouse area itself lay over a pit of toxic waste. They had no clue how stable it was. Normally the fall distance wouldn't have affected Zyon or Ahsoka, but even the Force could not protect them from falling into a pit whose contents pulsed with a green color.

"Do we risk it?" Ahsoka asked the others.

Hondo looked concerned, a rarity given the Weequay pirate's usual demeanor. Then Ahsoka remembered the fate that had befallen his mentor, Stuska Braldeq. Braldeq had pushed on in the face of inevitable death because the call of glory and treasure had been too much for him.

"I think if we're careful, we can make it," Zyon said. "I'll go first, see if it's stable." Zyon's words seemed to restore some of the confidence in Hondo, who nodded his approval. Zyon turned to Ahsoka. "Be ready to catch me if I fall."

"I will," she nodded. Zyon began to turn when Ahsoka put a hand on his shoulder. "Good luck. May the Force be with you."

Zyon nodded, then leaped up to grab onto one of the girders leading across the pit. It held his weight thankfully, and Zyon began to traverse the maze of girders. Finding a spot where he had enough clearance, Zyon pulled himself on top of the girder and moved along in a crouch.

Hondo and Syr followed him, taking the same route Zyon did. It was a bit harder for Syr because of his larger stature, but the Nikto did alright. Ahsoka waited on her side of the gap, staying alert for rakghouls and in the case of one of her friends falling.

Zyon reached the end of one girder and jumped across to another one. The girder buckled as he landed and Zyon was almost thrown off, but he maintained his balance somehow as the girder restabilized. "This one's shady. Try to find another path," Zyon called back to Hondo and Syr.

Syr attempted a jump to another girder, but without the Force he wasn't able to jump nearly as far as Zyon was. He somehow managed to grab the edge, but the Nikto gave a shout of pain as the metal sliced open his leathery hand. With the clearance ahead of him getting lower, Syr had to resort to advancing hand over hand along the girder's bottom.

Hondo took a different path, balancing along and jumping from girder to girder. He even swung across a large gap in between girders using an old piece of rebar that jutted out of a chunk of duracrete.

Zyon managed to reach the other side and dropped onto semi-solid ground. The penthouse remained stable though and Ahsoka sent a feeling of relief through their bond, which she felt him receive happily.

Hondo made it over about a minute later. "That made me feel like I was young again! Wouldn't want to do it again though."

Syr grunted as he hung beneath a girder. The blood flowing from the wound on his hand made the metal slick and he struggled to keep his grip. He reached over to try to grab another handhold, but his hand gave way. Syr fell with a shout, his arms flailing above him for anything to break his fall.

Ahsoka and Zyon both immediately gathered the Force around them and locked in on Syr's falling form. They reached out with the Force and stopped his fall, catching him with a massive invisible hand. The unseen hand brought Syr up against gravity to the other side of the gap where Hondo grabbed his arm and pulled him onto the ledge he and Zyon stood on.

Ahsoka let go of her Force grip on Syr and sent a message to Zyon. "I'm on my way."

She felt him acknowledge it before she leaped up, grabbing the starting girder. Shimmying along the edge, Ahsoka swung herself up onto the top and took off, stepping lightly and dancing from girder to girder. Her extensive training in the fourth form of lightsaber combat, known as Ataru, focused on agility and speed. That benefitted her here and Ahsoka made much faster progress than her compatriots.

In fact, Ahsoka would have made it across in half the time it took Zyon had the report of a blaster not rung out from below them and the girder on which Ahsoka ran been severed by the contained plasma of a blaster bolt.

-0-

Ayllis saw the big outsider fall from her perch in the vents. Even though she didn't care much for these outsiders, even she did not wish the fate that would befall falling into that shithole. Ayllis nearly had years ago and she had almost died.

She blinked, not believing the sight before her eyes. The outsider's fall had stopped. She looked closely for a rope or a cord or something that could have arrested the fall, but she saw nothing there. It was then that Ayllis noticed the human outsider and the outsider with the blue and white pointy things on her head had their arms outstretched in the direction of the big one.

Did they have the same ability as the nekghouls?

The falling outsider rose up to the other side, grabbing the hands of the human and the smaller spiky-faced one. The pointy headed female outsider swung herself up and danced across the chasm. She moved with a level of swiftness and grace that Ayllis had never seen before.

Her comlink crackled and Ayllis heard the garbled discussion of the other interlopers, but one word was clear as day.

"Fire."

A blaster roared from the edge of the sea of waste and the female outsider gave a shout as her footing fell out beneath her. She fell, but managed to grab hold of a cable and swung herself up to a different girder.

Ayllis herself swung out of the vent and ran to a piece of cover by the precipice, looking down and over in the direction of the short cliffs that made up the edge of the waste sea. There were a few speeders there and about a dozen men or so that she could make out with her macrobinoculars.

There was a thwunk as a harpoon imbedded itself into the side of the skyscraper ruins on the other side of the chasm. Multiple other thwunks sounded as other harpoons followed suit. The structure shuddered slightly, but the female outsider managed to keep her balance and flipped across to the opposite side. Ayllis turned her attention back to the interlopers on the cliffedge.

They won't get to use those. Ayllis thought to herself with a smirk. She could see the swarm of rakghouls descending on the intruders. Blaster bolts flew everywhere, dropping some rakghouls but failing to stem the tide.

They were easily overwhelmed. Limbs were ripped off and flesh was shredded as the rakghouls tore into the interlopers. Some were dragged away, flailing and screaming.

They never stood a chance.

Two managed to escape, clambering up the harpoon lines they had fired into the skyscraper. She could handle those two with ease. She turned her attention back to the melee on the shore.

Ayllis' breath caught in her throat as the nekghoul strode through the carnage and turned its head. It stared straight at her, its gaze boring its way into hers through the macrobinoculars. It shifted its focus to the other side of the skyscraper, the penthouse where the outsiders were.

The nekghoul roared and a few rakghouls started climbing hand-over-hand up the harpoon cables the dead interlopers had set up, chasing after the fleeing men.

Ayllis could go back to her hideout in the vents. Wait for the rakghouls to take out the outsiders and leave the treasure for her. But what if the outsiders defeated the rakghouls? What if they escaped with the riches? Ayllis would be no better off than before and an entire day would be wasted!

She made her choice.

Ayllis jumped up, making her way across the chasm. She'd have to work fast if she was to escape with both her life and her future.

-0-

They stood in the ruined throne room that once belonged to Davik Kang. Time had not aged it well. The walls were dirty and scored, the once regal purple styling faded into obscurity. Ruined pictures and artworks littered the walls and floor and wind howled through a blast hole in what was once the ceiling.

"We don't have much time to work," Ahsoka said. "Whoever shot at me has strung up harpoon cables and is probably on their way."

Syr nodded, his hand bandaged by Zyon. "Sanfol's map leads us here, and notes scribbled on it indicate that the treasure is located in a safe under the ground floor. There's a clue here… 'Shake the hand to unscrew the cap. The fastest swoop paves the way.'"

Hondo scanned the wall before them. Statues and sculptures littered the ground, but Hondo ignored them. It appeared to be a wall now, but because of the penthouse's sideways and twisted orientation the wall Hondo scrutinized had once been the floor. "There's only one place it could be. One place that would prevent anyone from accidentally discovering the entrance." Hondo pointed at the ruin that was once Davik Kang's throne. From that chair, he had once ruled over Taris with an iron fist.

"Shake the hand to unscrew the cap," Ahsoka said the riddle aloud, puzzling it in her mind.

"Syr, was Kang right or left handed?" Zyon questioned.

"All pictures showed him as being right-handed, why?"

Zyon walked over to underneath the throne. "Mind giving me a boost?"

Ahsoka gathered the Force around her and lifted Zyon in the air. He grabbed the throne and hoisted himself up. "Shake the hand. A hand connects to an arm, and to shake a hand you grab it. If Kang was right handed… there might be a switch or something on the right arm of this chair."

Zyon fiddled with the right arm of the chair for a minute, then gave a shout of triumph. His shout was quickly followed by a cry of alarm as the throne shot forward, twisting as if unscrewing itself from the ground. Zyon fell from the throne and hit the wall-floor with a crash.

Ahsoka knelt down next to him. "You alright?"

Zyon groaned. "I'll be feeling that in the morning." His response elicited a small smile and a chuckle from Ahsoka.

"Well whatever you did has opened a passageway of some sort. Look!" Syr pointed at the throne, which now clung to the side of a horizontal pedestal that jutted out. A dark cavity opened in the center.

Ahsoka gathered the Force around her and jumped up. She grabbed the edges of the cavity, pulling herself inside to find a ladder that was now useless due to the tunnel's orientation. Informing the others of what she found, Ahsoka pushed down into the tunnel, coming out in a small room. There was enough room for Ahsoka to stand comfortably and she was joined by the others in a couple minutes. Across from them was the door to what had to be a vault.

"We need to enter a code of some kind here," Ahsoka said, scrutinizing the lock. Because the vault had been in a sealed chamber, it was still in pristine condition.

"The clue said 'The fastest swoop paves the way.'" Syr said. "That has to have something to do with swoop bikes."

Hondo's face lit up. "Isn't it true that Taris was once renowned for its swoop races?"

Syr nodded. "Yes. Why do you ask?"

"What was the record for the Tarisian swoop tracks?"

Recognition of where Hondo was going with this dawned on Syr's face. "It was said that Kang was a fan of swoop racing. Hold on," he pulled out his datapad, scrolling through copious amounts of data at a speed Ahsoka doubted she would be able to read. "The fastest recorded time before Taris was destroyed was held by a Black Vulkar racer named Redros. His record was 38.43 seconds."

Ahsoka punched in the aurabesh letter 'R', then his time on the track. The lock did nothing. "This thing is so old the lock doesn't work anymore. Anyone bring a power pack?"

"Stand aside," Zyon said, unclipping his lightsaber and igniting it.

Zyon shoved the amethyst blade into the door, carving a hole for them. It took minutes for the blade to cut through the thick vault door, but eventually the molten metal fell away to leave a hole they could clamber through.

"Why didn't we think of that in the first place?" Hondo said with humor in his voice. He stepped through the hole and stopped, gazing at what lay before them. Ahsoka stepped in behind him, her eyes widening at the sight. "Woah…"

-0-

Ayllis crouched in the tunnel the outsiders had revealed, her blaster in hand pointed before her. The two surviving interlopers had made it up to the skyscraper, but they found no refuge here. Instead they lay on the ground, stunned by a blaster.

Hopefully they would distract the rakghouls long enough for her to escape.

She could hear the conversation of the outsiders inside the vault. "How much do we have?"

She heard the female next. "We won't be able to take it all in one go. Not unless you get the ship to hover over here and we pass it out."

"Could work, but what about the people that shot at you? I don't want to leave the two of you to face them if they get here. I'd hate it if something happened to you while we were gone."

"I can handle myself, Zyon."

"He's right though. One of us would have to fly the ship and the other would get the stuff inside."

"It would take us a while to get back to the ships and then more time to fly over. You sure we want to do that?"

They were distracted by conversation. Good. Distractions meant that they wouldn't see or hear her coming. Ayllis checked her blaster. She had more than enough shots to take out all four.

Ayllis advanced swiftly and silently, holding short at the opening into the vault room. She saw the outsiders standing just outside a hole carved into the side of the vault. Four duffel bags lay at their feet, filled to the brim with aurodium and jewelry of many different colors. Ayllis launched herself out of the tunnel with a shout and rolled upon landing to a crouched position. She snapped a couple shots at the largest of the outsiders, who cried out in alarm and pain as he fell back.

Movement registered in her peripheral vision and Ayllis spun, firing in an arc at the female outsider who somehow managed to flip out of the way into cover.

A blaster bolt flew by Ayllis' head as she pivoted to face the other two, and she dove backwards. There was a snap-hiss and she saw the dark-skinned human outsider brandishing some weird weapon. It looked like a sword made of purple light, and it hummed as he held it in a guard position before him.

She opened fire, but the human moved his blade quickly, deflecting all of her blaster bolts into the floor, walls, or ceiling. She continued firing, trying to overwhelm him with the sheer amount of fire. The human stood his ground, the blade never moving more than he needed to move it. His hand shot forward and Ayllis felt herself flying backwards into the wall.

-0-

Ahsoka broke from cover as soon as Zyon hit their attacker with a Force Push. The female human got to her hands and knees, but Ahsoka reached her and kicked the blaster pistol out of her hand. Whipping out her vibroblade, Ahsoka rested the point on the underside of the human's chin, lifting her gaze to meet Ahsoka's.

"Who are you? Why'd you attack us?"

Green eyes stared defiantly into blue. "Go on. Do it! Kill me already!"

Ahsoka tilted her head in confusion. "Why would we want to kill you? I don't even know you."

"Why do you care?" the woman snarled back. "End this."

Zyon walked up behind her. "Syr will be okay. Caught him in the side, but hit nothing but meat."

"Luckily for you, you didn't kill our friend so we're not going to hurt you," Ahsoka turned back to the woman. "Why would you ever want us to?"

The woman shrugged, but her eyes spoke volumes. Failure and sadness swam in them, but the woman attempted to hide it by smoking them with anger. "Everyone else I've run into has tried to kill me."

"We're not like everyone else," Ahsoka said, removing her vibroblade from the woman's neck. "Now I'll ask again, who are you?"

The woman stared deeply into Ahsoka's eyes, searching for some hint of malice or duplicity in them. She found none. Sighing and looking down, her shoulders slumped as she spoke. "My name is Ayllis Felhun. I've been stranded on this planet for around a dozen rotations..."

The woman, Ayllis, told them everything. Her ordeal as a slave to pirates, her escape and subsequent struggle to survive in the hostile Tarisian wilderness. She told them why she had been trailing them this whole time: her desire to get enough money to finally leave Taris and find her missing family.

Everything poured out of Ayllis… all her pent-up anger, fear, and despair. Anger at the galaxy for putting her in this situation. Fear of being stuck on Taris forever. Despair of dying alone and forgotten. Her breath was shaky as she finished and tears ran from her eyes.

Ahsoka turned to Zyon and Hondo, who was helping Syr walk. "What do we do with her?" Zyon asked.

"We can't kill her. But I can't leave her here either. After all she's been through… I can't do that," Ahsoka said, shaking her head.

"But if we take her with us, there's no telling if she'll betray us," Zyon said, casting a wary eye at Ayllis. "She could be playing the sympathy card."

"That didn't stop you from taking me in," Ahsoka said.

"You were unconscious and heavily injured when I found you," Zyon said with a smirk on his face. "You also didn't try to kill me when we first met."

Hondo cut into the conversation. "I've dealt with situations like this before. What we need to do is give her enough incentive to not betray us. Give her what she wants."

"And what do you think that is?" Zyon questioned, raising an eyebrow.

"We give her a ride off this planet first and foremost. Then, we give her a place to belong." Hondo smiled. "Giving someone meaningful things will reduce the chance that they'll turn on you."

Syr smiled at Hondo. "Didn't expect wisdom from you, Hondo. Some extra help on my ship would be useful."

They broke apart, forming a semicircle around Ayllis. Syr tilted his head as he asked her. "You any good with repairing technology?"

"I had to get good at it in order to eat," Ayllis responded. "You won't find much working tech in ruins like these."

"How'd you like to come with us?" Syr asked. "I can give you work on my freighter as a member of my crew."

She stared warily at him. "How do I know I can trust you?"

"You don't," Syr shrugged. "The choice is yours. I can give you a clean, peaceful place to live with meaningful work."

"And what," Ayllis sneered at him, "you expect me to believe you're doing this out of the kindness of your heart? I just shot you!"

Syr shrugged. "You have skills that would be useful on my ship. We each have something the other wants."

"And what do you have that I want?"

"A chance to leave. The means to get off this planet and actually do something instead of worrying about surviving the day."

Ayllis was silent, and Ahsoka could feel the turmoil inside of the older woman. She could feel Ayllis' desperation to leave Taris clashing with her self-preservation instinct. Having spent so much time fending for herself, it was understandable that she would struggle letting her walls down to trust someone.

Ahsoka motioned to the open vault behind them. "Go ahead, grab some loot to take with us. You said that's why you were following us."

Ayllis' eyes suddenly snapped open in alarm. "There's no time! The nekghoul-"

She was cut off by two human screams outside. They were agonized cries of pain, followed by an animalistic below.

Ayllis turned her attention back from the tunnel to them, eyes wide in fear. Her terrified voice came quietly, almost a whisper. "They're here."

-000-

Apologies about the slight cliffhanger, it just seemed the best place to end the chapter right now without an even greater delay. I'll try to get the next chapter out quicker than it took this one, but I can't make any promises.

The Book of Eli - Hondo's always gonna act in his usual boisterous, humerous way. Callbacks to previous events and media are always fun to write. I hope you enjoyed this chapter as well.

sniperdude351 - Glad to hear the last chapter was worth the wait. I hope this one was as well!