Chapter 4

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He slammed the exit closed just in time to avoid a blastershot. As soon as the oxygen levels went up, Orn Taa threw the inner door open. She wavered at his side, but he waved her away.

"Go! Tell Tapri to step on it!"

And she was off. After disassembling out of the spacesuit, he followed. He collapsed just in time for Jonz to hoot and Tapri to accelerate.

The sounds of missiles firing were left in their wake.

As Kirin watched the stars blur by in hyperspace, he thought of how the smugglers knew they were cops.

The cut on Orn Taa's shoulder itched under the bacta patch. She shifted her arm and stomped down the urge to fidget. It was a nervous habit she tamed in cadet training, but it appeared to be making a comeback. Considering the shitstorm, they found themselves, it wasn't the worst way to relapse. If her hope for this mission had been low, it tanked as soon as the slavers showed up.

She sighed in tiredness. Being on the same unit as The Enforcer was both the peril and adventure she expected. It exhausted and filled her with pride.

She still remembered dawdling in the cadet halls of the Corps training center with other recruits, eager to catch a glimpse of him. Rumors of a luminescent super humanoid with blue skin; a 'hybrid' Pantoran; eyes so red and bright they might as well be lasers. SSR Kirin was the cadet's legend. He was unfairly strong, fast, and disciplined. She had almost been expecting a Jedi. He was one of the best sector rangers to ever come out of the program. The handsomest of his species that she'd seen, despite his severe countenance and the unnerving complement that were his eyes. She hasn't felt regret since joining his unit.

Though, he's not quite so severe anymore, she reflected.

The comm she'd gotten from him on Coruscant was the last thing she'd been expecting. She thought he was finally going to reprimand them for their partial failure on the last mission, but instead he informed her about his affliction. It befuddled her. Amnesia of all things? He was so…powerful, so untouchable! Yet, he revealed that weakness to her and her worry grew when he seemed to change in nature. Thankfully, he remained mostly the same. But occasionally, he smiled at was more approachable, enough to go drinking with them. Jonz had ridiculously named him The Drunken Enforcer.

Bemusedly, she shook her head. SSR Kirin might be more affable to them now but he was still his frosty blue self. It was a welcome change to their dynamic.

Speaking of him, she stood straighter as he exited the ship. His ranger uniform was slightly scuffed from his earlier fight in the airlock, but he was no less poise. With a nod at her, they sped toward a nearby town, half a mile north of their landing site on the planet Mendu. After tangling with the slaver pirates, they had to divert for repairs to fix the ship's field generator. Tapri and Jonz were left behind to start repairing the damages while they contacted the local police and obtained an expert hand at repairing ships. She left SSR Kirin with the police and set off to a nearly docking bay.

She had been speaking to a human male attendant when she heard the faint crackle in her comm. She nearly dismissed it, but a gut feeling told her to check.

"This is Orn Taa, come in Tapri"

The comm stayed silent. Again, she repeated.

"Come in Ranger Tapri."

Nothing. Brows furrowing, she commed Jonz.

"Report in Ranger Jonz."

Silence.

"Ranger Jonz?…Jonz, I need you to connect with Tapri. Jonz?!"

Nothing.

Cold apprehension filled her, and she quickly commed SSR Kirin.

"Orn Taa," came his deep voice.

"Sir, I've lost contact with Rangers Tapri and Jonz."

"..."

"Sir?" she repeated.

"...Orn Taa," he said again. She heard a note in his voice she'd never heard before and a wave of fear crashed over her.

"Ask her where she is?" hissed another voice.

"Orn Taa. There are multiple hostiles. Do not—"

A growl and the comm shut with a click.

She stood there for a moment, frozen in fear and her heart racing. The attendant called for her attention several times.

She looked at him, clear horror on her face.

Then, she burst into a run.

Weaving her way through the streets, she held the comm at her wrist to her lips once more yet received no response. At her peripheral, she spotted a figure; large and menacing. That was all she needed to hurriedly duck behind a vendor's stall.

A Trandoshan. Two.

Clearly trying to be inconspicuous and failing miserably. If the shape of the bulges at their sides wasn't an indication of their profession, their appearances were. Mean and aggressive, they sent people scattering out of their way.

As they approached the stall, their leering eyes passed over the area.

She held her breath.

After a hair-raising moment, she listened to the patter of their boots as they retreated. Breathing easier, she dashed the rest of the way to the police station.

Officer Clich was the one to meet her outside.

"Good, you're here. Some interesting characters have been spotted in town," he said.

Chest tight, she spoke in between her gasps for air. "It's our pursuers! My unit—my unit's made contact and they've been taken hostage...I couldn't reach your patrol!"

The man frowned. "Neither could I, but three of my guys are headed there—"

She didn't stay to hear the rest. Spotting Clich's guys, she leaped into one of their police speeders and raced away. Her vision was blurring.

As she dodged through the trees, she whirred by a dead officer. Probably the patrol she tried to contact.

Shit!

Shit!

Shit!

Urging the speeder faster, she closed the distance to their ship's landing site. The repetitious hum of engines rang, and she saw to her dismay their pursuers' ship rising above the trees. The freighter rose higher and higher, and then sped away with a burst of fuel.

She could see her ship now.

The aging, chipping paint was familiar.

As were the scratches from the slaver's magnetic clamp.

The two bodies on the ground...was that...blood?

Somehow, she reaches them. What strength she found in her sudden feeble legs seeped away as her knees folded.

It was blood.

Warm, against her cold fingers.

What a sharp contrast, she wonders. She feels frigid against the warm body she held against her middle and she wonders why; why when the pungent tang of copper was warm and strangling her.

Her hands were cold even as they cradled the head.

In the distance, a line of police vessels approach.

She watches them detachedly through her tears. Too late, she thinks, but they were a better sight.

She could watch them instead of the hole in Tapri's neck.

Kirin came to a blur of legs and movement. He was hanging between two figures, his legs dragging behind him and his hands bound. They threw him onto his side; his cheek smacked onto the metal floor, pulling a cry of pain from his lips. It was cold and dim, and he saw them pull a man from the cell next to him. He blacked out.

And then he woke again.

It was hot, he shivered. It felt like he'd been nailed in the head with a hammer; a pounding migraine crippled him. He swallowed thickly to ease his parched throat. Fighting the lethargy, he tried to force himself into a sitting position and quaffed the urge to vomit.

Bleary eyes peered at his surroundings, seeing nothing familiar.

Another shivered racked his body. Why was it so hot?

He cursed.

Drugs.

He's been drugged. His face was damp, and the chilling ventilation wasn't helping.

His brain scattered, and he cursed again.

First a dog fight in outer space, and now he's been kidnapped by slavers. This was bad. Worse than bad, it was a clusterfuck. There were empty cells around him and none of his crew was in them. He hadn't been able to contact Jonz and Tapri before he was stunned. They probably got lucky. They might have been missed by the slavers and were still squatting, waiting for an SSR who wasn't going to show up.

Or, he lamented, they were dead. He hoped that at least Orn Taa got away.

He'd so been careless. What was he thinking, not checking for trackers?! For stopping so long. Hiding in the forest wasn't going to maintain their disguise for long anyway and no way had he told Sket what happened.

Unless…unless one of the others did.

That thought was, for him, a hard pill to swallow. Though it shouldn't be, he thinks, disgusted. It wouldn't be the first time he'd made friends with judas. Kirin, that is, the previous host, might have been with them three months but he's only known them all of ten days. Breathing harshly, he pulled himself upright onto his ass and leaned against the wall of his cell.

What did you do Kirin? Cheat someone out of a promotion, screw some sod's wife?

Someone wanted him badly. Bad enough to hire bounty hunters; bad enough to send slavers; bad enough to kill. And now they have him.

Mechanical doors slid open and his eyes snapped to look at his hosts. Two alien grunts entered, dragging an unconscious figure between them. They threw it in the cell next to him, but Kirin didn't look at them. He focused on the third prisoner that came to stand in front of his cell. His gaze met the beady eyes of an Aqualish.

"R'member me," it said leering at him.

He did. He remembered the lazy crawl of the voice that swept through their ship, dropping threats.

He didn't respond.

The cell door swung open and Kirin tensed. He didn't move as the Aqualish settled into a crouch in front of him. The two grunts watched in the background. If Kirin knew how Aqualish grinned, then he would say that's what the alien was doing now. The two tusks mounted over its mouth titled up and outward and the sides of its face stretched to form a macabre of a smile.

It leaned forward until Kirin could smell the stench of its breath.

A barrel kissed his neck.

"I never seen a Pantoran like you honey. What are you, really?"

Kirin said nothing, merely piercing the alien with an impassioned stare. The Aqualish continued to grin and leaned closer.

"Shy? You look too dangerous for that. You smell," he inhaled, nostrils flaring. "Divine. All exotic-like. Alluring—"

He groaned gutturally. The barrel dipped lower trailing down Kirin's chest.

"—like those babes on the starcluster cruises."

The two grunts snorted.

"A cruise to the edge of the galaxy with Corellian wine in one hand—"

He imitated grasping things.

"—and a Twi'lek ass in the other. I could die happy just like that. Corellian wine, Twi'lek ass, and a Mirialan spreading the folds on her puss—"

"Who sent you?" Kirin said abruptly.

"Ohhh, so you can talk. Here I thought you were being all coy." He tried to look lascivious. "Playing hard to get?"

Kirin huffed in response.

"How much am I worth?" he asked. The other alien laughed in return.

"Nothin' you can afford; sides, I've already been half paid. I get the rest when I deliver you."

Then, one of the grunts came forward. "Sawkee, we're ready."

At that, the Aqualish stood, exited the cell and the door swung back in place.

"Looks like you'll get your answer soon honey."

They left the room. He looked to the crumpled form in the cell next to him and found eyes peering back at him. The other, a human male who looked to be in his late twenties, was gaunt and pinched, like he was starved and beaten daily. He had a fierce scowl on his face that let Kirin know, despite the apparent weakness, he could snap his neck. Kirin decided to introduce himself.

"I'm Sector Ranger Kirin. And you?"

The man appraised him silently, then scoffed. "Tch, an outlaw by your standards."

Kirin smiled thinly. "Then consider my standards skewed; we're in the same boat after all."

"Do you know where we are?" he asked.

A sneer pulled the presumed outlaw's lips when he spoke.

"This is a spice freighter. Right about now, we're probably headed to the arena."

"Arena?"

"The fighting pits; these shebs like to gamble," he growled. "I doubt you're fighting though."

"No? I'm a pretty good fighter," he replied. The outlaw smirked bleakly.

"They don't need more fighters; they have enough slaves for that. But you? It's like Sawkee said—exotic. "

He said the word slowing and Kirin experienced a sense of foreboding. He clenched his jaw. It was worse than he thought.

"Billions of sentients and I'm exotic?"

"Looks like."

"I've never been a slave before."

Outlaw said nothing to that, and Kirin fell silent.

If he had a gun, now would be a good time to shoot himself. Quick, point blank blaster shot to the temple. It would be preferable to whatever they had in mind for him. He didn't like the glint in the Aqualish's eyes.

The tender mercies of captivity weren't foreign to him. He's been beaten, tortured, waterboarded, and had cigarettes burned into his skin. But sexual slavery, that would be the worse violation. He found himself wanting to hope for the arena; fighting was his specialty and he knew he could win against some of these hardened species.

Some hours later, their prisoners came for them. Outlaw was taken out of his cell before Kirin. He grunted as they forced him to his feet and was pushed after the other man. The blinding sun hurt his sensitive eyes and squeezed them tight until he could adjust. By the time he opened them, they were being led through an open market, to grim reality.

Everywhere he looked, chaos. An open-air desert market with living merchandise; a string of chained sentient slaves being whipped; stages with nude humans; little weepy children of varying species tossed in cages; masters dragging their properties; tables with arguing vendors of the worst kind; immoral characters casually killing. He couldn't hide his horror; his captors pushed him onward several times.

Jesus. What nightmare did he wake up to?! This was going to be his new reality. He's been bought and paid for before he even woke up that first day.

Ahead, he could see The Pit; situated in the backdrop of the market, it was an enormous colosseum and even at their distance he could hear the hordes of screaming.

Screams for blood.

Chants for death.