Kaye looked down the frosted barrel of her scope-less rifle and fired, a sizzling orange bolt streaking through the frigid air until it struck the gang leader two hundred meters away in the back of his armored head. The unusually large Rodian fell to the ground, throwing up a faint cloud of snow.

Kaye smiled and lifted her rifle onto her shoulders, magnetically locking it into place upon her worn burnished armor and she quickly began to climb her way down the snow-dusted construction site where she had been hiding. She dropped about ten meters onto a support beam when bright red lasers began sizzling dangerously close to her body. She cursed and rolled off the support beam to hit the ground hard inside the structure, the lasers angrily striking the metal behind her. She should've been more careful—Liqo would've prepared for an attack.

Over the metal wall and sound of the lasers blasting Kaye could hear Liqo swearing at her in his native Rodian. It was quite rude, and Kaye didn't appreciate foulmouthed ruffians. Switching on her comlink, Kaye had to shout to be heard as Liqo's men started firing missile rounds. She moved farther inside the unfinished building as the wall she left behind her began to dent and melt. Finally, her comlink crackled to life, her breath swirling around the device in her hand.

"You called, Master?"

Kaye blushed in the shadows of the building despite herself.

"Batero, I need you to finish the job. I know you're not fully recovered from the Cato Nemoidia mission, but if you don't get here soon I'm going to be burnt nerf meat."

Batero laughed. It was a warm, strong sound. Like the rumbling of a waterfall flowing from a planet's core.

"I'll be there as soon as I can, Master, but this is the last time I get you out of trouble. You owe me now."

Kaye smiled and replied, "Never discuss favors with a politician, Batero—and stop calling me Master!"

Kaye clicked her comlink off but not before she heard Batero start another retort. She smiled again. The smile faded as she heard footsteps, irregular but frenzied, growing louder by the moment. She pulled her rifle off her shoulder and primed the charge inside, crouching down behind a half-finished wall. She brushed her long auburn hair out of her face and steadied her breathing as she put the butt of her scope-less rifle to the crook of her shoulder. The gangsters were almost upon her.

Kaye closed her eyes and exhaled slowly. She couldn't see, not even the way true Jedi could—within their minds eye—but she could feel and interact with emotions in this state. Around her, Kaye felt fear and anger primarily—the anger was being fed by the fear.

Mentally reaching out, she tentatively 'touched' one of her assailants, a Gamorrean runt who immediately stopped in his tracks as she tugged on that fear, intensifying his anxiety. He screamed in terror, dropped his weapons and ran away, lumbering past two of his comrades. Kaye began to reach out to them, hopefully turn them on each other, until her consciousness was ripped back to her body as Liqo—where had he come from—slammed her against the wall and began to choke her with his scaly yellow tentacle-like hands.

Liqo was physically quite strong, Kaye acknowledged as she pulled at his arms with one hand and with her other strained to reach for her concealed blaster but Liqo smashed her other arm against her chest. His pursed lips quivered and his bulbous black eyes reflected the brilliant white of the planet's seven moons as he muttered, "Close, but not close enough, bounty hunter scum," Liqo lowered his scaly green head just enough for Kaye to see and pointed to the left side of his scalp. She could see the strike from her rifle on his skull—it made an angry welt; obviously the round didn't pierce through his helmet. Kaye made a side note to purchase disintegrator rounds for the next contract.

Liqo lifted his head up and knocked the blaster Kaye had drawn out of her hand and pinned her down again. He began to tighten his grip on her neck and it became difficult for her to breathe.

"Any time now," Kaye thought impatiently as her vision began to blur the murderous look in Liqo's black eyes. A couple of moments passed as she continued to struggle but to no avail. Wherever Batero was, he was cutting it extremely close. Maybe she could handle it on her own, if she could just focus.

Closing her eyes and clearing her already darkening mind, Kaye felt rage rolling off of Liqo. She tugged on his emotions, forcing calm but like she knew already, it didn't work. The emotion had to exist first for her to exacerbate it.

Panic began to take over her thoughts as she felt her life fading, disrupting her connection to the Force. There was one last option she could try. Clearing her mind one more time she felt the energy around her, separating her from the air, the particles in the air and Liqo's strong scaly hand. Focusing, Kaye concentrated on that natural separation and pushed.

Nothing happened, and she felt the bones in her neck collapse.

Spawn of a protocol droid, Kaye cursed inwardly, forcing her deep blue eyes open one more time to look upon her killer. Then the bright green shaft of a laser sword erupted from his chest.

Liqo's eyes deadened and his grip went slack—the wielder of the emerald blade pushed the smoking gangster to the side where he collapsed in a heap, throwing up billows of snow one last time. Her rescuer stepped forward to stand above her, his shaggy brown hair wet from the falling snow, his smooth face and piercing hazel eyes youthful but intense with worry; Batero.

A loud rushing sound filled Kaye's ears as her vision blurred Batero's face, unable to discern what was happening. Her chest burned from lack of air. She felt herself being lifted off the ground and quite roughly thrown onto someone's shoulder, most likely Batero's. She saw bright red lines racing past her and a thicker green one swinging in and out of her sight. She heard yelling, then felt herself be thrown again onto ground that echoed dully like metal, then heard a bloodcurdling scream as her stomach lurched from a sudden and rapid ascent through the air.

She was going to die, she realized as she felt her consciousness slip away, her vision fading from red to darkness.