Chapter 1. Lost and Found

It's easy to give up on ideas of rescue when any attempt to liberate you from where you are have ended in bloodshed. It's simply loud and scary and, to date, has never ended in change. Only fear and anger.

Still ...she hopes. Being stuck in this place can't be life. She'll ...well, it just can't be.

There has to be a way. Eventually. Maybe when the little guy gets bigger. Stronger. When he can communicate with her. When she can make him understand. He, she thinks, has hardly seen any other life.

Hanna glances down where the child is shuffling around the dusty kitchen room. Not her child ...not really. Not by a long shot if you're talking genetics. Yet she does think of him a such. It certainly ought to be hers more than anyone else on the planet deserves to lay claim to.

But claim they have.

So what will become of the inexplicable pair? It's a question she asks herself regularly despite the pit of anxiety it causes to gnaw in her stomach.

The unmistakable crack of gunfire slaps through her thoughts, causing her to drop the clay bowl in her hands. Occasional gunfire outside is nothing new, so it's the abrupt shattering of the dish against the floor that disturbs the child.

It starts visibly and squeaks up at her.

Hanna waits, but when the cacophony of weapon blasts continues she decides it can't merely be a small spat between the gang guarding them.

"Damn," she scoops up her companion and darts from the room.

Down the hall, she grabs the white "bassinet" crafted crudely for her friend and dashes to a store room.

"Shhh..." she bids, though she's never sure how much it truly understands her, before shutting and hiding the carrier behind some old supplies.

Hanna hears a soft coo and so throws tarping over top of it for good measure.

She mostly has a mind to hide herself, then. To wait out the mess and only emerge when it quiets to see how things pan-out. After all, she's never sure how she wants these spats to land. Whoever is trying to take-over might be worse than the goons she's dealing with now. The Niktos, for isntance, are largely uninterested in her, which is a blessing and a half. Even the baby is a thing they're interested in only because they know it's valuable; they don't truly seem to know what they have. At least this is what she can glean from their (mostly) foreign tongue and general disposition.

To be fair, Hanna herself isn't sure she fully understands what the tyke is all about, either.

Whoever might invade might have a much better idea what is going on here, and that's not necessarily a good thing. The kid could be in more danger. She certainly could be in more danger.

Still. She does what to get out of the desert encampment. There are many better places to be. In her dreams, for instance, a relocation to a city - any city, anywhere more populated - means possible escape. Here, well ...there's nowhere to go and the Niktos know it.

So she finds one of the heavily barred windows and climbs up to get a look at what's happening.

Unfortunately there is not much to see outside other than general melee. Blaster fire screeches over the shouting and rabble, but her vantage point offers her little to see until a clanking droid thunders by, twisting a gun in her direction as it does so.

Hanna leaps back just before the blast impacts the windowsill, sending rock shards into a flurry.

Alright.

Okay.

Spy time is over.

Compelled back to the store room, she dashes in that direction. The tarp and bassinet sit undisturbed, so she leaves the kid as it is and scrambles up some boxes for the rafters.

From there she could hid and observe, only she never makes it.

Blaster fire hitting the wall next to her makes her freeze, and a growl turns her around.

"You!" the humanoid a few feet below jabs a finger at her and then at the ground beside him.

Some of the Nikto know a fair amount of Basic, but most stick to Nikto or what Hanna knows (but can't decipher) is Huttese. This one doesn't have much Basic, apparently.

Funny how a gun and finger can still make themselves universally understood.

"Okay," she nods and drops back down to the floor, hands up in innocence.

What he shouts at her next is garbled and she shakes her head. She doesn't know. Surely he knows she doesn't know.

She can discern that he's alarmed, however. His speech is fast and his movements jerky. He's scared, maybe. Could it be it's not going well out there?

She's not sure how that makes her feel.

The humanoid points at the floor and waves his hand around in a disorganized way. Hanna can guess, then, that he also wants the kid, but she plays ignorant.

"I can't," she raises her hands in traditional confused fashion.

She's backhanded across the face for that and, pup, it sure stings. But he grabs her by the elbow to haul her off so, ultimately, he must buy the act.

He continues to jabber at her while he bustles them down the hallway. Hanna frets over not being able to keep an eye on the baby but is also pleased this brute is moving further from it, as well.

In a small utility room he shoves her round and begins to bind her hands behind her back. Hanna's heart ticks up a notch, for this isn't something any of them have done to her in some time. She recalls being bound and blindfolded when she'd been transported into camp. Were they leaving? What about -

"Okay!" she shouts after a gun is thrust into her neck because she'd instinctively started to struggle. "Okay..."

She stills.

The gun disappears and her wrists are tightly corded together. The yammering behind her increases when the noise dies away outside. As Hanna processes what the change might mean, a dirty wad of rag is shoved into her mouth and tied into place. Through it's not choking her, she feels a bit suffocated and panicky about the intrusion all the same. The rag tastes tangy - like metal- and gross.

No thank you.

A sudden barrage of thunderous noise down the hall sends her fear spiraling back towards the baby, but she's yanked back when she tries to make a break.

She grunts behind her rudimentary gag and tries to wiggle away from the arm that clasps itself around her torso. For her effort she is squeezed too-tightly and forced forward by the large humanoid's long strides.

A shrieking of mental and a thundering thud echos down the hallway, making him freeze.

When strange silence follows, he begins to move them forward again.

Hanna's heart can't find a steady rhythm as she imagines a thousand different things they might find.

What they do find is a mostly intact room ...save for the door that is missing entirely. In the new blast-created hole in the wall, two tall figures stand silhouetted by the sun.

Hanna's new least-favorite Nikto huddles behind her, gun to her neck again, when the two figures both turn blasters in their direction.

Real hero he is.

"The human is one," the droid reports in measured speech.

The Nikto behind her shouts at the pair, who seem to be ignoring him completely. Hanna isn't positive what she is "one of" but whatever it is doesn't make anyone lower a weapon.

Rather, the droid raises a second.

Then a streak of red comes from the other figure. By the time Hanna has the the thought that she is going to die, the body behind her is slumping forward instead.

She has little choice but to fall with it, though she manages to slow herself by dropping to her knees on the way. With a gasp she squirms onto her back to start wiggling from under him, kicking the dead mass in her efforts.

Then a hard, unyielding hand grabs into her hair to "help" her remove herself and wheel around.

"We could have killed her instead," the droid in front of her intones. "I speak Nikto if we needed information..."

Hanna's eyes widen when the clunky robot releases her to survey her with his socketed eyes. She feels like retching behind her gag.

"Please," a modulated voice scoffs, drawing her attention to the masked figure at the droids shoulder. "Who do you think would break first..."

Hanna might be offended in a different situation.

"...agreed," the droid decides. "Girl. Where is the other?"

Hanna glares at the murder-hungry bot, anger and fear spilling out of her in a move that looks much more confident than she actually feels.

A firm hand, through not steel-strong as the droid's, grabs her jaw to twist her gaze around. Hanna is then staring at a metal mask with a somehow familiar, narrow T-shaped visor.

Said visor is tinted to completely obscure whoever lurked beneath it. So well is the person hidden that she might have wondered if she was dealing with another droid if it weren't for the natural heat radiating onto her skin through his thin-fingered glove.

"Where's the old man?" the voice rasped.

That she hadn't expected.

Her brow furrows, and her head attempts to cock to the left but for the firm hold he has on her.

"We know he's here..."

Hanna tries to tell him she does't know, but it comes out muffled and useles.

With a huff she's released, and she spots him pull a small, blinking controller from somewhere on his hip.

"The mark's definitely here..."

"My fob was ruined in the gunfight, but I do detect a fourth life form alive here," the droid concludes.

Hanna knows, then. She's not sure whey they're expecting an old man, but it's obvious what they want.

She straightens taller on he rknees but freezes at a sharp look from the masked one. When she stops moving he continues to study her, then stoops to haul her up by the arm when he's done deciding whatever it is he's decided. He doesn't speak but slowly edges forward, the controller blinking faster and beeping softly as he does.

"There a surprise in there for us?" he hisses through the mask when he comes before the haphazard pile of supplies.

She shakes her head.

Through his mask remains inscrutable, Hanna imagines that he's glaring at her. Then he begins shifting through the clutter while the droid stands sentry.

Remembering that it had been happy to kill her earlier, Hanna finds herself wishing the other one was still standing between them. He certainly isn't chummy either, but at least he had the courtesy to kill the Nikto rather than her.

"Eureka," the controler is beeping very steadily, now, and the man's uncovered the bassinet, which floats up a few feet as soon as he touches it.

"Is this a trap?" the masked one demands. "What happens when I open it?" he readies his gun again, clearly confused.

All Hanna can offer is wide eyes and a vehement shake of ehr head.

The droid moves forward when the masked one reaches for the front button on the bassinet. This obscures Hanna's view. She doesn't want the droid near the baby, but she also isn't in much of a place to protest.

She hears the latches slide open and a beat of silence passes.

"What's this?" the modulated voice of the masked man asks. "The bounty said thirty year old woman and fifty year old ..."

Hanna starts at that particular news.

"Species age differently. Perhaps it could live for centuries" -this, too, is a shock to the system. "But we shall never know..."

Hanna watches the droid raise a gun and shouts behind her gag, lurching forward despite herself.

"No. We bring them in alive," the masked one holds out a hand to stop it.

"The orders were quite clear. They both die."

The droid's other hand is suddenly a blaster pointed Hanna's way, drawing her up short. For the second time, the rip of red she expects to end her shoots someone else.

Something else.

The droid clangs to the ground.

Hanna has a line of sight to the baby, then. When it's wide eyes land on her, it's ears perk up and it squees happily at her.