Chapter Text
10 YEARS LATER
Daiyu was a place you went when you wanted to disappear and Eyno wanted to do just that. She gently brought her borrowed ship into a one of Daiyu’s ports, the neon lights from the surrounding skyscrapers reflecting across the control panel. The ship hummed and it lowered to the ground. Eyno turned away from the desk and exited to cockpit to the main area where a small gathering of people had taken up the cargo hold of the ship. They looked up as the Zabrak woman appeared in front of them.
“We’re descending into port now. Gather your things and be ready to exit the ship. Outside, find the Togruta man outside. His name is Ok’di and will have a gold pin on his vest. He will be able to direct you where to go based on your final destination. Remember, keep your heads down and don’t cause trouble and you’ll be fine. May the force be with you all,”
There was a ripple of “may the force be with you too,” from the group and they split up, gathering their bundles and fastening their cloaks. Eyno slipped back into the cockpit to look to see who was in their port and to check the intercoms. Her associate hadn’t called yet with her next assignment and anxiety began to spark in her mind. Shaking the unease away Eyno reassured herself he would call eventually. Eyno looked back up towards the dock. It seemed vacant except for a dock droid standing nearby with a datapad in its hand. Returning to the cargo hold, Eyno gestured for the group to come closer. They obliged and huddled around the woman. Eyno turned to the human man who seemed to lead the group.
“Take them through the door directly in front of you as you leave. It should bring you around to the front and to Ok’di. I’ll distract the droid. Understood?”
The man nodded, he was younger than Eyno, and though she could feel his unease, he kept a brave face, his eyes set forward and brow furrowed.
“Understood.” The man replied. Eyno grabbed her cloak from where she had tossed it onto a crate beside the ramp. She fastened the front and tossed her hood up to cover her face. The cloak hid her lightsaber that hung at her hip. She could feel the cold metal through her robes, a comforting weight.
The ship’s ramp lowered and Eyno began to descend it until her boots hit the metal flooring. Around her the aroma of fuel and oil was pungent and Eyno took a deep breath to clean her airways. She checked to make sure the droid was still preoccupied with its data pad before turning back to the occupants of her ship. The young man she had spoken to moments before was poking his head out from inside the ship. Eyno nodded briefly and watched the small group shuffle out of the ship and towards the door.
Confident they wouldn’t be seen, Eyno strode towards the port droid. The BLX series droid looked up as Eyno approached. Its humanoid form resembled that of a standard protocol droid though it was much sleeker in design, and much bulkier, made to carry out a variety of maintenance tasks. Its bronze paint coat was scuffed and Eyno could spot a dent or two into its armoring.
“State your name, vessel type, reason for arrival, and length of stay,” The droid said, mechanical voice void of inflection.
“Pala Arkmor, the ship is an Allanar N3 light freighter. I’m only here to refuel before heading to my drop point. I only expect to be here for a couple hours.”
The droid typed her response into the data pad. “Any cargo on board?”
“Medical supplies. Better not mess with any of it though. It’s all sterile and the Empire will be on my ass if any of it gets contaminated.”
The BLX said nothing but handed the datapad to Eyno who took it, scanning over the agreement, before signing the false name at the bottom. The droid took the datapad back.
“Very well, you may be on your way.”
Eyno walked past the BLX droid and to the outer city.
Daiyu was a city as flashy as the neon signs sporting every building. All sorts of people strode the streets. Daiyu had everything. Wanted to disappear, start anew? The shadows held all sorts of doorways. Wanted to get wasted and forget the worst? Take your pick of the hundreds of bars and clubs. Wanted to get rich? There were casinos and gambling spots around every corner. Daiyu was for the best of the worst and the worst of the best.
Once Eyno was a fair distance into the city, the crowd began to pick up and the sounds of the night life were becoming more raucous. She could smell the food being cooked by the street vendors hoping to make a quick credit with their recipes and the hollering of salesmen was a welcome tune. But amongst all the hubbub from the city, her com link remained silent, still no word from her associate on her next assignment. She supposed it was time to give him a call, in person.
Eyno followed the glossy floors till a familiar neon sign caught her attention in the puddles. She banked right and followed an alleyway till she stopped a door about half way down. It wasn’t a spectacular door, not colored sparkling with lights. Instead there was a symbol graffitied across the front panel. A daffodil painted in yellow spray paint, slightly worn by the weather but a beacon to those who were looking for it. Eyno pressed a button to the side of the door and it hissed open, leading to a dimly lit hallway.
Eyno stepped inside and let the door close behind her before she lowered her hood. The hallway was empty as Eyno continued forward, eventually entering a fairly large room, six grated windows covering the opposite walls. Like the hallway she had walked down, it was dimly lit, the lights mostly centered on a table placed in the middle of the room. A box sat in the middle of the table. Eyno walked towards the table, running her hand over the cold surface. Everything looked to be as it had when she had dropped by before except she was missing her one key accessory.
“Who goes there?”
Eyno turned to look in the direction she had entered the room from. Her white eyes nearly glowing in the poorly lit room as they locked onto the intruder. There was a middle aged man, lanky, with brown skin and unruly black hair that had been poorly attempted to be styled. He wore white robes and green velvety over robe, which Eyno could have sworn was a bathrobe. He had a small blaster raised at her but when he took in the Zabrak women’s appearance, his posture faltered and he lowered his weapon.
“Eyno?!”
“Lower your voice Haja,” Eyno hissed. The man tucked his blaster away and squared his shoulders, a playful smile at his lips once more.
“Sorry,” He walked towards her. “What are you doing here?”
“You never called with an update on my next assignment? I was told you would be giving me one this time.”
Haja gritted his teeth and sucked in a breath as he sat down at one of the benches. “Right, sorry about that, I was doing a business deal,”
“You are still working with the Path, Haja you still have obligations to them, to me.” Eyno leaned on the table, crossing her arms.
“Yeah, yeah, I know. I also run a business and that tends to take priority.”
Eyno looked at him dully, “You play pretend and scam people.”
“I got them somewhere safe, Eyno. We are more alike than you think.”
“We’re really not.”
Haja shrugged. A hush settled over them.
“Any news about my brother? Sightings? Anything?” Eyno splintered the silence.
“No,” Haja shook his head as he opened up the box in front of him, pulling out the contents and setting them out in front of him. “If there were, I would tell you,”
Eyno hummed as Haja began to count and sort the credits in front of him, spoils of his “business”.
Before the quiet could fall over them again, the door slid open again and there was a patter of footsteps as a young boy ran in holding a holopad. The kid, Jayco, Eyno had learned recently, huffed and set the holopad on the table.
“Remember this guy? We had him. Look at that reward!” The kid exclaimed.
On the holopad was a bounty card but the kid had purposefully angled it away from Eyno and she tried to lean over to see it, only for it to be moved out of her line of sight once again.
“Oh that’s embarrassing.” Haja said, shouldering slumping.
Jayco rested an arm on top of the holopad. “It says he’s with a girl. He’ll have half the city on him now.”
“What is it?” Eyno asked.
“Some guy, He was trying to find some girl so I helped him. Shame it ended up like this.” Haja explained.
“Are you going to hunt him down?”
Haja was quiet for a moment and both Eyno and the kid waited expectantly.
“I need to see how things play out. The force is funny in that way,” He winked at Eyno who scowled and rolled her eyes.
“Well, let’s get to him first,” Haja stood and pulled out his blaster, tucking it into his belt and stepped away from the table. Eyno pushed away from the table too.
“Jayco, go on, I’ll meet you outside. I need to speak with Eyno quickly,” Haja urged. The kid nodded and walked back out of the room. Haja turned to Eyno.
“I have a feeling this guy is going to need our help. That bounty was made by an inquisitor, which means the empire is after him. They are likely gonna shut this whole place down.” Haja said and then took something out of his pocket and grabbed Eyno’s hand, placing a small device into it.
“Take this, it’s the captain’s key to the transport in dock eight of the freighter's dock. It’s going to Mapuzo. If I find the guy and the girl I’m sending them to you.“
“Haja, what in the stars are you going on about-“
“This is your next assignment Eyno. You said you were looking for one and now I’m giving you one. I have this feeling that they are important and we need to help them. The Path can do that, you can do that.”
“What if they don’t come?”
Haja smiled. “Then I suppose you’ll finally get to relax, have a drink, but knowing you, you’d rather do some good instead.”
Eyno pursed her lips, he was right, so she closed her hand around the captain’s key. “Fine. I’ll do it.”
***
Ben was sure that this child was going to be the death of him. He had survived this long and already had one too many run ins with death in a span of only a couple hours than he was comfortable with. Someone had spotted them and put a bounty on their heads and now the streets were lighting up with his face on every holopad. Ben steered Leia into a nearby alleyway to get away from the eyes of the public and give them, no him, a second to recollect himself and get them somewhere safe. Ben watched as Leia sat down against a pillar a little ways into the alleyway. The green poncho she had picked out nearly drowned her small form. He watched Leia pull out a small red and white circular droid which sat neatly in her palms. Ben felt a spike of anxiety, droids were notoriously noisy and the last thing he needed was for them to get spotted because her little droid was making a ruckus.
“I want no noise from that,” He pointed at the droid.
“Her name is Lola.” Leia said running her hand over the droid, the frayed wires sticking out at odd angles. “And she won’t make any. She’s hurt.”
“Good.”
Regret washed over him as he cringed at the harsh tone he had used. Mentally reminding himself that she was still just a child, swept up into this mess, she was at no fault and it was wrong of him to treat her as if it was. Leia looked up at him briefly before looking back down to her little friend. Ben turned and walked back over to her, crouching down so they were eye level.
“What happened to her anyway?” He might as well try to make amends while he could.
“She was ripped to pieces by kidnappers.” Leia’s voice cold and regret clawed at Ben as he tried to put on a brave face. “She’ll be alright though, she’s strong,”
“I let your parents know you're safe,” Ben said. “You’ll be back to the palace and back to normal by nightfall.”
Leia nodded stiffly. “Normal, great.”
Ben frowned, he thought she would be more excited to get off this planet back into the safety of familiarity. He knew he would have wanted that. A monotonous lifestyle had become a sort of comfort now.
“Now who’s hiding something, princess?”
Ben swore he saw the young girl roll her eyes. She took after her father more and more with every interaction he had with her.
“You don’t have to call me that. It’s just Leia.”
From farther down the alleyway, a pulsating beeping noise emitted from the darkness. Both Leia and Ben looked up and Ben stood.
“Stay here.” He warned her and then paced down the alleyway towards the foreboding noise. A drunk was passed out, slumped against the wall, on his wrist illuminated in the dark was the bounty card emitting from his com link. The image of Ben’s face floated lazily above the com link. They had used an image from when he was much younger, cleaner and more dignified, and it took him a moment to realize it was himself who looked back. He crouched down by the passed out man and began to fidget with the com link trying to shut down the bounty card. He didn’t hear Leia’s wondrous footsteps approach.
“What is that? Why is there a picture of you?”
Ben looked up to see Leia’s worried expression.
“You did lie.” Her voice was much quieter now, putting something together in her mind. It took Ben a moment to think of how this situation would have looked like from her perspective. Him finding her, breaking her out, now his face on every bounty card. It didn’t look good.
“Leia-”
“That’s what you were hiding!” She accused him. “You’re the reason I’m here. They took me to get to you!”
Leia had begun stepping backwards, away from Ben. He stood up hastily and began to follow her.
“Did my father even send you?”
Ben blinked in surprise, “I-yes of course. Leia, listen to me,
Leia’s eyes went wide, “How do I know you’re not the real kidnapper?”
“You have to trust me!”
“You’re not even a Jedi”
That one hurt more than Ben wanted to admit. “Your father is a very old friend.”
“I don’t believe you!” Leia cried.
“Leia.” He said, hoping, somehow she would find sense in his words. Then Leia turned and bolted. The anxiety that Ben had pushed away came right back to the surface, he could hear his heart beat in his ears. The old Jedi took off after the princess, running back out into the night life and the crowd. He could see the tail of her green coat slip between strangers.
“Leia!” He called out but she didn’t stop.
Ben pushed through the crowd, dodging and weaving his way around the drifting crowd. He was thankful for the quick reflexes he had fine tuned with the Jedi, but he didn’t think that back then they would come in handy for trailing a princess on the run.
He watched her duck under a shelf and race through a vendor’s aquarium stand. Leia would disappear for moments, making Ben’s heart stop only for him to glimpse her green jacket once more. He watched her small body run out into a clearing only to nearly collide into a bounty hunter in red robes and leather armor.
“It’s the girl! Just tell us where he is!” The bounty hunter grabbed Leia and she froze.
Fearing what the bounty hunter would do, Ben pulled his blaster from his belt and fired once, hitting the bounty hunter square in the back, sending sparks into the air. Leia jumped back and Ben took those seconds to run forward as the crowd around them screamed and shouted in surprise. One of the fallen bounty hunter’s friends lunged at Ben, blaster drawn. Ben swung around, throwing his momentum into the man and tossing him onto the floor.
“No!” Leia shouted and darted past Ben and the bounty hunters, into the crowd once more. Ben followed her, always on her heels but not close enough to grab her. Leia suddenly turned into another alleyway and Ben shoved through yet another cluster of citizens.
“Leia, wait!” He called, following her up a fire escape ladder that led to the roof. This was worse than pushing through crowds, at least there he didn’t have to worry about her falling off a ledge. Leia clambered over the top and went out of sight, the Jedi in quick pursuit. Gravel crunched under his boots as Ben ran after her, merely stepping from one building to the next. Ahead a shadow moved from behind a chimney, bringing into light a bulky creature, armed with a canon blaster.
“Leia stop!” Ben shouted and for a moment she did, but then the creature fired and Leia dived into a line of clothing, hanging neatly on a clothesline. Ben fell back, taking shelter behind a piece of the building he was on, trying to make himself small to fit completely. In the break of blaster fire he made a break for it, firing at his opponent, who subsequently returned fire as Ben followed Leia. He had to duck for cover once more as Leia ran out into the open area once more making the both of them easy targets. When Ben turned back he could see the princess at the building's edge.
“Leia don’t-“ His sentence was cut short as someone new began to open fire on him. All the noise had attracted unwanted attention. Ben grit his teeth and sent off shots at both assailants. One of the assailants cried out and promptly fell over, dead, and the other continued shooting. Leia was still at the edge, peering over. When Ben looked back to see where she had gone, she looked back at him too. Their eyes met for a moment, but then Leia took a few steps back and bolted forward, towards the edge of the roof.
“No, Leia no!” He shouted, but his cries went on deaf ears. She jumped but her head start wasn’t enough. Ben sprinted from his post, skidding to a stop at the roofs edge and looked watched as Leia fell, clinging now to a rope strung between the two buildings many feet up from the ground. A fall would be deadly.
“Hold on!” Ben shouted, leaning over the edge, he could see Leia's frightened face from above. He could feel the force around him like a field of energy and he did his best to allow himself to be a current, guiding it through him, though his extended arm and towards Leia. He knew he shouldn’t be pushing himself like this, after nearly a decade of pushing the force away, suddenly forcing it to comply was no easy feat.
“Ben!” Leia cried out, her small fingers slipping from the rope and she dropped. Ben felt his stomach drop and squeezed his eyes shut, collecting himself, allowing himself to manipulate the force around him. When he opened his eyes again Leia was hovering a few feet from the ground and relief washed over him. He slowly lowered her and when he saw her safely touch down he stood and went to the nearest fire escape ladder, sliding down it. Ben rounded the corner to the alleyway Leia had fallen down. She was sitting up and looking around. When she spotted him she stood up and for a fearful moment he thought she would bolt again. Instead she stood there, looking at him with wide eyes.
“You…” She paused, “You really are a Jedi.”
It wasn’t the response that Ben had expected but he was much more thankful that the force has cooperated with him. He quickly looked around, noticing that they were starting to attract more attention as people gathered around, wanting to know what happened to the girl.
“We need to move,” Ben said, taking Leia’s hand. Together they walked farther into the alleyway and into the maze that was Daiyu.
***
‘All inbound and outgoing travel is canceled. Have identification ready for scanning.’ The intercoms around the main travel port tinned. Ben and Leia ducked behind a box of crates as a small platoon of storm troopers marched past them and past two people wearing all black armor. Ben could feel the dark presence they emitted, it made his heart rate spike and mouth run dry.
“Who are they?” Leia whispered.
“Inquisitors. Many were Jedi who turned to the dark side. Now they hunt their own kind.” He explained.
“And this is all for you?” Leia turned to the Jedi, “Who are you?”
Before Ben could give a response there was a series of clicks and both Ben and Leia swiveled around to see a shiny silver humanoid assassin droid who had spotted them in the alleyway. Before Ben could raise his blaster to shoot it, a shower of sparks burst from its back and the droid crumpled to the ground, the light dulling from its glass green eyes. A familiar figure stood on the other side, a man wearing a velvety green robe, his blaster smoking from the recent fire.
Ben pulled Leia behind him. “The bounty is on me, let her go.”
The man stepped over the droid and walked towards them. “Listen carefully. They have the whole city locked down. It’s done. You need another exit.”
Ben blinked rapidly and shook his head. “What?”
Ben, who had remembered the man had called himself Haja, pointed to somewhere behind him. “There is a cargo port. It’s fully automated. I have a friend out there who can help you get away. The Inquisitors won’t be looking for you there. Go to transport eight.”
Haja pulled out a small cylindrical object and held it out to Ben.
“What are you talking about?” Ben asked, as he felt the weight of the object in his hand. It was a command key.
“The transport goes to Mapuzo. They will be waiting.” Haja said.
“Who will be waiting,” Ben inquired, more persistent this time.
Haja lowered his voice. “There are people out there who can help you.
“You expect me to trust you? You’re a criminal!”
Haja rolled his eyes. “Look, have I made a few bad decisions? Sure. Do I feel bad about it? Sometimes? Do I like credits? Yeah, absolutely. So much stuff you can buy with credits.”
“Haja.”
Haja froze. “You remembered my name,” and upon seeing Ben’s stern expression he sighed. “I’m trying to make amends. I’ve gotten others out safely and I’ll do It for you too.”
“How do I know this isn’t a trap?” Ben asked.
“You don’t, but what choice do you have?”
Ben hated that he was right. “Who will I be looking for when we get there? You said there would be someone.”
Haja nodded. “A female Zabrak named Eyno. She’s got pale skin and white hair. She’s like you, I think, can use the force and all that stuff. I trust her with my life.”
Ben felt a spark of anticipation zap through him. Another Jedi? Another force user?
“We’ll keep an eye out for her then.”
Haja flipped the green hood of his robe up and over his head. “I’ll buy you as much time as you can. Good luck Obi Wan.”