Chapter Text
“Alor, my sen’tra is broken. You’ll have to leave me”. The voice over the frizzling comm is flat, and there’s blaster fire clearly audible in the background.
A chain of curses comes as the answer. “You’ve got the grenade?”
“‘lek, alor”
“Take them all out.”
"‘lek, alor.”
Far away an alarm shrieks into the night.
***
She wakes up groaning, concrete under her right shoulder and darkness above her left. A starry darkness. The wailing of a high-pitched siren in the distance. Huh. She’s on top of a building.
How did she get here? Sitting up gives no clues. A quick look at herself reveals armor, and the weight at her back is a sputtering jetpack.
The rooftop in front of her is weirdly clean, as if a wind has blown away all the miscellaneous trash one usually finds on rooftops like this.
Behind her… The building behind her is wrecked. Or at least, the rooftop is. There’s a gaping hole slightly off-center, durasteel pipes hanging freely. Unidentifiable chunks of metal and decently-sized fires scattered about. A couple of bodies strawn about like puppets with the strings cutoff, most of them missing limbs.
Arla stands slowly, pausing to make sure she won’t faint immediately. Better get a move on. Whatever happened here she doesn’t want to be near whenever law enforcement arrives. Or whoever started that alarm.
The jetpack seems unreliable, but she finds a door leading to a stairway and soon enough she’s in an alleyway. Took some starts and stops - her entire body feels like a bruise, but she’s trying to ignore that.
First step: get away from the scene. Complete. Next step: …find somewhere to lay low, maybe take a nap. Wait no, probable concussion, she should find a medic. How though?
There should be information available somewhere, surely. Inventory first then. The buy’ce’s interface is glitching a bit, the comm in particular seems fried. Visuals are fine thankfully, otherwise she’d have to remove it and that feels… bad, somehow. Like she shouldn’t do that under any circumstances.
There’s a knife in her left boot and under her right kom’rk, a single blaster at her hip, and her pockets and assorted hiding places yield a half-eaten ration bar, two empty liquid packs, a few blaster packs, a small pile of credits, and a single large dice.
At least she thinks it’s a dice, it’s dark blue, slightly shimmering, and each of the ten sides has curling, dull white-blue markings. Rather hefty for its small size, too. Presumably made of some kind of stone.
The jetpack gives off another spark. Maybe she should take that off, would be kind of ironic to survive whatever happened on that roof just to die from jetpack malfunction.
The clasps are fiddly but soon enough the jetpack is off and placed gingerly against one of the alleywalls. It keeps shooting of smaller sparks, strengthening Arla’s decision to just leave it.
Focus, what was she doing? Right, inventory done, step three: information gathering. The interface in her buy’ce is a no-go, so old-fashioned, in-person research it is.
Leaving the alley is intimidating. Her head’s pounding, and she’s got no idea where she is. At least there are no the pods on the street, and the street lamps glow invitingly soft.
Not many people out this time of night. Early morning. Maybe. Arla has no idea when in its cycle this planet actually is.
A trio down the street draws her eye. A human or near-human carrying a baby, trying to convince a toddler, half-asleep, to follow them. The walk is slow, though they seem fairly relaxed given that they’re out at kriff o’clock. They do throw surreptitious glances around, keeping track of their surroundings, but in a way that seems more habitual than out of true wariness.
Arla steps out on the street and notes that she immediately draws eyes towards her. Subtle ones all, no outright staring, but tangible all the same. This shab’la headache. No stars or black spots (yet), that’s a good sign, hopefully.
Carefully, carefully, she makes her way towards the human with the children. Trying to look confident but not murderous. The human pales, visible even from a few meters away. Their hold on both the children tightens, with the toddler whining
Alright, she can do this. Be polite, but direct. Here’s hoping they know Basic.
“I’m looking for a medic.” Good enough.
The human startles at her voice, though neither child reacts at all. Thank the ka’ra the external comm still works, she didn’t think to check that.
“A medic…”. The woman (judging by the voice) more states than asks. The child by her hand is slowly furling in on themselves, and the woman janks her hand under their armpit to keep them upright, seemingly on autopilot.
“Yes”. Arla tries to not tower over the woman and children, consciously curling her shoulders, hoping it’ll affect the subconscious impression of her even if she can’t actually make herself smaller.
“I’m on my way to the Zeilla clinic, it’s a few blocks thataways”, the woman gestures vaguely with her head in the direction they were walking.
“Acceptable”. Acceptable?! Who says that. Arla apparently. “I can help carry the child.” Wait, can she? Probably. The child is small, can’t weigh more than that blasted jetpack anyway.
The woman hesitates slightly, but when the child yet again threatens to dive towards the street floor she gives a quick nod.
Situating the child on her pack, she nods at the woman, who slowly starts walking again.
***
They reach the clinic in silence, the only noise coming from the baby’s low whines and snuffles. It takes barely any time at all, the walk much quicker now that both children are being carried.
The clinic is in a forgettable two-story building, only a small sign by the door indicating its there at all. The text is in Galactic Basic, and proclaims “Zeilla Medical Clinic” as well as what must be the clinic’s address underneath. The inside is clean, the walls a surprising pale pink, and every corner of the entry room flaunts some kind of potted plant.
This might be the nicest clinic Arla has ever been to. That she can remember anyway. Low bar that. She’s trying not to think about it. Or at all, really. Kriff, her head hurts.
The woman leads the way into the building, reaching the reception and rapidly starting the talk with the receptionist quietly enough that Arla strains to hear it. Something about a fever that won’t go down, and throwing up. Poor child.
They’re swiftly directed into a small room by the side, with another waiting human inside. Presumably this is the baar’ur; the medic. They rise from their chair in front of a terminal and step up to an examination table. The woman wastes no time in hurrying in and placing the baby on the table, the baar’ur starting the examination as soon as the baby leaves the woman’s arms. She seems to repeat again to the baar’ur what she just told the receptionist, the baar’ur nodding slightly at the words.
The receptionist trailing after them points Arla to a chair in corner where she can put down the toddler, which she does. The toddler promptly curls up into a ball, still sleeping soundly.
After making sure the child won’t accidentally fall off, she follows the receptionist out again. She throws a last look at the woman over her shoulder on the way out, and immediately regrets it when pain sparks over her temples.
***
“Now, how can we help you?”, the receptionist asks when the door to the room falls shut behind them. A near-human, given the tusks, they appear unbothered by Arla towering armored above them.
“Headache. Probable concussion”, Arla says. This is why she’s here after all. They seem reliable enough. This one in particular gives off a feeling of calm competence.
“Minor wounds.”, she adds. She hasn’t actually checked, but everything hurts so it seems likely.
The receptionist nods, and walks to open a door further down the corridor. She gestures for Arla to step inside, which she does. It looks identical to the first room, with the bed, corner chair and a cabinet that is presumably filled with medical instruments. The table with a computer terminal the other baar’ur sat at is empty though.
“Dr Uwuulu will be with you in a bit”, they say, nodding at Arla again before leaving the room. They leave the door slightly ajar, which Arla is vaguely thankful for. She carefully sits down in the chair. Best point of defence and she’ll see whoever comes through the door before they see her.
***
Dr Uwuulu turns out to be another near-human, skin just a shade greener than standard, and as brisk as any baar’ur Arla has ever met.
The buy’ce is off before Arla really registers what's happening, and the examination itself is a blur. She is concussed apparently. And has a few scrapes and blaster burns that are easily patched up.
For the concussion, the baa’rur orders rest. Preferably in a quiet and dark place. No unnecessary extertions, physical or mental. Painkillers. And to seek medical assistance if she starts getting cramps or increasing dizziness.
***
Arla leaves the clinic a few credits poorer, but with a handful of painkillers, a manageable headache, and a plan.
She’d asked about a way to get off the planet and been directed to the main shipyard. She still doesn’t know what planet she’s on, exactly, but it’s evidently one on a major travelling route, as the baar’ur said that there were multiple commute starships passing through each day.
At the shipyard Arla finally learns what time it is, and where the kriff she is. 04:13, on Vakkar.
An Inner Rim planet. Going by the people and buildings she’s seen, it’s populated mostly by humans, and it's affluent, though not as rich as, say, Alderaan. Still, the thought of staying here sends shivers down her spine.
The arrival/depature shows that the next ship will arrive in about half an hour, so Arla finds a quiet corner of the shipyard and settles in to wait.
She slumbers, half-awake, half-asleep, until the ship arrives, sharply on time. No one disturbs her, or even comes near her.
Getting a ticket without identification is trickier. Or, it should be. She fills in the form she’s given with mostly lies, and pays for a single cabin to the whichever planet is the last stop. Jedha, apparently. It’s cost her half of her remaining credits, but she’s got a good feeling about it.
***
The following weeks pass mainly in boredom. The days bleed together. She keeps to her cabin, only venturing out during nightcycles to get food and use the fresher. It’s slow going.
She polishes her beskar’gam with a rag she’d picked up from a cleaner cabinet she’d found (lock easily picked). Again and again. Contemplates whether she can find any metal paint on board to repaint it.
She does stretches, and lighter workouts. Becomes intimately familiar with the small cabin she's in, with the four white walls, single-bed bunk, and the two shelves on which she places the foodstuffs she gets.
She'd paid an extra fee for the loan of blankets, and a pillow. She'd done it on a whim but the comfort they bring is staggering.
Most of the time she spends laying on her bunk, napping, or thinking. She knows she was on Vakkar for a reason. The vague memories she has from right before the explosion, and the dice itself, hints at some kind of heist. What they were looking for though, she doesn’t remember.
“They” because she wasn't alone. She was part of some kind of group, and can vaguely remember a bunch of people in armor much like her own, but contemplating trying to get back to them induces feelings of anxiety bordering on terror. Not really motivational.
Her dreams are filled with impressions and snippets that seem very important in the moment, but that she can’t remember upon waking. At times, it takes her some time to remember who or where she is.
Curiously, she always knows what a Mandalorian is, but is sometimes unsure whether she is one herself. She has the beskar’gam, or at least armor that looks like beskar’gam. There’s more to it than that though, she knows, but when she tries to chase the thought it disappears like so much smoke.
There are open terminals on the ship, but she still can't handle looking at a screen for very long before the headaches come back. She's running low on painkillers too.
She'll figure it out in Jedha. Who she is, what she wants to do next, and hopefully find some place that sells painkillers. The on-board clinic refuses to give out more than a day's dosage at a time, so she hasn’t been able to stock up.
***
Three weeks in she locates the ship’s maintenance shop. The repair technician there is the opposite of chatty, and either doesn’t speak Basic or is just disinclined to speak at all. A combination of pointing and hand gestures works well enough for Arla’s purposes.
All the better really, for the noise in the shop is constant. Droids and various machinery, in addition to what looks like surveillance systems of some sort that are constantly blinking and ticking. It’s a good thing her buy’ce is capable of shutting out sound.
To figure out what to barter with is trickier. She refuses to part with any part of her beskar’gam, or her weapons. But she doesn’t have much else, apart from credits, and those she needs for food and meds. Paint is a bit too frivolous to spend credit on, for now. Even if it would ease her boredom.
In the end, the technician lets her stay and clean a couple of truly filthy droids and machinery in exchange for a small canister of paint removal. It’s as good a start as any. The actual removal takes multiple days. Arla stretches it out as much as she can, to be honest, and not only because of the smell. Her buy’ce has got a built-in filter for that anyway.
By the time the ship reaches its final destination, Arla’s armor is completely free of paint.