The Force Always Says Yes [Star Wars]

[shukkets]

Nice.
Thanks for the chapter.

 

[Hyenanon]

Chapter 62: The Jedi Way​

After bandaging Tetha's wound as best they could with the supplies in the medical room, Nerim dragged Kiali to her feet with one arm and helped steady Tetha with his other, and began moving as fast as they safely could towards the armory. After all the screaming had stopped, the halls were deathly quiet, interspersed with ungodly loud gunshots echoing from below. The Hutt's feasting hall was empty, but a slight trail of slime made Nerim aware they were walking in the same direction.

As they walked, Kiali carefully limped in front, her shoulder firmly in Nerim's grasp. She looked at the Zabrak Nerim had killed, and shuddered. "W-where is the Mistress?"

"The Sephi?" Nerim replied dully. "Dead."

Kiali let out a huge breath of relief at that, curiously.

"Why?" Nerim asked.

"She's the one that controls our bombs. Not Yenchara. Sometimes she hands out bomb controls to higher ranks for missions away from home, like Vena."

Nerim's brow furrowed. "You mean to say you're implanting bombs in yourselves?"

Kiali looked down. "They said it was the only way to ensure we'd stay loyal to each other. The coven would allow no men, no love, and no escape."

"Barbaric," Tetha said in a raspy voice.

"How long until it goes off on its own after losing signal?" He asked.

"Couple hours" Kiali turned around slightly, still walking forward at Nerim's behest. "Where are you taking me?"

"To the Republic. You're under arrest for accessory to the murder of Fae Coven."

She didn't respond to that—barely even reacted. Just looked down and kept walking. It occurred to Nerim that he technically didn't have the authority to arrest her, anyways. Although, he was in Boonta right now. Everything went in this jurisdiction.

He boarded the elevator which, surprisingly, was working. He supposed the Hutts heavily reinforced that system, seeing how difficult stairs and ladders were for them. They began to slowly crawl downwards. The gunfire got louder as they did so, and Nerim took Tetha and Kiali to the side, away from where the door would open. When it opened, he was glad he did.

A handful of stray shrapnel shot in as the doors parted, and the gunfire became unbearably loud. In front of them were the two Hutts, twitching and crawling down the grand hall with uncharacteristic urgency. They were skirting behind some of the bars and platforms where musicians played. Throughout the rest of the hall, though it was nearly pitch-black, Nerim could make out the glinting of beskar, dodging Syaniids, and something...else.

A smaller Mandalorian drew his blaster and fired, lighting up the room for a brief moment; it had survived on account of having been in the reinforced armory when the ion cannons went off. The Syaniid, a Zeltron, deftly dodged around it and moved in to the Mandalorian. She jumped atop him, tumbling them both to the ground, and then wrapped around his leg and twisted, dislocating it from the hip.

Suddenly one of the shadows raised a rifle and fired. Deafening noise and blinding yellow light lit up the room as the Syaniid was washed in a hail of slugs. The bullets that missed her poured onto the Mandalorian, breaking and bouncing off of his armor, creating yet more shrapnel that bounced back up at her. "Up, up!" The vague outline of shadow yelled in Saarkanian, as brass casings sprinkled along the floor. Suddenly the shadow disappeared again—a speaker from the music set crashed into the space where the Saarkanian just was as if it had just been tossed by a tornado.

"Filthy little slaves!" Skissa roared, picking up a wroshyr wood table and slinging it like it was made of packing paper. It spun and landed on a corner next to the Mandalorian, and the extremely durable wood didn't even scratch, bouncing off the floor and into a wall, where it continued ricocheting around the hall. "I'll have you all fed to the Sarlacc for a thousand years!"

Another shadow reappeared, and then another. A hail of gunfire pelted him, mostly bouncing or stopping and tumbling off his Hutt hide. The few that punctured seemed to have little more effect on him than a cactus needle to a Gamorrean as he roared incoherently.

Yenchara slid behind him, much more composed, and happily using him as a distraction. In her hand, he sensed something...and he pulled. He held his hand out, and Arwain's lightsaber ripped away from hers, flying through the room and into his grip. She turned her head, looked at him, and her eyes sharpened with sudden surprise and recognition. Then, she smiled, and slid behind a doorway, slamming her fist into an emergency panel and pulling the lever. The large blast doors slid shut, and she sealed herself in the safe room.

Skissa turned his head just in time to see it lock, and then screamed again in frustration. Nerim offered his shoulder to Tetha and grabbed the crook of Kiali's elbow and then began leading them forward, towards the middle of the room where the Mandalorian lay. "K'atini!" Nerim said, kneeling down to the Mandalorian.

"Can't walk," came the voice from under the helmet, undeniably that of a frightened teenaged boy.

Nerim grit his teeth. "Onto me, c'mon," he offered. The boy grabbed onto his shoulders, lifting himself up in something halfway to a piggyback ride, one foot still on the ground. As he did so, a number of other Mandalorians and Saarkanians entered the room, beginning to unload every weapon they had into the Hutt. Nerim called upon the Force and pushed forward, leading the group through the door into Skissa's staff halls. It didn't take too long from there to reach the armory.

The halls around the armory were packed, walls of beskar in the form of Mandalorians in firing lines blocked the path while short Saarkanian operatives in ultrablack armor moved like living silhouettes beneath them. They parted for Nerim as he carried the three others towards the line, and then he saw Jianno, angrily shaking a Saarkanian by the shoulders and screaming at him.

She turned to see Nerim and Tetha just as another Mandalorian grabbed the teenager off of his back and a Saarkanian operative took hold of Kiali, and Jianno's face broke for just a moment with a tightening of her upper lip. Then she rushed towards them and placed a hand on each of their cheeks, looking each in the eyes with pure gratitude. "Burc'yase. Vor entye. Vor entye."

Nerim was unable to say anything. Tetha weakly smiled, despite not understanding the words. "Where's Arwain?" She asked.

Jianno frowned. "In the armory room. We're about to extract. C'mon, we'll get you medics."

Nerim moved with her towards the room, which had been entirely emptied of equipment, and now housed only wounded Mandalorians and Saarkanians. Arwain laid flat on her back, eyes closed, almost reminding him of the way Fae slept. A large scorch mark in her upper torso made it obvious she had been shot.

"We were escorting the creche and after she got shot she...She went quiet," Jianno said in a choked voice, fists clenched. "It's a bad one."

Nerim knelt down and looked her over, and nodded slowly, raising his head back to Jianno. "She's entered a Force trance, to stop her body from degrading. She should be okay...after a couple months of healing. She can't wake up though, or else it'll get worse—"

He felt a hand grasp his wrist, and he looked down. Arwain had one eye opened, just barely, and squeezed his wrist. "Good job, Apprentice."

Nerim grabbed her hand and ripped it off of his wrist, and scowled at her. "Get back in your trance!"

She laughed weakly, and then cringed in pain. "It's important to support your students," she mumbled, her eyes closing.

As she went still and fell into the Force again, he stared at her motionless form for a few moments. His throat tightened. He was still holding her hand in his. Sweat dripped into his eyes, or something, and he closed them and focused on breathing.

"Alright, everyone!" A Saarkanian's voice rang out in Huttese. "Wounded first, we are leaving!"

It only took a few minutes of mad rushing and the arrival of Saarkanian paramedics to place Arwain on a stretcher and get her, along with the rest of them, onto one of the two dropships. He felt a lurch as they raised into the air, and then once they entered the hangars of the warship, it quickly jet out of the atmosphere. The warship docked in orbit with a medical aid ship that had been procured for the capacity to remove as many slaver bombs as possible within the less-than-an-hour timespan they had to do so, but the best of the Republic was on it. Jianno left with the rest of her kin onto that ship.

Tetha and Arwain meanwhile were shuffled away to the operating rooms on the warship infirmary itself, seeing as they were much lower priority and didn't have bombs to dispose of. Nerim wasn't allowed to follow behind. The military ship apparently had strict procedures about that.

Eventually he was left practically alone in the hangar bay, beyond a few Saarkanians running around performing their duties. He stood in still, awkward silence for a minute, and then decided to sit down. He placed his back against an ammunition crate and rested his head against it, and his eyes grew heavy. He breathed out and felt as if something that was gripping him let go. Like he was allowed to relax now, finally.

"Master Jedi!" A Saarkanian's voice startled him. He jumped in place and stood up quickly.

"Huh, what?" He answered, unsure if he had fallen asleep or not, or how much time had passed. He looked down at his chronometer. Not 20 seconds had passed. He sighed, and rubbed his forehead, looking at the officer that had approached him. "What...? Also, I'm not a Je—"

The officer placed a metal disc on the floor, and a hologram appeared above it. The Governor stood hunched over a desk, thumbing through datapads and documents. The hologram was strange, picking up on everything in his room, leaving a blank space where his body would be, save his eyes. Noticing the call had connected, Vseyav lifted his head. "Nerim?" He raised an eyebrow. "Where's the rest?"

"I'm what you got," he shrugged, face still covered in blood and hair wet with sweat.

"I see..." He placed a hand to his chin, his fur rippling with color, though the monochrome hologram did not depict exactly which. "Well, I wanted to say first, good job. I've been monitoring the situation. We received word that the Dark Jedi has been taken prisoner, and the Mandalorians have made it out."

"Thanks."

"There is something I wanted to alert you to, however..."

"Okay."

Nerim stared impassively at the hologram as Vseyav tested the waters. Finding no recourse, the Governor sighed. "The deal has changed a little. Again."

Nerim's brow furrowed. "How so? We already got everyone."

"That's the problem, now," Vseyav sat on his desk, popping out his canteen and drinking from it. "Gotta figure out what to do with them."

"...Take them to Saarkane?" Nerim asked, bewildered. "You were going to house them as refugees."

"Can't," he said, unapologetically but also without spite. "Our legislative and judicial branches have aligned against me. My hands are practically tied, now. I can still direct the warship you're on, since I have a private contract with the Gran Protectorate for that. But consider Saarkane to be an unsafe location for you until the end of the proceedings."

"...The..."

"The impeachment proceedings," he took another swig.

"Ah."

The two men stared at each other, and then Vseyav stood up. "Look, kid, I don't have any pull outside my borders. Especially not now. I can't get you anywhere to house them. But if by some unholy miracle you know any other spagozda who's willing to take in a couple hundred Mandalorian refugees, I can get you there. So if there's even a snowball's chance in hell, I need you to take the shot, because I really don't want my last official act to be dispersing hundreds of Mandalorian slaves without citizenship randomly throughout Republic space."

Vseyav looked at him with forlorn hope. "I'll make a call," Nerim said tiredly. Vseyav did a half-hearted salute, and closed the call. The officer waited expectantly, ready to dial in. Nerim provided him the address, and after a few minutes, the hologram sparked to life again.

Aesha and her father, Jarroa, took up the nook of the hangar he had nestled in. They looked rather confused—even Jarroa, who spoke first. "Hello, Saarkanian vessel? Why are you calling my dau—Nerim?"

Nerim looked up at them, dried blood caked around his mouth and wet sand caked against his cheeks, dark bags under his eyes and hair matted with sweat. The collar of his coat was ripped and he was standing in front of an ancient box labeled ammunition. "Elder Jarroa," he greeted.

"Where is Master Arwain?"

"I'm what you got."

Jarroa was quiet for a moment, and Aesha spoke up, stepping closer to the center. He could see her robotic legs, now. "What's wrong, Nerim? Are you in trouble?"

"Yeah," he admitted, not quite able to say anything else just yet.

Aesha's expression grew determined, and she held a fist over her heart. "Absolutely anything you need, you just tell me."

Jarroa nodded. "You saved my daughter's life. You are a Jedi friend to Cathar, and we owe you a greater debt than I can express."

"Yeah," Nerim repeated, staring at the immaterial hologram before him, his face reflecting the pale blue light. He looked down. "Well, first off, I'm not...I'm not a Jedi anymore."

The room was silent again. When he looked back up, he saw Aesha's aghast face, and Jarroa's pursed lips. Aesha was the first to speak. "Those—those bastards! They exiled you?!"

"Yeah."

"For saving my life?!"

Jarroa's face was stoic, but his jaw was clenched in contained anger. "What about Chey-Linn?"

Nerim was still and expressionless, beyond that visage of fatigue. It was so, so hard for him to speak right now. Every word took everything he had left in him.

Jarroa slowly nodded and looked down. "I see. I see how it is. Before the trial even got underway, they've already made their decision..." He was still for a moment, and then smashed his fist against the wall. He looked back to Nerim. "Consider it Cathar's position that you are a truer Knight than the Coruscant Order's own," he growled, dangerously invoking schismatic language that Nerim was trained to avoid. "Now, what can we do for you?"

"Anything, Nerim!" Aesha echoed.

Nerim stared quietly at them for a few seconds, his lips turning downward. In his heart, he had already accepted defeat. "Don't make a promise you can't keep."

"I would go to war over this!" She shouted, pounding her fist and palm together.

"Calm yourself, princess," Jarroa tempered her.

"I'm not going to ask you to go to war. Or hurt anybody at all," Nerim clarified softly. "I don't want you to stand against anyone. I just need help. But it's a lot. I'll understand if you say no."

Jarroa and Aesha both nodded. "Master Nerim, we would never refuse to grant you aid," Jarroa replied. "Cathar isn't a rich world, but what we have, we will share."

Nerim reached up and wiped his nose, taking a breath. "Long story short, I'm currently responsible for around two hundred Mandalorian refugees from outside of the Republic. They've recently been freed from slavery, and I need somewhere to house them."

He looked up at the Cathar, unsure of what to expect. Both had tensed up. But right away, Aesha nodded. "Okay," she affirmed.

Jarroa was slower. He looked down, deep contemplation in his features.

"Elder Jarroa?" Nerim asked.

The large Cathar looked back up to him, as if interrupted in thought by an inconsequential question. "Of course. We said anything. I will begin setting up a place for habitation."

Nerim's shoulders sagged down, and his eyes burnt again. After everything that had happened that night, he had almost forgotten what it was like to be told yes.


________________________________________

Spoiler: A/N

Aaand that wraps up Arc 6: Boonta! Sorry this one had such a staggered release and took a while, things have gotten much busier in my life. This has been a very transformative arc for Nerim and the other characters in the cast, and the transformations will come to fruition in Arc 7: [REDACTED]. I already have a plan for the final arc, and have started writing it. Of course, this arc, having ended, is now owed a vignette, and it will be a very special vignette indeed...The wordcount kinda ballooned on me...

While the Arc 6 vignette will come out tomorrow, I am thinking about going back and properly finishing the Utapau and Cathar vignettes before the while of Arc 7. We'll see. They've both been kind of difficult for me to write to a point that I'm happy with, due to stylistic shifts I was attempting. Might just have to rewrite them entirely. But I'll ignore them if it ends up giving me writer's block when I could be working on the story proper.

 

[Amrynel]

Wow, Nerim needs a hug (paging Tetha, paging Tetha, please hug your Jedi when you are out of surgery).

Thankyou for the story!

 

[shargle]

Oh man that's going to be rough.. proud of Elder Jarroa and Aesha to be able to reach out a hand in peace to their ancient enemies, even if only as a favor to Nerim.

 

[Hyenanon]

Wow, Nerim needs a hug (paging Tetha, paging Tetha, please hug your Jedi when you are out of surgery).

Thankyou for the story!

Click to shrink...

Yeeeah, I tend to make characters that need hugs for some reason...

 

[shukkets]

Nice.
Everyone survived this time.
Thanks for the chapter.

 

[Psyentific]

Nerim looked up at them, dried blood caked around his mouth and wet sand caked against his cheeks, dark bags under his eyes and hair matted with sweat. The collar of his coat was ripped and he was standing in front of an ancient box labeled ammunition. "Elder Jarroa," he greeted.

"Where is Master Arwain?"

"I'm what you got."

Click to shrink...

Is this what the kids call "Aura"? Because I'm sensing a pretty intense one right now.
What a badass...

After everything that had happened that night, he had almost forgotten what it was like to be told yes.

Click to shrink...

Stealth title drop.