Star Wars: Immortal Devotion - The Spiral

Chapter 10 (Part 1)

"Hold up, friend. You've got the wrong person," Coran said raising his arms slowly into the air and trying to see where the young girl had run off to. He shouldn't care if she got lost, she wasn't his responsibility in the first place. But he kept  hearing his mother's final words "be just like your father. A good man," play over and over inside his head. Why couldn't she have said anything else...

"No, I don't think I do," the voice behind him said as he slowly turned his head to try and get a glimpse of his captor. "Is your name Coran J'Bari?"

Coran shrugged, "nope. Never heard of the guy?"

"Is that so?" the person said, and Coran could now tell that the voice was distinctly feminine. "I was watching you back in the Hollow, and this picture I have right here looks like a splitting image. There's a bounty on your head, Coran. I don't know what you did to Oram Cale, but there is a very hefty sum to bring you in alive."

Coran bit his tongue and swiveled around, "listen here lady-" His assailant repositioned the small handheld blaster to press up against the underside of his chin, and he could now see it was a young Iridonian Zabrak with long black hair and slightly protruding head horns, probably no older than he was.

"Watch it mister," she said putting some pressure on the blaster, "I really want that bounty. But if you make a move, I will put my life before a cash prize any day. I saw you cornering that young girl and I do not have any qualms about offing a perverted criminal like you."

Coran couldn't help but laugh nervously. "That wasn't what it looked like, she's a part of my crew." "Oh, and child labor is so much better. You're a slaver, aren't you, scum!"

The woman was now visibly agitated and Coran knew if he didn't defuse the situation soon, his path towards being a famous smuggler would be cut incredibly short.

"Listen, I don't know who you are, and I don't really care anymore. My crew and I saved that girl, who I will admit was a slave, from some guy on Mooga. I know it doesn't look like it, but we have all been trying to help her find a suitable home. She's not acclimated to society, and if we leave her here, she's going to get into a lot of trouble."

The bounty hunter's grip loosened ever so slightly as her eyes darted back and forth, studying Coran. "And why does Cale want you so badly?" she said, clearly trying to strengthen her resolve.

"I was there when his brother died, and he's held me responsible for it ever since. I don't really know why he has such a strong vendetta against me though, to be honest," Coran said, clearing his throat and intentionally leaving out any mention of his uncle or mother's relation to the Cales, "he's just a pirate, and like most pirates, he's clearly insane."

The young woman shifted her balance back and forth in a ready stance as Coan could tell she was trying to think. Without putting the blaster down, she grabbed her comlink with her free hand and raised it to her mouth. "Hey, R4, hold off on disabling their ship for a moment. I've got something I need to figure out."

"Wait what?" Coran exclaimed. He tried to eye the door that was now behind him. If he could just make it...

His escape planning were cut short by a voice calling out from the far end of the hall, where they had both originally come from. "Well isn't this just perfect. Two birds with one stone."

Coran looked past the Iridonian Zabrak to see the pilot from the food court the rest of the group had referred to as Dante. The armored bounty hunter brandished a modified intergalactic firefighter's armor kit, with flames painted all across his helmet. "Karrabast," Coran's captor mumbled as she stared down the hall at the new bounty hunter.

Dante stood still for what felt like minutes, before throwing back his cape and drawing twin blaster pistols. He unleashed a volley of small blaster bursts that lit up the gray hallway. Coran and the Zabrak both ran for the door, passing through it and hiding on either end of the opposite side.

Coran leaned his head out into the doorway and saw Dante slowly approaching, both blasters drawn. "Hey, I thought the bounty specified that I was supposed to be brought in alive?" he yelled.

"It did," Dante said through a deep voice filter in his helmet, and Coran could now hear why some of the gang could assume it could be a female.

"But Kari Bree's bounty wants her dead. What are a few blaster holes in you, if you're still alive? You are a part of the gang now, after all, so I can't very well kill you."

Coran looked at the woman across from him, "I thought you were a bounty hunter, not a bounty?" The woman shrugged embarrassedly, "it's complicated. I was trying to bring you in so that I could clear my chaincode."

"You have got to be kidding me," Coran shouted.

Suddenly his comlink began to beep. As he picked it up, he realized the station must have been interfereing with the signal, as he heard mostly static on the other end. "Hey, I have no idea who this is, but I've run into a problem over in one of the station branches beyond the Hollow. I can't really talk right now."

Kari, the Iridonian Zabrak, watched him curiously as he held one hand to his ear and tried to hear whoever was on the other end, however the static and Dante's occasional blaster bolt made it difficult.

He could tell it was one of the twins, and he thought it sounded more like Pi. His suspicions were confirmed when he heard the panicked boy mention something about escape, and he knew he must've been referring to Jannis.

"Listen Pi," he said, "I've found Jannis. I'm going to bring her back safe and sound."

"No your not," Kari said, pointing the gun from the doorway back towards Coran, "once we get out of this, you're still coming with me."

Coran swatted the gun away, and she redirected it back at their new shared assailant. "Just let everyone else know, ok Pi?" Coran waited for a response but there was only static on the other end of the line, and he hung the call up furstratedly.

"She's getting close," Kari said, "we need to retreat further back into the station."

"I have to find that girl," Coran said desperately, and the young woman seemed to take his plea to heart this time. She sighed, "we'll see what we can do along the way."

Kari shot the control panel and the door slid shut. The two of them took off down the hallway, and rounded a few bends as they made their way further into the industrial side of the Magnus StarTree complex.

Up ahead, Coran saw a y-shaped fork in the path. The right tunnel was labeled "The Hollow," and must have looped back around to the core of the station. The left was subsequently labeled "Priority Docking," and Coran saw a droid walk through a door at the far end.

"We can make our way back around and lose him in the crowd," Kari said pointing towards the right pathway and turning her head around to see if Dante was still behind them.

That was when Coran saw his chance, and stuck his leg out, tripping the Zabrak. She tumbled to the ground and he kicked her gun further down the right tunnel as he continued running down the left. "I'm sorry, but no one is going to stop me."

Hey, wait!" she yelled after him, but he quickly passed through the door. He skidded to a stop as he almost ran into the droid, and he realized it was the same model as RA-7E. "Hey, droid, did you see a younger girl in old, oversized clothes run this way?"

The droid looked at Coran, surprised. "Yes, I did, she headed down that private service elevator." Coran growled in frustration and ran over to the elevator, rapidly pressing the down button. If she boarded the wrong person's ship, she could get ino a whole lot of trouble, or even get kidnapped and put right back where they found here. He needed to find her first.

He looked behind him as he continued to press the button, hoping Dante and Kari, the Iridonian Zabrak, had engaged each other in combat, distracting each other while he found Jannis. The elevator finally dinged and the door swung open, revealing a few uniformed technicians who eyed Coran strangely.

"Wait, you cannot-"

Coran didn't catch the rest of what the droid was saying, but he didn't especially care anyways. He couldn't contact his crew, so he needed to get the girl and get back to his ship as quickly as possible.

He was starting to regret letting so many people, especially children, onto the Devotion, as they seemed to be more trouble than they were worth. Between the twins and the girl, he had put his life on the line far too many times over the course of the past few days.