I Want to be Your Knight - Chapter 18

Previous Post

---

Breakfast went surprisingly well.

No cursing. No fighting. It was almost as if we were really happily married polygamists. Not that I really wanted that sort of thing. I vaguely remembered the relationship my parents had back before the Killik fiasco, and that was what I wanted to have in the end. One wife to dedicate myself to would have been more than enough, thank you.

I even managed to get out of the cafeteria without any food in my hair, or on other parts of my body or my clothes.

In fact, we were so relaxed that all three of us let down our guards. None of us ever noticed that we were being followed. Trailed as we wandered throughout the ship.

At least until we debarked on Corellia.

We had just gotten off through customs, and stepped outside of the spaceport when they struck. The first hint any of us had of trouble was when our Force senses disappeared.

They just flickered away. Imagine being rendered blind, deaf and dumb in a heartbeat. That's what stepping into a ysalamiri bubble felt like.

Seha gasped, while Jysella stumbled slightly. I frowned and looked towards them, my hand stretching out and catching Jys' elbow. I was trying my best to pretend that I didn't feel like I was under a wet blanket, after all, we weren't there as Jedi and the girls had done enough to blow our cover already. "Seha? Jys? Are you two all right?"

Jys glared at me, vehemence in her eyes, her lips pulled away from her teeth in a snarl. "Kriff you."

That's when the large hand dropped onto my shoulder, and an electronically modulated voice from behind me said, "Drop the act, Skywalker. We know who and what, you are."

As the being said this, I noticed how Jys' eyes lost some of their vehemence and the snarl dropped away, her mouthing forming an 'O' shape. So, I winked at her. Amazingly enough, as she refocused on me, the vehemence was quickly replaced in them.

I turned, lifting my hands in the process. A movement that brought me close to the first guy's arm; an arm connected to the hand that was still on my shoulder. Amateurs, I had thought. If they were going to try and capture us, you would think they would get someone who knew what they were doing.

As I was turning, I snagged that arm, and pulled while lunging towards his chest at the same time. In effect I doubled the force with which my shoulder slammed into his sternum. His armored sternum. I yelped in pain as I let the guy go.

He staggered backwards, and I spun the rest of the way to find out exactly what we were facing. My heart fell. There were ten of them. Big, strong, armored. At least two not human, Besalisk I would guess from the four arms. All of them had blasters. Three of them had ysalamiri.

I swallowed as I stared down the long barrel of an E11. I had never noticed before just how big those things really were.

"Hey guys," I stammered out, as I raised my hands in surrender. "I'm not sure why you're pointing that thing at me, but I don't particularly like it."

The guy that I had gotten the drop on, stormed up to me, and slammed his armored fist into my chin. Pain flared across my face, as I allowed my head to twist with the movement. I tasted blood, and for a brief moment wondered if I had lost a tooth or bitten my tongue.

I muttered a curse as someone took the blaster from the holster at my hip. The first guy grabbed my collar, and I finally noticed the CORSEC logo on his breastplate. Directly beneath that his last name. Kilnore . Giving an internal shrug, as I didn't recognize the name from anywhere, I allowed myself to get dragged around. After all, there wasn't much more I could do. We were in the Force null bubble. They had guns, and our all-too human reflexes wouldn't let us get to our sabers in time for them to be of any use.

I glanced behind me and saw the girls being led at gunpoint. Seha looked angry. Angrier than I'd ever seen her, while Jys seemed intent on antagonizing her guard. She would occasionally just stop, making him run into her, or stumble, or fall down. Basically, she was doing anything she could to make sure that we were the center of attention. That every eye, organic and electronic, was trained on us as we were marched out of the Horn Intergalactic Spaceport.

I almost burst out laughing as I realized the irony of the situation. My amusement most have shone, because I got the stock of someone's rifle slammed into my shoulder for my troubles. I yelped and stumbled, the guard dug his fingers into the sensitive skin of my inner arm as he continued to drag me on.

"Ben!" Seha had cried out. "You karking cops. He didn't do anything to you. That's abuse."

My head snapped around as she screamed in pain. I saw her sprawled on the ground, her head lifted, as she glared at one of the soldiers. A thin line of blood seeped from her nose.

I felt something inside of me snap. I bent over, ripping my tunic out of my guard's hands, and then shot my foot out behind me. I heard the distinct snap of a breaking bone, and grinned as I spun around.

Kilnore was on the ground, his hands clutching his leg, and I jumped on the cop Seha was glaring at. My arm snaked around his neck, elbow just beneath his chin, my other arm, locking that one in place. I twisted the guy I was holding around, in perfect time to catch the three blaster bolts aimed at me. His body convulsed and I pushed him forward.

Then I ran over him, and tackled one of the besalisk guards as he stared at the quite still form of the guy he had just shot. I ripped his blaster away, and shoved it into the small space between his neck and the lip of his helmet, and pulled the trigger.

I was suddenly knocked forward, pain flaring up the shoulder of my right arm, and I could smell the stench of burnt flesh.

Rolling with the movement, I was surprised when I stopped and was still holding the gun, despite the exquisite pain radiating from my shoulder. The commando in me took a moment to take stock of the situation, and I pulled the trigger, shooting the other besalisk before I had realized that he was pointing a gun at me.

I took another look, and realized that Jys was unconscious on the ground, one guard lying beside her unmoving, the other standing over her, his gun tracking towards me. I shot him in the face and the force of the impact knocked him backwards.

Suddenly the Force flooded back into my awareness, and I realized that the two cops holding the ysalamiri were retreating away.

I turned to find the two remaining cops, and saw them on the ground a few meters from me, Seha walking my way, an angry look on her face.

Wincing as the adrenaline wore off and the pain from my blaster wound starting really making itself noticeable, I stumbled towards Jysella, and found that she was alive but unconscious. The burn pattern on the back of her tunic indicated that she had been stunned.

"Are you all right, Ben?"

I looked up at Seha, and nodded my head. Smiling slightly at the look of worry in her face. "I'm fine. Just a flesh wound. We need to get off the street before those two come back with support.

Seha nodded her head, and together we lifted Jysella up between us, and went hunting for a cheap hotel for us to hide in. For me to drop into a quick healing trance, and for Jysella to wake up from the stun.

Together, we limped away from the main thorough fares of Coronet, heading towards the seedier parts of the city. I could feel Seha's nervousness about the parts of the city where we were going, but I ignored it. I stopped a few times to consult a Public Data Display terminal making queries against a half dozen hotels and an even dozen restaurants.

Finally, I stopped in front of the most run down building on a block of run down buildings. The sign, barely legible as it was, read, "Reflexion Inn."

"I'm letting go of her now," I told Seha, as I released Jys. She grunted slightly under the burdened of our unconscious friend, and I stepped towards the door.

"This is where we're going to stay?" Seha asked, incredulousness in her voice.

I tossed her a grin, and gave a quick nod of my head. "Yup. Finest dirt this side of low-level Coruscant."

I turned away and went into the hotel. I stopped as I entered, the lobby was dark, and it took a second for my eyes to adjust after I had entered from the bright noontime sun that was found outside. All this while, my Force sense were flaring, warning me of undefined danger. Finally, I was able to see again, and I noticed the clerk hunched slightly behind the counter. Putting away a blaster, I thought. That explains the danger sense going off.

I walked to him, and tossed a few credits on the counter. "I need a room for three for the night."

The man looked at the money for a moment, and then slide it off the counter, and dropped a keycard onto it. "Room 53-Aurek."

I nodded my thanks and snatched up the keycard. I then went out and slipped my arm under Jysella again and we went into the lobby, heading down the hallway until we came to our room.

I shoved the keycard in, quickly pulled it out and the light flashed from red to green and I pushed open the door. Together we went into a much shabbier room than the one we had on the starship. The bed was about half the size, there was no couch, no dressers, just a battered desk with an even more battered holocomm unit; one that was at least a decade old. A door lead to a small refresher; which smelled vaguely of urine.

We dropped Jysella onto the bed, and I collapsed beside her, letting out a sigh of relief.

"Let me see," Seha said, tugging at my tunic. I lifted up enough so that I could get it up over my head, the movement causing fresh pain to slash through my awareness.

I collapsed back onto my stomach, as I felt Seha's fingers probing the wound on my back. She disappeared for a moment, and then I heard running water coming from the 'fresher.

She returned, and pain flared across my back as she rubbed the wound with the towel. I hissed, and she muttered something that was supposed to be soothing.

It wasn't, what she was doing hurt like all get out, and all the sweet words in her sweet voice wasn't changing that fact.

Finally, she was done. I looked up at her, and gave her a weak grin. "Thanks, Seha."

She smiled, and ran her hand over my hair. "No, thank you. Now get some rest."

I nodded my head, closed my eyes, and dropped into a healing trance. As my consciousness slowly drifted away, I felt Seha's gentle fingers running through my hair.

---

Next Post