Corellian Sector

Kent's gaze locks on Gavin. She begins to fiddle with her blaster on her hip. There was no overt threat, but her read on him still rang true. Amplified even, with her realization that she was Force sensitive. Logically nothing he had done made any sense as a "protectorate" and knowing that the Force was also pulling her not to trust him.

She says in a low voice so only those at her table can hear. He is in my head, or did you hear it too Eyes still drilling into Gavin.

When Oz finally managed to pick himself up off the floor, he only got as far as his knees before he had to lean heavily on the nearby stool or risk falling down again. "Uuhhhhhh... This was a really bad idea." And it shouldn't be happening. Why is this happening? Why aren't they working? His questions would have to remain unanswered for now though, seeing as the only person in the room capable of answering them was also the one asking them (and the fact that he was apparently too drunk to stand after only one very large deuterium-pyro). Eventually, he managed to clamber the rest of the way up the stool until he was leaning on the counter next to Frend, 'sneaking' furtive glances at the positively luminous robot over in the corner (or maybe it was just the reflection of the lights off her plating). There's that word again... To be honest, he couldn't have said why he'd identified the droid as a her, but it probably had something to do with his innate aptitude for technology.

"Ya know what, buddy?" He leaned back until his shoulder hit Frend's plating, then reached up and lightly patted the large droid behind him. "I think I'm gonna go talk to her. Wish me luck!" He set of slowly, still not sure if he could actually stand or not, but managed a passing resemblance to the activity commonly known as 'walking', and miraculously did it without even a bit of drunken sway. Maybe that wasn't as strong as I thought. Or maybe they're finally working... That thought had him cheered up instantly, though his brain still felt fuzzy regardless of what his latest experiment might be doing. He drew in a deep breath, then let it out in an attempt to release the butterflies that had gathered in his abdomen, standing a bit straighter and walking a bit faster the nearer he got to the table where she resided. Upon arrival, he made sure to acknowledge the humans gathered there as well.

"Why hello there ladies and gent! My name's Oz. I'm from over there." He hooked his thumb toward the stool where Frend waited patiently, clearly oblivious to whatever it was they'd been discussing. "I just wanted to come over here and say..." He turned, rather abruptly, away from the humans at the table to face Leigh. "...that I absolutely love your cannon. Is it concussion-based or EM-generated plasma?" It didn't even cross his mind that such a divine creature might have a weapon as mundane as a blaster. "What about the plating? Duranium? Cortosis-weave? Stygian tri-prismatic polymer? Whatever it is, it's definitely working for you."

Leigh had laughed over Kent's consternation--she didn't even seem aware that she'd been fishing, and had flushed. The whole situation had been very funny, made no less funny by the fact that a drunken stranger had come up to hit on her--despite the fact that he seemed aware that she was not organic. She'd angled her holographic face toward him, smiling and ready to respond and let Na'an fluster the rest of her way through this conversation...

Leigh's processors stuttered a little at that. What Kent was saying was impossible; maybe it was another attempt to show off? Because Leigh had customized her face, based it off the unique Shan profile and added her own touches, and the only living Shan was the man at their table. She turned back towards the bar, ready to point out how Kent Austin, supposed genius, was wrong yet again...

and found that she was, for once, very close to right.

The face was not exactly the same as her own, but Kent's phrasing had its points. Under the thick, sharply angled multicolor bob , visible through the band of a visor, were the sharp blue eyes and long jawline Leigh had retained. Leigh had scrubbed most of the freckles from her own image, and had sharpened the cheekbones, but the resemblance was strong--that of a mother to her daughter, than of a twin or clone.

If the comparison hadn't been perfect, the fact that the woman's eyes had lingered on her with recognition had been enough proof.

Eliana Shan was alive. Seven years had passed since her death, and here she was, walking into a bar as if her being alive was no big thing at all. As if the very sight of her, healthy and well-equipped and clearly not happy to see her daughter, did not change anything about what the world was or should have been.
In a split second, Leigh's circuits buzzed along thought-patterns that had, due to their immutability, been ignored for almost three years. She had thought of Eliana Shan a certain way for all that time--had been able to, after some time and recalculation, been able to forgive certain things.

But that was before. Before, her mother had been dead. Dead all this time, while she had followed her programming and KR had used that to do monstrous things. She'd been dead. Not complicit.

If she had been alive, though...

"Not exactly." The response could have been to Kent, or to Oz. Perhaps it was to both. "But close enough."

She turned back toward the table, still very much of her mother's eyes upon her back. Her focus shifted momentarily to the other inhabitants of the table...the others that Kent had made abruptly aware that a dead woman had walked in.

Na'an's face had gone very pale, her back rigid. Her laughter over the drunken man approaching the droid, whatever abashed self-deprecating response she would have had to Kent's machinations, had all died unspoken on her lips. The half-eaten sausage in her hand had been caught in the woman's fist, squeezed into a pulp that dropped in pieces back onto the plate. Her pale eye had fixed on Elly in the middle distance, but now snapped back to Leigh, the question obvious.

Is it?

Very minutely, Leigh nodded.

Na'an's shoulders tightened. Her remaining color drained from her face, save for two high, bright spots on her cheekbones from the tihaar. For the second time that day, she slipped the black patch of fabric off her left eye, uncovering the thickly scarred, ragged-looking lid underneath. The patch dropped into a pile near Cao's hand, forgotten, the reactions of the others unacknowledged.

"Kent." Her voice was very soft, almost normal. "Thank you. Stay here. When I come back...if you haven't changed your mind, we'll continue this conversation."

She was standing already, moving fast. Leigh understood immediately--Caoimhin Shan hadn't had a chance to react yet to seeing his sister. True to pattern, Na'an would want to cut this short, get her shot in, before it drove him too far. They could get the preliminaries out of the way before he could process if, if they moved on her instincts.

"I'm with you."

With that, droid and woman stood together and pushed their way towards the bar--Leigh's hologram snapping off, Na'an's hand sneaking back to rest just over her back pocket.

This changes things then...
Kent said to her self. She began going over all the details of this place in her head. It was clear Na'an and Leigh knew this girl, and the were not friendly. She noted Na'an reaching for the cylindrical bulge in her back pocket, her lightsaber. She also noted that Leigh's face was gone. The power it took to run it being switched to more tactical needs. This wasn't her fight, and if the night so far told her anything, it was that something that would cause her new friends this much worry may be out of her league. But that didn't mean she shouldn't find a way to help. She thought about earlier when Gavin had gotten into her mind, If she was force sensitive maybe she could pass what she was seeing to Na'an. She focused really hard on Na'an and began to think.
You have a thick wroshyr tree table 5 feet to your left. If you need cover it will hold up. The is a light panel 2 feet in front of your target, overloading it should cause her visor to darken very quickly or temporarily blinding her if it doesn't have an auto darken, either way she won't be able to see well. The stools are sturdy but light, not much use as weapons, but valuable distractions. Non else seems to be interested in joining the fight, content to just watch.

"Don't bother. He already knows it's you." 

Na'an approached the pair, not yet pulling loose the tube from her pocket, Leigh an impassive, hulking shape behind her. Her left eye remained unopened; the right held Elly's with a laser focus. For a second, it seemed that she would stop in front of Elly; her mouth opened slightly, as if taking a breath to speak. 

Then she reached forward and grabbed a fistful of Alena Karso's--of Eliana Shan's--shirt. Without stopping, she yanked down, hard, using her leverage to pull the woman's body off balance and stumbling in her wake. She paced evenly out the door, ignoring Pavin's squawks of alarm and dragging Elly behind her. 

The droid paused, her dome turning towards the unnamed man who had arrived with Elly. With a tight, efficient gesture, she pointed him back to the table where Caoimhin and Kent still sat among plates of rapidly-cooling food. "Don't worry," she said in a voice as close to normal as she could get without the hologram, "We're not going to kill her." Then she turned and followed her friend out. It was true, Leigh knew--no one was going to be dying here. Na'an was in control of herself, while she...she just wanted to have her say before she lost her control. 

The sun outside had set while they were inside, masking the details of the buildings around them in sharp shadows and blaring neon signs. Na'an and Leigh stopped shortly outside, standing in a flickering pool of light from a streetlamp as Na'an finally stopped and faced Elly again. Leigh watched as her mother was pulled roughly back to Na'an's level. She'd had practice in reading human faces in the last three years, and Elly looked embarrassed, uncertain...frightened?

"Now. Eliana. I want to know two things," Na'an said, dangerously soft. Her fist tightened its grip on the handful of fabric, keeping their faces close and Elly's eyes on hers. On her back pocket, the fingers of her other hand twitched. "And you should know that my hearing is much better than it used to be. I can hear your heart beating right now. I'll know if you lie to me." 

There was a pause. Without even looking away from Elly, even in the dark, Leigh could hear the shuddering noise of Na'an's next breath. 

"Is he here?"