Hangar Bay

As the younger Zabrak's hand was extended, he would have found it immediately arrested by what appeared to be the very air itself. The shepherd hadn't moved a muscle in response to the greeting, but rather chose to respond in a matter more befitting a Jedi in the presence of an intruder. The stasis that had halted Z'har's arm quickly enveloped his entire being, holding him painlessly - but no doubt certainly - in place. The Force itself seemed to growl.

"Z'har," the older Zabrak hissed, "summon your passenger."

There was no mistaking his old apprentice's presence aboard the dilapidated freighter. She was the only reason that this fool had come to this world. She was the only reason he had been allowed to make landfall. And if Z'har persisted, she would be the only thing keeping him from death. Not by the shepherd's hand, of course; while he would slay darksiders without a moment's hesitation or a hint of guilt, foolishness was universal, and did not warrant a death sentence. But he was nevertheless going to need a place to stay for the evening, and some bunks held men that weren't nearly so patient as the shepherd himself was. Assigning Z'har to such a bunk would end rather poorly, the shepherd was sure. But every shepherd had a few members of their flock go astray. Why should he be any different?

As soon as it came, the arresting force that enveloped Z'har dropped away, leaving him free to move once more. The implication, given the shepherd's glare, was that the mercy wasn't to be taken for granted.

"There will be no need for that, captain."

The voice behind the Zabrak was low, and feminine, and quite pretty. As it spoke, its owner came into view--a droid with a custom-made chassis, humanoid save for a few outstanding details. One of those details was the dome that served as the droid's head, which shone dully as it came into contact with the light of Yavin's sun. The other was cannon that, for whatever reason, had been installed in place of a second arm. The droid was only somewhat larger than the ship's captain, but she seemed to loom behind him like a giant, casting a dark shadow behind her into the ship.

"From what I have been told," she said smoothly, "Our host is not the kind of man to perform tricks on demand." She turned to the hooded figure below them in the hangar; the dome remained blank and expressionless, but something in that blankness read of caution rather than disrespect. "That is, if this is indeed our host. Na'an?"

From behind the droid, another of the ship's passengers stepped into the light. Much smaller than the droid, and even shorter than the captain, the young woman was compact, sharp-featured, and dressed simply in leathers. To the untrained eye, she seemed oddly delicate due to her size...until the light fell on the rifle strapped to her back. The trained eye, however, focused first on the hard lines of her mouth, or the bulge at her hip, or the scarring still visible at the edges of the patch over her left eye. She stopped at the droid's side, resting her hand on her hip as her good eye--large and slate-grey, and ringed with dark lashes--lasered in on the figure who had greeted them.
She hesitated, but only for a moment. Then she shouldered her way past the droid, and offered her arm in greeting.

"Sir. You called for me."

"The...audience chamber."

Her hand free, Na'an rested her arm uneasily against the bulge at her hip. Bothering with the audience chamber was unusual for Rutil Iorek, to say the least; he and Na'an had never had such ceremony between them. She looked back to Leigh, who shrugged in an oddly sympathetic gesture and gestured to the captain to indicate that 'for his own safety' was probably a phrase to pay attention to.

"...Okay," she finally responded. "Yeah, let's go. I think I still know the way."

Without waiting for the others to point the way, she strode through the hangar and vanished into the hallways of the once-abandoned Praxeum. Leigh followed a few yards behind her, the click-clickof the human's boots quickly masked by the thump of her feet against the stones. If the others wished to disregard the warnings the hooded Zabrak had given, the sounds provided an easy enough path to follow.

Adelle sat cross-legged on the bunk, hands on her knees in a relaxed pose. Na'an and Leigh had already gathered their things and disembarked. The quiet and the rush of hot jungle air blowing in from the ramp's corridor eased her body and helped further her meditation. But her focus had gone from restoring her center to analyzing Master Rutil. His presence felt much the same as it had whenever she'd run into him: solid, commanding, unyielding. But something wasn't quite right. She couldn't put her finger on it but she felt something prick her senses like the tip of a vibroblade and disappear when she tried to hone in on it. Rutil's self-assured righteousness made it difficult to discern his motive for calling Na'an here.

Something smooth, clammy, and scaly slithered over her lap. Adelle's eyes flew open and down. A large black python slid over her legs and down the edge of the mattress, hiding under the bunk. Someone left the ramp open too long if Yavin's natives were already climbing aboard. When the tip of the python's tail disappeared, Adelle stood up quickly and walked over to the lockers, pulling off her tunic and sash to reveal the armorweave she wore underneath. She opened the locker and pulled out the small bag. A worried Na'an was not a good omen for a mysterious trip and so she had done the logical thing: packed her own surprise. Adelle pulled out the bag she'd brought on board and took off her pants as well. The armor plates absorbed the light, the color seeming to shift from charcoal to a greenish-grey to a blue-grey. Adelle closed her eyes and gripped the first plate tight, standing frozen for a moment or two. Then she slapped it on her forearm and started attaching the rest of the armor before she changed her mind. She tugged on the tunic and cargo pants back over it, retying her sash. Just as well her clothes were mostly baggy. The ace literally up her sleeves would do her no good if everyone knew about it.

A flicker of motion in her peripheral caught her eye. It seems her python friend had grown tired and flicked its tail as it left the bunks. She fasted the utility belt with all her medical supplies around her waist and went to follow Na'an. As she walked into the empty hangar—odd, it showed recent signs of use and repair—she clapped a hand on the captain's shoulder.

"Thanks for getting us here in one piece," she said. "Please don't wander off too far. I'd like to have the option of a fast exit."

Without waiting for his reply, she walked further into the temple. Na'an and Rutil could wait: the medical centre called to her.

Not too terribly long after one freighter made landfall, another freighter landed right beside it. As the craft settled onto its landing struts, the boarding ramp hissed open to reveal a darkness within the ship proper. Evidently the pilot had not been lying when he had said the ship was running on fumes.

A minute passed.  And then another.  There was a dull clang, but the ship's interior was otherwise silent.

Shortly thereafter, a black-haired man emerged from dark freighter.  He was built well; muscular, but not obnoxiously so.  He was dressed simply; a gray athletic shirt was on top a pair of khaki cargo pants, accented with calf-high boots, a belt, and a bandolier all made from the same dull black leather.  Slung on the man's hip was a SSK-7 blaster pistol, and the back of the man's bandolier was shortened scattergun.  The man's belt had two thermal detonators on his left side, punctuated by a short utility knife.  But in his hands and slung across his shoulders was an Imperial heavy repeater, fully loaded.  The black-haired man was prepared to go to war.  Fortunately, he was in a building full of similarly-minded people.

As he strode towards the hangar's door into the Praxeum proper, the man wiped away some blood from the forehead, not wincing in the slightest from his new Aurebesh scar.  LE-03 was in the building, but there was a reason the pair had come here or all places.  The strategy center would hold the answers he sought.