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They finally depart the crawler at sunset, just outside Mos Taike. The Jawas settle in for the night, planning to make their rounds among the moisture farmers and the town's small market in the morning. Tsedec leads them out, shaking each of their hands and bowing quickly before heading back into the crawler. In the distance, the twin suns burn white and orange, the sky now dusted in purple and gray, the shadows of the dunes and of the small farm homes that dot the landscape cut darkness across the bright sands.

No more than a klik away is Mos Taik – compared to Mos Elrey, it looks rather run down. It's also surrounded by walls, but they're lower, and clearly chipped and crumbling in places. There are fewer earthen towers, most buildings also low to the ground, and while there had been plenty of activity outside the walls of Mos Elrey, here there's only one other vehicle, a speeder just at the wall, two figures piling sacks into it. Beyond the city, much, much farther in the distance, a cliff rises up from the sands, and perched on it the dark, miniscule outline of what must be the Hutt's palace.

But Kanan only glances over this, before turning back, out to the desert. Something about the color of the suns, the shadows, the wind rising over the desert makes Kanan pause. He looks out to the horizon, to the twin suns, one gleaming white hanging high above the other, deep orange and already beginning to fade as it dips deeper in the sky. The wind ebbs, but then picks up once more, whistling around them, chilling the otherwise warm evening. And beneath it – Kanan can hear it, like a voice, familiar yet changed somehow, calling out to him across the dune sea –

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Fortuna waves a hand, dismissively.

"We will not enter the desert before morning. Return to your ship. Or if you prefer, His Excellency's court is always hospitable."

Hera remains still this time, but at the next table, a Rodian coughs in her drink.

Kanan involuntarily ducks his head at that, hoping no one looks over at the Rodian.

Fortuna, however, does, dismissing the Quarren from his attention as if the other being weren't even there.

"My ship is perfectly acceptable,," the Quarren says, moving to his feet with alacrity, voice gone quiet. "Thank the incomparable Jabba for his consideration."

The Gamorrean shifts to keep themself between Fortuna and the Quarren, but also to give themself a line on the Rodian, in case Fortuna looks too displeased.

Or that's Kanan's guess, anyway.

The Rodian doesn't move, keeping her eyes down on her glass. Fortuna continues to watch her, long after the Quarren has fled the cantina, his nearly-full glass still on the table.

"Would you like to join me, chik," he calls to her. She still keeps her eyes down, like she can't hear him now. "If you've been listening so closely..."

Hera's going to stay silent. She is.

She was going to stay silent. But then Fortuna flicks his fingers, and the the guard takes a step toward the Rodian's table.

"Schutta meulla." Hera says it loud enough to be heard, though it's a moment before she looks up. "Nu jun rom sendrnem?"

Kanan tries desperately to keep his posture casual, in the hopes that he'll be able to take the guard by surprise if things go very badly.

He has a feeling that this particular crew paying attention to him and Hera is bad news, which only gets cemented by the increasing hush in the room, as Fortuna's attention focuses on Hera, leaving the Rodian behind.

(For now.)

"Ah, nerria riloka, how proud your tongue is, far from the tunnels of your kin," Fortuna says, mostly in Huttese.
Kanan is pretty sure at least a few of the words in there are Twi'leki, since the sound of them is familiar, even if the content is obscure. "Be careful no one tries to rip it out."

Hera keeps her eyes on him. As much as she might like to be scathing, she knows that's not worth the risk to her, or to Kanan. There's a balance, somewhere, between cowering, and the Gamorrean coming at her with his axe.

(She's also hoping that the Rodian has the sense to run.)

"On nerricho lenk."

Fortuna's face screws up in a scowl, and he spits without moisture, back over his shoulder.

"Pfah. You are a worm beneath my feet, girl. But my master does like those with your coloring . . . perhaps your own master here will be interested in a sale."

He turns his attention to Kanan at that, because whether or not there's truth in it, it lets him get some of his pride back. And here on Tatooine, so close to Jabba's palace, that is often all that matters.

The Rodian, meanwhile, slowly slips out of her chair and begins to fall back into the crowd. She's small, which makes it easier not to draw too much attention. Plus there's . . . well.

Hera.

Kanan takes a deep breath, but doesn't answer. He can feel the shape of his blaster in his mind, knows exactly where and how fast to reach for it if everything falls apart now.

Sometimes there isn't anything else.

Edited 2019-01-04 00:09 (UTC)

Hera's eyes flicker to Kanan.

Along her back, her lekku, she senses the Rodian's movements, hears her footsteps before they fade into the din of the bar.

As she looks back to Fortuna, she smiles, and shrugs. Switching to Huttese, "Sorry, it doesn't look like he wants to sell his worm."

"We'll see about that," Fortuna hisses, looking to his Gamorrean guard before he takes two brisk and forceful steps toward Hera, hand reaching out to grab at her wrist.

The grab is slower than the approach, but only a little.

Kanan tenses, shifting his weight to the balls of his feet and lifting himself very slightly off the chair. Maybe this is where they start running?

So it's going to be the axe, she can't help but think.

But she doesn't run. Fortuna coming at her, reaching to grab her, sets a fire in her mind, burning out any cool reasoning she might have had before.

Hera grabs Kanan's glass, smashes it into the table, and throws the sharp base of it not at Fortuna, but into the Gamorrean's face.

Edited 2019-01-04 04:03 (UTC)

Well, there's the axe coming into play, Kanan thinks, just after Hera moves on the startled Gamorrean.

Then he hauls himself to his feet, flipping the table so it functions as a bulwark between Hera, himself, and Fortuna's crew. Hopefully this'll give them time to get out of here, but first -- disengaging from combat in general.

Fortuna is still snarling, spitting out commands to his bodyguard, who is bleeding into his own eyes. "You fool! What do we pay you for? Get her!"

But at the same time, he's also closing with Hera, because otherwise he'll lose face, and that . . . might end poorly. (Or so Kanan assumes, knowing what everyone does about Hutts.)

Hera know she should dart behind the table, but the guard's stumbling back, and Fortuna's close enough to reach her before she moves. So she risks moving in first - she leans forward, and slams her shoulder into Fortuna's chest, trying to shove him off-balance - and counting on him not being much of a fighter himself.

"Stay back, reimenja," she hisses at him.

Fortuna is very clever in his speech (or he can be, when he chooses to practice it), and one might even call him graceful on the occasional dance floor. But Hera is right, he is no fighter, which means that his feet go out from under him and he staggers, shrieking in burgeoning panic as he starts to tumble to the floor.

The Gamorrean squeals in return, snorting loudly in his own panic that his employer -- or his employer's representative -- might die on his watch, actually stumbling into Fortuna and getting blood everywhere.

"I think that's our cue," Kanan says, reaching out toward Hera, ready to grab her wrist and tug her out behind him.

You know, if she refuses to go herself. (He's braced for her to whirl on him, too, given that Fortuna was just trying to grab her, but he really doesn't want to use her name just now.)

Hera does have to stop herself - she turns on him, but then halts herself so quickly that it feels like slamming into a steel wall. Shakily, she nods, and moves with him. Fortuna's already pulling himself, and the Gamorrean starting to get the blood out of his eyes. They won't be down for long.

The other patrons practically shove themselves out of the way as Hera and Kanan head for the door, if they're not running for an exit themselves. No one wants to be anywhere near this.

"Break left once we're outside," Kanan says, voice low -- or as low as he can reasonably make it. "I've got a good feeling."

Behind them the Gamorrean staggers, axe dipping toward the crowd, and more screams go up. He turns quickly, though, hefting the axe back upright as he moves in Fortuna's direction, wiping the last of the blood out of his eyes.

"After them!" Fortuna shrieks, turning to glare at the Quarren, who appears to have been trying to lose himself in the crowd. Then Fortuna and the Gamorrean, at least, begin to give chase.

Edited 2019-01-05 02:44 (UTC)

Hera is definitely not having a good feeling about any of this, but she follows him, reaching for the comm on her belt.

Once they're over the threshold, she flips it on. "I'm sending you coordinates now, meet us there -"

Chop's beeps in response nearly sing song 'I told you so.'

"Deeper into the streets and then up," Kanan says hastily, ducking down into an alley and skidding into the wall while shoving Hera briefly ahead of him.

"Less jumping onto the landing ramp that way."

And Gamorreans aren't the world's fastest stair-climbers, given the lack of flexibility in their knees.

One comforting thing is that so far, blasterfire hasn't followed them, just . . .

Okay, just the axe, and the screaming Twi'lek, but they both know that lack of blasters isn't going to last. "Laundry!" He ducks under heavy bed-hangings that are still wet, tugging down on the line behind them in hopes that it'll collapse on Fortuna and his crew.

Edited 2019-01-05 02:55 (UTC)

Hera feels worse about the laundry than she does the Gamorrean's bleeding face. Maybe that's something she should think about - but not right now.

There's a pulsing from her comm, Chopper signaling. Hera looks around, trying to find the tallest spot she can, but with the suns gone and darkness fallen over the town, it's hard to make out the buildings against the dark sky.

Lights are on in a few of the windows, and she finally spots one above the others. "That's probably the highest we'll get."

"You want to take the stairs?" Kanan asks, nodding toward a series of awnings nearby.

It's probably as close as they're going to get.

"You're not going anywhere," spits the Quarren, who drops down from an adjacent rooftop, brandishing a blaster.

There are other footsteps in the alley, and some more grunting, doubtless the frustrated sounds of a Gamorrean fed up with running. And, of course, Fortuna himself, huffing in deep lungfuls of air and looking remarkably put out.

This is . . . bad.

Edited 2019-01-06 02:30 (UTC)

Hera steps sideways, in front of Kanan, forcing him behind her. Her comm is pulsing faster -

- and she can hear it. A sharp turn of the wind in the distance.

But still she says, low, to him, "I'm sorry about this."

Fortuna starts to snarl something in Huttese that would probably resolve into "Oh, you'll be sorry," but Kanan speaks right over that.

"Never a problem," he says, even though maybe it's about to be. Life's full of surprises.

Hera looks back up to the Fortuna, the Quarren, and the Gamorrean, closing in on them. And then there's light.

And the dust road between them explodes. Lights blink on in the building around them, and she can hear the three calling out in surprise, scrambling away. Now she's the one who grabs Kanan's arm.

"Now, let's go!"

"I'm going!" he calls back, not hesitating at all as she tugs him onward.

"Looks like it's jumping onto the loading ramp again, huh?"

There are worse fates. So, so many worse fates.

And behind them, amidst the fountaining cloud of dust and the smell of ozone, rises a shrieking scream in Huttese. "The master is going to have you all killed!"

She holds onto Kanan with one hand, keeping her grip tight though her palm pulses painfully.

Her other snatches her blaster from her ankle holster.

"I can cover us, just help me get to the roof."

"Will do," Kanan says shortly, gripping back on her hand just as tightly and starting to tug her up the curve of the first awning. It only takes a moment before he reaches out into the Force, tightening his grip around their bodies and shoring up the cloth under their feet to keep them stable as they climb. It's less dramatic than flinging them up through the air, but it's also a lot less noticeable.

He can only hope that it'll be fast enough, but for the most part it seems to be.

"Hold on," he says sharply once they near the top, shoving Hera down flat and throwing himself down next to her. At practically the same instant a blaster bolt -- actually several blaster bolts -- spatter and scorch the awning they're just barely resting on.

"Right," Kanan says, after a moment, "up we go." They're almost there.

She lets him guide them up, turning away from him to fire back toward the three figures now below them. Close enough to force them back - she's not shooting to kill yet, though there's a second as she barely spots the outline of one white lekku, through the dust and debris, that her finger tightens on the trigger.

But again, she stops herself.

And then Kanan's pulling her down, and up, into the light of the Ghost above them, and Hera can't make out their pursuers any longer.