Log:Sneaking
Sneaking
OOC Date: October 29, 2016
Location: Nar Shaddaa
Participants: Sesti Gath, Ambrosia Greystorm
The Burnt Hole - Nar Shaddaa First things first. This room is entirely burnt to a charred black crisp. What was once a cramped hallway leading into a slightly more open storeroom is now the same, only entirely burnt up with everything in it either gone or burned beyond recognition. There's a desc in the center of the room, black as space, nearly nothing left but particles of soot holding hands. However, upon the desk is a pristine white piece of parchment, folded once and standing on its edges in a /\ shape. The note has a little message scribbled onto it in Basic. The room otherwise is destroyed, stinking of old fire and dead life.
The rats go undisturbed by the latest occupant of this dark stretch of alley, left to snarf down scraps from the Cracked Hull. Ambrosia pauses, hand hovering over her hip as she listens intently for a moment, one foot already through the threshold. Rat? Rat. Her frown deepens, but she resumes slipping through the hole in the wall and huddles down, three paces to the right of the entrance. An aching knee bends, black pants growing blacker with soot, and she veeery slowly and carefully dislodges one piece of fallen timber from its placement on the floor. It's a cache.
Having dark hair and wearing darker clothes than last time Amber saw her, the still form of the zabrak woman watches Amber go by. The ones she had ducked back here to hide from are gone along their way, but she had waited longer just to be sure. When footsteps had come down the alley, her hand had gone to her knives, ready to fight her way out. But it's not her adversaries, it's her mother-in-law... which some might consider the same thing. Sesti relaxes her hold on her knife, settling it back tightly in its sheath. She ducks down for a better look through the hole in the wall, waiting for Amber to get into her cache before making any move.
Without bothering to blow/wipe or any other time-wasting removal of ash from the little box she lifts free, Greystorm Sr opens the lid and exchanges what's inside for something out of her ... shirt. Tits this old have been decommissioned for awhile, but serve well enough as pick-pocket-free storage space! Ambrosia squints at it in the darkness, holding it aloft to a sliver of light that goes washing by the entrance. Damn searchlights can be useful now and again. She nods to herself while shrugging off her canteen's strap and gingerly laying the water aside while she stows the prize back into her bosom. Next task: returning the box to its nest, soot disturbed as little as possible.
As the woman is starting to replace the box in the cache, Sesti steps from where she was hiding, towards the hole. Her attention on the woman as she skirts a larger heap of rubbish parts, she misses one of the smaller pans that had slid down the pile, and she steps on the corner of the dark metal. She stops as she feels it flip up and holds her breath as she tries to lift her foot slowly enough to lower it back flat to the ground without making any noise, but there's a definite clank of steel on concrete; quiet, but somehow out of place nonetheless. Scarf over her nose to keep the noxious fumes of the moon at bay, she hopes the lack of visible skin will help hide her as she quicksteps to the wall beside the hole.
All motion within the crispy room halts immediately.
Glittering green eyes swivel left, head still frozen in its chin drop, hands still atop the plank of wood. After a moment of held breath, Ambrosia exhales thinly through her nose and one hand sliiides up the length of her thigh to nudge aside the guard on her holster. The madeover pistol is slid partially out and her face lifts to regard the hole with a deadpan stare. "...I see you." She doesn't. The cache 'hidden' away once more, she crab walks two steps nearer, back flat against the wall, body low. "Can't a junky get her fix in peace 'round here? Huh? Go on and get!" More silence then, from the Major while she listens and waits, trigger finger getting all the more antsy.
Her cover blown, Sesti swears under her breath, and glances around the alley. A couple feet away, she sees it, and she stoops down, a hand reaching out. Her fingers wrap around the end of the chain, her eyes following it to the end of its length to make sure it will come free. Once assured, she tightens her grip and yanks, snaking it around with a clatter into the hole, the links teetering through the air at shin height. She follows her distraction, other arm ready to block, or to grab for a weapon as she charges into the hole.
The blaster whips out on a kneejerk reflex, Amber flinching away from the chain as it comes suddenly snapping through the hole. Doesn't quite fall over, though, as a stabilized ball'o'foot becomes her saving grace. She doesn't shoot, either. Finger halted just soon enough to avoid discharging plasma at a frickin chain. The humanoid blur to follow though gets a warning shot popped off that whizzes by their head. Yeah. Warning shot. That's what it's called when the damn thing fires wide, right?
The figure in the leather armored tunic and brown jumpsuit underneath crouches down, still holding the chain and a brace of vibroblades at her hips. Left hand raises defensively, and the chain rests on the ground behind where the right hand clutches it low. In the dim light, who knows if those eyes are purple or some other color. One foot scuffs over the lid of the cache, tapping it.
Their positions have switched up in the brief dance, Ambrosia now with her right side facing the hole and Sesti standing over the crumbled beams that guard her cache. The sudden start has sent the Major's cold heart a'racing and she heaves a few heavy breaths. One hand steadily aims the pistol, shining that piercing tac light beam between the shadowy figure's eyes. How’s THAT for spotlight? Ambrosia squints, face skewed into a look of growing befuddlement.
"...Are you out of your damn mind?" The gruff woman sounds downright annoyed at this revelation of person. The pistol gets holster before it punches a hole through her son's bride.
The hand tightens on the chain and it twitches as the pistol raises, swinging towards the hand that raises it, but when it goes back down, Sesti checks the swing, the chain slams into the floor. Her eyeride raises at the question. "So. Not, in fact, dead," she states firmly. "Besides, I would not have married into this family if was in my right mind, would I? It is a necessary thing, being out of your mind, to run with the Greystorms." She still plays with the weight of the chain, flicking it on the ground, like a kid with a new toy, now.
"That's fair," Ambrosia shrugs her head. She flicks a glance to that chain, her own hand feeling a little uneasy now. One thumb slips into a heavy, metal loop of something shiny clipped to her belt. Her left boot slide a bit out, widening her stance before meandering a few cautious steps that way. She continues to watch Sesti like a hawk. "How long you been following me?"
There's a shrug from the zabrak, and, now that she has more room, she lifts the chain to give a flick, feeling the weight of the chain. "Long enough." She grins and nods to the floor. "Long enough to see your secret stash." The chain flicks again, with a more whiplike motion, trying to snap it. "Why all the melodrama? You have been wanted for a long time by many people. This is nothing new for you."
"This time we're living inside the nest of those hungry beasts. On a moon surrounded by many, many more sources of enemy reinforcement. This ain't a hit and run op." Major Greystorm glowers at Sesti's boot hovering there over her cache. "This is a stay and pray."
Hah. Pray. Is it in her vocabulary?
"Now get off of that before you break something."
Sesti smirks and shifts her foot just enough to be off the plank. "What is in there?" she wants to know, still playing with the chain, flicking it, and starting to get the hang with it. She looks up at Amber, and tilts her head to the side. "Not buyin' it," she adds in an approximation of her husband's accent.
"It's not for you. And quit making so much damn noise," Amber finally snaps after listening to the third 'clank'rattle' of the chain with a squinty wince. She steps forward.
Sesti swirls the chain in a circle and then gives a flip to her wrist, and catches the other end so that it's hanging from her hand, folded in half. "It is a bit rusty," she observes. "Good thing I did not hit you. Rust is hard to wash out of your clothes. I did not think it was for me." She steps back to wall next to the entrance. "Testy. A little more so than usual."
Ambrosia looks between the 'hidden' box and Sesti like she's deciding whether or not she ought relocate it. "This IS the usual." Truth, as she bends aside to scoop up her canteen and sling it over a shoulder. "Held up the other act for twenty-six years, for the kids' sakes."
Sesti looks at the stash again, and then shakes her head, her shoulders stiffening slightly. "I am not curious enough to sacrifice my honor," she mutters at the woman, and turns away, folding the chain in half yet again. "What act?" she asks shortly, leaning against the wall and crossing her arms, chain hanging over her left elbow.
"The 'Aunty A', adoring wife and mother of three beautiful children. Smiling and laughing to toasts of merriment with Kort's friends...Masquerading as a good parent only to disappear on 'holidays' to make a hit for some under-the-table deal with old Republic contacts..." Ambrosia mutters with a sardonic tone and scuffs up the area around the cache, trying to restore it to its original look.
"Ah." The corners of the eyes crease, the scarf lifting a little on the cheekbones. There's a tiny, strangled sound underneath it. "I am sorry, but I cannot see that. It is not something I can even visualize." Her fingers curl a little tighter around her elbows and chain, her shoulders give one, little, shudder.
"Probably for the best." Seeming more or less satisfied that boot prints have been smoothed over, Major Greystorm retrieves her canteen and slips the strap over her head. "Spares a lot of disappointment." She pauses at the crumbling entrance to the alley, listens, then ducks out and into the dark beyond. And then? The sound of pattering water as she rinses the soot off her hands, knees, face, and cleans away evidence of her visitation to the place.
Ducking out behind Amber before she erases signs of her presence so that her footsteps can be erased as well. She gives the chain a little spin, considers, then drops it back in the trash that litters the alleyway. "Just do not die any time soon, and I will be satisfied. I am not planning on having grandchildren for you any time soon, so you will just have to stick around a few more years." She looks to the woman again, and raises a hand to gesture to some of the different places where metal holds the woman together. "Need a tune-up before you disappear again for who knows how long?"
Ambrosia shakes the last few drops of the canteen into her mouth then lets it bounce harmlessly down against her hip. "I'm never far away," she replies, one hand reaching unabashed to doublecheck the security of the hidden thing down her shirt. "I'm Resistance." Her eye catches Sesti with a wink. Okay, so maybe a /tiny/ bit of that 'act' was real.
