Chapter 589: The Will of the Force
It seemed like at some point in every story Jyren ever told there was a rooftop chase. Usually, Jyren had used the tops of buildings as a last resort and was barely surviving whatever it was trying to kill him. And also, usually, he ended up worse for wear after the rooftops. And it always bothered Tobias, because it seemed like that strategy had never worked, yet Jyren continually attempted it as if, magically, it would.
Once already, Tobias had actually discovered the tactical use of escaping on the rooftop of a building. It put distance between him and three very dangerous beings and gave him the time he needed to think. That had made sense. The attackers had been on foot and had to use conventional means to reach him. In that case, it had been a good plan.
But now, not five minutes later, Tobias was back on the roofs of Bestine’s buildings and confronted with an entirely different situation.
“Did you forget swoop bikes are actually in the air?” he had to yell at the robed woman in front of him due to the distance between them, “You know what that means right? Not attached to the ground?”
The Force assisting her once again, the woman leapt up from one building to another that was three stories taller. After a graceful landing, she called down to Tobias, “If you don’t want my help, feel free to stand still and do this yourself!”
Tobias jumped over a small gap between two low-level homes and continued to run. Why was he even following her in the first place? For that matter, why was a swoop now after him?! Part of him wanted Master Ral to have been there to help, but the rest of him knew that the Jedi Master likely would have made Tobias fix the situation himself. At this point, Tobias figured he should probably follow this mysterious woman if only to find out who she actually was.
A few more strides and he was drawing the Force to him again. One more step and he let the Force propel him upwards, coming to a landing almost exactly where she had moments later. Upon landing on the roof now four stories into Bestine’s sky, Tobias had started to run again. But he came to a sudden stop when he saw that the woman was standing a few meters away, casually leaning on her staff with that same smirk visible beneath the hood of her robe.
She lifted the staff and motioned at him with the bottom of it, “I expect you don’t carry that around just to impress girls, yes?”
Realizing she was speaking of his lightsaber, which Tobias still carried in his left hand, he nodded, “Yeah, but I’ve been trying not to use it...”
“Noble, but a bit stupid,” oddly enough, her voice made it sound like she admired him...even if the words didn’t agree, “Swoop gangs are not so noble, Jedi boy. We have the advantage up here, as their swoop bikes can’t hold this altitude for long, but you will still need that weapon because they will be trying to kill you.”
“How do you know...” he trailed off, then decided to ask a more pertinent question, “Why are they trying to kill me?”
The robes she wore ruffled in what was probably a shrug, “They are normally very tightly nit groups. An attack on one of them is seen as an attack on all of them. And really, its quite obvious what they intend...you should be able to feel that in the Force all by yourself.”
Tobias could feel it. Anger. Very pointed anger coming right for him. He was only a few blocks away from where the three others had been left unconscious, but the swoops had been gaining the whole time and that was how he could tell. Well, that and the sound. The distinct roaring of badly-maintained repulsorlift engines slowly growing as the swoop bikes got closer and closer.
As the sounds grew louder and louder, Tobias did what he’d been taught and assessed his surroundings. The roof of whatever this building housed was quite large. In fact, where most of the roofs of the homes and businesses he’d traversed were covered in the same tan, hardened-sand-like material, this one was plated with durasteel and there were two lift tubes off to one end. The construction of the roof combined with the size, and the fact that there were no raised sections beyond the lift tubes, suggested that this was used as a private landing pad. It could likely hold a smaller transport, but nothing larger. But no cover, and the only real advantage was the height of the building, being one of the largest in Bestine, along with most of the government buildings and other official places nearby.
Then the swoops arrived. They shot up vertically, from behind Tobias before leveling off a shooting past just a few meters overhead. As Tobias dropped and rolled to avoid the lower moving ones, he counted six, all carrying very dirty and well-armed beings of various species. Coming out of the roll, Tobias was still one knee but activated his lightsaber just in time to bat away an incoming blaster bolt.
Across the roof, he could see the woman had been ready for the swoops. With a simple motion of her arm, the lead swoop went flying off course and hard to its left. Its pilot made an intelligent mood, recognizing the swoop was out of control far too high into the air, and dove off before the thing careened away from the roof and eventually began to drop wildly to the rest of the city below.
Tobias was unable to watch what happened next, as two of the swoops whipped around to charge at him, their pilots using the handlebar-shaped controls to steady blaster rifles that were already beginning to fire. Standing, Tobias deflected two more blaster bolts before jumping up and placing his boot directly into the face of the first of the pilots to reach him. Another swoop went off pilot-less and Tobias spun his lightsaber vertically just as he landed, barely in time to take off the back end of the second swoop bike. But this pilot was not able to ditch his bike in time, and the last Tobias saw of him was a screaming Twi’lek desperately trying to get control of a smoking swoop that went tumbling off the roof.
By the time Tobias turned to deal with the first of the gang members he’d taken down, he noticed that there were no more swoops in the air. But that was all he had time to see before the dirty, beared human kicked Tobias hard in the gut. Tobias stumbled back a few steps, trying to recover quickly from the blow before anything else happened. The human wasn’t bothering to get up off of his back, rather he’d drawn a small blaster pistol and was already squeezing the trigger, at least that’s what the Force was screaming at Tobias about.
Tobias raised the blue-green blade of his lightsaber up in front of his face just in time, and the blaster bolt struck the roof right next to the human...who didn’t seem at all disturbed by this. Instead, the man continued to fire, but Tobias dodged the shots to the left and then kicked the blaster pistol out of the human’s hands. Then Tobias was left with a decision: cut the man down and quickly end one of his problems, or find a way to get him unconscious without killing the man.
Obviously, the latter had to be done, but before he could figure out how to go about that, considering the man was removing a vibroblade from his belt, the human’s body was yanked away. Tobias watched as the man slid all the way across the rooftop until his slammed into the feet of a very large Rodian. As the Rodian slammed into the man, a staff came down and gave both of them a very strong hit to the skull.
And as Tobias stood there, watching the robed woman move her staff from her left hand to her right and then rest on it again, he realized that she was surrounded by two of the swoop bikes, down and smoking, and the rest of the gang members, all unmoving.
Idly, she leaned against the staff and smiled at him again, “See? Catch them off guard and they never know what to do.”
The thrumming of Tobias’ lightsaber ended as he deactivated the weapon, though he kept the hilt in hand, “Do I get to know who you are now?”
“Hmm...” she stood there a few moments before stepping over an unconscious Trandoshan and walking over to where Tobias stood, “Wouldn’t it be more fun if I smile at you mysteriously then jump off the building and disappear, only to return again exactly when you least expected it?”
“Not really, no,” Tobias shook his head.
Jyren would have been proud of him for that answer. It had been perfectly blunt and honest to the point of sarcasm. Of course, Marix probably would have given Tobias a good smack to the back of the head for it...
But the robed woman did neither, instead laughing and tilting her head in a simple nod, “Alright, fine. You win.”
Casually, she reached up and pulled the hood of her robe back off of her head. Some part of Tobias had actually expected to see a familiar face. Maybe an Alraxian he hadn’t seen in years or a Knight sent to shadow him or something appropriately dramatic. Instead, Tobias was presented with a face he did not at all recognize. The woman looked to be just a couple of years older than he looked to be as a human, with soft features and shoulder-length, auburn hair. But the thing immediately noticeable was the piece of cloth, almost the same colour as her hair, that was wrapped around her entire head, under much of her hair, and completely covered her eyes and most of her nose.
The distinct smirk he’d seen so much already returned to her face and she bowed her head politely, “Corinna Sohvi.”
“Tobias,” he paused, confused still, then realized he should add a bit more to that, “Erm...BlueIce.”
Corinna failed to hold back a laugh, “Dare I ask what brings a young Jedi to this dustball and then drives him to annoy the natives?”
Now Tobias understood what had been bothering him about her. She was Miraluka, like Tokarr had been. That wasn’t a problem at all, but since the species saw through the Force, there was a constant odd feeling around them that Tobias just wasn’t used to. She wasn’t as much looking at him as she was clearly seeing him in a way that wasn’t really easy to mask. It was uncomfortable to be so...exposed.
Especially when she did look quite nice...
Just as he thought it, Tobias saw the grin on Corinna’s face grow even more, though she said nothing. Not that she needed to. He went a deep shade of crimson and tried to remember what question she’d asked him, “Uh...I uh...”
Of course, when he did remember a problem came up that made him stutter even more than he already had begun to out of nervousness. So Tobias decided to ask a question of his own, “You’re not a Jedi, are you...?”
For the first time, Corinna’s smile faded to be replaced with a very terse look. Through the Force, Tobias could feel she was immediately concerned with the situation.
Her voice only further proved that, “Would that be a problem for you?”
Would it?
It could. Maybe. She had helped and didn’t feel at all dangerous...not like Tokarr had. In fact, through the Force, Corinna felt almost exactly like most Jedi did. Calm, controlled, and quite strong. There was no hint of darkness at all. So was it bad if she wasn’t a Jedi?
“I...don’t know?” was the best Tobias could manage. He didn’t notice that he had phrased it as a question rather than a vague statement of uncertainty.
Corinna, however, did notice the way he raised his voice at the end of the sentence, and that smile returned, “Good answer. Care to take a few steps back and satisfy my curiosity about you?”
Though he caught none of the subtlety in that, Tobias did manage to go a bit more red before opening and closing his mouth a few times. Eventually, he realized she was asking for an answer to her earlier question, and so he attempted again, “I was uh...my Master and I...Jedi have gone missing...”
“Are you always so eloquent?” Corinna tilted her head to rest against her staff. Somehow, the eyeless, Force-only stare was more unnerving than any look Marix had ever given him before in his entire life.
“Um...no?” Tobias nearly cursed when he realized he’d said that, shook his head and tried to ignore Corinna’s laugh before he tried yet again, “I was trying to uh...find out information and find out what happened to the uh...the uh...other...guy...Jedi, that went missing and those guys came after me and then you uh...yeah.”
After recovering from the laughter and returning to a wide-mouthed grin, Corinna nodded a few times as he spoke and eventually said, “My mother used to say that the Force has a way of putting us in the right place at the right moment to do the right thing and...meet the right person,” she let that hang in the air for an uncomfortably long time before continuing, “I believe the Force is working on that lesson for you today, Jedi boy, because I just might be able to help you find what you’re looking for.”