Chapter Text
Crouching next to one of the many stormtrooper bodies littering the alley, Arali wiped the sweat off her brow and groaned at the dry heat of Tatooine.
“What we do to piss of the Empire?” Arali asked, nudging the— still twitching— corpse with the edge of her sheathed vibroblade. Her sister walked by, a tanned, gold hand slapping the back of her head.
“Don’t play with it.” E’ra sighed at her, leaning down to examine a blaster. “I don’t know what’s going on, but I feel like we need to pay our contact a visit after this.” She said, throwing it back into the growing pile. “This was a damn setup if I’ve ever seen one.”
“Oh, yeah, good job! It only took ya ten stormtroopers to finally realize.” Arali huffed.
“I figured it out on the fifth, don't worry.” E’ra replied sarcastically, rolling her eyes. “Still better than you, anyways.”
“That hurts!” She mock gasped, before she started laughing.
“You couldn't shoot your way out of a crowded cantina, kiddo.” E’ra countered, sparing a smile for her younger sister. She stopped for a moment, glancing over to the other woman. “Did you get hurt?”
“Eh,” Arali shrugged, running a hand along the singed edges of her shirt. “Few blaster burns from being so close, but nothing that hasn't healed already.” Arali replied, shrugging off her sister’s worry. “You?”
“Same for me, a couple bruises from getting into hitting range, but nothing I can't handle.” She said, brushing a lock of red hair out of her face. The cut she had received from the butt of a blaster to the head was already healed, the blood smeared around her eye the only evidence it had even happened. “Damn… these bastards knew how they were supposed to take us down.”
“They definitely knew how to fight us.”Arali sighed. “Think it's someone from the old guild who turned us in?”
“More like someone in the guild right now— I'm putting my money on that bastard of a Mandalorian.” E’ra growled, lip curling slightly. “Always said we didn't deserve one of his ships, like he owns the whole damn galaxy.” The pursuer-class enforcer was practically her baby, the one thing in her life that she owned— and the one place she called home. She looked down at her datapad, swearing loudly as an alert flashed on the screen. “I swear, I'll wring his meaty neck if it is him! No one touches my Svātantryaṁ, not without losing their damn hands and feet.”
Arali moved, looking over her shoulder at her sister's datapad. “ Looks like the silent alarm been tripped, they've detained it.” She hummed, sliding the datapad from her sister. “Let's see– yep! Trackers working.”
“Please tell me she's not in a river or sinkhole— one time was enough for her hull, and I'm still getting sand out of her panels!” She replied, trying to understand the common flashing on the screen. “Can't that thing speak Firrerrese?”
“ You know it can't, this is a newer model. Firrerrese isn't a language widely used anymore.” Arali sighed. “You really should learn common better, it's the galactic standard.” She said, giving her sister a meaningful look before looking back at the datapad. “It's still on planet, but there is no way we can get it back with as much manpower as they have.”
“I’d like to have a few words with the ‘galactic standard’ on which languages they can just take off the list— and I've tried to learn it, I can speak it just fine… reading it is just not as easy.” She didn't have to tell her sister about all the times she had tried to work on common, only to end up with a migraine for an hour a few painful minutes of glaring at the datapad. “You work on who the hell ratted us out to the Empire, I'll work on getting us out of this damn sandpit as quickly as possible. That cantina we passed must be only about ten minutes away… or an hour, depending on how fast we go.”
“Well, we might as well head out now before this horrible fucking planet decides to throw something else at us.”
E’ra had to smile, shaking her head for a moment before holstering her blaster. “My money is on a sandstorm.”
“You just had to say it!” Arali screamed over the wind, voice muffled from the heavy scarf around her face. Both ran from the harsh clouds of sand that whipped around them, the worst of the small scale storm gaining on them. “Oh! It could take 10 minutes to an hour!” She mocked in a imitation of her sister’s deeper voice. “Bet there's gonna be a sandstorm!”
“Be glad I just said a sandstorm— and don't you dare blame me for this when I was the one who didn't even want to come back to this place!” E’ra replied, clutching the bandanna she had tied around her mouth closer to block out the dust. “I wanted to walk away from this planet and never look back two months ago, but no, we had to get some credits on this nasty sand trap of a planet. This place shouldn't even exist; shouldn't everyone have died out already?”
“How the fuck should I know?”
“I don't know, but I hate everything that spawned from this damn shithole!” E’ra screamed, scowling hatefully behind her makeshift mask. She squinted against the burning sand, barely able to see the Cantina in front of them. “Thank The Lady— we’re here.”
“Yes!” Arali cried, running to the door and pushing it open with a gust of sand. Both women ignored the angry sound of the crowd as they struggled to close the door against the shrieking winds.
“Hey!” the bartender yelled angrily, gesturing toward the pile of sand in the doorway.
“Are the other people working here just for show?” E’ra growled, glaring at him for a moment as she bared her teeth. “Don't put the place in the middle of a desert if you don't like the sand.”
She kept the scrap of fabric tied around her mouth as she gathered her bearings, a small barrier between her and whoever the hell would be giving intel back to the person that stabbed them in the back. If it was Fett, and Lady of Life help him if it was, he'd have known that they wouldn't have gone down easily. Hell, this could easily be his way of warning them to stay away from the guild now that they'd turned their backs on the politicking and underhanded tricks that permeated every job they took. She knew the odds it was him were high, and she was going to have to pay him back for the homecoming present.
Arali elbowed her sister, gesturing toward the miffed bartender and giving him a smile. They both knew that they weren't here on normal business, having them both coming in armed to the teeth and still slightly bloody. Booze was a common denominator in all cultures though, so a once over glance was enough before he asked them what they wanted.
“Just give us something cheap to wash the fucking dust down.” E’ra said, giving a small look to her sister as she tried to find someone they could approach without being murdered on sight.
“Give me two of that something cheap.” Arali called to the bartender, shaking off the layer of sand before sitting at the bar. “And you,” Arali gestured to E’ra, “sit.”
“I’d rather not.” E’ra muttered, leaning instead against the counter to watch the crowd. Most of the occupants of the Cantina had lost interest, having turned back to what they had been doing the moment to one pulled a blaster.
“Come on, lighten up sis!” she smirked to E’ra, nudging her shoulder before knocking back one of the two shots in front of her. “We just walked through a mild sandstorm, and I got a great feeling ‘bout this place, one of those nice tingly ones.”
E’ra rolled her eyes, tossing the shot back as quickly as possible before motioning for another one. “You know,” she muttered as she wiped the sand off of her pants, “I can never tell if you're talking about sex or luck… if it's the former, leave me the hell out of it.”
“Na, this one feels like something big ya know, like some destiny shit led us here to this equally shitty cantina.”
“Oh, so it's one of your ‘magic’ feelings then?” E’ra asked, raising her eyebrows. “You might be putting too much faith in those, you know.”
“It hasn't failed us yet.”
“We just about got our asses kicked. I know you like to downplay this kind of thing, but we almost got our asses kicked.”
“Yeah, well I got us to the right place.” She hummed, before grinning at her sister. “I had a feeling that guy was there and he was, not my fault he was there with his thug friends to.”
“Tell your feelings to start being more specific, like if they'll be ready to take my baby.” She huffed under her breath, downing another shot as she pinched the bridge of her nose. “Do they know where we can find a pilot before we’re captured, or is that up to us to figure out.”
“Well it's not like I can pick and choose-” The loud bang of a blaster had both women turning, hands going to their weapons. A Rhodian was on the ground, chest smoking as the man in the booth holstered his blaster.
“Huh..” Arali said, tilting her head. “I wonder who shot first?”
“Looks like the owner will have more to clean up than a little bit of sand,” E’ra said, chuckling under her breath as she slipped her own blaster back into its holster. “Lady of Life… have mentioned how much I fucking hate this planet?”
“Yeah, ya may have mentioned that.” Arali muttered,rolling her as she looked down at the dirty bar, a sense of familiarity pulling at the back of her mind. A sense of vertigo pulled at her, making her grip the counter in a white knuckled grip.
It was like she'd done this before, or at least had this conversation. Even the stains on the bartop and smell of burnt flesh and discharge from the blaster were like something she was remembering. She shook the thought away, frowning to herself— this was the same dirty cantina in every dust covered town on Tatooine, right down to random fights and terrible music. The entire planet was like someone copied the same crime-ridden cities over and over again until they felt it looked inhabited enough and called it a day, so there was no use trying to remember when she'd been there.
“I think we should talk to that guy.” Arali says, blinking away the black spots from her eyes and standing.
“Wait, ya mean the guy who just shot the other one? That one?” Era asked, eyebrows raised before seeing the look on her sister's face. “Swej.” she cursed, downing another shot before standing with her sister.