Noventa - A Star Wars Story

Hin was in his usual spot, far away from the glitz, fun, and revelry of the Noventa Festival. Instead, he slung suds in the Wookiee's Codpiece like he always did. Another forlorn look crossed his face as he looked up at one of the monitors with some kind of broadcast. It seemed to be showing scenes from the festival.

"Must be nice to live in the capital," he murmured to himself, as he collected his tip in credits from a customer.

Still, the bar wasn't without its celebration. The underworld had just as much to celebrate about independence as the frontier folk. Indeed, some of them had been freedom fighters. Sure they were smugglers, but that didn't mean that some of them were a good sort. As he watched a table give a toast, Hin managed a smirk. He knew they weren't anything special. Just some low rung racketeers who didn't help anyone. But in his mind, Hin made them former valiant rebel fighters who before this life, had given it all up for the cause and settled into their little life here on Noventa.

He sighed. That was stupid, and he went back to serving drinks.

Clementine had been lying low, keeping his bulky presence off the streets and out of sight. But seeing him around the bar was more usual than not. He used one of his manipulator arms to raise a metal cup in a shared toast, although he delivered it a beat later than the others. "...to freedom!" He ambled away from the little knot of erstwhile conviviants, towards the bar, where he set down the cup. It was empty.

"Did you know anyone who fought in the Clone Wars?" he said to Hibinki, slightly less of a non-sequitur than people who dealt with him might be used to.

Hin was quiet for a moment, seeming to fall into memory.

"Yeah," he said with an edge. "I knew someone."

The usual hesitation he felt around droids seemed gone, replaced with a cold anger. "They didn't fight, but they were everywhere in the Clone Wars." Hin wanted to smash one of the glasses just thinking about them.

"The rebels never did anything for me, but I'm happy they won if only to make sure my owner didn't get..." he stopped and went back to his work. "Nevermind."

"Oh, a war profiteer," says Clementine, with the slight difference in his usually flat inflection that means he's using a term he's added to his vocoder's stored word-bank above and beyond its very limited defaults. "I have heard about those." He does his full-body nod, torso inclined, knees bending. "Someone I knew once said that owning someone is a..." and here he pauses and does something that Hin'biki might never heard before, speaking in a different voice. It doesn't sound any more human (the hardware's not physically capable of that), but it sounds like not-Clementine. "...legal travesty over a moral abomination, and furthermore, over a philosophical impossibility." He stands still after saying it, which could mean he's trying to figure out what the thing he just said means, or that he's watching Hin'biki to see how he reacts, or maybe just that he's run out of things to add to the conversation for now.

As Clem "spoke" Hin seemed to freeze, taking in every single word as it spilled out of the droid. His lekku curled and incurled in an intricate dance that could have meant any number of things, but definitely seemed to imply a level of disress. Finally, when Clem had finished, Hin just looked at the droid with a blank expression and gave a nod.

"I assure you....it's possible." He said with a tone that seemed to imply a complex combination of irritation, anger, acceptance, and fear. The edge in his voice subsided as he gripped the bar and stared through it. "You've got to know. Droids are mostly thought of as someones property."

He looked up at Clem. "We both were somemone's property."

There was a strange sense of understanding with those words. Like it was the first time the twi'lek had thought of things like this.

"Oh sure," says Clem with a little (for him) nod, as usual seemingly ignorant or immune to intensity on the other side of a conversation. "I have had lots of owners. That's what I told them, too! The ah guy ah droid who said that. What he meant was that it's bad and wrong and not really real." He clanged one loadlifting claw medium-gently across his chassis, causing his necklace of crushed restraining bolts to jangle, and leaned over the bar towards Hin'biki. "Just because the law says so does not mean they own me. Just because they 'bolt me, does not mean they own me." His tone or pacing doesn't really change, but the fact that his speech keeps going through a relatively complex thought is an emphasis all its own. "They can switch me off or break me down for parts, that does not mean they own me." He tilts slightly, his whole mass shifting in order to give the big black dome of his photoreceptor another angle on Hin'biki. Maybe he wasn't always as ignorant as he seemed.

Hin stood in silence for a moment weighing the words. He had a contemplative look on his face, though even as he pondered, he already knew he didn't quite believe what the droid said was true. Hin felt quite acutely the feeling of ownership when he had been a bound servant. It was something he still felt.

"I-," he made to say something when his eyes flashed to the monitor still presenting a journalist taking in the festivities. As the governor began his speech, and the static began to pervade, Hin made to approach the thing and give it a few mending taps. But no sooner did he put one foot forward then the steely imperial admiral took the stage.

Hin increased the volume over the din of the bar.

"Attention. This is Admiral Patrice Verlasso, of the Imperial Navy. We have come to seize all assets needed to continue the battle against the illegal Rebellion. This is now an Imperial system, with all protections of peace and order given. All this requires is your cooperation."

Hin backed up into the bar, "No.....no, no, nonononono"

A hand was at his lips as he finally managed to pull his eyes from the screen and dashed into the back. Clanging began to follow, followed by more, and depending on the sensitivity of Clem's sensors, the definite sound of panicked footsteps running too and fro.

Clementine took longer to process the message than Hin, but not much longer than the rest of the crowd. The Codpiece's other employees and patrons were a kaleidoscope of reactions, admittedly mostly in shades of confused and upset. There is a moment after a large crowd receives a shock where it might get ugly -- panic, randomly or purposefully directed violence, looting -- that someone like Kaneesa might know how to smooth over.

Clementine just increases the gain on his speaker until it fills the bar.

"HEY." A few heads turned."HEY, EVERYBODY." The bar did not exactly become quiet, but nothing was loud enough to be louder than Clementine.

"THE IMPERIALS AREN'T HERE. I AM. IF YOU WANT TO DRINK, STAY HERE. IF YOU WANT TO DO SOMETHING ELSE, TAKE IT OUTSIDE." He paused. "YEAH, OKAY, THAT'S IT."

And with that, assuming there was no immediate demand for violence, he went to follow Hin. Either a friend needed some help, or an erstwhile employee needed to be brought in to line.

Kaneesa pokes a sleepy snout out of the back room to the sound of Clem's booming speakers. He is tired and a bit hung over after last night's escapade. "What's all this then?"

Kaneesa watched as the events transpiring in downtown were occuring, and a grim realization began to set in. "Oh sithspit..." he mutters to himself. Things would be changing. He would need to work the crowd a bit.

"A'right folks! Like the good droid said, the Imps ain't here. I would like to see them try to hold P-town, amirite?" Kaneesa raises a drink. "T'day, we supposed to celebrate our independence! But every so often, we get a nice big reminder that it ain't free...but ya know what? We're P-town! We pass that bill back onto those trying to collect!"

Kaneesa makes a pose, putting one leg up on a chair.

Inspire the crowd-Leadership (awaiting difficulty): 4eA+1eF 3 successes, 1 advantage, 2 Dark Side

Hin appears from storage with a bulging rucksack slung over his shoulder. A piece of produce falls out as he steps up to the register, inputs his code and pulls out a credit stick to get his tips from the till. The whole process takes only a minute before he shoves the stick into his boot and vaults over the bar. He looks back at the bar and its patrons in a mixture of emotions.

He looked at Clem....then to Kaneesa. The eyes of a scared child peer out of Hin's suddenly even more youthful features. His words are lost in the din, but through it all, the gungan could at least make out a mouthed "I'm sorry"

Then the twi'lek was gone. He bolted for the door, slinging the other strap of the shoulder around his other arm, better shifting its weight. It was time to run....and never stop. Even at the furthest edge of the galaxy he couldn't get away, but he could try.

"Awww sithspit." Kaneesa races to the door, trying to head off Hin. "Hin wait, we're going to get through this!"

It briefly occurs to Kaneesa that he has an audience, but the honest truth works just the same.

"Hin, you are one my people. My crew!" The last part is said with honest emphasis. "That counts for something. Don't think that I've been ignoring how much you've been breaking your back here. That earns something, 'round here. Yer' family, and we don't let bantha exhaust ports like those kriff with family!"

Kaneesa gestures with his chin. "If you have to go, I understand, but kid, take it from me: some day, you have to stop running away from things and run towards somethin' instead. And I'll be here at least till you find what that is."

Inspire Hin'biki-Leadership-Influence: 4eA+1eF 2 successes, 2 advantage, 1 Dark Side

There was almost wild panic in his face as he was stopped and he tried darting, but as the gungan spoke Hin, at the very least listened. He wasn't immediately running, but that didn't mean the thought wasn't still on his mind.

"I-I-I can't stay! You don't understand! He'll find me! He sells weapons to them! All the weapons, and he'll come and he'll get me and he'll kill everyone! I can't stay, I can't go back!"

Clementine hadn't gotten to the back before Hin'biki emerged, keeping turning towards him and moving forwards, never succeeding in plotting an intercept. He ends up, as is so often the case, looming behind Kaneesa's shoulder.

He lets the boss do the talking, mostly. He does add, somewhat anticlimactically after Kaneesa's piece, "If anyone comes for you I will flatten them, just like always. Would not be the first time I have flattened a bucket-head, no, not the first time."

There is an almost manic gleam in Kaneesa's eyes. For all the times that Hin'biki has seen his "boss", this might be the first time that the Gungan has seemed very far away, and there is something...cruel.

"Let them come."

"You c-can't be around all the time. One of them is going to spot me and I just...." his breathing was heavy and his heart was pounding. He could feel the walls closing in.

"I'm going back! He's going to torture me! He'll torture me and then kill me!" Hin swayed slightly and put a head to his head. His breathing getting more erratic. The weeks of long hours, skipping meals, no sleep, and now this was too much. His vision narrowed, and the noise of the bar seemed to fade. And finally his eyes went glassy and he stumbled into a fall forward, into a complete blackout.

Kaneesa immediately dives forward. He does not so much "catch" Hin, as much as the Twi'lek falls on him in order to cushion his fall.

"You dummy." Kaneesa gives his employee an affectionate slap on the cheek. "Come on, you're done with your shift." Kaneesa starts to pull Hin away, motioning to Clem. "You need to rest..."

The lithe form felt like almost nothing, and it was clear that Hin was almost entirely passed out. He stirred slightly at the slap, but otherwise couldn't bring himself to full consciousness. It was the only way his body could return to normal was to completely shut down. Hin might have been incredibly embarrassed with the scene he'd just made in front of the bar, well...the half that cared to pay attention. Most still muttered, and whispered, and shouted plans of action now that everything had changed.

Hin might have been thankful for the distraction as well, but as it was he hadn't a care in the world in his unconscious state.

Clementine takes Hin'biki from Kaneesa with a gentleness that would surprise only those who hadn't seen him lift crates coded as "delicate." Cradled in his giant loader arms, his slim form is dwarfed by the droid, who turns a full hundred and eighty degrees around and moves towards the back door. Clementine moves with steady purpose, and gawkers and the inattentive alike are forced to make way.

Clementine goes to the basement, rather than Hib'biki's room, and lays him down on the couch. In a crisis, after all, one hits the mattresses.