The problem with explosions was that they tended to draw all sorts of attention. From the bystanders who would easily be able to identity her (since there wasn’t exactly a surplus of Twi’leks on Cellondia), to the law enforcement goons whose sirens Ayli could already hear blaring to life in the distance. 

In theory as the assaulted party, law enforcement should have been on her side. In practice however, they were almost uniformly on the side of the people who signed their paychecks, who in turn were rarely, if ever, interested in people involved in lowering property values, no matter whether they were the perpetrators or the victims. 

“We both know you’re not going to tell me anything about who hired you,” Ayli said, mindful of how little time she had left. “All I want to know is how much.”

“How…what?” the only conscious assassin asked.

“How much were you offered for the job?” Ayli said. “Tell me that, and you can start running. The law thugs are going to get your partners. There’s no chance they get away with the state they’re in now. If you’re fast though they won’t get you too.”

“I don’t know how much it was,” the assassin said. “Not exactly. It was a big score though. Like retire for a year big, from what Moklar said.”

The assassin was frozen in place, but Ayli could feel the barely suppressed terror radiating from him. Being held at lightsaber point wasn’t a fun experience in general, but the assassin knew how tenuous is position was. All Ayli needed to do was flick the blade forward a few inches and he’d be looking for a new body to mount his head on.

“Good enough,” Ayli said. “Door’s behind you. I suggest heading down. They’ll have flyers patrolling who’ll catch you quick if you try for the roofs.”

The assassin hesitated, understandably Ayli thought. If there was ever a time when he was likely to get murdered it would be the instant he turned his back on the person threatening him with the glowing plasma blade.

Ayli shut the blade off and waited. 

He was completely safe with her, provided he didn’t make the same stupid mistake desperate people so often did.

In a shocking display of basic survival instincts, the assassin did not go for any of the hold out weapons Ayli could sense he carried. Instead, he got to the door, waited an instant to make sure it wasn’t a trap, and then turned and plunged through it.

Ayli couldn’t tell if he went for the stairs down or up, but he retreated enough that he was no longer her problem. Or possibly anyone else’s. It had felt right to give him a another chance. The Force didn’t provide any clarity on whether he would use it well or poorly – that decision lay with him and awaited him the uncertain waters of the future.

“Will he draw the law enforcers away?” Kelda asked.

“Probably not,” Ayli said. “They’ll be searching the scene here and finding the first two assassins is going to tie them up for a while.”

“And you? I feel like you have a plan for removing yourself from the vicinity as well.”

“I wasn’t lying about the roofs being a bad idea, but I was exaggerating how long it will take them to get flyers up to search them.” Ayli said and Force Leapt to the roof of the building across the courtyard.”

“How can you tell that?”

“The sirens are coming by ground. Maintaining an aerial fleet of patrollers is more costly, only really nice places with stuff worth spending a lot of money to protect tend to go in for those. They won’t scramble costly assets until the ground forces call for them and that’ll only happen after the preliminary investigation.” Ayli cast around for a moment, spied the proper sort of building five rooftops away and began making less obvious leaps to reach it.

“That was how the Empire worked?” Kelda didn’t need to worry about crossing the distance like Ayli did. She simply trailed along invisibly over Ayli’s shoulder.

“Oh, not at all,” Ayli said. “If the Imperials bothered to put a city under their direct patrol, they were focused on crushing it. Aerial surveillance was constant and they’d have droids sniffing out the sewers too. Whatever it took, they’d find enough people ‘involved in treason’ to make for an ‘effective’ public execution spectacle.”

“That doesn’t seem sustainable.”

“It didn’t have to be. All they were looking for was to create informants and satiate the appetites of the base of people who welcomed autocratic rule. All the places they didn’t bother with making an example of, they left to the local security forces, who ultimately reported to them anyways. The local forces didn’t have the same budgets though, so they were always easier to work around.”

“And that’s changed since the Empire fell?”

“In some places? Sure. It depends a lot on how many people embraced the Empire compared to how many have a drop of compassion in their blood. I’ve seen a few ex-Imperial planets that had enough of the second type to make things work. And a few that definitely did not. Reform is tough, but it’s possible if people put in the time and energy. Well, if they put in enough time and energy and someone deals with all the Imperial-wannabes who will try to sabotage them.”

Ayli landed on a building with a rooftop garden and a door leading inside. She paused a moment, reaching out with the Force, searching for signs of any inhabitants, only to find a party in full swing one level below them.

“There’s a question we should be considering,” Kelda said.

“Yeah. How did those assassin’s know where to find me?”

“And who sent them.”

“I’m going to go with Darsus,” Ayli said. “No one else has come after us in months.”

“That’s the most reasonable assumption, but how would a Force Ghost arrange a meeting with assassin’s he’d never met before?”

“Maybe that’s why whoever it is possessed Darsus?” Ayli turned her attention to the street below them. Foot traffic was moving erratically, some trying to move towards the explosion to see what had occurred, some trying to move away from it so that it wouldn’t become their problem. “He’s got to have connections to a lot ethically questionable people.”

“Ethically questionable people who would want to see a hard currency chit or easily marketable valuables I imagine. Force projections are notably lacking in either of those.”

“That’s a valid point.” Ayli felt as much as saw the opening that she needed appear and hurled herself off the top of the building without a second’s hesitation. He’d have to have a local associate for things like that.”

As she landed, Ayli assumed a walking posture and joined segment of the crowd which was pressing away from the explosions. In theory, she knew she could have asked the Force to mask her presence. While the Dark Side was exceptionally good at that, bein unobtrusive wasn’t a necessarily “Dark” ability, especially if there was no malice in the intent. 

With the right sort of attitude though, there was no need to trouble the Force for an assist. With an unhurried stride, Ayli looked like someone who had nothing in particular to hide and nowhere to be urgently.

Which was sufficiently boring that no one had any reason to give her a second thought.

No one except the driver of the of truck which jumped the curb, intent on plowing through the crowd to get to her.

Catching a speeding truck was a lot harder than it sounded.

Size mattered not from what Kelda had taught her.

Velocity on the other hand?

Force pushing a truck which was intent on moving forward to crush her was theoretically no more difficult than lifting a single rock. In neither case was Ayli the one who was doing the lifting. The Force flowed freely on Cellondia. To it, a pebble or a mountain were functionally the same. 

But to Ayli they weren’t.

She was only a tiny presence in the Force, and only knew how to call on, what felt like, a tiny bit of it. That tiny bit was enough to shove aside everyone who was in between her and the truck, with just enough left over to cushion the impact, but that was the extent of what she was able to manage.

The building behind her sold overprice speeder bikes. It was not terribly pleasant being rammed through the front wall of the shop, what felt like the majority of the stock they had on hand and then the back wall of the shop as well.

The truck would have kept moving but the debris it plowed through had been crammed up into its engine compartment and severed a number of necessary linkages. Instead it simply pinned Ayli to the remains of the wall and set the flammable bits of wreckage underneath it on fire.

“Kelda! Could use a hand here!” Ayli said, trying to lift the broken truck away but feeling exhausted from the effort of simply surviving.

“Don’t try to move the truck. Push the rest of the wall at your back away. It’s mostly broken already.”

Which was rather helpful Ayli decided.

Slipping a hand behind herself (unnecessary as that was), she reached out and shoved. The pressure she was under loosened instantly, sending her tumbling backwards. 

The flames in the shop hit a rack of fuel cells and fire shot everywhere. Ayli wondered if the driver would survive, only for that worry to be cut short as a droid tore itself loose from the driver’s compartment and began clawing a path through the flaming rubble to get to her.

“Droids should not be able to do that,” Ayli said, keenly aware of the behavioral control modules installed in any droid which controlled potentially life threatening equipment from the number of times she’d subverted those modules to send haywire droids against Imperial encampments and garrisons.

“Then you had best run if you’re still able to.”

“I’m going to have to be,” Ayli said, feeling a stitch in her side which she did not like.

“This alleyway is clear of droids and people,” Kelda said, standing at its mouth.

“For now,” Ayli said, with the distinct feeling that she was being herded somewhere she did not want to go.

“Can you make it back to the ship?” Kelda asked.

“I can, but I’m not going there yet,” Ayli said, calculating where she was and how to get to the parts warehouse where she might find a clue to Nix’s location.

“Anywhere we go will put innocents in danger,” Kelda said.

“Not anywhere. There’s one place we can head where no one innocent will be around to hurt,” Ayli said, struggling to find a calm breath inside her.

“Darsus may only be a projection here too,” Kelda said.

“Possibly, probably, but there has to be someone he’s working through. Take that person out and we can get back to finding Nix and Ravas without destroying the town in the process.” 

The problem with alleyways is that they’re only so long. 

And they allow travel in very specific direction.

Ayli could have been surprised when an armored police van pulled up and blocked the end of the alley.

She could have been hopeful that help had arrived.

She could have made a lot of mistakes like that.

She’d seen a lot of people make mistakes like that.

She hadn’t seen any of them live to regret those mistakes though which was why she didn’t bother with hoping or being surprised.

She simply crashed through the nearest door in time to avoid the barrage of blaster cannon fire which ripped through the alleyway.

“Oh good. You’re still alive!” said a human male dressed in the shabbiest of formerly white robes Ayli had ever seen.  “Let’s see about keeping you that way.”