Samurai Flamenco (Star Wars AU) - Anything But Ordinary [Chapter 3] [Gotoyoshi]

[scriveyner]

Title: Anything But Ordinary - Chapter 3
Fandom: Samurai Flamenco
AU: Star Wars AU
Characters/Pairing: Gotou/Masayoshi, Mari, Mizuki, Moe
Rating: M
Length: 1459
Summary: "I thought Jedi were forbidden attachments."



-3-


A human and a droid were not an unusual sight to be seen on Senlin, so Masayoshi didn't draw much attention. He had the cowl of his cloak up again, which again wasn't unusual - at least half the people he passed wore cloaks or hoods of some kind, against the chill night air and the precipitation that seemed to hang in the humid air.

Or to simply disguise their identity, as Masayoshi was.

He'd known Mari when she was a pop star, an idol singer; her Clawdite form disguised as human, young and cute and vulnerable. She'd shifted identities now, while still keeping human form. Humans were everywhere, they were unremarkable, even in their variety of skintones and hair color. He wouldn't be able to find her easily, but the chip he'd had Sunny look at, disconnected from the ship's computer (just in case), gave a bay number, at a docking port on the other side of the city.

It seemed suspicious to him that a Resistance fighter would so easily give a piece of information that could be traced; but Mari was reckless enough to do something like that.

He wanted to talk to her again, without Gotou-san there; he wanted the ammunition to take back, to try to convince him that this was the right move. He still didn't know all that much about the pilot, Gotou was tight-lipped about himself, but even so Masayoshi considered him a friend now. They'd been together almost three months, riding the trading lanes, and it was the longest Masayoshi had spent in any one person's company since his grandfather died.

And he knew, that this was what they were supposed to do.

Sunny beeped and whistled and suddenly zipped right past Masayoshi, turning a corner that would dead-end against walls constructed of reclaimed material from the Star Destroyer. Masayoshi's head swiveled around - and he saw what alerted the droid.

Two tall Shistavanens wearing stormtrooper blasters over their shoulders were escorting a Twi'lek through the crowds. They were ahead of Masayoshi, going in the same direction, but the sudden beep and whistle made one of them pause and look back. Masayoshi ducked his head quickly but didn't move otherwise, and kept watching - the wolfman turned back around and they continued on their path.

Of all the tiny, out-of-the-way planets in the galaxy, Wen was here? On Senlin?

Masayoshi backtracked a few paces, found Sunny hiding behind a trash disposal unit who didn't seem pleased at the astromech droid's interruption. "Sorry," Masayoshi said to the trash disposal droid, who didn't have any sort of vocal programming but stomped a few paces to the side. Sunny rolled forward a little and tilted, whistling low and soft, an inquisitive beep at the end. "Yeah," Masayoshi said, and put his hand on the flowerpot-shaped dome of the R5 unit. "We have to warn him - but that's the other side of the city. It's better to find Mari, we can use her ship's comm system."

The droid whistled again, and Masayoshi looked back to the opening of the alley. The universe just got a whole lot smaller.

#

The docking bay was packed full of ships, a wide variety - some Corellian trader vessels, not unlike Gotou's sitting dormant while their pilots worked on-planet; a few passenger vessels, some single-pilot starfighters in horrible condition, and one half-deconstructed TIE interceptor. Masayoshi headed for the docking bay number he'd memorized from the chip - and found a Togruta female standing at its entrance, leaned back against the wall partially obscuring the number, arms folded over her chest and eyes closed. She was young - an adult, but not fully grown, lekku small and colorfully striped.

She opened one eye to look at Masayoshi distrustfully. "What do you want?" she said, in common.

"I'm looking for Mari," Masayoshi said. "I want to talk to her."

#

Mari's ship was long and sleek, all soft curves, even with the nasty-looking gun turrets atop the midsection. The soft design and pale cerulean color made Masayoshi think of water, and in turn think of Gotou, as the Togruta name Mizuki walked them aboard. "It's a Calamari ship," she said, as if reading his thoughts about the ship's design.

"Oh," Masayoshi said, because he didn't know what else to say.

Mizuki touched the tip of one of the lekku that framed her head. "We Force-sensitives got to stick together," she said with a wink, and Masayoshi blinked, and swallowed.

Mari was seated in the common of the ship, next to a blue-skinned Twi'lek woman whose lekku were done up on her head with straps, like a hairdo. She looked up at Masayoshi when he doffed the cowl, and sat her chin in her hand. "Just you, huh," she said, sounding disappointed.

Sunny blatted sharply from behind Mizuki. Mari waved her hand dismissively in the air. "Your droid is very rude," she said, then sat up. "So you're in, then, Hazama?"

"I don't know," Masayoshi said. "I don't want to leave Gotou-san. But that's not why I'm here." Not exactly, he amended silently, and felt Mizuki staring at him knowingly. "I need your help, we need to contact Gotou-san's ship, Wen is here on Senlin."

"Wen?" The blue-skinned Twi'lek sat up, surprised. "A'landlk Wen is here, on Senlin?" She looked over to Mari, expression alarmed.

"He won't be here for you," Mari said, cover the Twi'lek's hand on the table. "This idiot has a bounty on him." She gestured at Masayoshi, then looked over to him. "What did you do to Wen that you were able to walk away from with all your limbs intact and just a bounty on your head?"

Masayoshi huffed a moment, indignant - and Sunny answered instead, a long stream of whistles and beeps. Mari looked intently at the astromech droid, and Masayoshi did as well, surprised. When it had finished, there was silence, and Mizuki said, "great. Anyone gonna translate for those of us that don't speak droid?"

Another moment, then Mari stood up. "Plug him in to the main computer," she instructed Mizuki, who unfolded her arms and put her hands on her hips.

"Mari-"

Sunny rolled over to the computer and extended his port jack, effectively plugging himself in. After a moment of silence, the holotable whirred to life, and letters displayed mid-air in aurabesh, the common tongue. There were segments of letters that were broken by code, fragmented, lost - but most of the transcript was viewable.

"This is dated twenty years ago," the Twi'lek said, as Mari drummed her fingers on the table. "It's out of date, why would Wen want something this old...?"

"It's a list of the Hutts' trade lanes," Mari said. "And monetary amounts. It's pretty useless information, unless you were trying to break a smuggling ring." Sunny blurted a noise, and then uncoupled from the wall, rolling back over to the table. "You should leave the droid, Hazama - he's going to be more trouble than he's worth."

"That won't eliminate the bounty," the Twi'lek said softly, and Mari turned to look at her. She had tilted forward a little, staring at the surface of the holotable, and Mari put her arm over the woman's shoulders.

"It'll be okay, Moe," she said. "I told you, I'll protect you."

Masayoshi stared at Sunny, who tilted a little, the dome of the astromech swiveling around so the camera lens was pointed up at him. Gotou would be gratified to know that he was right, in a way ... the droid was carrying secret information. "Why didn't you say anything before?" Masayoshi asked, and the droid whistled. "You didn't remember?"

Sunny beeped.

"We'll warn your friend," Mari said, leaving her seat at the table. "But then we have to leave, now. Wen being here causes problems for more than just you. Wherever he goes, the First Order seems like it isn't far behind." She stalked purposefully down the hall, toward the front of the ship, and after a moment's hesitation, Masayoshi followed.

#

There was only a little static in the open comm line, enough so that the first bit of the transmission was cut off. The Wookiee in the cockpit hesitated, then turned the comm off. "What was that?" the Shistavanen said, as the Wookiee exited the cockpit of the small freighter.

The Wookiee grumbled something, and the Shistavanen snorted. He had the bounty under one arm, the man gone limp, blood dripping slowly from the gash on his head. "Wish the money was better on this one," he said, and the Wookiee shrugged and roared. "Yeah, you said it," he said. "Once we have our credits, we should come back for it. It's better than ours."

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