Cover 14/27, PG-13
Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fanfiction.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Anakin’s perceptions seemed to be restricted by the collar around his neck, so Ryn tried to center herself, despite the tranquilizer humming in her blood, and stretch out with her “extra” sense to figure out what was going on. It was hard, because even if she hadn’t been struggling to work through brain fog, Anakin’s proximity tended to drown out everything else. On a normal day, she found that restful, not having to work to shut out the stray thoughts around her. This sixth empathic sense was more like hearing than sight, she’d learned long ago; you could choose to pay more attention to one thing or another, but you couldn’t really look away and you definitely couldn’t close you eyes. Right now, Anakin was a very loud, very close symphony that was making it hard to hear the murmurs in the next room.
“Think quieter!” she hissed at him ungrammatically as she leaned against the wall, trying to pick apart the actual noises coming through. “I’m trying to figure out what’s going on and you’re drowning out everything else.”
“I know what’s going on,” Anakin said grimly. “We’ll be held in here until they can find slave transmitters for us, and then we’ll be thrown into the slave quarters with the rest of these miserable beings.”
Ryn spared him a glare. “Let’s hope the Jedi are wrong about your focus determining your reality, then,” she said irritably. Fighting the effects of tranq shot seemed to be taking up most of the energy she would normally focus on demonstrating patience. "We don’t know that. In fact, it seems unlikely that a Hutt living on Coruscant would want to antagonize the Jedi by kidnapping one of their own. He’s practically daring the Temple to act.”
“Maybe he wants to,” Anakin suggested. “Maybe he’s specifically targeting Jedi.”
Ryn scowled at him. “Don’t get hysterical. Who would be stupid enough to do that?”
“Granta Omega, maybe.”
“Granta Omega,” Ryn repeated. “I know he’s supposed to be some kind of master of disguise, but you can’t seriously expect me to believe that even he is masquerading as Ziro the Hutt. Do you see any evidence that he is behind this?” When Anakin just glowered at her, she pressed on. “Look, if it were Granta Omega, he’d probably want to do it himself so he could take all the credit, right? He wouldn’t hire someone like Ziro.” Ryn sighed. “Anyway, he probably wouldn’t make me a target. I’m not a Jedi. Just an idiot.”
“Don’t say that,” Anakin said, warm concern melting away some of his panic. “You’re one of the smartest people I know.”
You’re overselling it, Anakin. “Smart enough to get myself captured,” Ryn said bitterly. “A child would have known better. I did know better. But I let myself get distracted. And here we are.”
“It is not your fault,” Anakin said. “I should never have let you go out there alone in the first place.”
“You didn’t let me go anywhere,” Ryn countered testily. “I’m an adult. I decided to go out, and I don’t remember needing your permission to do it.”
She sighed and let her throbbing head drop back against the wall. “I wasn’t paying attention, and I got caught. I screwed up.” She closed her eyes, because the flickering of the dim lights was making her head hurt. Into Anakin’s silence, she said, “Maybe it would be more productive to think about a way to get ourselves out of this mess?”
Anakin snorted and crawled over to sit beside her. “Well, Master Obi-Wan does say that a Jedi must not dwell on his mistakes. He accepts them and moves on.”
Ryn gave him a rueful smile in the half-light. “Maybe I can fake the Jedi thing for a while. What we need is a way to either remove or deactivate this gear we’re wearing.”
“And since the collar is affecting my ability to use the Force, we’ll have to use a more hands-on method,” Anakin concluded.
Ryn nudged him with a friendly elbow. “So? That’s why I brought a mechanical genius along.”
“Even a genius needs some tools,” Anakin pointed out.
Ryn didn’t like to admit that that might be kind of a problem. “Maybe there’s something around here that you could use?”
Anakin glanced around the bare little cell, empty except for them. “If there is, I’m not seeing it.” He reached over to take her wrists, bound together by the stun cuffs, and hold them up to the light, such as it was. “I’m not even sure what I’ll need.”
Ryn held very still, trying to withdraw all her own perceptions, shrink into her own body, make her presence as small as possible in the Force so that she wouldn’t bleed over and cloud whatever focus he managed to achieve while wearing the collar.
After a few tense minutes, Anakin said, “All right. I see how the locking mechanism works. It’s an electromagnet of some kind. I think if I had a piece of something nonconductive that was small enough, I could disrupt the charge and the cuffs would unlock. Or if I had something with a charge, I could short out the power cell, but I don’t know what that would do to you.”
Ryn shuddered. “So, not Plan A.”
“No,” Anakin agreed.
“Okay. What’s nonconductive in here?”
Anakin shrugged. “Anything thing made of a plastoid material. Or, I don’t know ... our clothes, probably, but I don’t think I could tear a piece small enough that would hold. Maybe --”
Ryn stopped him with a hand on his arm, awkward because her wrists were held forcibly parallel. “Wait a second,” she said. “My shirt.”
“Your shirt?” Anakin looked doubtful. “Ryn, it’s small, but it’s not --”
“No, no,” Ryn said impatiently. “It hooks together in the back. And I’m pretty sure the hooks are plastoid.”
“Pretty sure?” Anakin said. “That’s not very reassuring.” He bent over to check, pushing gently at her shoulders until she lay forward with her face on her knees.
“I can’t be sure, either,” he admitted finally, after a lot of tugging and pinching and tapping. “I think maybe the hooks are some sort of enameled metal. And it would work better to use something thin but solid, and flat. These hooks are small enough, but kind of rounded.”
“You weren’t this picky a minute ago,” Ryn said grumpily, unfolding as Anakin released her and moved back against the wall. “Too bad they took our utility belts. We could have --” she realized she was arguing in what-ifs and stopped short. “Sorry.”
But Anakin wasn’t listening, anyway. “Maybe we’re going about this all wrong,” he said. “We’ve been assuming that we need to get out of the cuffs and collar before we get out of this room.” Cell was the word he wanted to say and didn’t; Ryn heard it anyway. “But if we could get out of here, first, we might find something to work with.”
Ryn felt a little dubious about their chances of getting anywhere useful while still in restraints; but it wasn’t as though she was overflowing with bright ideas herself. She studied the room for a minute and said, “Door or vent?”
“Vent,” Anakin said decisively. “It’s less likely to be set with an alarm trigger, and if we make it into the air ducts we have a chance to move unseen.”
The tranquilizer, still swirling through Ryn’s veins, urged her to take a nap and try that later. Clenching her jaw, Ryn moved woozily to stand beneath the vent’s grate.
She stretched up with both hands, measuring the gap with her eyes. Anakin could probably reach it, but she wasn’t sure what kind of a grip he could get without accessing the Force. Feeling him come up behind her, Ryn dropped her arms, spearing the grate with another hard glance. “You want to try, or should I?”
“Can you even reach it?” Anakin asked her.
“Well, no, not from the floor.”
“Then I suggest I go first. I’m taller, and stronger in the arms anyway.”
That was indisputably true. Ryn swallowed a comment about how attractive that was, pretty sure that was the tranquilizer talking. Not that he didn’t look good, but she wouldn’t ordinarily bring it up. Be discreet, she reminded herself. And for Force’s sake don’t jump him in the cell.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Anakin’s perceptions seemed to be restricted by the collar around his neck, so Ryn tried to center herself, despite the tranquilizer humming in her blood, and stretch out with her “extra” sense to figure out what was going on. It was hard, because even if she hadn’t been struggling to work through brain fog, Anakin’s proximity tended to drown out everything else. On a normal day, she found that restful, not having to work to shut out the stray thoughts around her. This sixth empathic sense was more like hearing than sight, she’d learned long ago; you could choose to pay more attention to one thing or another, but you couldn’t really look away and you definitely couldn’t close you eyes. Right now, Anakin was a very loud, very close symphony that was making it hard to hear the murmurs in the next room.
“Think quieter!” she hissed at him ungrammatically as she leaned against the wall, trying to pick apart the actual noises coming through. “I’m trying to figure out what’s going on and you’re drowning out everything else.”
“I know what’s going on,” Anakin said grimly. “We’ll be held in here until they can find slave transmitters for us, and then we’ll be thrown into the slave quarters with the rest of these miserable beings.”
Ryn spared him a glare. “Let’s hope the Jedi are wrong about your focus determining your reality, then,” she said irritably. Fighting the effects of tranq shot seemed to be taking up most of the energy she would normally focus on demonstrating patience. "We don’t know that. In fact, it seems unlikely that a Hutt living on Coruscant would want to antagonize the Jedi by kidnapping one of their own. He’s practically daring the Temple to act.”
“Maybe he wants to,” Anakin suggested. “Maybe he’s specifically targeting Jedi.”
Ryn scowled at him. “Don’t get hysterical. Who would be stupid enough to do that?”
“Granta Omega, maybe.”
“Granta Omega,” Ryn repeated. “I know he’s supposed to be some kind of master of disguise, but you can’t seriously expect me to believe that even he is masquerading as Ziro the Hutt. Do you see any evidence that he is behind this?” When Anakin just glowered at her, she pressed on. “Look, if it were Granta Omega, he’d probably want to do it himself so he could take all the credit, right? He wouldn’t hire someone like Ziro.” Ryn sighed. “Anyway, he probably wouldn’t make me a target. I’m not a Jedi. Just an idiot.”
“Don’t say that,” Anakin said, warm concern melting away some of his panic. “You’re one of the smartest people I know.”
You’re overselling it, Anakin. “Smart enough to get myself captured,” Ryn said bitterly. “A child would have known better. I did know better. But I let myself get distracted. And here we are.”
“It is not your fault,” Anakin said. “I should never have let you go out there alone in the first place.”
“You didn’t let me go anywhere,” Ryn countered testily. “I’m an adult. I decided to go out, and I don’t remember needing your permission to do it.”
She sighed and let her throbbing head drop back against the wall. “I wasn’t paying attention, and I got caught. I screwed up.” She closed her eyes, because the flickering of the dim lights was making her head hurt. Into Anakin’s silence, she said, “Maybe it would be more productive to think about a way to get ourselves out of this mess?”
Anakin snorted and crawled over to sit beside her. “Well, Master Obi-Wan does say that a Jedi must not dwell on his mistakes. He accepts them and moves on.”
Ryn gave him a rueful smile in the half-light. “Maybe I can fake the Jedi thing for a while. What we need is a way to either remove or deactivate this gear we’re wearing.”
“And since the collar is affecting my ability to use the Force, we’ll have to use a more hands-on method,” Anakin concluded.
Ryn nudged him with a friendly elbow. “So? That’s why I brought a mechanical genius along.”
“Even a genius needs some tools,” Anakin pointed out.
Ryn didn’t like to admit that that might be kind of a problem. “Maybe there’s something around here that you could use?”
Anakin glanced around the bare little cell, empty except for them. “If there is, I’m not seeing it.” He reached over to take her wrists, bound together by the stun cuffs, and hold them up to the light, such as it was. “I’m not even sure what I’ll need.”
Ryn held very still, trying to withdraw all her own perceptions, shrink into her own body, make her presence as small as possible in the Force so that she wouldn’t bleed over and cloud whatever focus he managed to achieve while wearing the collar.
After a few tense minutes, Anakin said, “All right. I see how the locking mechanism works. It’s an electromagnet of some kind. I think if I had a piece of something nonconductive that was small enough, I could disrupt the charge and the cuffs would unlock. Or if I had something with a charge, I could short out the power cell, but I don’t know what that would do to you.”
Ryn shuddered. “So, not Plan A.”
“No,” Anakin agreed.
“Okay. What’s nonconductive in here?”
Anakin shrugged. “Anything thing made of a plastoid material. Or, I don’t know ... our clothes, probably, but I don’t think I could tear a piece small enough that would hold. Maybe --”
Ryn stopped him with a hand on his arm, awkward because her wrists were held forcibly parallel. “Wait a second,” she said. “My shirt.”
“Your shirt?” Anakin looked doubtful. “Ryn, it’s small, but it’s not --”
“No, no,” Ryn said impatiently. “It hooks together in the back. And I’m pretty sure the hooks are plastoid.”
“Pretty sure?” Anakin said. “That’s not very reassuring.” He bent over to check, pushing gently at her shoulders until she lay forward with her face on her knees.
“I can’t be sure, either,” he admitted finally, after a lot of tugging and pinching and tapping. “I think maybe the hooks are some sort of enameled metal. And it would work better to use something thin but solid, and flat. These hooks are small enough, but kind of rounded.”
“You weren’t this picky a minute ago,” Ryn said grumpily, unfolding as Anakin released her and moved back against the wall. “Too bad they took our utility belts. We could have --” she realized she was arguing in what-ifs and stopped short. “Sorry.”
But Anakin wasn’t listening, anyway. “Maybe we’re going about this all wrong,” he said. “We’ve been assuming that we need to get out of the cuffs and collar before we get out of this room.” Cell was the word he wanted to say and didn’t; Ryn heard it anyway. “But if we could get out of here, first, we might find something to work with.”
Ryn felt a little dubious about their chances of getting anywhere useful while still in restraints; but it wasn’t as though she was overflowing with bright ideas herself. She studied the room for a minute and said, “Door or vent?”
“Vent,” Anakin said decisively. “It’s less likely to be set with an alarm trigger, and if we make it into the air ducts we have a chance to move unseen.”
The tranquilizer, still swirling through Ryn’s veins, urged her to take a nap and try that later. Clenching her jaw, Ryn moved woozily to stand beneath the vent’s grate.
She stretched up with both hands, measuring the gap with her eyes. Anakin could probably reach it, but she wasn’t sure what kind of a grip he could get without accessing the Force. Feeling him come up behind her, Ryn dropped her arms, spearing the grate with another hard glance. “You want to try, or should I?”
“Can you even reach it?” Anakin asked her.
“Well, no, not from the floor.”
“Then I suggest I go first. I’m taller, and stronger in the arms anyway.”
That was indisputably true. Ryn swallowed a comment about how attractive that was, pretty sure that was the tranquilizer talking. Not that he didn’t look good, but she wouldn’t ordinarily bring it up. Be discreet, she reminded herself. And for Force’s sake don’t jump him in the cell.