Clea and the Purge - Pt 5.
Clea frowned as she walked quickly along the tubular tunnel. She wanted to turn, to shake the information from the young Jedi. She wanted to shout, to scream at her, to demand answers.
But though this was a Jedi, it was a Jedi CHILD. Instinctively, from the first day at Mama's Cathouse, Clea had protected children. She had crossed words enough with Taran Secundus, Detective-in-Charge, about her habit of injuring or killing drug dealers who tried to get children involved in drugs. She had made enough enemies in the pimps that preyed on underaged soponts that she slept with a vibroblade under her pillow.
And the girl was hurt. A blaster shot to the shoulder that Clea prayed would not get infected from the polluted water that she'd been in. It had been a pond, she judged, to begin with, but human blood had stained it a reddish tinge.
Human blood, and probably human guts too, from the destroyed Jedi bobbing in that dark water.
She turned, hearing the feet behind them speed up. "Run, child," she said urgently. "Run, I'll delay them. There's no cover here for you....."
In response, the young Jedi flicked on the blue blade that Clea had gained in the upper Temple, and shifted, her posture clearly defensive.
Clea barely deflected her shot upwards as the three people, clearly not clone troopers, came around the curve in the tunnel. The two Jedi supported a third, badly injured.
The look on the older one's face was clearly one of relief when he spotted her. "Kallea, thank the Gods! Where's your ship? We need to get off Coruscant - the clone troopers are slaughtering Jedi!"
Clea was dumbfounded. Was he talking to HER ?
"Kallea?" the Jedi said. "What's wrong? Why are you staring at me? We need to MOVE!"
The girl beside her snickered, an ugly sound in the echoing tunnel. "She claims she isn't Jedi," she said.
Her teeth bared, Clea retorted, "No, I said,"I don't know how to use this Jedi stuff." Listen well, brat. I don't know WHAT I am - I was dumped for dead in the Lower Levels, and I don't know any frelling thing 'bout ANY of this Jedi crap."
"Don't know, or don't remember, Kallea?" The older man's question was cut short by a spate of blaster bolds zinging overhead.
"RUN!" Clea howled, something in her tone pushing the others into motion. She pulled her spare power pack out and threw it toward the oncoming Clone troopers. A quick blaster shot, and it exploded like a bomb over the squad. She ran after the others, praying to the non-existant gods of the Lower Level that they'd find an exit soon.