Binding Chains

[Vander]

Vander's head was pounding when he finally woke up in his jail cell on the Wheel. The events of the previous... well, he wasn't sure long it had been. A day earlier, maybe?

The first day had been trying to figure out what the kriff had happened. Who had shot him and why? At first he thought it was a trap laid by Zira, but that thought quickly evaporated largely because... it made no sense.

Then, for a brief few hours, he'd thought that maybe Zira would come to help break him out.

As minutes ticked by into hours, he realized how stupid that thought was. This was the Sith. She barely knew him. She was owned by someone else who was clearly not a benevolent being. No, Vander was and always had been on his own.

His initial anger followed by frustration and disappointment quickly turned to anger at himself. He had been caught off guard. Stupid. He hadn't been alert.

Way to go kark-face, began the mental berating. Anger began to well up in him that he wanted to unleash on... someone. He started planning his means of escape, having - for the first time in his life - been caught in a jail.

 

[Vander]

The next few hours to days didn't do much to improve his mood. Perhaps because he was a Sith, he had been kept away from the other prisoners in the jail cell, which had led to Vander spending hour after hour alone.

Not that he wasn't accustomed to being alone. These days it was his default state, and he told himself it didn't gnaw at his mind. there wasn't any time for such stupid concerns. His mind had become consumed with how to get out.

He had made a call to - of all people - Darth Arcanos (@Sreeya). Something of a last ditch effort not to be left to rot here alone. The only potentially saving grace he had was that he had been making progress on his investigation into Occidius. He was perhaps the only person that had continued to pursue the ex-Sith Lord in the days that had been following. Vander would find him, though not from a jail cell.

Of course, Arcanos hadn't actually... picked up. Vander had left a message and then assumed it would be up to him to get out himself.

You are Sith. You don't know defeat. You will persist and overcome, and you will find a way out or die trying, he thought to himself.

 

[Vander]

It was in those following days that Vander finally learned what he had been attacked for. It wasn't cheating or anything else, nor was he supposed to have been shot by these kriff-sticks. No, he had been "apprehended" as Wheel security liked to call it due to the previous time he had been here.

You're wanted for questioning in connection to the murder of these men, he said, pushing across a pair of photos of the people that he and Eldritch had killed. Vander was suddenly very thankful he had gone to the efforts of cleaning off his fingerprints from anything.

It was hours on hours that he was forced to sit with their interrogations before he was finally returned to his cell. It wasn't exactly a good time, but it paled in comparison to Sith training.

 

[Vander]

It was quickly becoming apparent to Vander that there wasn't actually enough evidence to convict him. Some circumstantials and little more.

Meanwhile, Vander's mind had been occupied with how to get himself out of this jail. He thought he had finally found a way, his gap in the armor that only a Sith could exploit when suddenly... the door opened.

You're free to go. If you ever come back here, we'll be watching you. Which is to say: don't come back, the man said, and Vander just cast him a sideways glance at the man. Yeah... maybe he wouldn't be coming back.

There was a mixture of relief and... confusion. He didn't really know what had happened, but he wasn't going to look a gift fathier in the mouth.

He did, however, keep his eyes open. This could still be a trap... but as he gathered up his sweats and even had his lightsaber returned - fortunately brought in on a notoriously neutral station - he emerged to find his answer.

He couldn't decide if he was glad or distressed to see a particular Zeltron woman standing there, arms crossed, scowling, and tapping her foot as he emerged, giving an almost pained smile as he saw her.

He didn't know if it had been a mind trick on the judge, a threat against the prosecutor, or some other literal voodoo, but Arcanos was a Sith Lord. Vander certainly didn't want to push his luck, but was all the more motivated to make himself invaluable to the Lord in the future.

 

[Vander]

It was nearly a day after that still that Vander finally got away from everyone but himself. In fact, the Maverick just drifted through the vast emptiness of space.

It was just himself, his saber training routine, and his thoughts. And there were so many thoughts to have. In jail, his mind had been consumed by thoughts of escape, and now that he was out, his mind lingered on everything that had happened.

From the start to the end, he thought of how poorly everything had gone. He had been caught off guard twice, nearly killed or imprisoned twice, and nearly lost everything. He'd had to call in a favor from someone who was probably a one time call in, and now was left with what to show for it?

Your next target, Vander, he thought to himself. No point in feeling sorry for yourself. You screwed up. Learn from it and move on. Don't do it again, and take things one step at a time. You know where Raphael is and you know where you need to go. Get on the hunt, he told himself.

Had Raphael left? Did he know that Vander and Zira had managed to escape? Perhaps he wouldn't have even moved on if no one else had escaped. Perhaps he could use his confidence against him.

Back to Zeltros, he told himself. Arcanos had put him in contact with another to assist: a second assassin, and he would do just that: bring back Raphael's head and the next dossier.

Simple.

And what about Zira?

The question came unbidden from that other voice in his mind. The voice that had lots to say and that Vander perpetually wanted to shut up.

What about her? She bailed on you, and that's that.

Of course she bailed on you, what did you expect her to do? Drag your body out? Stick her neck out for a jail break? Come on, man.

And what the heck do you even care anyway? She's a nobody to you. You'll probably never even see her again.

Well, you need to get Talia's clothes back, obviously, he said, the entire "conversation" playing out audibly in the silence of his ship. Obviously he would need to find her again to retrieve the outfit.

Oh come on, she needs the clothes more than you anyway. Did you see what she had to wear, he muttered to himself. Stop thinking about what she was wearing, he reprimanded again.

This is stupid. You've got a mission to plan, he said, and that was that. Clearly, he was totally moved on.