Ask Nar Shaddaa The Real Threat

[Nick Shaw]

Nick had become more and more drawn into the mysterious plague that seemed to be popping up in more and more remote locations. He had seen its effects, had felt the consequences for underestimating it. While the Galaxy was distracted by the surge of lightsaber-wielding terrorists, Nick felt like they were all missing the actual threat to the Galaxy.

If such a plague were to be spread to a place like Coruscant and they had no way to stop its spread, the entire Galaxy would be shaken to its core. So Nick tirelessly investigated various outbreak locations, alone if he couldn't get anyone else.

Science had never been a strong suit of his. School, in general, had not been a walk in the park, so progress was slow. He finally tracked down someone who he was sure could help him, whether or not he could help her was still up in the air.

He stood in the lobby of the small medical facility he had discovered she had been working out of. He wasn't sure why she had chosen this world to base herself off of. Surely, there were more suitable places. "Hi there." he said to the front desk attendant. "I am here to see Dr. Ellin." he continued. The servos in his whirred quietly as his metallic fingers twitched slightly. "Just one moment, please have a seat." the man replied, gesturing towards a small waiting area.

 

[Riley Elin]

Riley was temporarily back in the same lab to write up parts of her research paper. She was, after all, still in residency. Though she got more hands on experience than she liked, she always had to come back here to document everything. She worked in rotations on different planets, and she was stationed here for a few weeks.

Riley was surprised at learning someone was here to see her, and even more surprised at the name. She dropped what she was doing and headed out, always wearing her lab coat. Riley hadn’t seen Nick since they had parted ways after she had crudely chopped off his hand. She winced at the memory, but he had been fitted with an appropriate prosthetic since.

She stepped out and smiled when she saw him, her eyes almost instinctively glancing down towards the hand. Riley had her hands in her lab pockets, walking towards him, “Officer Shaw!” She would never forget how she owed him her life, “What brings you all the way out here?” Riley didn’t think Rangers operated out here. In fact… she was quite sure the Hutts had explicitly wanted them out.

 

[Nick Shaw]

Nick thumbed through a magazine which he was in no way interested until the doctor entered the waiting area. He smiled as he stood but it faded slightly when her gaze naturally went down to his hand.

It was nonsensical to feel self-conscious about the thing. Besides some minor hiccups here and there, he had similar capabilities as he had before but it still bothered him. His metallic fingers twitched unconsciously until she spoke and his attention was pulled back towards her. He looked around and took a step close. "Just Nick is fine." he said, voice growing slightly quieter.

Rangers didn't wear uniforms and normally the only thing that identified him as an officer was a badge the hung around his neck, but out here, even that was hidden away. The Hutts didn't take kindly to Sector Rangers in their business, and they weren't the only ones who wouldn't lose any sleep over killing a cop.

"I came to talk to you about this." he said, handing her a datapad of several planets he had been to that had similar outbreaks to one they had been caught up in Onderon. He let her flip through the small pile of reports he had put togehter. "You know, you aren't an easy woman to track down. The last place I expected to find you was out here." he said.

 

[Riley Elin]

Riley bit her lip as she realized she probably shouldn’t have announced the word ‘Officer’ out loud. She glanced around quickly and thankfully no one had reacted. Her gaze lingered over to his prosthetic, “How’s uh….the new hand?” She felt like an idiot asking, knowing it was her fault he even had to go through this. In fact, she owed him her life and she didn’t even know how to begin repaying him.

For now, she put the overwhelming thoughts aside and took the datapad, glancing down at the information. She could tell what it was right as she began to sort through it, concern growing on her face, “It’s getting closer and closer to the Deep Core…” She said quietly under her breath. When he mentioned she was difficult to find, Riley couldn’t help but smile.

“Most people don’t think Nar Shaddaa can have something like labs or other institutions of higher education and innovation,” Riley looked around for a moment, “And….they’d be right. However, they needed help with research so I volunteered.”

Perhaps she would tell him another time how she was involved in the original work that accidentally led to the damn disease coming into being to begin with. Riley looked back down at the datapad, “What’re you hoping to do with this?” She glanced at him, “....You do have a force of people behind you, right?”

 

[Nick Shaw]

He watched her eyes move down to his hand, mechanisms whirring as he instinctively tightened the robotic digits. He had come to peace with it. The alternative to his current situation was death, or worse, being one of those monsters. "Its getting there," he said with a bit of a smile. "Has thrown my trigger pull off, maybe its something they can recalibrate," he said with a bit of a shrug.

"So far its only shown up in small to medium populations, but if it hits one of the major worlds we will be looking at death tolls in numbers the Galaxy has never seen," he said with a grim expression as he spoke quietly

He met her eyes as she looked up from the datapad. It was a valid question, the truth was he wasn't sure. He had found it difficult to muster any type of real response. The Sector Rangers resources were extremely limited and individual planetary governments were slow to offer aid to other worlds.

"Well..." he said trailing off. "I was hoping you had something we could go off of." he admitted. It was a long shot coming to her, but he turning over every stone he could think of. "I am sure I can get us a handful of people if needed." he said. It wasn't going to be much, but if they could get there hands on more evidence perhaps they could spur more to action.