NOVEL NEXT Chapter 12: Journey to Nar Shadda
Summary: Aayla and Izuku head to their next destination, hoping for answers and curious what the Force has in store for them...
Chapter 12: Journey to Nar Shadda
Once they'd recovered from a long night of enjoying each other, Aayla and Izuku had moved the Wandering Fate far enough out of Zeltros orbit to escape the planet's emotional bombardment. Once free of that constant distraction, it hadn't been difficult at all to decide on their next course of action. Initially, that had been due to Izuku's own determination to get on top of Aayla's issues, regardless of what the Force thought. He had, in fact, been ready to ignore its suggestions for the first time, regardless of how much Aayla seemed to want to consult it. Even so, he'd humored her in at least meditating on the idea…only to be positively slammed by what he could only called enthusiasm toward their most logical destination by the Force itself.
The strength of that had feeling had been nearly as disorienting as their first exposure to Zeltros, particularly because it seemed to be somehow separate from the initial guidance they had gotten. That background thread of a purpose they were needed for was still there, but was also still patiently waiting, whereas the new burst of emphatic direction toward Nar Shadda seemed to be something entirely new. Or, well, no. That wasn't quite right. Izuku could catch the faintest hint that it was still all connected to some greater purpose, with the two threads of possibility simply being different useful means towards whatever that purpose was. Aayla, overwhelmed by the sheer potency of the feelings involved, hadn't even been able to get that much, leaving Izuku to wonder if he was just imagining it himself.
It didn't really matter, in the end. What mattered was that the Force had something it wanted them to do on Nar Shadda. Both of them could tell whatever that purpose was didn't connect to Aayla's situation, merely to the world itself. But neither did their own goals seem to bother the Force. Much like their decision to sidetrack to Zeltros, the Force simply didn't care about what else they were going to do there. It only cared that they follow the trail it set for them while on the same world. It was, according to Aayla's memory, not how the Force normally interacted with people. Apparently, from what she could remember at least, it tended to be either completely silent or else highly specific. And, of course, it didn't normally exhibit emotion the way it seemed prone to doing around Izuku. All of it was very confusing, but not anything they could currently resolve or figure out. Instead, they needed to turn their thoughts toward the practical.
The practical, as it happened, meant the longest single stint of space travel they'd undergone yet. Until now, all of their stops had been on major hyperlanes. Indeed most of them had been along the Perlemian Trade Route, one of the largest and swiftest known hyperlanes in the entire galaxy. Their trip to Zeltros had taken them away from that route, finally. But Zeltros was an inner-rim world that was served by a fairly major hyperlane itself, one that had relatively close links with the Perlemian Trade Route. Nal Hutta and its moon, Nar Shadda, on the other hand…were definitively in the Outer Rim. Oh, they were served by hyperlanes. In fact, three separate hyperlanes ran through the Nal Hutta system, which explained a lot about just how the Hutts had become as powerful as they were. As well as a lot of why the Smuggler's Moon was such a critical link in the galaxy's underworld, and had been for literally millennia.
The trouble was that none of those routes were direct connections to Zeltros. They would be able to spend most of the trip on well-traveled hyperlanes, but none of them were massive trunks like the Perlemain was, and they would need to hop between several of them before reaching their destination. All of which meant that travel time between Zeltros and Nar Shadda was going to be in excess of a week, closer to ten days in fact. Still hardly a long journey, but considerably longer than any single leg of space travel had been for them up to this point. In the end, though…it was probably a very good thing.
Despite both of their impatience, Aayla had pointed out that Nar Shadda wasn't a place to visit unprepared. It was the center of organized crime in the galaxy, in a lot of ways, and there were a lot of people there that had damnably good instincts. With her collar now gone, Aayla could easily dress the part of a spacer. Twi'leks were, arguably, the second most common spacer species after humans. A lot of factors had led to that, including the fact that Twi'leks were one of the few near-human species that could actually breed with the ever-present humans in the first place. Unfortunately, despite the fact that they had suitable clothing for her, and the fact that free Twi'leks were a common site everywhere in the galaxy, Aayla had a few things working against her. Specifically, she was young, gorgeous, and from the second rarest subspecies of Twi'lek. The fact that she could act the part of a seasoned spacer and project an aura of danger would keep the more casually opportunistic away, but it wouldn't be enough if they caught the eye of someone that sensed weakness. And, unfortunately, they currently did have a weakness. A weakness named Izuku.
Gargon was a backwater, so Izuku's ability to project his own combat-veteran aura, along with trailing a slave behind him, had been enough for him to skate by on. On Esseles, his newness to the galaxy hadn't mattered, as it was a peaceful and well-policed world. The Wheel had been an eye opener for sure, and under most circumstances the fact that he couldn't help but be wide-eyed about everything might have been bad. Under their actual circumstances, where they had been playing at being wealthy tourists there to gamble on the infamous station, it had actually just helped sell his image of being harmless. That was absolutely not going to fly on Nar Shadda. Particularly not when they were actively intending to visit the parts of the moon controlled by slaver groups and underworld guilds. Izuku needed to not be obviously out of place, and he really wasn't there yet.
This need made the relatively long transit between Zeltros and Nar Shadda a bit of a blessing in disguise. While they certainly continued to explore their personal relationship in fun ways, Aayla also put Izuku through a second crash course on the galactic underworld. This time with an emphasis on being able to fit into the sort of places they needed to go, and recognize the powers that be inside those places. She had, thankfully, picked up recent data on Nar Shadda on The Wheel, having already known there was at least some chance they might need to go back there at some point. This meant she could prepare him specifically for fitting in on Nar Shadda. Which was one part acting, another part knowledge about the culture of Hutt Space…and the third part attempting to prepare him for his first ecumenopolis.
That last had been a stumbling block. Aayla had plenty of memories of the galaxy's largest such city-planet. She'd, for all intents and purposes, grown up on Coruscant, after all. For Izuku, though…the idea was mind-boggling. And he needed to get over it, quick, if he didn't want to look like a rube who'd just blown in for some Outer Rim farming planet whose population were all related to each other to an uncomfortable degree. There was only so much they could do to prepare him for it, but they did what they could. They used the impressive entertainment systems of their ship to display vids and holos of such worlds, including some of Nar Shadda itself, though admittedly usually the nicer sections of the moon. Aayla lectured about who controlled the moon and how, the ways that city planets were split into districts and levels, and a dozen other things. They even made sure he got some practice in the cargohold with his blaster, set to low power pf course, and he thankfully proved to be a decent shot. Controlling its aim point was similar enough to controlling his telekinetic blasts and thrown projectiles that he picked the skill up reasonably quickly. Enough so for the blaster to look like it actually belonged with him when he drew it.
How well it would all pay off…well, that was something that remained to be seen. Though Aayla winced a little bit at the sheer stupefied awe he radiated as they landed on the planet. She knew, on some level, that there was simply no way to avoid that. Ecumenopolises were a hard thing for normal people to wrap their head around, and Nar Shadda was an even more bright and baffling example than the norm of those worlds. Perhaps a quarter of the world gleamed with the bright dazzling lights of gaudy resorts and entertainment districts. Another quarter was dark and polluted with heavy industry of a type almost never seen on more 'normal' Ecumenopolises. And the rest was…a varying and erratic mix of decay. Abandoned sections of city were right next to populated towers with ancient skydocks that stretched kilometers up into the atmosphere. Environmental disasters that had never been cleared abutted against residential districts in a way that wouldn't possibly be allowed on any other city planet, but here on Nar Shadda was almost normal. The sheer schizophrenic nature of the entire planet, both visually and in The Force, was enough to stun anyone. She just hoped Izuku could get over it well enough to fake familiarity…
For now, Aayla took over the handling of the ship while he tried to absorb it all. Picking out a sector of the planet known to be frequented by smugglers, while not being either too close to too far from the target of her personal reasons for visiting, she set about getting them a vaguely secure place to land. Maybe they should also be considering getting a security droid or two, come to think of it. At least the previous owner of their ship had installed an excellent security system...