Thaerex ignored the punch in the arm and slammed the throttle forward. They were both thrown back against their seats as the taxi speeder went from full-stop to full-speed in seconds. At this speed it would take them only a couple of minutes to reach Deucalon. With any luck, the Security Force Agents would take a few minutes to reach the pad and realize what happened.

PEW, PEW, PEW! The sound of speeder-mounted blasters, and the bolts that followed, announced that would definitely NOT be the case.

Thaerex managed to evade the first volley of blaster bolts, but was struck by one from the second. The damage was cosmetic, but there was smoke streaming from the damaged panel.

"Blast!" he cursed again, then used the controls to send the speeder into a dive. Once he got them down into the constructed canyons below, hopefully he could lose their pursuers in the tight quarters.

For a brief moment, it appeared as though their luck would hold out and they had in fact, given the Hutt Security Force the slip. As was typical, however, this proved to not be the case, and they were soon being shot at again by pursuers.
“Today is NOT our day, is it!” Theva growled in agitation, risking a glance behind them over her shoulder as she attempted to count just how many speeders were following them.

The Chiss counted at least three before she was forced to duck down into the car to avoid the blaster bolt that skimmed over the top of her head. “If we die, I’m going to kill you!” she snarled at Thaerex, the irony of that promise entirely lost in the heat of the moment. “There’s at least three, maybe more. We need to lose them, and fast!”

The speeder jerked violently as Thaerex tried, and failed, to avoid the second volley, causing both its occupants to curse in tandem.
“Now, would be nice, Thaerex!” Theva braced herself as Thaerex directed the speeder into a steep dive towards the infrastructure. “I like your thinking, they’d have to be either very brave, or very stupid, to follow us down here.”

She just hoped this would work.

His tactic appeared to work almost instantly. Not anticipating his maneuver, the pursuing speeders had to pull a series of corkscrews and wide loops to reorient themselves and follow him down into the shadows of the lower levels. This allowed Thaerex to put some distance between them and their pursuers.

Once they had almost reached the surface, he began to weave a path through the infrastructure, speeding through gaps between decaying industrial pylons, dodging past broken communication antennae, until he spotted what looked like an abandoned barracks directly ahead. The front doors looked like they had been blown off. They hadn't managed to lose the other speeders, but the barracks gave him an idea.

"On my mark, get ready to jump clear!" he yelled over the noise.

He guided the speeder down. They would only have a split-second once they cleared the doorway. He looked over his shoulder and spotted the three speeders that had managed to keep up with them. Steeling himself, he focused on the dark portal ahead, if he was off, even by just a few centimeters, he and Theva would be dead.

“Wait...what?!” Theva scarcely had the time to respond to his instructions before Thaerex was yelling “NOW!” and leaping off the speeder himself. Her eyes widened as she realised where the speeder’s current trajectory was headed for, reacting on instinct and managing to throw herself clear just in time.

They had been travelling at high speed, so as she came off, the Chiss was forced into a combat roll as a means of cushioning some of the force of the impact with the ground. Despite her best attempts, however, she felt a painful tearing in the muscles of her shoulder as she skidded into one of the corners..
“Ticsen'uvuet! (Motherfucker)” she snarled through her teeth, her eyes taking on an eerie reddish glow in the darkness as they roved frantically to find her companion. “What the FRACK is wrong with you?!” Theva snapped, inhaling in preparation of what would no doubt be another tyrade of curses about where she would rather Thaerex went at this point...

Thaerex used the Force and the sound of his companion's cursing to guide him through the smoke and dust that now filled the room. He had to reach her before the smoke cleared. For his plan to work he couldn't risk their pursuers hearing her. He spied the faint reddish glow of her eyes before he reached her. She'd landed in a corner of the room near what looked like an overturned reception desk.

"What the FRACK is wrong with you!?" Theva snapped, clutching her shoulder. She inhaled sharply, in preparation for what Thaerex was confident would be a new stream of expletives. Thaerex quickly got around behind her and clamped a hand down over her mouth to cut her off. He dragged her behind the overturned desk. Moments later, the bright beams of searchlights came flooding through the open doors to the building. The lights fell on the flaming wreck of the crashed taxi-speeder, followed by a voice shouting in Huttese.

"That idiot must have thought he could fly straight through and give us the slip!" said the voice. "Looks like he found out his mistake the hard way!"

"Any survivors?" called out another voice.

"No way," the first voice replied. "The speeder's a flaming wreck."

"Alright, then let's get out of here," said the second voice. "The sub levels always make me nervous."

The searchlights snapped off and Thaerex listened as the whine of the speeders' engines faded into the distance.

Thaerex's silence in response to her yelling didn't seem to improve his companion’s mood, if anything it seemed to make her even angrier, at first. It wasn't until he dragged her into cover, hand across her mouth, and the searchlights appeared moments later, that the Chiss registered what was happening. Theva inhaled sharply again, this time with the opposite goal in mind - holding her breath to try and be as silent as possible.

The arguing of the security agents faded as they drove away, the pair sitting in tense silence for several long moments to be sure they were gone. Her own heartbeat was deafeningly loud in her ears, and at that moment, Theva was struck by the realization of precisely how close to her Thaerex was...and more than aware of the fact that he wasn't letting her go despite it being safe enough to now do so. Though it caused her shoulder enough pain to prompt a hiss through her teeth, she managed to reach up and pry his hand away from her mouth so she could chuckle softly and whisper. “...Are you going to let me go anytime soon, or are you not done here, hmmm?~”

After several long moments had passed, Thaerex let out a barely perceptible sigh of relief.

"Are you going to let me go anytime soon, or are you not done here, hmmmmm?"

Theva's question suddenly made Thaerex acutely aware of her proximity to him. He released her, but as she was half-laying on top of him, he couldn't move away.

Theva remained where she was for a brief moment, her head cocked to one side and an emotion that might have been curiosity, or contempt (it was hard to tell in this light) painted over her features, before she seemed to decide better of her thoughts and rolled away from Thaerex.

In doing so, however, she had forgotten about her injured shoulder and inadvertently shifted her full weight onto the joint, sending a sharp stab of pain right through it.
“Shit!” she hissed painfully through her teeth, shifting onto her back and clutching at it with a grimace. “Don’t you DARE touch me!” she snarled at Thaerex as he sat up and looked as if he was about to reach towards her.