Kael hissed as the bitter Jawa Juice burned an icy trail down his throat. Fortunately this was the non-alcoholic variant of the beverage, which wouldn't compromise his ability to control his cybernetic arm. Truth be told, he had been amazed to find it available in this hive of scum and villainy. Savareen was one of those backwater systems that inevitably became a haven for those who don't wish to be found. And as of two years ago, Kael begrudgingly found himself counted among them.
He scowled at the surrounding patrons of the cantina, thugs, smugglers, bounty hunters, and worse. But the crowd did lack the presence of one element, there wasn't a damned clone in sight. Their armor may have been upgraded, and they might be called "stormtroopers" now, but they'd proved in the end that they were little better than the clankers they'd been engineered to fight against. They were tools of the Sith now, Emperor Palpatine and the traitor, Anakin Skywalker, now calling himself Darth Vader.
Kael was about to take another swig of his Jawa Juice when he froze. He sensed something...a presence...the sort of presence he'd come to feel less and less in the past two years. He slowly set down his glass and searched the room with his eyes, at the same time reaching out through the Force. His gaze passed over the Sabacc game that had just devolved into a fistfight, the Zygerrian slave-dealers ordering another round for their prospective clients, and a table of Duros huddled around a datapad. Finally, he spotted a lavender-skinned Twi'lek woman sitting at the bar, drinking a glass of what he guessed to be phattro. A hooded, brown cloak might not necessarily raise eyebrows out on the edges of the galaxy, but when coupled with what Kael could sense about this woman, there could be no mistake.
From his table in a dark corner of the cantina, he watched as she looked around the room. When she suddenly stopped and turned back to face the bar, he followed where her eyes had been and saw an armored Trandoshan carrying a heavy blaster looking in her direction. Kael recognized the brute, he was a bounty hunter named Gornn.
As Gornn started away from the Duros, towards the bar, Kael abandoned his cup of Jawa Juice and made his way to intercept.
"And just what do you think you're up to Gornn?" Kael asked, stopping directly in the path of the Trandoshan bounty hunter.
"Outta my way cyborg!" Gornn hissed. "That Jedi is mine!"
"Fat chance blaster-brain," said Kael, ignoring the angry snarl that followed his insult.
"You think just because you've killed a few Jedi and collected a few lightsabers that every Jedi bounty belongs to you?!" Gornn demanded.
"And here I thought you were as dumb as you looked," Kael confirmed, soliciting another angry snarl from Gornn before he stepped back and raised his blaster.
"She's mine Xaron!" Gorrn proclaimed. "So step aside before I-"
Gornn's threat was cut short by the SNAP-HISS of the sapphire lightsaber Kael ignited. Without a moment's hesitation, the glowing blue blade flashed through the air, carving a diagonal path from the Trandoshan's hip to his shoulder. Gornn's blaster clattered to the floor in two pieces, followed by Gornn...also in two pieces.
Kael extinguished his master's old lightsaber and hooked it back onto his belt, before turning to the Twi'lek and grabbing her by one of her lekku. He knew that grabbing a Twi'lek by the lekku was excruciatingly painful, and he hoped the woman would forgive him once he had a chance to explain himself, but for now there was no time. If he didn't "claim his prize" some of the other patrons might begin to think they could do better than Gornn.
"Let's go, Jedi." Kael ordered.
