Training

Kay squinted in the low light of the cargo bay they used for training. She thought she had seen a shadow move near some old crates piled up near the wall. She crouched motionless, the steady drip of a leaky pipe the only sound. She knew that her classmates Dejkaz, Freja and Terix were out there too watching for her. The goal of the training mission was simple, be the last one standing. Suddenly, to her left, she heard a light intake of breath. Far to close for comfort. With a quick glance up towards a catwalk she jumped with all her might. She managed to reach and grab on to the hanging support beam and pull herself up, suspended under the catwalk. A second later Dejkaz, a young male Nikto, softly padded underneath her. He stopped at the same spot Kay was at moments before. Luckily for her he was focused on the same crates she was looking at.

Muscles aching Kay slowly lowered herself from the catwalk directly behind Dejkaz. Pulling out her training knife she moved her arm around him and in one quick motion pulled him down using the fall to press the knife against his throat. Kay whispered in his ear, “Gotcha”. It was an assassin's killing blow and Dejkaz knew he was out of the exercise. He let out a groan and crumpled to the floor in defeat. But before Kay could even return the knife to it's sheath a dart whizzed out from the crates and clinked against the wall near her head. If she hadn't twitched her lekku in the last second it would have caught her. Kay knew that it was Freja who had shot the darts. The Corellian favoured her throwing weapons and she was good with them too.

Kay didn't even hesitate. She let herself melt into the shadows and with a sudden burst of speed she ran down a row of charging binary load lifters. Once spotted it was pointless to stay in one place. She also didn't want to lose the advantage of knowing exactly where Freja was hidden. With a few short leaps she climbed to the top of one of the load lifters and jumped onto one of the catwalks crisscrossing the cargo bay. This one led directly above the pile of crates where the dart came from. Unfortunately the catwalks in this part of the cargo bay were caged in and she couldn't slip over the side. A few feet away was a hatch in the floor. Kay moved over to it and slowly try to pull up the latch. It was locked tight. She pulled out her set of lockpicks set to work on the hatch's lock. Timing her movements with the drip, drip, drip of the leaky pipe she managed to mask the faint click of the lock with one of the drips. She knew that Freja could be waiting on the other side of the hatch with a dart in her hand. Hoping against the odds she slowly pulled the hatch open.

To her delight Freja was still hiding behind her crates, directly below Kay. With a move she had learned from one of her instructors Kay jumped through the open hatch and used Freja to break her fall. She cursed and rolled out from under Kay, knocking one of the crates over in the process. It tumbled down spilling it's contents noisily onto the floor. Kay immediately swept out with her foot catching Freja as she attempted to rise. Freja grunted and caught Kay's foot pulling her in close. “Hah, tails! Thought you'd go up against me in hand to hand combat? You're not going to win that fight!”. Then with incredibly power Freja punched out with both hands shoving Kay away and down. Kay got to her feet and jumped back, grinning at the Corellian martial artist. Freja sneered, “Yeah, that's right you don't stand a chance!”. Kay winked at Freja and gave her a little wave. A look of despair crossed Freja's face as she looked down to see three of her non-lethal explosive darts that Kay had activated blinking ominously in the dark. “Why you…” A flash of smoke indicated the darts had exploded and Freja had no other course of action except to sit down. She was out as well.

That only left Terix. Terix was a small human boy that acted more like a monkey-lizard than any human Kay knew. He was unpredictable too. Kay slipped back into the darkness and stopped to listen for any sounds. There was a small hissing now from somewhere near the cargo bay door controls. It was an odd sound but things were often breaking down on this old freighter they used as a training vessel. Falling back on her training she started searching for Terix amid the debris and containers. Unless Terix was constantly moving around too and just missing her, Kay was beginning to wonder if she was all alone in this cargo bay. She didn't mean to start thinking about it but the feeling of being alone brought the memories of losing her parents and brother back to her in full force. Tears clouded her vision and she had to brace herself on one of the bulwarks. Where is that little demon Terix anyways? Glancing across a wide open area she spotted a figure crouching by the cargo bay door controls. What was Terix up to? He was hardly even hiding.

Kay started to get angry and she wasn't even sure why. Terix wasn't taking this exercise seriously. He was just standing there now, looking at her. She was older than him and would easily be able to beat him in a hand to hand fight. She pushed off the bulwark and started walking towards him. She could see him now, outlined by the the glow of the control panel. He started to reach into one of his pockets and Kay knew that she had to act fast. She started running towards him but her legs wouldn't work properly. They felt like they were wrapped in duracrete. She fell at his feet and rolled over onto her back. Looking up she saw him pull out a rebreather mask out of his pocket. What? No weapon? And then it dawned on her. The little minx had opened the cargo bay seal and was letting all of the air out of the room. She knew she had lost this one. With a little chuckle Terix reached over and activated the controls for resealing the cargo bay and the room slowly started to fill back up with oxygen. But it was too late, Kay knew she had been bested this time. Everything went black as she passed out, with Terix laughing into his rebreather.