Chapter Text
The central paradox of Ryloth centered around the constant abuse of its people. Certainly, the Twi'lek were one of the most common races in the galaxy, due primarily to their regular capture and sale as dancing girls. The planet had a representative in the galactic republic, though it sat on the edge of wild space. Exotic spices were mined and exported to the wealthy, with almost none of that wealth trickling down to the lekku-bearing natives. Ryloth was an important part of the greater galactic culture, not because of what it gave, but because of what was taken from it.
Still, such callous exploitation required infrastructure, oversight, constant comings and goings of offworlders. And as a nominal part of the republic, those who would take needed at least the veneer of civility, to hide their crimes from those who would seek justice. Towards the spaceports the veneer grew stronger, so visitors would never have to see the darker side of the world's suffering, but even further out there were hotels, housing, places for families to visit or even settle down should they enjoy the harsh environment of the planet. This, combined with the subversive slave trade, made aliens a semi-common sight across the planet.
So the young human girl wandering around the town got a few odd looks, mostly because children her age shouldn't be wearing any sort of armor, but was generally thought of as a passing visitor and not given a second thought.
For her part, the girl found herself increasingly baffled by her circumstances. She'd worked out that she was on an alien planet--it would be difficult for so many people to have those cool-looking head-tails as just a mutation--but she hadn't figured out how she got here. Most of the aliens spoke their alien language, but english was common enough that she could get by. And while she wouldn't call the place primitive, it reminded her of some pictures of foreign countries back home, there was a distinct lack of science fiction tech--right up until one of the aliens pulled out a holo-communicator, or some sort of hovercar sped through the road.
What was this place? And how did she get here?
One of those questions was more immediately important than the other, since it would affect her survival. She glanced around as she slipped into an alleyway, surreptitiously checking her belongings. Her ID was... basically useless here. And her money probably would be too, wouldn't it? She had plenty of zipties, thankfully, but those were a limited resource--and not that valuable if she didn't know how law enforcement worked here. And her phone told her quite blatantly that there was no signal, but tried to comfort her with its sparse number of gaming apps. With a sigh, she carefully removed the battery from the phone and repocketed everything.
Stepping out of the alleyway, the green-armored girl continued meandering through the town. All she had was her skills and her wits but, fortunately enough, she was well-trained with both. And the aliens didn't look... hostile. Wary, perhaps, but not angry at her. Some gave her sympathetic looks--those with their own children especially. And while she didn't really like how infantilizing those looks were, she had to acknowledge she might need help from that sort of person.
Shelter. Food. Maybe a job. Scratch that, definitely a job. Finding a way back home was probably going to be impossible... Well, difficult. For the longest amount of time. Best to assume she was in it for the long haul. It'd help if she could read the language...
She stopped in her tracks, staring as a robot carrying some sort of metal crate hovered across the road.
After a moment she shook her head. "It's an alien planet," she muttered to herself. "Of course there's going to be robots. Why wouldn't there be?"
She idly followed after the machine, curious to see where it led her, and a few minutes later she found herself in front of what seemed to be a warehouse. The robot stopped at a gate, beeped something at a scanner, then headed through once the gate rattled open. There seemed to be loads and loads of crates, and--
Somebody knocked her aside, rushing for the gate as it rattled closed. It was a girl around her age--well, at least she thought it was a girl, but maybe aliens had different gender concepts--and her purple face was angry and determined. She slipped into the warehouse just seconds before the gate closed.
The girl in green tilted her head with a thoughtful frown. She looked the warehouse over carefully, nodding to herself when she spotted an open window, and casually moved to a nearby alleyway.
A few minutes later, she was standing on top of a stack of metal crates, surreptitiously watching the alien girl sneaking around. Or, actually, now she thought about it, she was the alien, and the purple girl was the native. Probably best to stop thinking in terms of 'aliens' at all, and just learn the name of this species. Could she feign ignorance? Claim she was a victim of abduction from a primitive, pre-spaceflight planet?
The purple girl was tapping on crates as she went, pressing her... not ears, more like cones, to them for a moment or two. Like she was expecting a response. The girl in green raised her hand, gesturing slightly. Anybody paying attention might, if they looked the right direction, notice the faintest quiver in the air, as though space itself had been bent.
"Damn it, Mersha, where are you?" muttered the purple girl in a worried undertone. "They can't have taken you offplanet yet..."
The girl in green scowled. Those words, the purple girl's actions... it didn't paint a pretty picture. She focused herself, extending her senses across the warehouse, through the crates themselves... and her scowl morphed briefly into a snarl as she found exactly what she had hoped not to find. There was no way she could just stand aside, not with something like... this.
She made one last check with her senses, just to make sure nobody could see her--nobody alive, at any rate, she had no idea about the robots. Then she took an impossible step down, stepping out from between two stacks. "Hey!"
The purple girl whirled, pulling something out of her bag and pointing it at her--though her panicked expression shifted to confusion. "What--you're not a droid!" she hissed.
"No, just a concerned citizen. Bunch of people, about your size, are in a crate over this way. You're here to get them out?"
The purple girl nodded warily.
"Good. Come on!"
The girl in green gestured, leading the wary stranger through paths that, perhaps, were shorter than they should have been. It wasn't long before they were in front of a stack of crates, almost like any other.
"Third one up," she explained quietly. "You got a way to open it?"
"I can slice the control panel, but I didn't... I didn't plan on climbing a stack of crates."
The girl in green smirked. "Not a problem."
The purple girl gave her an odd look as she gestured, then backed up a shocked step when space warped in front of her. It almost seemed as though the entire stack of crates was descending into the ground, even while remaining the same height. The control panel was--at one and the same time--far above her, and directly within reach.
"...who are you?" she asked, shocked.
"I'm..." The girl in green hesitated. "...Vista. Call me Vista."
"...Vista." The purple girl stared at her for a moment, then shook her head and stepped forward. "What," she muttered as she pulled out some tools, "are you some kind of jedi?"
"Never heard the word. I'd like to think I'm a hero, though, if that's what you mean."
The purple girl rolled her eyes as she worked on the control panel. "Good to know. Come on, come on... Got it!"
With a hiss of steam, the side of the crate swung open. Inside, a bunch of girls--all around their age, and all with headtails--looked up from their shackles.
"Hyanori?" A blue girl stared in growing astonishment. "How--?"
"A lot of work and a little bit of luck, Mersha." The purple girl stepped in, handing a tool of some sort to the one in green. "Come on, let's get these girls free before anybody notices."
Vista grinned at Hyanori. "Right behind you."