DonoSlane Excursions – Paying back debts

Dramatis Personae:

Kirney Slane (human female from Coruscant)
Myn Donos (human male from Corellia)

Garik 'The Face' Loran (human male from Pantolomin)
Voort 'Piggy' saBinring (modified Gamorrean male from Gamorr)

Timeframe: ~ 10.5 ABY (3 months post "Dark Empire")

Author's Note: This is my take on something I had not thought possible, but the release of X-Wing : Mercy Kill has forced me to reconsider. The reactions of the old Wraiths to Kirney (and that little dialogue between Sharr and Voort about the King of the Droids ploy) were so overwhelmingly casual, they must have known she was alive for a long long time.
The story follows the good old Extended Universe that Disney carelessly declared void at the stroke of a pen. Well, two can play that game. *waves hand* This is not the disneyfied Star Wars you're looking for. Move along.

Sentinel-Class Landing Craft Fair Trade
inbound to Coruscant

The cockpit was filled with the gentle hum of the hyperdrive and the breathing sounds of its three occupants. Kolot sat in the co-pilot's seat, the metal extensions he used to reach the controls tucked away in the rack Myn had installed in the niche between the gunnery station and the environmental systems controls. He held a datapad in his paws and was reading the manual of Myn's new Hermes-class courier to familiarize himself with the ship's systems. They'd bought the ship two weeks back but were still working their way through the operational manual and the technical specifications.

Tonin, linked to the ship's systems via his droid station, let out a soft warble and the navigation display appeared on one of the forward displays.

"Alright, folks," Kirney said and began to strap herself in. "We're sixty seconds from reversion to realspace so if you'd be so kind to buckle up in case we run into a bunch of sunday pilots I'd appreciate it."

Kolot put the datapad away and reached for the extensions before he followed Kirney's lead and strapped himself in. "Acknowledged."

Kirney cast a glance at Myn, who was sitting in the chair of the engineering station. He, too, was busy fastening his crash webbing but he didn't offer a verbal reply. "Are you planning to sulk all the way to Coruscant?" she inquired letting a touch of exasperation creep into her voice.

Myn let out a snort but didn't look at her. "So what if I do? You know what I think of this stunt."

"Yes, I do." She rolled her eyes. "You've been quite clear on your opinion ever since I told you. What would have you done if I had gone ahead with my idea without telling you?"

He gave another snort. "I'd have come after you with a sniper rifle, shooting anyone who'd given you as much as a strange look."

"Look," she spat and swiveled her chair around to face him, "if I had known you'd be such a pain in the ejector seat I'd have left you on Corellia. This overprotectiveness thing may be cute the first few times, but I'm seriously getting tired of it, so knock it off!"

He glared back. "I've already been through losing you once and I don't want to go through that again. Is that so hard to understand?"

She shook her head. "No, it isn't. But they are our friends. Don't you trust them?"

Myn remained implacable. "With your life? No."

Kolot let out a growl and turned to glower at the two humans. "Leave hyperspace first, go on arguing later," he grumbled.

"Right." Kirney swiveled her chair towards the frontal viewport again and put her right hand on the lever of the hyperdrive. As the countdown reached zero she pulled it back and the swirl of colors outside the ship collapsed into realspace again.
They'd come out of hyperspace on the outer edge of Coruscant's traffic zone. The city planet never slept and the sheer number of ships waiting for their cue to begin their final approach was a sight to behold. There were one-person ships not larger than a snubfighter waiting next to titanic container freighters with thousands of tons of cargo – as long as you didn't have a priority code you had to wait for your turn, regardless of your ship's size and displacement.

"Home sweet home," Kirney remarked sarcastically as the sparkling night side of Coruscant loomed ahead. "Ferrocrete City, choose between overpriced, overcrowded and unhygienic or take all three at the same time."

"How about neither?", Myn gibed, the first sign of humor he'd shown since they'd left Corellia, before taking a deep breath in a conscious effort to pull himself together. Kirney was right, not that he'd admit it to her, but sulking wouldn't see them through this. "What's the plan?"

"First we establish an operational base," Kirney said as she guided the shuttle towards the closest congregation of waiting ships. The recent battles for the city planet had left much debris in orbit making it necessary to herd traffic along narrow corridors. And these had to be swept for floating junk on an hourly basis. "Meaning we find a clean hotel with reasonable prices and a few decent tapcafs nearby. I remember your tales of fast food vending machines and I don't think my stomach could tolerate that."

"I'd figured that out," he muttered dryly. "I was thinking about how we can get in touch with Face and all that. Remember I dumped my comlink so we don't have his frequency."

"Hold her here, Kolot," Kirney instructed her co-pilot after she'd brought the ship to a stop at the end of the queue of waiting freighters. Then she swiveled her chair around again. "I wasn't thinking of giving him a comlink call. That would be too obvious, it would leave too many traces." Her eyes narrowed to slits and she had that flicker in them that Myn associated with her thinking heavily. "I think the best course would be to use the public communication system. I can generate an empty message to a public com node with just enough coding that the system will automatically forward it to an address of our choosing. And if we use a public com terminal there will be no trace that could be backtracked to us."

"Ah." For Myn the world of data deception was and would always remain unfathomable and it showed in his blank stare.

"You haven't understood a single word I said," she remarked with a grin.

"I think I got 'to' and 'it'. But how will you get it to Face? I don't suppose secure NRI communications nodes can be looked up in the HoloNet directory."

That drew a snort. "NRI headquarters has its own public node and if we address the message to Captain Garik Loran and attach a small data package encrypted in an old Wraith Squadron code … " Her voice trailed off and she gave Tonin a glance from the corner of her eyes. "You still have them, haven't you?"

The astromech gave a happy trill of affirmation.

"Of course." Myn finally understood. "And what will that package contain?"

She gave a low chuckle, her green eyes twinkling with amusement. "It's obvious you've never had any Intelligence training."

"For which I'll be eternally grateful," he shot back wryly.

"Yes, well …" She gave him a look of patient amusement. "That package will only contain three things: a location, a timestamp and a note that it's urgent." The slight smile grew into a smirk. "And, of course, an automated notification bounced back to us once the package has been correctly decrypted."

"Of course," he said nonchalantly. "And what if Face isn't around? Remember my little predicament a while back?"

Kirney smiled mock sweetly. "Which is why Shalla and Piggy will receive identical messages. Just sent at a different time from different com terminals."

A frown stole its way on Myn's face. "Face and Shalla I understand," he said and gave her a look of puzzlement. "But why Piggy?"

"Several reasons." She began to count things off her fingers. "First – the professional reason. Face is the boss, Shalla is his second-in-command. Number three in the pecking order is Piggy. Didn't you tell me a while back that he'd been promoted?"

"Yes, I did." Myn nodded but still looked puzzled. "But Kell has been a Lieutenant for much longer and has seniority over him. Rank-wise, that is."

"True," Kirney admitted. "But he's content just being Demolitions Boy. I don't think he wants that kind of command authority."

"Makes sense," he agreed after a moment of contemplation. "So with Face, Shalla and Piggy we have three times as many chances to set up this meeting. What are the other reasons?"

"The second reason," she began by ticking off another finger, "is training. Face was an actor. He's trained to read people's body language like a holobook." A rueful smile appeared on her lips. "He blew my cover, after all."

"Yeah," he muttered, looking uncomfortable. Even though years had gone by since Kidriff Myn was still not completely at ease with what had happened.

Kirney raised an eyebrow, he blushed and cleared his throat. "As for Shalla," she continued casually but still managed to give him a pointed look, "she was trained in all kinds of Intelligence things and knows the business. She probably understands my situation best of them all. More importantly, though, she will understand the importance of what we agreed to offer."

"And Piggy?"

She let out a sigh. "Piggy's upbringing taught him all kinds of ugly things about prejudices. Which is why I never noticed him having any. Additionally he is the most level-headed of all Wraiths and his affinity to mathematics means he's more likely to focus on the known facts instead of reacting emotionally."

He gave a low whistle of appreciation. "You've put some serious thought into this, I see."

Kirney didn't smile but the corner of her lips twisted into a sour grimace. "I was taught to do this kind of evaluation," she reminded him. "It's kinda like a program running in my head."

"Oh." He looked down for a moment, not sure how to continue as he knew that her service with Imperial Intelligence was still a sore spot for her. "Any further reasons?"

"Personal history." She exhaled noisily. "Face knows how it is to serve the Empire while not knowing what it's really like. He knows how it is to have an epiphany and still feel unable to pay back the debts one has piled up." She looked at Myn to check his reaction but he merely gave a nod. "Shalla … I remember you told me she was torn about my motivations when you were listening to my message. By including her I make it clear that I am not attempting to set up this meeting just with people who can relate to my situation. I don't want to create the impression that I'm arranging things in my favor."

Myn's eyes widened. While he'd agonized over the things that could go wrong and ways how to get out in that case she'd considered things he'd never have thought of. "I … This is far beyond my limited horizon." He looked embarrassed. "My Mom sometimes calls my father a 'dumb grunt'. Lovingly, that is. I really feel like that at the moment."

"I was trained to do this," she reminded him gently, "and you weren't. Don't beat yourself up." Then Kirney shook her head as if to clear her thoughts and struggled to focus on the main issues. "And Piggy," she went on and her voice once again strong and businesslike, "was born just to be a lab specimen, an experiment. He knows how it is to rise above what had been ordained for you by other people."

"Makes sense," he agreed. "Was that all?"

She smiled again, a crooked smile full of mischief. "Psychology." That earned her a blank stare and she giggled. "It's simple but most people aren't aware of it. By sending out three messages I increase the chance that at least two of them will show up. By having two, maybe even three of them in this meeting we grant them either numerical parity or superiority. Which, to put it bluntly, will not put them on the defense and make them more amiable."

Myn narrowed his eyes and shot her a glare as some pieces he'd never quite managed to sort clicked into place. "So this is why you won't let me come along to those business meetings of yours."

"Correct," she returned impishly. "Gotta take all the advantages I can, haven't I?"

"Tonin, remind me never to play a game of chance against her. Ever."

The astromech hooted an affirmation that sounded entirely too much like a chuckle.

Kirney pouted at him, the expression exaggerated enough to make it clear she was fibbing, before she patted the rounded top of Tonin and asked nonchalantly, "Have you got our landing slot, yet?"

The droid chirped a cascading sequence of sounds and projected a schematic holo into the air.

Kirney raised a dubious eyebrow. "Newport Sub-Five?" She cast a glance at Myn. "Ever been there?"

He frowned. "Not that I remember. It's one of Newport's auxiliaries, right?"

Tonin's whistle confirmed his supposition.

"Okay, shorty, I've got a job for you," the droid's mistress cut in. "I want you to access the planetary data network and list all hotels in the proximity of that spaceport and sort them by price, quality, restaurants or tapcafs nearby and relative distance. You got that?"

The astromech hooted and began to fulfill the task he'd been given.

The freighter in front of them began moving ahead and a green light was flashing on the console. Kolot, who had been silent throughout the discussion, spoke up again. "Fair Trade cleared for landing."

Kirney swiveled her chair back around and flipped a switch. A holographic indicator appeared on the frontal display. "That's our vector, Kolot. Take her in."

The Ewok gave her a toothy grin. "Yub-yub, Captain."