Star Wars:

The Smugglers

By: Nezuban

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Disclaimer: The Star Wars universe is property of George Lucas. All names and places are his creations and are owned by him. All names and places crated by me are owned by me.

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"Sceat!" swore Ehan Fendo as his wrench slipped off the nut he was tightening and his knuckles raked across the exposed machinery. Blood came to the torn skin of his pained digits as he dropped his wrench to the deck and tried to shake the pain off, swearing even more.

The damned nut was stuck on a spot of erosion on the one bolt he needed to tighten yet before he could cover up the fuel filter's last panel. And his thirty-year-old tool set was almost too decrepit to make the necessary repairs to the equally old spacecraft he stood under.

Ehan tried again to fit the wrench over the nut, but when it slipped off again, he found that the edges of the nut had been stripped. In frustration, Ehan flung the tool across the hangar, where it landed some sixty feet away with a loud clang and skidded another twenty feet into a row of colored boxes that lined the walls of the hangar. Other spacers who were working in the hanger looked up Ehan, the humans amused, most of the aliens confused or annoyed. Shaking his throbbing fingers again, and wiping the beaded sweat from his brow, the twenty-five-year-old owner of the Ether Vane walked slowly to where his wrench landed to retrieve it.

He should have known. Should have known when his opponent offered up his ship still relatively early into their dice-and-coin game. Should have known when he caught the Radaellian smiling for an instant when Ehan rolled a sixteen on the dice and flipped the last four coins, making him the winner. He should have bloody known that the ship he'd just won was almost an un-flyable wreck. The cockpit viewport had scorch marks from who knew how many space battles. There was blaster and turbolaser damage all over the ship, but most heavily around the engines and the deflector shield generator. Rust spotted the whole ship and had eaten holes in some critical spots in the ship's hull, forcing the new owner to manufacture replacement hull plating from spare sheet metal he'd scraped up and—in some cases—had to layer together to provide to necessary protection. So now, instead of a uniform steel gray, it was mottled with black, blue, any number of shades of brown, white, and chrome. And he'd only two days ago finished sandblasting the viewport on the cockpit so that he could see through it again. He'd won the ship nearly a month ago, and had nearly run the patience of the dockmaster dry. He'd only just been able to pay a two-month docking fee with the rest of his winnings from the dice-and-coin game, but had to ask for the second month's payment back when he had to buy the sheet metal and a number of other supplies and necessities to repair his new ship.

Ehan leaned against the boxes when he retrieved his wrench and looked wearily at his ship. The one pleasant surprise had been that the engine, hyperdrive, and shields were in near perfect working order. It was just that the shell of the ship was nearly a lost cause. Except that Ehan had nothing better to do than repair his new property.

Ehan laughed quietly to himself, looking at his ship from this distance. It looked like an engineering disaster from up-close, with sloppy spot welds and messy seals, but from even eighty feet away, it looked like a patchwork quilt. A very large, boxy, patchwork quilt. It was no wonder that he got amused looks and scathing teasing from the other spacers in the hangar.

With a heaving sigh, Ehan walked back to his ship and walked up the access ramp, entering the Vane. The inside of the ship was almost as ugly as the outside, except that all the flooring and wall panels were a uniform steel gray. Nevertheless, the walls, rooms, access bays, and cargo holds all smelled a mix of oil, lubricant, fuel, and Radaellian secretions. It was sickly sweet, and permeated everything, even his clothes. He'd taken to sitting alone in the booths at the satellite station's cantina. He didn't carry a weapon other than his vibroblade, but he didn't think that anyone who knew which ship was his would molest him for that reason alone, let alone the smell that he now carried. He'd tried running the newly-installed air filters—to replace the ones the Radaellian's air sacs were accustomed to—at its highest setting, but that didn't help much.

Ehan sat down heavily onto the ripped fabric couch in the ship's "lounge," which was the only other room besides the cockpit and the bunks, and pulled a flask from his jacket and took a drink of smooth liquor that felt cool in his mouth but burned down his throat, making him feel warm all over. Lights on the control panels blinked at even intervals, some at different rhythms. The whirring of the air filters was a steady sound, and the warmth from the hard work and the drink made Ehan's eyelids heavy, and he found himself slumping in his seat as he drifted off to brief slumber.

A couple hours later, Ehan found himself in the station's cantina, sitting in a side booth sipping at the dark gold swill the Rodian bartender concocted. It tasted of metal and engine fluid, but had enough alcohol in it to mask whatever other ingredients got thrown in. But it was the only drink that Ehan could afford, and, more to the point, was courageous enough to drink.

Smoke from a dozen types of burning plant filled the air, as well as the smell of a half-dozen different species. However, Ehan had become well accustomed to the clash of odors to be found in many of the various locales in the galaxy. He remembered this one time when he and his old crewmates had docked on Coruscant, and had decided to hit up a dive in the lower levels.

They had strolled in from a long deployment, filing in the door in crisp uniforms and shiny boots. Immediately, they attracted disdain, but he could remember that all but one of his mates had scrunched his nose at the smell that bombarded their noses. When they left, they speculated that something foul had gone down in the back.

A sudden pang of nostalgia brought Ehan to rub at the right shoulder of his blue flight jacket, where the space was darker than the faded fabric of the rest of his jacket, where a patch had long since been removed. . . .

He shook off the memory, and returned his attention to the Bith musicians in the corner of the cantina, trying to pull off a fast, jumpy tune, but ended up with a fast, flat, grating noise. To Bith ears it may be fine, but to his human ears, it was annoying. Nevertheless, he tapped his toe to the beat as he stared into his drink.

Watching his drink swirl in his glass, Ehan became aware of the presence of another being who had approached his table. Ehan looked up and saw a Bothan in spacer's coveralls standing beside him, grinning.

"Heh," he scoffed. "You must be the owner of that wreck of a ship." The Bothan leaned on his table, standing a little to close to Ehan for comfort. "Are you sure that thing is going to fly?" Ehan sat back in his seat, his left hand drifting down to his thigh pocket.

"It got here well enough," he replied. The Bothan laughed.

"Word is you were dumped here and the ship crashed into your hands." The Bothan looked Ehan over. "You sure don't look enough like a star pilot to have gotten it any other way. You don't even carry a blaster." He grinned smugly at Ehan, but his grin vanished as Ehan flicked his arm slightly and a low, steady buzz filled the air around the booth.

"I don't carry a blaster. But I'm not defenseless." When he was certain that the Bothan knew that he wasn't joking, Ehan removed his vibroblade from against the Bothan's abdomen and replaced it in his thigh pocket. He sipped at his drink again and glanced around the cantina, noticing two or three whose gazes lingered on him and the Bothan. "If you're going to talk to me, sit down." The Bothan stared hard at Ehan, and then filled the other seat of the booth.

"I have an offer," the Bothan said, the cast in his eyes a very serious one. "You seem to be stuck here. As it happens, so am I." He paused and studied Ehan. Ehan studied the Bothan back as he sipped again at his drink.

Staring hard into the Bothan's eyes, trying to read the alien, Ehan said, "I'm not stuck here. My ship flies. I can leave whenever I wish." Only amusement—and a touch of scorn—reached the Bothan's eyes.

"And go where? You have no money near as I can tell, and if you really wanted to go somewhere, you would have done so already." He chuckled as he looked around the cantina. "After all, why stay in this place any longer than you have to?"

Ehan drained his glass and leaned back in his seat. The Bothan was quite right.

"Very well," Ehan admitted, still suspicious of this man. "Why don't you tell me your name?"

"You can call me Coskie. That will suffice."

"Ehan Fendo." Coskie made a hand gesture, which Ehan took for a greeting. Ehan responded by ordering a drink for the both of them. When the drinks arrived, he stared hard again at Coskie. "Now, what's this you said about an offer?"