A man-like figure stood looking out through the gaping hole at the end of the ship's bridge, wires and pipes exposed and metal frayed as they bent in every which way around the rim; it was one of several that it had sustained from the Mandalorian Wars. Only through a constant, subtle hold through the Force was the corpse of a machine capable of flying through the galaxy. The figure whose will was all that kept it and the score of crew members barely alive stood seven feet tall, garbed head to toe in padded black armor and cloak, the hood pulled up over his head. Even his face was covered, hidden by a white metal mask. The only places where one could glimpse at his face were the holes for his eyes and the gap that opened from above his nostrils, surrounding it, where the mask stopped on top of the upper lip. It had a metallic line driving down the center, unifying the halves of the face and red lines dashing from the top of the eye openings upwards to the forehead. Yet within the gaps of the mask, his face was still hidden by shadow.
The sound of soft footsteps echoing along the bridge behind him pulled him from his meditation, basking in the blackness that surrounded them. A rustle and the tiniest of thuds alerted him that he was being addressed.
"You have called for me, Master?" the speaker's voice was husky and rich, feminine and hollow.
He replied without looking away from the void that was the ideal of life, his bizarre language a cross between hissing and screaching, [There is... something in the Force.]
"A disturbance?" the woman behind him clarified, her voice betraying her bewilderment.
[Yes... No...] the hooded man reached out with his mind again to help him find the words for this strange thing that he had felt, finding that he did not need to reach nearly as far as when he first found it.
[It is something I've never experienced before, and yet it has always been there,] the creature said, [It is like... a tremor that has gone on for years, yet has been too small to sense.]
"I," the woman behind him started slowly, "do not believe I have felt this 'tremor,' Master."
He turned around to face her. She knelt low on the bridge floor, the one high knee revealing the long dark red, soft dress that she wore underneath her leather-like black robe, the sides of the rich red veil falling around her hidden face; the only part of her body that was revealed from her clothing was her pale jaw, cheeks, nose, and full, dark lips. Even her hands were hidden underneath black gloves.
[Then find it,] the man hissed darkly, [I need to know what this is, and have it removed if necessary.]
"Of course, Master," she said dutifully, bowing her head lower towards the ground. With that, she rose to her feet and left the bridge. He turned back around to face the hollow galaxy, only to find that the tremor would not leave his mind.
"Let's see..." Atton Rand mumbled, pacing slowly around a series of plasteel cylinders and footlockers, focusing his hazel eyes as he examined a datapad in his gloved hand, his fair-hued fingers free of the brown cloth that otherwise surrounded his palm and reached a few inches before his elbow. His solid black boots that he had polished that morning were now dull, the soles crusted with unidentifiable dirts and oils which only packed thicker from his pacing along the landing pad near the older industrial sector of Nar Shaddaa.
"Forty ounces of refined Andris, sixteen ounces of Giggledust, ten ounces of Neutron Pixie..." he pointed towards a few of the cylinders as his brown hair once again fell into his face. He quickly brushed it to the side; the front near his face was the only long section of his hair, and even then it tended to only reach around his eyes when it was being uncooperative.
"...twenty ounces of Yarrock, twelve ounces of Gree Spice, six ounces of Shenir, and..." he paused at the end of the list, then reached down into one of the plasteel cylinders and carefully pulled out a small package wrapped in dark paper several times and tightly sealed.
"Huh. Somebody got a raise," the man commented before returning the package of Glitterstim to its container. Many of the other containers held basic trade items - clothes, droid parts, computer packages, holo-games, dried food, and datapads. He glanced one last time at his shipment before ensuring that all the spice varieties were well stored inside the many hidden compartments. He stretched his back and smirked to himself, then picked up one of the plasteel cylinders and started walking up the ramp to his tiny freighter.
"Need a hand?"
Atton turned his upper body, shifting his back leg so that his feet were perpendicular to each other. A man was running up to him - tall, cropped black hair, very little muscle mass. He had a smirk to match the rusting gold ring that swung from his left earlobe, a padded brown vest resting over his plain, off-white short-sleeved shirt, and faded black pants, with a brown belt and shoes.
"Vas, you lazy son of a bantha!" Atton shouted, letting his inner laughter show on his face, "I was just going to do this run without you! What happened - that Twi'lek give you a run for your money?"
Vas laughed as he bent down to the cargo and lifted a container so it rested against his chest.
"No idea what happened to her," Vas said, walking up the ramp, "I woke up and she was gone. Along with my drink stash."
Atton laughed and said, "I bet that was your fault."
Vas gave him a playful glare and retorted, "Hey, at least I got laid. Or at least I think I did."
"Think you did doesn't count," Atton snorted, finishing the walk up the ramp before placing the container he was holding on the floor and sliding it against the wall. Vas came up next to him and placed his cylinder next to the one Atton had just put down.
Vas turned as Atton started walking back down the ramp and yelled to him, "You remember where we're going this time?"
"Four stops," Atton grunted as he picked up the bottom of a footlocker, then called, "Hey nerf-herder! Get down here and help me with this."
Vas made a quick jog down the loading ramp before swinging around to the other side of the footlocker Atton was holding and picking it up. The two men lifted the box high off the ground and walked back up the loading ramp. Once inside the freighter, they shifted around and tucked the footlocker neatly against the wall. They went back down to the ramp, each grabbing another container for themselves.
"First we're heading to Honoghr," Atton said, walking up the ramp, "Then we take a stop at Ruac." He put down his container as Vas came up over the top of the ramp.
Vas shook his head and said, "Honoghr - that place gives me the creeps."
"Hey, I don't like it either. The guys at that mining facility called up as well, so we can hit that after we hit Ruac," Atton continued, putting his hands along his waist.
"That's a bit out of the way," Vas commented, putting his container down as Atton went to grab another.
"For those two, sure, but we've also gotta make a run out to Emmer," Atton commented, coming back up the ramp with a container.
"Couldn't we hit Emmer first and then the miners?" Vas remarked.
Atton shrugged, "Sure, doesn't matter that much. This ship's got a fuel tank twice the size it needs, so either way we'll make it back for the next run."
"You sound awfully okay with this," Vas noted.
Atton plopped the container down in the tight pile that was well formed by then. He left a hand on top of one of the containers and said, "I'm not gonna lie: those miners are making me nervous."
"Yeah," Vas made a hesitant laugh, "Show up once, twice - hell, even three times and usually folks can just brush it aside. But they've been calling us a lot."
"You can say that again," Atton grumbled, "I've got a feeling our welcome is wearing thin."
"Yeah. We should make this run our last to those guys for a while. Let it blow over before we take another order from them," Vas said.
"You know very well it doesn't work like that. Lose a client, and you lose 'em for good," Atton snarked, and then said, "But I agree. Our hides are on the line, and I'd rather be short a few credits than stuck behind a force cage on some forsaken asteroid."
They finished moving the last of the containers, leaving a narrow path from the loading ramp to the cockpit, a distance that was little more than a dozen feet. Atton plopped into the pilot seat and Vas in the copilot seat, and the two began pressing away at the controls.
"How's things look on your end?" Vas asked as he checked the gauges for the fuel tanks.
"Everything's stable. Just gotta get off this trash heap," Atton responded.
"I'm with you there," Vas commented. At the commands from their fingertips, the little ship released its pressured air to the surface of the landing pad, blowing dust and grime every which way as it gradually floated mere feet from the ground. The landing feet retracted themselves into the bottom of the ship from its new airborne spot. Then the flight engine glowed hot as fire reached and presented itself and propelled the freighter forward as the pressurized air finished its dispatchment. It flew forward and made a tight turn towards the atmosphere, thick with green-gray clouds. The artificial gravity activated, holding the two men and dozen crates in place as the ship drove into the cruddy clouds, dirt and gunk colliding against the windshield. Through the thick haze it pushed. The outer metal nearly froze over, then superheated, then froze again as it pushed further beyond the Smuggler's Moon, cutting itself through the atmosphere. It slipped into open space, and Atton began pressing in the numbers and coordinates of their first destination in the navigation computer. Vas grinned and rested his hands behind his head as the hyperspace jump began. The black world littered with stars shifted as they turned to tinted blue streaks, then transformed into a haze of blue lights and swirls surrounding the ship like a tunnel swallowing them whole.
They landed on Honoghr with ease, the crusted sand of the tall-walled landing docks dislodging slightly and sifting as the ship placed itself on the ground. A roof closed in above them, blocking out the harsh sun. Vas quickly ran out to introduce himself to the Noghri docks inspector while Atton prepared the first collection of spice, placing a few well-sealed packages in a hard, Skuhm leather messenger bag. He handed the bag to Vas when he returned, and he ran out again to deliver the package. When his partner returned, Atton immediately began to fly the freighter away from the planet.
Their run to the Republic outpost on the thickly-forested Ruac went similarly smooth, despite the aggravating cargo inspection the soldiers. When the soldiers found nothing suspicious, Atton grabbed his leather bag, stuffed it with more spice, and slinked off to deliver the goods, leaving Vas to occupy himself with chatting up the stationed men and women by the tiny bar that the outpost permitted to serve as a cantina. Atton swung by after a few hours with a cocky grin, flashing a medpack that he had previously stuffed in the bag, and Vas waved goodbye to the good men and women breaking their backs to defend the good and lawful of the galaxy. He couldn't help but chuckle at the irony.
After visiting the green fields of Emmer for a few days, relaxing in one of the smaller cities that spotted the planet and dropping off the third collection of spice, the much lighter freighter drifted its way to the Peragus Mining Facility. With careful weaving through the asteroid field, the little ship landed in the dock with no incident. Atton walked down the cargo ramp into the open section of the facility and greeted the human flight manager with a grin and a rough handshake.
"Hey hey! Good to see you guys again," the man said cheerfully, "It's been awhile - you two are almost regulars out here."
"Somebody's gotta make sure you miners have some news of the outside world," Atton remarked with a grin, patting the man on the back, "Billy, was it?"
"Yup. You boys here for a top-off?" the man named Billy asked.
"As always," Atton said, "Gas and gossip."
"Maybe I can talk Chertra into getting you boys something to drink," Billy half-joked, then added, "Some of the others were asking about you. If I see them, I'll send them your way."
Vas and Atton stood around the ship as it's fuel tank was getting topped off. Vas walked off with the leather bag they had been using with one of the miners, to "get some coffee." Atton in the meantime set up along one of the walls and offered some of the junk he had gathered for small-credit sales; one miner bought an old holochess board that he had been trying to figure out how to get rid of for noticed a few of the security officers far off towards the doors leading into the facility. Atton kept his eyes between the door and the security guards, waiting for his partner to show up as he gave the local workers the rundown of the big news in the galaxy that he had picked up that year - unrest in Onderon, rebuilding efforts of Telos, the Sith turning in on themselves, increased patrols along the Outer Rim, the ruin of one of the powerful Hutt families, Manaan's peace relations with the Republic - as well as a few minor things for the miners - fashionable colors on Coruscant, plant seasons on Kashyyyk, games. In the corner of his eye he saw the security guards start to move for him. He looked over towards the fuel line, which was just being detached from the ship, and began to pack up the last of the containers, by then mostly empty. Then he saw Vas sprinting from the opposite corner of the room to their freighter. He went to run as well, but he was grabbed roughly on the arm by one of the security guards. Just as he wrestled his arm out of the guard's grip, the ship was floating in the air and soaring away into the asteroid field and beyond. Rough hands of the security guards grabbed him by the shoulders and arms, yanking him into the facility.