Chapter 3

Instead of ruining last night with the awkward fumbling that always accompanied a morning after. She instead left an old fashioned note on the pillow next to the contently sleeping human, and called a public speeder to take her to Sliders, just fifteen minutes from her fairly posh hotel.

The place was an old fashioned working class diner, dressed up to celebrate the long haul freighter captains it usually serviced, with holos of famous pre-Republic navigators and even more infamous early Republic smugglers.

The two she was looking for weren't easy to miss; a small wiry human man and a large four armed ortolan, whose mass was spilling out of the booth they had chosen near the back of the greasy spoon.

The giant reptilian alien had his back to her as she approached but the man brightened noticeably at the sight of her. He started to slide out and stand but she waved him down and scooted into the booth next to him.

"Sarusa Sabasoo?" he asked extending a hand across his body while flashing his most roguish smile.

"Kimian Zorel?" she returned an awkward hand shake with her weaker left hand as he nodded to his partner, currently scarfing down more food than she ate in a day.

"This big lug is Jebbis Krell."

The ortolan looked up briefly and grunted before extending one of his lower arms across the table, while still scooping up food with his two upper arms.

She took just the end of his two large fingers in the palm of her hand.

"So you're trying to get down to Contruum?" Kimian asked her over his own steaming cup of caf.

"Down, and then over to the outskirts of the coming battle. My droid will do most of the work but we have to get him within about three klicks."

Kimian looked across to his partner who paused before giving a half shrug accompanied by another of his grunts.

"Dangerous work my partner thinks. I think he's right," the smuggler said, looking off in the distance as if to ponder his own mortality.

"If we get near the battle then we've done something really wrong," she said quickly.

"Well if these things ever go completely right, it would be a first…I'm-"

Another grunt from across the table. "-we're gonna have to say…pshh, thirty thousand…since I like you". He made his best 'I really shouldn't be doing this' face.

"I can transfer twenty thousand to you now."

The scrawny human couldn't help but flash a smile with his eyes to his now belching partner.

"You got yourself a charter." They shook hands again. Well I did talk him down she thought to herself as she transferred her total allowance to the smuggler's personal account.

They had cleared atmosphere before lunch. And after another couple hours of waiting in Contruum's asteroid belt while fending off mild advances from Kimian and trying to relax over Jebbis's snoring, they had their entry window between passing pickets and sensors.

They put the small Corellian HWK-240 down on a rocky outcropping a good thirty kilometers from the site Sarusa had paid handsomely to confirm was the primary Mandalorian base the Republic forces wanted to capture by sunrise. They waited over some cheap hands of sabaac until about an hour before sunrise when Sarusa programmed YV-8 to fly to the outskirts of the base.

Once YV-8 over the horizon they hunkered down to wait out the night. Sarusa pulled out her datapad and punched up one of her favorite holovids, a love story set during the Jedi Civil War three centuries earlier. The subject forced her thoughts back to young Uli, undoubtedly sitting amongst his comrades in the back of a transport…most likely entering the system right about now.

Her thoughts were interrupted by Kimian plopping down at the end of the couch, and she brought her knees closer to her body to make room.

"whatcha watching?" he asked, trying to sound half-interested.

"Redemption" she answered with a half-smile.

"The sappy love story about the two Jedi?" he slyly draped his arm across the back of the couch, putting his hand next to her knee.

"Revan and Bastila…and it's not sappy" she bit back with playful heat. She sensed no danger from Kimian. Just harmless fawning.

"You know, they say single people tend to be bigger fans of romance vids," he shrugged.

She said nothing.

After some painful silence he made his long awaited move. "so…you gotta boyfriend?" he asked, drumming his fingers by her knee.

"Worse, for you that is," she said grabbing the small star necklace pendant and showing it to him.

"what? Your people confirm their wedding vows with a necklace?"

She nodded.

"oh…well…doesn't hurt to ask right?"

"no, it doesn't" she said with an honest smile.

He started to make a painfully awkward exit when Jebbis came bounding down from the cockpit, each step like a cannon blast thundering down the central corridor. They both turned to see Jebbis lumber into the room.

"Boss!...you better get up here, quick" the big alien said, his lower arms gripping his knees while his upper right arm waved them back up to the cockpit.

"we got contacts."

With that, Kimian leapt up. Sarusa was right behind him as they ran up the corridor together.

"There!" the big reptilian nearly yelled, pointing at the scanner. "Three contacts coming in fast."

Kimian brushed past him and took his pilot's chair, flipping switches that would point the scanner in their exact direction.

"Republic Navy?" Sarusa asked.

"Doubtful. Wouldn't they have already scouted by now? They should be landing in mass thirty klicks to the west, like now!" he snapped, starting to get frantic.

"If they keep their present course they're going to fly by two klicks to starboard."

"maybe it's a routine Mandalorian patrol and they don't even know we're here" Sarusa offered.

"That's no comfort," the ortolan said, pushing by her to take his co-pilot's seat. "If they're patrolling they'll be scanning and at 2 klicks will be shining like a nav beacon."

"even with everything off?!"

"If they got good enough scanners, they can detect the residual heat. Hell, SIS scanners could pick up our body heat from two klicks," Kimian said while gesturing to the jump seat behind her. "Sit down and strap in…we may need to make a quick getaway."

She did as she was told but not without protest. "what about YV-8? I can't leave him out here," she said while buckling herself in.

"Lady, it's a droid," Jebbis said, raising one large, scaly eyebrow at her.

"A droid carrying first hand footage of a crucial battle. Footage I paid top credit to get."

"We understand Sarusa, but if it's our lives or your news vid you know which option I'm taking," Kimian said with some sympathy.

"I'm not saying that. I'm just saying let's not jump at shadows here."

"Pipe down, here they come," Jebbis said, shushing her with his upper left hand.

She obeys without comment and looks up between the two smugglers and out the forward viewport. Cutting across the evening sky were two of sleekest, meanest fighters Sarusa had seen.

As if reading her thoughts Kimian offered, "Kom'rek's, Mando attack fighters…deadly."

"…good scanners too," the big alien slapped his partner in the shoulder, "you might want to start the burn."

"Now?!"

"If they're scanning, it won't make a bantha's backside whether the sublights are cooking or not."

"Fellas," Sarusa cut across their argument with an outstretched hand, "they're turning."

"Fierfek!" they both yelled in unison and began toggling switches.

"You good Jebs?" the human asked, starting to get up.

"I got this, man the turret" he answered, giving his partner a firm arm clasp and a stern look.

"Wait! You fly, I'll man the turret," Sarusa stood in his way.

"Do you know how?"

"Are you seriously planning to shoot those things down? Cause if you aren't I can keep them off us for a minute same as you."

Kimian looked down at his partner and they both shrugged before Kimian sat back in his pilot's seat.

"The ladder in the back, head up and strap in," the Ortolan yelled over his shoulder as he pulled up on the flightstick.

"Got it!" Sarusa yelled, hustling back down the corridor as she felt the ship start to vibrate and hum beneath her feet.

A few moments later, she had buckled herself into the hydraulic seat, which was designed to move with the turret, always keeping the shooter aligned with the cannon. The Mandalorians had been far enough away that they still had about a klick between them when the small Corellian freighter lurched forward. Sarusa could see the mountains to port moving buy at increasing speeds.

Once the blue and white ships closed to half a klick she opened fire, the force of the blaster cannon's power moving her around a bit more than she anticipated. Worse, as soon as the red bolts sizzled past the blue and white fighters behind them, they began rolling and jinking in and out of each other's place like the cups used in the follow the chit game performed by street "artists" on Coruscant to rob tourists of their credits. Within a minute their own blur bolts were ripping in to the small freighter's stern. They dove down into a ravine and Sarusa was able to keep them off, but all they did was simply settle into a high altitude holding pattern until the ravine came to a rocky end.

A half minute later a shower of sparks exploded over Sarusa's head and the turret died with a pathetic whine. "I'm sorry Kimian! Maybe you shoud've manned the gun!" she cried in a whine that rivaled the dying turret's.

"Don't worry about it doll. I couldn't have done any better…not against these guys," he answered calmly, but the worry laced his words.

"I'm sorry for getting you into this. I am going to come back down," she said a bit more calmly.

"No! no, stay where you are…shields are down to five percent, I'm gonna try and crash us belly down."

Sarusa clasped her hands together and thought of her husband Ves and the netherworld of the Force she had been told about as a young girl. For the first time she prayed that it was real. She kept on praying as a cannon blast tore open her turret's bubble in a shower of glass. She prayed harder as the wind whipped her hair across her face hard enough it felt like it was drawing blood. She even thought of Uli briefly as she heard Kimain and Jebbis yell over the comms….and then there was nothing.